How the World Remembers Nelson Mandela and the Important Lessons He Taught

South Africa MandelaOn Thursday the world lost one of the greatest men and philanthropists of our time, former South African President and anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela. The news was met by expressions of love and sorrow as Mandela was widely respected across the globe for fighting poverty, AIDS and injustice for all. Mandela won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, shortly before being elected president the following year. His help to eradicate the apartheid ultimately paved the way to fighting poverty.
 

Nelson Mandela’s Inaugural Address

“The time for the healing of the wounds has come. The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come. The time to build is upon us,” Mandela said.

Throughout his life, he focused on helping end hunger and inequality in South Africa.

“And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. While poverty persists, there is no true freedom,” expressed Mandela.

“No one did more, in our time, to advance the values and aspirations of the United Nations. Nelson Mandela showed us what is possible in our world,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said.

How Leaders Remember Nelson Mandela

South African President Jacob Zuma: “We’ve lost our greatest son.”
President Barack Obama: “Like so many around the globe, I cannot fully imagine my own life without the example that Nelson Mandela set. And so long as I live, I will do what I can to learn from him.”
Secretary of State John Kerry: “Nelson Mandela was a stranger to hate. He rejected recrimination in favor of reconciliation and knew the future demands we move beyond the past. He gave everything he had to heal his country and lead it back into the community of nations.”
Former President Bill Clinton: “His story will remember Nelson Mandela as a champion for human dignity and freedom, for peace and reconciliation. We will remember him as a man of uncommon grace and compassion, for whom abandoning bitterness and embracing adversaries was not just a political strategy but a way of life.”
Desmond Tutu: “The sun will rise tomorrow, and the next day and the next. … It may not appear as bright as yesterday, but life will carry on.”
National Security Advisor Susan Rice: “Even as we mourn, we remember how privileged the world was to witness the transformation he wrought by changing minds and hearts. He was apartheid’s captive but never its prisoner, and he rid the world of one of history’s foulest evils by hewing to universal principles for which he hoped to live but was prepared to die.”
L. Douglas Wilder, former Virginia governor: “He was in a position to say it doesn’t matter how difficult things may appear, how bad things are or how badly you’re treated,” Wilder said. “You can always rise up. You can always achieve.”
D.C. Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton: “What he has done is to inspire movements around the world—well beyond our own country—and to inspire leaders around the world to understand how leaders around the world are to behave.”
Cindy Mallugu, South African event planner: “Even here—I couldn’t come here, I couldn’t eat here at a restaurant with whites before he was president. So much changed through him.”
Reginald Mokoena, South African gardener: “I was there when he walked out of prison, I’m here now, it’s all so unreal. Our hero is gone.”
Kendrick Lamar: “Advising all my young ones that follow me to research a small piece of Nelson Mandela Life. That’s how you pay your respect…… GO!”
Peter Beinart: “As with King, it is this subversive aspect of Mandela’s legacy that is most in danger of being erased as he enters America’s pantheon of sanitized moral icons. But it is precisely the aspect that Americans most badly need. American power and human freedom are two very different things. Sometimes they intersect; sometimes they do not.”
Eve Fairbanks: “So much about his full record is yet to be assessed. There will be many obituaries for him, but today the story of how we will remember him is only beginning to be written.”
 
141302_600Bob Englehart
 
Our thoughts go out to his family and the people of South Africa.

via Prospect.org

Daniel Zeevi

By Daniel Zeevi

Daniel is a social network architect, web developer, infographic designer, writer, speaker and founder of DashBurst. Full-time futurist and part-time content curator, always on the hunt for disruptive new technology, creative art and web humor.