South Africans, World Leaders Bid Mandela Farewell

By Sudarsan Raghavan and Debbi Wilgoren, The Washington Post

10 December 13

elson Mandela was memorialized in a boisterous stadium ceremony here Tuesday as a teacher and a racial healer, a transcendent figure who changed history and touched hearts in his native country and around the world.

Scores of thousands of South Africans braved a pouring rain to join dozens of world leaders, including President Obama and many other heads of state, for a four-hour service filled with emotional tributes and joyous song.

"It took a man like Madiba to free not just the prisoner, but the jailor as well; to show that you must trust others so that they may trust you," Obama said, using the Xhosa tribal name that Mandela preferred. "He changed laws, but also hearts."

South Africans from all walks of life, businesspeople to nurses to the unemployed, danced and clapped and sang in the hours leading up to the memorial service, their voices echoing across the stadium as if they were cheering at a soccer match. The rich crowded together with the poor, children with the elderly, all there to remember Mandela, the former South African president and African National Congress leader who died Thursday at the age of 95.

"In his lifetime, Madiba mingled with kings, queens and presidents. At the core, he was a man of the people. A simple man," said Gen. Thanduxolo Mandela, a family member who offered one of the first eulogies. "I am sure Madiba is smiling from above as he looks down at the multitude of diversity gathered here, for this is what he strove for - the equality of man, the brotherhood of humanity."

Mandela's ex-wife, Winnie Mandela, received an enormous ovation from the crowd as the oversize screens showed her entry into the stadium. So did Obama and first lady Michelle Obama. The ceremony began at noon (5 a.m. in Washington), about an hour behind schedule, when the massive crowd stood and joined a choir in the singing of the South African national anthem.

Obama said Mandela's death should inspire reflection in political leaders like himself, and in people from every nation.

"There are too many of us who happily embrace Madiba's legacy of racial reconciliation, but passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic poverty and growing inequality," the first black U.S. president said. "There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba's struggle for freedom, but do not tolerate dissent from their own people. And there are too many of us who stand on the sidelines, comfortable in complacency or cynicism when our voices must be heard."

Among the other world leaders who gave eulogies were U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba, Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao, Indian President Pranab Mukherjee and Cuban President Raul Castro.

Francois Pienaar, the captain of the South African rugby team that won the 1995 World Cup, described the gathering as "very emotional, very happy, very sad, painful and reflective."

"To see all these people come out to say farewell is very special," said Pienaar, who worked closely with Mandela to use the World Cup victory to reconcile a nation divided by its ugly past. He said he last saw Mandela three years ago, and will always remember the leader's broad smile. "It was a beautiful smile. He was so genuine," Pienaar said. "He was a real person."

Although the voices of the crowd seemed to fill the stadium to bursting, many of the uncovered seating areas remained empty, perhaps because of the constant downpour. The covered sections were filled.

Officials running the program repeatedly beseeched the crowd to rein in its enthusiastic cheering in order to maintain proper decorum. But the cheers, slogan-chanting and ovations continued throughout.

"We are here not to mourn, but to celebrate his life," said Leonard Teboho, 32, an unemployed man whose T-shirt was emblazoned with Mandela's face and the slogan: "father of the nation." Mandela, he added, "is now resting in peace."

Many in the stadium carried umbrellas and South African flags, or were draped in the green, yellow and black colors of the ruling African National Congress. Some blew plastic horns known as vuvuzelas. Others unfurled large banners showing Mandela's face. Two giant television screens alternated between showing images of Mandela and the dancing crowds.

"You have lived a beautiful life. You bequeathed us a better world than the one you were born in," African Union commission chair Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said in her eulogy. "We thank you for having mentored us."

The United Nation's Ban said Mandela "was more than one of the greatest pillars of our time. He was one of our greatest teachers. He taught by example. He sacrificed so much ... for freedom and equality, for democracy and justice."

The list of dignitaries at the memorial service included former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Other leaders arrived from as far away as Australia and Afghanistan, Brazil and Scandinavia.

"We're now on 91 Heads of State and Gov confirmed plus 10 former Heads of State. 86 Heads of Delegations and 75 Emminent Persons," wrote Clayton Monyela, South Africa's head of public diplomacy, on Twitter.

The massive influx presented huge security and logistical challenges at Johannesburg's FNB Stadium. Scores of police were stationed outside and inside, inspecting bags and keeping watch.

The stadium is where Mandela was last seen in public, during the soccer World Cup in 2010. It is a fitting place to say farewell, not only because of its size but also the symbolism of its location, in Soweto. The once-segregated former township was at the center of the anti-apartheid protests in the 1970s and 1980s, protests that were pivotal in securing Mandela's release from prison in 1990 and ushering in the end of white rule.

Mandela, who owned a house in Soweto, became South Africa's first black president in 1994, following the nation's first non-segregated elections.

Tuesday's ceremony included prayers by several different faith leaders and remarks by four of Mandela's 18 grandchildren. Zuma gave the keynote address, and Bishop Ivan Abrahams delivered a sermon.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff called Mandela a "source of inspiration" for freedom struggles in Brazil and throughout South America. "His fight reached way beyond his nation's border and inspired young men and women to fight for independence and social justice," Rousseff said through a translator.

Former president Bush and his wife, Laura Bush, along with former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, traveled to South Africa to attend the ceremony as the guests of the Obamas on Air Force One. Former president George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara Bush, did not attend. Former presidents Clinton and Carter traveled to South Africa separately. Carter, who like Mandela and Obama is a Nobel laureate, is attending as part of a delegation from the Elders, a group of former leaders founded by Mandela in 2007 to work for human rights and world peace.

After Tuesday's ceremony, Mandela's body will lie in state for three days in the Union buildings in the capital, Pretoria, once the epicenter of white rule. On Sunday, he will be buried in his ancestral village of Qunu, in the Eastern Cape.

One leader who did not attend Tuesday's ceremony is the Dalai Lama, according to a spokesman. No reason was given, but the Tibetan leader has not been able to obtain visas to come to South Africa in the past. Critics, including former South African archbishop and anti-apartheid icon Desmond Tutu, have accused the South African government of bowing to the demands of China, a vital economic partner.

African leaders attending the ceremony included the presidents of Nigeria, Congo, Zimbabwe and Liberia. Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta also was expected to attend, even though Kenya is in the midst of celebrating its 50th anniversary of independence.

Other stadiums in Johannesburg were equipped with giant screens to accommodate crowds who could not get to the stadium where the ceremony was taking place. But only a few people gathered in one such facility, Ellis Park stadium, perhaps because of the wet weather.

Sitting under an overhang were five workers from a Checkers store chain, selected by the store managers to represent the business at the stadium. Mandela "was a father figure to us," said Rosinal Kawana, who has worked for the store for 30 years. Like her four co-workers, she was wearing the store uniform. "And he was a motivation for our kids."

Peter Malahlela, 25, who lives in an apartment near the stadium and who is helping support seven siblings in Natal province, said that he admired Mandela for bringing peace to South Africa, though he noted that more needed to be done to put unemployed people to work. "I'm the only one taking care of my sisters and mother," Malahlela said.