Obama to lead celebrations 100 years after Mandela’s birth in S.Africa
South Africa celebrates the 100th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s birth this week with a flagship speech by former US president Barack Obama and an outpouring of memories and tributes to the late anti-apartheid leader.
Mandela, who died in 2013, remains a global icon for his long fight against white-minority rule and for his message of peace and reconciliation when he was released after 27 years in prison.
His birthday on Wednesday is marked annually around the world, and the Nelson Mandela Foundation called this year for people to “take action and inspire change” in Mandela’s name.
Obama will set the tone for the celebrations with a speech in Johannesburg on Tuesday that aides say will be his most important public address since leaving the White House in 2017.
“It gives him an opportunity to lift up a message of tolerance, inclusivity and democracy at a time when there are obviously challenges to Mandela’s legacy around the world,” his aide Benjamin Rhodes told the New York Times.
Obama will also host a town hall event on Wednesday for 200 young leaders selected from across Africa to attend a five-day training program. The former US president met Mandela only briefly in 2005 but gave a eulogy at his funeral saying Mandela “makes me want to be a better man” and hailing him as “the last great liberator of the 20th century.”
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has said he would mark “Mandela 100” by donating half his salary to charity to honor “the great sacrifices he made and his tireless commitment to improving the lives of the most vulnerable.”
F.W. de Klerk, the former president who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela in 1993, told AFP that the 100th anniversary was a chance to reflect on South Africa’s current troubles.
“I’m convinced that President Mandela would be deeply concerned, as I am, about the present state of affairs,” he said. “His vision of a reconciled South Africa has become almost non-existent within the ANC (ruling party) at the moment.”