Mandela marks 95th
Ailing leader shows some sign of progress
INSIDE
As the United Nations celebrated an ailing Nelson Mandela’s 95th birthday Thursday, former president Bill Clinton recalled the day Mandela walked out of prison at last. Years later Clinton asked Mandela if he allowed himself to hate his captors.
For a brief moment, the man who became a symbol of peace gave in to hate, he told Clinton. Then he let go.
“He said ‘People can take everything. I lost my family, the chance to see my children grow up, the best years of my life. They can take everything except your mind and your heart, those things I decided not to give away,’” Clinton recalled.
“He looked at me and smiled and he said, ‘Neither should you.’”
The lesson, Clinton said, was simple.
“You can’t free anybody else, and you can’t serve anybody else, unless first you free yourself from bitterness and hatred and resentment, and the paralysis they bring,” he said. “Mandela walked out of prison after 27 years a greater man than when he went in.”
As the United Nations declared July 18 Nelson Mandela International Day, Mandela remained hospitalized, though he showed some signs of progress Thursday, after weeks of worrying that he was on the verge of death.
In South Africa, children sang Happy Birthday at school assemblies nationwide, and many honoured the man known as “the father of the nation” by performing acts of charity for 67 minutes, symbolizing Mandela’s 67 years of public service.
Outside the Pretoria hospital where Mandela was admitted for a recurring lung infection, well-wishers paid tribute to him and some received slices of a large birthday cake doled out from inside the compound.
Mandela remains very fragile, and many details of his medical condition have not been divulged or are tightly controlled by his family and President Jacob Zuma. The news that his health had improved was another dramatic turn in the life of a man who became a global figure of sacrifice and reconciliation during the fight against white minority rule in South Africa.
“When I visited him today, I found him really stable, and I was able to say, ‘Happy Birthday,’ and he was able to smile,” Zuma said, according to the South African Press Association.
Hospitalized since June 8, Mandela’s outlook had seemed increasingly grim until his reported turnaround in recent days. Court documents filed by Mandela’s family earlier this month had said Mandela was on life support.
Another Mandela granddaughter, Ndileka Mandela, poured soup for poor children at a charity event and said her family had been unsure about whether her grandfather would live to see his birthday.
Thursday also marked the 15th wedding anniversary of Mandela and Graca Machel, the former first lady of Mozambique who has spent much of the time at her husband’s side during his illness.
As part of his acts of charity, Zuma opened low-cost housing for poor black and white families in the Pretoria area. South Africa is struggling with high unemployment, labour unrest, service delivery shortcomings and other social challenges that have dampened the expectations of a better life for black South Africans
Retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu helped paint a school outside Cape Town, saying Mandela makes South Africans “walk tall” and urging compatriots to refrain from divisive behaviour.
F.W. de Klerk, the last president of the apartheid era, said in a statement that Mandela’s birthday “should be a time for quiet and respectful contemplation — and not for unseemly squabbling over the ownership of Mr. Mandela’s heritage.”