Tribute to Mandela.

Comrade Mandela, your physical demise is an event of very significant proportion to every citizen of the world who abhors injustice.  You were an exemplary symbol of what we know as selflessness. The struggle to unseat the evil Apartheid system that existed in South Africa was your life. It takes courage and extraordinary commitment to the wellbeing of others to accept incarceration for 27 years for a noble cause of liberating your fellow compatriots. Yes, you endured the hardship of long prison life and yet came out with no resentment for those who humiliated and abused you and your people. Few of us will endure a fraction of your suffering and come out of it without the overriding urge to exact revenge. For you, “resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies”.

As we mourn your departure, we also take some time to remember the countless other Africans who in one way or another contributed to the limited emancipation we enjoy today.

Normally, the passage into eternity of a heroic figure like you requires that we the people be present at your final resting place to bid you farewell. To be there to say goodbye requires two things that are problematic for most of us ---money and a South African visa. Our physical absence is replaced by our double presence in spirit. We share with your family, your comrades and your compatriots the pain they feel for the loss of a towering figure like you. The best gift you have given us is your example. We hope to use that example to carry on the struggle in another dimension because the forces that want to keep Africa in the dark are still very much around. Rest in peace Madiba