Mandela: In Celebration of a Great Life, by Charlene Smith

Mandela: In Celebration of a Great Life, by Charlene Smith. Randomhouse Struik, Travel and Heritage. 5th editon. Cape Town, South Africa 2014. ISBN 9781928213130 / ISBN 978-1-928213-13-0

Mandela: In Celebration of a Great Life, by Charlene Smith. Randomhouse Struik, Travel and Heritage. 5th editon. Cape Town, South Africa 2014. ISBN 9781928213130 / ISBN 978-1-928213-13-0

In Celebration of a Great Life, which includes an additional chapter on Mandela’s death and the events that followed, award-winning writer Charlene Smith traces the life of a great statesman and tells how Nelson Mandela repaired the torn heart of a wounded nation.

Charlene Smith  

IN JULY 1988, two vears before Nelson Mandela walked a free man from Victor Verstcr Prison, Archbishop Trevor Huddleston suggested, in his role as the President of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, that the world should celebrate Mandela's 70th birthday in prison. Many thousands of young people especially, although not exclusively, responded enthusiastically to his call to make this the mother of all birthday celebrations. People of all ages went on pilgrimage from all the corners of the United Kingdom and then they gathered at Hyde Park Corner in London, an enormous sea of faces. They congregated there, 250,000 of them, and the vast majority were young people. What struck me forcibly, as I gazed over them, was that most of them had not even been born when Madiba was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1963, and they had not seen him since; they had not heard from him, but they had certainly heard about him from others. The point is that they had no direct knowledge of him and, since pictures of prisoners were not permitted, they did not know what he really looked like even now. And yet here they were paying tribute to a prisoner, yes a prisoner, of conscience whom the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (of the time) had disdainfully dismissed as a terrorist. What an extraordinary phenomenon that he was able to move people so deeply without saying anything, without doing anything. Some of us worried that they might be in for an enormous disillusionment, that they would discover that their idol had feet of clay. Perhaps it would be better that he should remain incarcerated, out of sight, because distance did indeed lend enchantment to the view. In prison he was serving a splendid purpose because he was giving focus to the struggle, personalising it in that way so essential for causes if they were to galvanise the kind of popular support that the largely indifferent Reagan White House and Thatcher 10 Downing Street would find difficult to ignore. Outside prison he would be found to be less effective because he would be so human, so vulnerable, so disappointing to those who had placed him on a pedestal of near sainthood and infallibility. Yes, we were all in the seventh heaven of delight on 11 February 1990, when he walked out of Victor Verster prison side by side with Winnie. It was an unforgettable day, but there were butterflies in the pit of the stomach, would he measure up to all that people believed and hoped about him? Would we not all come crashing to the ground after all the euphoria? The world joined us in welcoming the world's most famous prisoner, but for how long would thev pay attention when they arc so notoriously fickle? Was he but a few days' wonder, and would they flit off to the next attraction to land in their spotlight? The man is a phenomenon, in a class by himself, for the frenzy of media attention has not abated. If anything, it has increased. Far from being a huge disillusionment, he has not ceased to amaze everyone. A deeply divided land, alienated by long years of repression and injustice, and at variance on most subjects, is unanimous about one thing: that this former terrorist, so frequently vilified and hated, is today our greatest asset. He is loved by virtually all South Africans, even the most virulent critics of his African National Congress-led government. He is the most popular political leader in the land, almost beyond criticism. (...)

This is an excerpt from the book: Mandela: In Celebration of a Great Life, by Charlene Smith.

Title: Mandela: In Celebration of a Great Life
 Author: Charlene Smith
Publisher: Randomhouse Struik
Imprint: Travel and Heritage
5th editon. Cape Town, South Africa 2014
ISBN 9781928213130 / ISBN 978-1-928213-13-0
Softcover, 24x29 cm, 180 pages, many photos

Smith, Charlene im Namibiana-Buchangebot

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