Friday, December 6, 2013
Today as I prepared to do a radio interview, I pondered the subject of ?courage? ? an important trait about which I felt compelled to speak. I had no idea at the time, that one of the most courageous figures in history had just died.
Nelson Mandela, who guided South Africa from the shackles of apartheid to multi-racial democracy and became an international icon of peace and reconciliation, died Thursday at age 95.
Imprisoned for nearly three decades for his fight against white minority rule, Mandela emerged determined to use his prestige and charisma to bring down apartheid while avoiding a civil war.
“The time for the healing of the wounds has come. The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come,” Mandela said in his acceptance speech on becoming South Africa’s first black president in 1994.
“We have, at last, achieved our political emancipation.”
President Barack Obama hailed Mandela as a leader who left his country with a legacy of freedom and peace with the world.
“He achieved more than could be expected of any man,” Obama said at the White House shortly after the announcement of Mandela’s death.
“Today he’s gone home, and we’ve lost one of the most influential, courageous and profoundly good human beings that any of us will share time with on this earth,” Obama said.
South African President Jacob Zuma’s announcement of the death late on Thursday shook South Africa. The streets of the capital Pretoria and of Johannesburg were hushed, and in bars and nightclubs, music was turned off as people gathered to quietly talk about the news.
A sombre Zuma told the nation in a televised address that Mandela “passed on peacefully in the company of his family around 20h50 on the 5th of December 2013″.
“He is now resting. He is now at peace,” Jacob Zuma said.
If this is not a model of courage in our history – what is? And now, something to ponder – what are you doing with your life?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-nelson-mandela-dead-20131205,0,6266118.story