The relationship between me and President Mandela right at the beginning was not a very well-established relationship. It was based on two meetings.
You all must realize that Mandela was not the only man who suffered. There were many others – hundreds who languished in prison and died. Many unsung and unknown heroes of the struggle.
Mandela was a guy who didn’t come in and just eviscerate the existing institutions. He sought to co-opt them. He brought white South Africans into his government.
Movies, TV, sports, come and go, but what you stand for is what people remember. Mandela, Martin Luther King, John Kennedy are people who really stood for something and were willing to die for it. You don’t see a whole lot of that any more.
It’s a blessing that South Africa has a man like Nelson Mandela.
‘Selfie’ is the word du jour, and it became cause celebre at Nelson Mandela’s funeral when the Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt took a selfie with U.S. President Barack Obama and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron.
I met Nelson Mandela, and I really didn’t know what to say. It was years ago at a benefit. I was just in awe of this man because of what he’d done.
I have a good relationship with Mandela. But I am not Mandela’s product. I am the product of the masses of my country and the product of my enemy.
No one under international copyright law has the right to depict me or my husband without our consent. I have been surprised by the many people, particularly Americans, who are either writing books or going to produce films about the Mandela family without even bothering to consult us.
From time to time, you have seminal personalities who really change the way the world sees itself – people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela. Warren Buffett is that kind of person in the business world.
I have been working for Africans since I was 18, when I got involved with the Nelson Mandela concerts. I got involved with debt cancellation because Desmond Tutu demanded that the world respond to that situation.
Before Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1962, he was an angry, relatively young man. He founded the ANC’s military wing. When he was released, he surprised everyone because he was talking about reconciliation and forgiveness and not about revenge.
The iconic life of Nelson Mandela is testament to the fact that the road to freedom is quite often long and fraught with great personal sacrifice.
But while Nelson Mandela’s work is sadly done, his dream is unfinished.
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