There will come a time When history turns When new heroes are birthed And made more giant by fading memory Of him who has now passed Not yet interred The time has already come For those without sin To cast their first Second Third Stones He should have done He did not do He could […]
Madiba
Posted inNews/Politics
On the death of a (benign) revolutionary
This morning, just after reading the news of Nelson Mandela’s death — uncannily coinciding with the world premiere of the film on his life — my partner and I were exploring the beautiful churches in Freiburg, Germany. In one of them (the Herz-Jesu) there is a series of magnificent paintings by Charles Bevaert, (I hope […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Sheila Camerer: My fond memories of Madiba
This sad day brought to mind several personal encounters I had with the Great Man in the 1990s that demonstrate his very special humanity and human kindness: I remember when I was sworn in as a deputy minister in his government at an early evening ceremony followed by a cocktail reception at Tuynhuis. My late […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Where were you when Madiba died?
I spent most of the day after Madiba died lying on my back watching tributes on CNN and Sky. That’s because I spent the entire day at the dentist, and he distracts his patients from the drilling by giving them TV to look at. I arrived at 8.30am and his work, installing 11 crowns — […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Saying farewell to a legend
It is difficult to come to terms with the news that the world’s most revered statesman and human-rights activist is gone. As is so often said, he now belongs to the ages. Although an old man, he seemed immortal. But Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a man, a man whose dedication to the struggle against apartheid […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Nelson Mandela: A death in the family
“A giant is about to depart, leaving political pygmies to divide his cloak and squabble about who is the rightful heir. The media will be wall to wall with plaudits, the world will groan with grief.” I wrote those words in a column some five months ago, as Nelson Rolihlala Mandela lay in a Pretoria […]
Posted inNews/Politics
We are the ones who will have to be greater than Mandela
You are greater than Mandela. Our greatest strength as a people is when we are at our weakest. Waking up in our humble homes to the news that the founding father of this nation, the great Nelson Mandela has passed on, we were not quite ready to believe that. But over the years, ever since […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Shallow rhetoric, Mandela and personal responsibility
I still vaguely remember the first time I found out who Nelson Mandela was. My parents had an ANC sticker in their bedroom wardrobe that carried Mandela’s face. I did not know anything about him at the time, but it wasn’t until my mother caught me trying to remove the sticker that I would first […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Madiba, this is why I am a public servant
I posted this on my Facebook profile, today. I figured I would share it widely on this worst of days. He held my hand for twenty minutes and told me of the vision he had for our country. No, I said, I was a journalist. It is all I ever wanted to be. I loved […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Mandela in reflection: The laws of admiration
In 1986 the French thinker Jacques Derrida published a text in a collection of protest tributes that he co-edited with Mustapha Tlili entitled For Nelson Mandela. The English translation of Derrida’s tribute is titled “The laws of reflection: Nelson Mandela, in admiration”. I have chosen to subvert this title by way of re-ordering its words. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The Mandela cult
“Happy is the country that has no history” is a proverb attributed to the French philosopher Montesquieu. In 1994, South Africa — up until then a synonym for backwardness and brutality — was reborn as a democracy. A new epoch dawned. A promised land beckoned. And the man who had come to embody that hope […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Mandela: Let’s have less spin doctor and more medical doctor
The African National Congress probably couldn’t care less about the chatter that Nelson Mandela is now a medical zombie, alive but not living. It is widely speculated on social networks that the 95-year-old Madiba will remain in intensive care electronic limbo until his passing can be unveiled to the maximum benefit of the ANC in […]