And his memory live for ever.

R.

Proudly South African with a heavy heart tonight :(

I am still shocked one of those wow moments in my life ,yes it was clear that he would not live forever but unrealistically we hoped that he would win this battle like he did so Many !! Nelson Mandela meant hope for us ,Our Hero!!! Growing up as a child being told that you cannot achieve anything in life because of your skin color being told you have no rights in your mother country !! Seeing our parents ,our people fighting for freedom !! Seeing with our own eyes how people were suppressed and treated like nothing !! Seeing one man rise and give hope to all !! Never giving up reaching for the impossible !! A fight that he won and proved that dreams can come true !! We believed in Madiba in the dream , he proved to all of us there are no limits ! He taught us to forgive even in your deepest sorrow !! He let us believe in our dreams ! I cannot imagine the deep loss South Africa feels right now !! But we will carry his legacy in our hearts and pass it on to our kids and forever you will live !! R.I.P . Nelson Mandela

Keep in mind that the ideas are always alive and Madela was mostly an idea.So what we have to do is to remember him as a person but mostly as a way of life. The idea of him will stay alive as long as we act like he did.So let's represent his idea and keep it alive!

" I have never had a moment of depression because I know my cause will triumph" - Nelson Mandela.

Triumph He Did! Rest In Peace Madiba.

VIVA MADIBA!

i absolutely love this...it really captures what an amazing person he was

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfTkD-XWOFg

I was lucky to visit South Africa ............and know from Local ppl how was life before and After Nelson Mandela..........................God Bless Your Soul

oppss.. somebody told me he was a "TERRORIST" :S

I have reported you for this comment.

Good one.

Good song for Madiba.  R.I.P

No man can be all things to all men and there are indeed people out there who may not mourn the passing of an outstanding figure of the 20th century who will go down in world history.

In a decade or two, there may be biographers dissecting his warts and trumpeting how he could have done it better.

But here and now is not the place and certainly not the time to detract from what and who Nelson Mandela was.  Rather, it is a time to give thanks for his having been amongst us and to determine how best to keep his flame alight in order to  carry it further afield to all those in our world  who are still deprived of even the most basic of human rights.

Ritchie

PS:  I don’t feel there was any need to report a poster to Admin., but let’s see what the boys have to say.

Congratulations Brad, while trying to be "controversial", you have instead shown us your character.

so, "terrorist", yes, according to the US government and I'm sure a few others. It's a fact that has never been denied but continues to cause embarrassment. 

what have you missed that 99.99% of the world's population sees? That finally, in our lifetime, we have a living example of a man who fought and suffered for a cause and in the end united a country divided by race and hatred. 

Go to the naughty corner, watch the video I posted, catch a glimpse of why South Africans love him so much and start living man!!!

Thanks Dhamari, good call - and another video/film to watch:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096464/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl

illustrates how apartheid also affected white people as well as black and coloured people and illustrates just how wrong it was on every level and why it had to be abolished.

Thank god, one man had the balls to stand up and do something about it.  He was a true revolutionary and activist as well as being a highly educated and intelligent man with tremendous vision for his country.

So (brad h) -  the United States government had him on the "Terrorist Watchlist" for decades?

That no more makes him a "Terrorist" than George W Bush going to church every Sunday makes him a "Christian".   

Just sayin.....

Dear Reka

Your guess is spot on: reading that comment was very hurtful indeed, since it brought back the hideous memories of racists calling anyone who actively opposed apartheid terrorists.

I certainly am not against freedom of opinion/speech; but I felt that this type of remark does not belong on a memorial thread and hoped that the administrators might remove it. (My "mistake" was to elect to stand by my action and not do it anonymously…)

Please accept my apologies if I have inadvertently upset you.

Thandi

Dear Ritchie

Kindly refer to my above response to reka1123.

I just want to add that I find your words about Mr Mandela beautiful and think you are a very wise woman. 

Thandi

Aahh Madiba

Lala ngoxolo (Rest in Peace)

                            Madiba

Brad h brings up an interesting point . Margaret Thatcher and other champions of freedom  ( LOL) saw Mandela as a terrorist. Many of the rich and powerful were content to continue making money by trading with SA and to enjoy the privelige so white people enjoyed under that unfair system. Not everyone was shouting out loud that apartheid had to end.

But.....those voices are mostly silent in recent years . Anyone would think that that had never been ANYONE who failed to support the struggle for justice and that we had ALL always hailed Mandela as a hero.

benjamin Zephaniah expressed it so well in his poem " Who Dun It?":

Extract:

"......Nobody done apartheid

Day were all revolutionaries.

....Everybody waz supporting de Communists an Blacks

Everybody  knew apartheid put in practice would not work

Yes,everybody waz protecting de Blacks from getting hurt,

........Nobody killed Steve Biko

No

Dere were no Pass Laws

Day were all at Soweto 

Fighting fe de cause,

Nobody watched Sophiatown burn

No ting waz in de banks

Nobody haz a lesson to learn

No one voted in de tanks,

Dat's right,

Nobody done apartheid

Day were all revolutionaries"

And so it continues brilliantly exposing the hypocrisy of all those who try to pretend that, of course, no one ever refused to fight apartheid - we were ALL against it ,all the time.Nobody profited from keeping things as they were. Heavens, what an idea!

The extracts don't do justice to the rhythm of this great poem.if anyone wants to PM me I will happily send you the complete text.

A better link than my previous post:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnmvx5SOMwU

Thanks for reminding us of that film

Aaaahhhh Jolinkomo