World Shocked By Mandela Death

Nelson Mandela, the last great national liberator of the past century, died yesterday at his home in Johannesburg following a 12 year battle with prostate cancer. Loved around the world as a freedom fighter and peace maker, Mandela’s death was announced by South African President Jacob Zuma as the loss of the nation’s “greatest son”.

Tributes and condolences came from around the world with American President Barack Obama calling Mandela, “a man who took history in his hands and bent the arc of the moral universe towards justice”. Born in 1918, Nelson Mandela brought the African National Congress to victory in 1994 in South Africa’s first multiracial elections, becoming its first ever black president. Eschewing the path trod by other African liberators such as Zimbabue’s Robert Mugabe, Mandela then stood down after just one term, becoming a global campaigner for peace and reconciliation. He also put great energy into the fight against the scourge of HIV/ AIDs in South Africa, a disease which in 2005 claimed the life of his son. The Nobel Peace Prize winner became a champion and emblem of forgiveness after his 27 year imprisonment, much of it spent in solitary confinement, for sabotage in opposing the white minority rule and racist laws of the country. Released following intense international pressure and boycotts, he sought peace rather than revenge and as president established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which gave victims of apartheid violence the opportunity to tell their stories to their abusers. After leaving office he worked for peace across Africa, including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi.

Little was seen in public of the elder statesman since his “retirement from retirement” in 2004, when he stepped down from public life, telling his nation “thanks for being kind for an old man”. A nation he now leaves in mourning, but proud.