Anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release

[Spiritinthesky]

11 Feb 2011 is the 21st anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison. Now aged 92, Mr Mandela has made his recording debut in ‘The Mandela Suite’, a musical tribute by Irish composer John Hughes.

With contributions from Sharon Corr, Andrea Corr, The Soweto Sisters and many others, the suite also features lyrics in the 11 official South African languages. Mr. Mandela delivers his own personal eulogy to the power of music in the song.

http://tinyurl.com/65kgucv

 

[waltky]

South Africa post Mandela?...

After Mandela what will happen to South Africa?
6 April 2013 - "All hell will break loose," said the voice on the radio.

It was a call-in show - on a topic that is on many minds here these days: the fate of a 94-year-old man lying in a hospital bed in Pretoria, and the fate of South Africa once he is gone. For years people here have been understandably reluctant to discuss the death of Nelson Mandela - out of a profound respect for the man who, more than any other, steered this country from apartheid to democracy. But the passage of time, and the health scares of recent months - have nudged the issue away from the shadows.

The man on the radio was a black South African from a poor township, and he was articulating a belief that has gained a small level of currency here: that Mr Mandela's passing will unleash not just grief and nostalgia, but a violent rage against the poverty and inequality that still exists here, two decades after the end of white minority rule. There is, certainly, anger in the country. Recent headlines have highlighted violent industrial action, the massacre at the Marikana mine, the death of a man dragged behind a police van and the enduringly high crime statistics.

The theory goes that - even from his hospital bed - Mr Mandela exerts some sort of restraint on a turbulent nation, almost a decade after he retired from public life. It is a theory most South Africans find - quite rightly - both offensive and absurd. The next two callers on the radio show said as much. Imagine Britain in the mid-1960s still anxious about the broader implications of Winston Churchill's failing health. No, in almost every way South Africa is already well into the post-Mandela era. Other presidents have come and gone.

Nelson Mandela is known by South Africans by his clan name of "Madiba"

And yet the jitters here speak to a broader theme - of a grand, miraculous nation aware it is poised to close a defining chapter in its history. There are not many heroes left these days, so people cling to Mr Mandela like a precious relic. And they cling too to the sense of drama, of high stakes, that characterised those years, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when South Africa really did stand on the precipice - the dangers of a racial civil war, of total collapse - were raw and real. Today's headlines can still leave you speechless - the corruption allegations that cling to President Jacob Zuma, the extraordinary levels of sexual violence.

'Stop looking back'