Showing posts with label africa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label africa. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Mandela Memorial: Obama Speaks and Soweto Cheers

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Previous Related Posts:
R.I.P. Nelson Mandela - "He Belongs to the Ages
Obama in Africa: Capetown to Tanzania

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President Obama and every other living President except George H.W. Bush attended the Memorial Service for Nelson Mandela in Soweto, South Africa. Speaking in the rain to a packed stadium, President Obama had the crowd fired up and cheering, as he often does in our own country. His was by far the most dynamic speech. Most of the tributes could have been edited intensely and no one would have noticed. However, Mandela's grandchildren were wonderfully poetic!

Click Here for Complete Text of President Obama's Eulogy

Excerpts:
. . . Mandela understood the ties that bind the human spirit. There is a word in South Africa -- Ubuntu -- a word that captures Mandela’s greatest gift: his recognition that we are all bound together in ways that are invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us.

We can never know how much of this sense was innate in him, or how much was shaped in a dark and solitary cell. But we remember the gestures, large and small -- introducing his jailers as honored guests at his inauguration; taking a pitch in a Springbok uniform; turning his family’s heartbreak into a call to confront HIV/AIDS -- that revealed the depth of his empathy and his understanding. He not only embodied Ubuntu, he taught millions to find that truth within themselves.

. . . Over 30 years ago, while still a student, I learned of Nelson Mandela and the struggles taking place in this beautiful land, and it stirred something in me. It woke me up to my responsibilities to others and to myself, and it set me on an improbable journey that finds me here today. And while I will always fall short of Madiba’s example, he makes me want to be a better man. He speaks to what’s best inside us.

After this great liberator is laid to rest, and when we have returned to our cities and villages and rejoined our daily routines, let us search for his strength. Let us search for his largeness of spirit somewhere inside of ourselves. And when the night grows dark, when injustice weighs heavy on our hearts, when our best-laid plans seem beyond our reach, let us think of Madiba and the words that brought him comfort within the four walls of his cell: “It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”

What a magnificent soul it was. We will miss him deeply. May God bless the memory of Nelson Mandela. May God bless the people of South Africa.












Mandiba's Grandchildren - He Would Be Proud!

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Friday, December 6, 2013

RIP Nelson Mandela - "He Belongs to the Ages"

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Previous Related Post:
Obama in Africa: Cape Town to Tanzania











Must-See Video of Mandela Dancing:








President Obama's Full Statement on the Death of Nelson Mandela:

5:25 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: At his trial in 1964, Nelson Mandela closed his statement from the dock saying, “I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

And Nelson Mandela lived for that ideal, and he made it real. He achieved more than could be expected of any man. Today, he has gone home. And we have lost one of the most influential, courageous, and profoundly good human beings that any of us will share time with on this Earth. He no longer belongs to us -- he belongs to the ages.

Through his fierce dignity and unbending will to sacrifice his own freedom for the freedom of others, Madiba transformed South Africa -- and moved all of us. His journey from a prisoner to a President embodied the promise that human beings -- and countries -- can change for the better. His commitment to transfer power and reconcile with those who jailed him set an example that all humanity should aspire to, whether in the lives of nations or our own personal lives. And the fact that he did it all with grace and good humor, and an ability to acknowledge his own imperfections, only makes the man that much more remarkable. As he once said, “I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.”

I am one of the countless millions who drew inspiration from Nelson Mandela's life. My very first political action, the first thing I ever did that involved an issue or a policy or politics, was a protest against apartheid. I studied his words and his writings. The day that he was released from prison gave me a sense of what human beings can do when they’re guided by their hopes and not by their fears. And like so many around the globe, I cannot fully imagine my own life without the example that Nelson Mandela set, and so long as I live I will do what I can to learn from him.

To Graça Machel and his family, Michelle and I extend our deepest sympathy and gratitude for sharing this extraordinary man with us. His life’s work meant long days away from those who loved him the most. And I only hope that the time spent with him these last few weeks brought peace and comfort to his family.

To the people of South Africa, we draw strength from the example of renewal, and reconciliation, and resilience that you made real. A free South Africa at peace with itself -- that’s an example to the world, and that’s Madiba’s legacy to the nation he loved.

We will not likely see the likes of Nelson Mandela again. So it falls to us as best we can to forward the example that he set: to make decisions guided not by hate, but by love; to never discount the difference that one person can make; to strive for a future that is worthy of his sacrifice.

For now, let us pause and give thanks for the fact that Nelson Mandela lived -- a man who took history in his hands, and bent the arc of the moral universe toward justice. May God Bless his memory and keep him in peace.

END
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Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Obama in Africa ~ Cape Town to Tanzania


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ABC News ~ Tutu Welcomes Obama
Tutu greeted Obama with a "welcome home" to the continent where his father was born, and pleaded with the U.S. president to be a leader for peace, especially in the Middle East, who can make all Africans proud.

Obama was visiting the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation Youth Centre, an after-school program in a community where many young people are infected with the virus that causes AIDS. Obama praised Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who helped bring an end to South Africa's racist apartheid rule, as "an unrelenting champion of justice and human dignity."

Tutu then spoke of Obama's re-election last fall as America's first African-American president. "You don't know what you did for our psyche," Tutu said. "You won, and we won."

"Your success is our success. Your failure, whether you like it or not, is our failure," Tutu said, reaching out to touch Obama's arm. Obama chuckled and threw up his arms as if acknowledging his fate.

"We want you to be known as having brought peace to the world, especially to have brought an end to the anguish of all in the Middle East," Tutu said. "We pray that you will be known as having brought peace in all of these places where there is strife. You have brought peace and no need for the Guantanamo Bay detention center" in Cuba, where the U.S. has detained dozens of suspected terrorists.

CBS News ~ Cape Town
In an address before an enthusiastic audience of students at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, the oldest university in the continent's largest economy, President Obama saluted the progress that has "rippled across the African continent" in recent decades and encouraged Africa's young people to continue pushing forward in pursuit of a brighter future.

. . . "I believe that my own nation will benefit enormously if you reach your full potential," he said. "I'm calling on America to up its game when it comes to Africa."
He cited the pursuit of new trade relationships with African countries and a new initiative to double access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa as evidence of America's deepening engagement.

. . . At the outset, the president's remarks took a somber turn as he recognized the ailing former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, who remains in critical care in a South African hospital, saying Mandela's health "weighs heavily on our hearts."
"Like billions all over the world, I and the American people have drawn strength from the example of this extraordinary leader and the nation that he changed," he said. "Mandela showed us that one man's courage can move the world."

From USA Today ~ Tanzania
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania — Welcomed by troupes of traditional dancers, President Obama arrived here Monday to say that he hoped Tanzania would benefit from a regional trade partnership that would improve lives in ways that foreign aid cannot.

"We are looking at a new model that's based not just on aid and assistance, but on trade and partnership," he said, giving as an example ways to help Tanzanians grow their own food and export goods.
"Ultimately, the goal here is for Africa to build Africa for Africans," Obama said. "And our job is to be a partner in that process."

Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete praised Obama and his predecessor, George W, Bush, who provided the country with millions of dollars in aid to prevent the spread of HIV, spending that Obama has cut in Africa.











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Saturday, June 29, 2013

Obama in Africa ~ The Shadow of Mandela


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From NBC News
. . . President Barack Obama met with South African President Jacob Zuma on the grounds of the historic Union Buildings on Saturday. The two held a press conference in an ornate and intimate room that lasted over an hour. It included topics ranging from international trade to restructuring the United Nations to immigration and of course, the health of former President Nelson Mandela.

Zuma said of Mandela’s health that his condition hadn’t changed but that the country hopes that he will be out of the hospital soon. Earlier, the White House announced that while the president and First Lady will meet with members of the Mandela family today but they will not be visiting the ailing former leader. But Obama took a moment to honor Mandela’s legacy, “The struggle here against apartheid for freedom, Madiba’s moral courage, this country’s historic transition to a free and democratic nation has been a personal inspiration to me. It has been an inspiration to the world.”



. . . Obama said that on Saturday he would introduce an international youth initiative, saying, “This afternoon I will be in Soweto to announce a major expansion of our initiatives to invest in young Africans who will shape this country and this continent for decades to come.” The Young African Leadership program will now include a “Washington Fellowship.” The White House says it “will bring 500 young leaders to U.S. universities and colleges each year for academic and leadership training, beginning in 2014, with the goal of increasing to 1000 participants per year within five years.”

On Sunday, the president plans to travel to Cape Town where he will visit the historic Robben Island with his family and he will head to Tanzania on Monday.












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Friday, June 28, 2013

The Obamas in Africa ~ First Stop Senegal

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From LA Times
The president and his family visited a small slave house on Goree Island off the coast of Dakar, the nation's capital, where it is said men, women and children were traded, sorted, shackled and weighed before being sent across the Atlantic to the Americas.

The president stared pensively out the "door of no return," described as the exit for those boarding slave ships, while spending about half an hour in the two-story salmon-colored house filled with dark holding cells.

"Obviously, for an African American — and an African American president — to be able to visit this site, I think, gives me even greater motivation in terms of the defense of human rights around the world," Obama said afterward.

"I think more than anything, what it reminds us of is that we have to remain vigilant when it comes to the defense of people's human rights — because I'm a firm believer that humanity is fundamentally good, but it's only good when good people stand up for what's right," he said.


















Next they head to South Africa, for a visit with ailing leader Nelson Mandela.

From Reuters
Obama is in the middle of a three-country tour of Africa that the White House hopes will compensate for what some view as years of neglect by the administration of America's first black president.

Before departing Dakar, Obama was scheduled to meet with farmers and local entrepreneurs to discuss new technologies that are helping farmers and their families in West Africa, one of the world's poorest and most drought-prone regions.

But it was Mandela, the 94-year-old former South African president who is clinging to life in a Pretoria hospital, who will dominate the president's day even before he arrives in Johannesburg.

Asked on Thursday whether Obama would be able to pay Mandela a visit, the White House said that was up to the family.

"We are going to completely defer to the wishes of the Mandela family and work with the South African government as relates to our visit," deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters in Senegal.

"Whatever the Mandela family deems appropriate, that's what we're focused on doing in terms of our interaction with them."

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