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South Africa: Week of mourning declared over the passing of Nelson Mandela
“All of us here in many ways amazed the world, a world that was expecting us to be devastated by a racial conflagration,” Tutu said, recalling how Mandela helped unite South Africa as it dismantled apartheid, the brutal and cruel system of white rule, and prepared for all-race elections in 1994.
In closing his prayer, Tutu said: “God, thank-you for the gift of Madiba.”
Mandela, also known by his clan name Madiba, was a “very human person” with a sense of humor who took interest in people around him, said F.W. de Klerk, South Africa’s last apartheid-era president. The two men negotiated the end of apartheid, finding common cause in often tense circumstances, and shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
In summarizing Mandela’s legacy, de Klerk told eNCA television: “Never and never again should there be in South Africa the suppression of anyone by another.”
Mourners also gathered outside Mandela’s former home on Vilakazi Street in the city’s black township of Soweto.
South Africa’s banking association said banks will close on the day of Mandela’s funeral. The government has yet to announce a detailed schedule for a mourning period that is expected to last more than a week.
The liberation struggle icon’s grandson, Mandla Mandela, said he was strengthened by the knowledge that his grandfather was finally resting.
“All that I can do is thank God that I had a grandfather who loved and guided all of us in the family,” Mandla Mandela said in a statement. “The best lesson that he taught all of us was the need for us to be prepared to be of service to our people.”
