Comrade Nelson Mandela and my father sometime in the 1950s or early 1960s


Comrade Nelson Mandela and my father sometime in the 2000s




Comrade Nelson Mandela and I – Stockholm Sweden mid 1990







farewell to Nelson Mandela 5th December 2013 – written on 5th December 2013.

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Today, as our thoughts and tears and love flow to our beloved President Nelson Mandela,



We, human-beings the world over,

say thank you, Madiba!



Thank you for your life, a life of principle,
a life of struggle,
of torture, of pain, of loss,

of a selflessness that you have embodied so completely.



In this often cold and callous world,

where we have been jaded by war, by intolerance, by racism, prejudice, and so so much economic and social injustice,

your living spirit shall live on!

your body, that has endured so so much,

your heart, your mind, your very self, which injustice and tyranny tried so hard to break,

shines on!



Your spirit shines and shall be the torch that we, your children the world over,


shall carry forward …


you may be struggling for life today,

but you have breathed life,

into the hearts of countless downtrodden people this world over.



I don’t know what to say,

my heart breaks today,

I want to cry, and I am crying now,

with a sense of loss and of sadness that I have felt when my mother passed away,



I cry for my loss, selfishly,

but I know you have walked the long walk to freedom,

the long and arduous walk from struggle and sacrifice to healer and peacemaker and statesman and father, yes,

father to us all …



I will miss you, My father,


I will miss your comforting presence,


I shall miss your smile,


and mostly I shall miss the gentle solace that you imbibed in us all,

your children the world over …


Live on, you shall, Madiba!


In the shacks of the Sowetos of the world, you shall live on in that eternal quest for economic freedom,

in the eyes of the pained and tortured,

you shall live on!

in the whispered prayers,

the silent thoughts,

of the dispossessed of this world who still continue to be left behind in this cruel world,

you shall live on!



Thank you, Nelson Mandela, as you make your way to join the ancestors.



Hamba Kahle* Comrade President Nelson Rolihlahla “Madiba” Mandela!


Travel well, and go peacefully



* – Hamba Kahle – an isiXhosa and isiZulu term meaning “travel well” – often used when bidding someone farewell, but in the Apartheid South African context is was meant to bid farewell to fallen comrades



Comrade Nelson Mandela voting for the first time 27th April 1994



A Poem – Nelson Mandela Centenary (1918 – 2018)



Nelson Rolihlahla ‘Madiba’ Mandela walked amongst us not long ago.



A man of action forged in the crucible of resistance.



Resistance against racial discrimination.



Resistance against injustice.



Resistance against oppression.

 


Nelson Rolihlahla ‘Madiba’ Mandela walked amongst us not long ago.



A man burnished in the furnace of struggle.



Struggle to defeat the crime against humanity that was Apartheid.



Struggle against the obscene notions of racial superiority.



Struggle against the scourge of hate.

 


Nelson Rolihlahla ‘Madiba’ Mandela walked amongst us not long ago.



A human being who personified kindness.



A human being who embodied humility.



A human being who exemplified the unity of our human race.


 

Nelson Rolihlahla ‘Madiba’ Mandela walked amongst us not long ago.



A man of peace, and a man who fought the just fight.



A man of forgiveness, and a man who battled the Apartheid regime for the need of taking responsibility for the heinous crimes of the past.



A man of truth, and a man of humane love.

 


Nelson Rolihlahla ‘Madiba’ Mandela walked amongst us not long ago.



He was of flesh and of blood, and he shed his blood as he endured the lashes of the whip on his flesh.



He was of flesh and of blood, and he fought ferociously against the suppression of his fellow human beings.



He was of flesh and of blood, and he emerged with dignity from the hell of twenty-seven years of imprisonment on an island of tyranny.


 

Nelson Rolihlahla ‘Madiba’ Mandela walked amongst us not long ago.



He was a man of a steely will in the long cause to rid all oppressed people from the yoke of colonialism, he picked up arms and fought the honourable fight.



He was a man of fiery resolve against the scourge of divisiveness, he was at the forefront in the battles against human subjugation and indignity.

 


Nelson Rolihlahla ‘Madiba’ Mandela walked amongst us not long ago.



Madiba was a revolutionary, in the trenches against the obscenity of poverty and deprivation.



Madiba was a soldier, on the ground in the service of the most vulnerable, the children of this world.



Madiba was unshakeable, and he lived the example of the committed revolutionary and the dignified statesman.

 


Nelson Rolihlahla ‘Madiba’ Mandela walked amongst us not long ago.

 


Our beloved Madiba does not walk amongst us anymore.



And yet, Nelson Rolihlahla ‘Madiba’ Mandela lives within us.



Madiba lives in the streams that flow into the rivers that flow into the oceans.



Madiba lives in the winds that blow across the vast lands of Africa and beyond.



Madiba lives in the thud-thudding of heartbeats around our world.



Madiba lives in the veins where the blood flows through our common human form.



Madiba lives!



Madiba will always live!



with Comrade and President Nelson Mandela at tjr Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg early 2008