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South Africa
Nelson Mandela celebrates 90th birthday
Article published on the 2008-07-18 Latest update 2008-07-18 09:32 TU
Nelson Mandela at the French lycée in Johannesburg.
(Photo: V Hirsch/RFI)
South Africa is today celebrating the 90th birthday of Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first black president and hero of the anti-apartheid struggle. Yet the birthday comes at a time of crisis in the country, with his dream of a harmonious rainbow nation under threat. Private birthday celebrations will be held today in his rural homestead of Qunu in the Eastern Cape province.
Mandela was a member of the outlawed ANC in the apartheid era. He was imprisoned for 27 years but has since become a symbol of reconciliation, notably for the whites whose rule he fought to overthrow.
Tributes have poured in from around the world on the occasion of his 90th birthday.
"After his inauguration, Nelson Mandela used his personal charm to promote reconciliation and to mould our widely diverse communities into an emerging multicultural nation," said Frederik de Klerk, the last apartheid-era president who shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize along with Mandela. "This, I believe, will be seen as his greatest legacy."
Sepp Blatter, president of football's world governing body Fifa, described Mandela as the "epitome of grace and dignity, a man with determination to overcome even the greatest odds", as he recalled the key role he played in bringing the 2010 World Cup to South Africa.
"Mandela is a man inhabited by an ideal, a very acute consciousness of human rights," said Robert Badinter, a French senator and former French Justice Minister.
"Nelson Mandela is a great example for us Africans, and Africa needs this kind of personality," Congolese musician Papa Wemba said.
Yet Mandela's birthday comes at a time of crisis for South Africa. Poverty and violent crime persist, while power crises have led to a drop in the production of gold, diamond and other resources, threatening the growth of Africa's largest economy.
Last May's attacks against immigrants from other African countries, which resulted in 62 deaths, led Mandela to remind his compatriots that their challenge was to forge a nation in which people, "irrespective of race, colour, sex, religion or creed", can fully benefit from social cohesion.
Spealing to RFI, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, South Africa's Minister of Public Service and Administration paid tribute to Nelson Mandela:
"We were privileged, South Africa and the world, to have a leader such as Nelson Mandela because he embodied the richness of collective leadership - nationally, regionally and globally - and that was in spite of the fact that, as an individual, he had reached iconic status."
"He's humble, he's someone willing to serve, he's someone who's always been willing to consider the views of others, over and above his personal plight."
Mandela was president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. In 1990, as the apartheid regime drew to an end, he was freed from a jail term which began in 1964 when he was condemned to life imprisonment on charges including sabotage.
Last month the US Congress removed Mandela's African National Congress from its terrorism watch list.
