Nelson Mandela: readers' memories and tributes from around the world

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/10/nelson-mandela-memories-tributes-around-the-world

Version 0 of 1.

tommall

I will never forget that day in 1994 when I came into the kitchen, aged 11, to see my mother crying. At first I was scared until I saw the tears were those of joy, as she was reading the newspaper showing a picture of a white policeman hugging a black woman in the streets of South Africa. Apartheid had fallen. Cheers to all the anti-racists, socialists and allies across the globe who fought to make Mandela's dream come true. Amandla Ngawethu!

discreto

I was there, I joined South Africans and Mozambicans in the Stadium to Welcome you with excitment and joy in our hearts. I will never forget the First Democratic Elections, I was there to see the old and young form queues miles long to vote for "the Old Man" as your people called you, I saw you win the Elections and become the Leader of all South Africans. I am so priviliged and humbled to have these wonderful memories of you, an inspiration to all, to share with my grandchildren, I thank God for your life amongst us. Thank you Madiba.

Ibenito

I was 12 years old when Nelson Mandela was released from prison. I remember my family sitting watching the tv and waiting for his release, which was delayed for hours. His graceful walk out of the prison gates, arm aloft in salute and defiance, together with his inauguration as president of the new South Africa were two of the most happy and poignant moments in my life to date.

It is hard to explain the significance of the man to those who may not have been born at the time or informed of the freedom struggle, or born witness to his dignity, pride, humility and moral authority, but I and so many others revered him as a father and cherished his existence as a living secular saint.

And, while we celebrate his life, so we mourn and shed tears for his death as we would for a close relative. The world has lost a hero. We have lost a father. Thank you Madiba. Thank you for fighting, thank you for forgiving, thank you for giving us dignity, thank you for giving us peace, and thank you for giving us Freedom. Mandela is dead. Mandela will never die. VIVA MANDELA!!

Anonymous

I was the BBC's Africa correspondent when Nelson Mandela was president. When I shook his hand I felt his love and strength. The first time I shook his hand I came home to our black South African cleaning lady, Naomi, and she rubbed my hand all over her face and body. That's what it was like for her. He had freed her.

I have read his incredible words at the Rivonia trail to my Nelson and his sister Malaika so many times and will again when they wake up. The courage, wisdom, forgiveness and fortitude of this special man will not ever be forgotten. This is a day I had dreaded but I am happy now he is at peace. He will always be part of our life and will live with us with his rightness. We must think so much of how we can continue in his spirit - he changed so much and if he had not been lost to he world for nearly 28 years, he could have done even more. Rest your soul now Tata.

Paul4Jags

For years many ordinary people in Scotland campaigned for the release of Nelson Mandela, highlighting the injustices in South Africa. We were amazed in 1993 to find this freedom fighter visiting our city. My mum and aunt are sitting behind him in the Eurydice Women's Choir in this photo at Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall. I was working at the event alongside my brother and father. It was proof that campaigns, boycotts, rallies and fighting could bring change and justice.

BTREBEL1

When at school I proudly watched my older brother Stan Campbell sing the celebrated anthem by the Specials AKA Free Nelson Mandela on Top of The Pops. From this moment I became fascinated by Mandala and the struggle to abolish Apartheid.

As an adult I directed Marianne Jean Baptiste in a production of Woza Albert at Contact Theatre Manchester, Blood Knot by Athol Fugard and after he walked to freedom Necklaces by 60's firebrand Tariq Ali. His life has inspired my art and alongside other giants King, X, The Panthers, Ali made it possible for me to keep going.

As a black gay man he is inspiring because he approved the worlds first constitution to protect the rights of Lesbians and Gays. He was and still is Change We Can Believe In.

Mike Burgess

I grew up in South Africa, in a white, middle-class neighbourhood during the 1980s and 90s. Many neighbourhoods in-fact - since we moved around a lot when I was a kid. (We weren't always middle-class, but my father worked damn hard to get us there).

Last night, watching the footage on the various news channels, many memories came flooding back to me. In the early 1980s, my mother would quite often have members of the Security Services parked outside our house in Johannesburg. Keeping tabs on my family since my father, a dual national, renounced his South African citizenship.

Mandela as a person really hit home for me and many other white South Africans, when he supported the Springbok Rugby Team during the 1995 World Cup. I had seen, since his release from prison, the humble person this man was, but as a statesman and leader his role in that World Cup and the unity it came to represent really struck a chord in me.

To me, Nelson Mandela is a shining example of how we should all strive to be. He represents leadership, humility, fortitude, forgiveness and above all love. Politicians today could do well by following his example.

He truly was a great man and a father to us all, and will be missed by many. We must celebrate his life and what he represented to so many people and also never forget, especially now with leaders building huge fortified palaces at exorbitant cost and miners being shot in scenes reminiscent of darker times.

Your long walk is finished whilst South Africa's has really just begun. Rest easy Madiba.<br /> Hamba kahle Tata.

PensivePeter

It was my honour to help organize Madiba's first visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg. I met and talked with him before he faced the politicians and I was moved to tears when he insisted in struggling to his feet (against my protests that he should save his energy) with the statement: "Young man, I will always stand for anyone who has done anything for me, big or small".

I was speechless and settled for a big bear hug from the man. No photos, no ceremony, just a very personal memory of utmost dignity and humility that I will cherish to my dying day.

Msousa

Mandela was the kind of person with the power to restore people's faith in humanity. In a time when we're too delusioned with politics to believe in real change, Mandela showed that change is possible - and he used much more than words to prove that. Humanity is poorer today, but he filled his duties and his spirit if free now. His legacy will live on. 

Londonmoonwalk

As a child, I saw Nelson Mandela's face and heard about his story in school. It was from that moment that I decided anything could be possible when faced with adversity. He not only change opinions in South Africa but had an impact on worldwide views about segregation. There will never be another Nelson Mandela. He is the Father of Freedom.

Isolde

A man of the finest, greatest integrity, who lived his beliefs and the best of ideals no matter what the cost to himself - but who won in the end, not for himself, but for the good of mankind. Because in his indefatigable insistence on what is right and good he forced, without force, those who do wrong to do right. That is an amazing achievement. We need someone to take the baton from him. I hope and pray we will all aim to be better people because of this lovely, incredible man.

One of the loveliest moments of my life was to see him in Brighton, in just a little group of people, leave the Brighton Centre after speaking at the Labour Party conference [if only they had listened]. I shouted out 'We love you Nelson!' and he looked at me, smiled and waved.

Debbie Mosovic

When I was growing up, my parents who were politically aware, ex-pat, left wing South Africans living in London, would speak about Nelson Mandela's imprisonment and the seeming impossibility of his release. I always believed from their view of the situation that he would undoubtedly end his days in prison and that democracy of any sort could never be achieved without a bloody revolution. The year after both my parents died (1989) Nelson Mandela was released. It was an amazing day of course, but I wished my parents had lived to witness that incredible event - that the impossible had in fact happened, that Nelson Mandela would continue to influence so many peoples and cultures far beyond his beloved South Africa too. This is a sad day.

Warren O'Keefe

Mandela's triumph over apartheid was a major event during my childhood, and the progress of South Africa into my early teens was a reminder that sometimes tyrants and demagogues fall as we feel they ought to.

His legacy is that of all great visionaries, that you cannot kill, maim, imprison or torture an idea, and that good ideas have a habit of resurfacing no matter the force brought to bear against them. May Mr. Mandela finally rest, but his ideas, his vision, must be borne into the future by us all.

Sudeshna Chowdury

As I write this post, I am humming a tune... One of the very first songs I sang as a seven or eight year old. "Mandela zindabad zindabad Mandela" by the late Bhupen Hazarika. My uncle taught me the song. Zindabad means "long live".

I think it was a class on moral science and I was at that time studying at the St.Mary's convent in a small town in India.I walked up to my teacher (I think her name was Mona) and insisted that I really wanted to sing this song in front of the entire class. She sad, "Go ahead." And I sang and I sang and I sang...shedding all my fears and inhibitions...I sang. My seven-year-old self knew that the name "Mandela" has a ring to it. It just sounds right. It sounds different. I felt it while I sang.....I felt great...

virtuallyours

I once saw Nelson Mandela at the final of the Africa Cup of Nations at Soccer City (Now the 'Calabash' stadium), in 1996. He walked on to the field with FW De Klerk, and the crowd - all 90,000 - went berserk. Mahdibaaaa! they screamed. South Africa's winning goal thereafter was an anti-climax. Though I was one of the few white faces in the crowd I have never felt so welcomed, we were unified that day. We had all seen our hero and we were satisfied.

James Kidd

My parents first tales to me about Nelson Mandela when I was 4 years old when apartheid ended. My dad especially wanted me to know about racism and the issues South Africa but also which happened in the UK. We visited South Africa in 1997 when he was still leading the country but there seemed to be a buzz around where the country was going. We have family who live over there who were quite fearful, whilst others were hopeful. I remember so desperately wanting to meet him and my dad having to explain that "he's really busy trying to run the country just now, so maybe another time". We visited Cape Town for a second time in 2003 and we took the boat to Robben Island to see the prison. As a 13 year old, I knew this was a different kind of trip and I felt deeply moved visiting his cell. I remember sitting down in there and imagining him doing the same and what he might have thought about.

Hearing this today will have resonated something in a majority of people, but for me it feels like I didn't need to meet him as I would have liked to as a 7 year old, what he believed in and his plans were enough for me to feel that I had a connection.

Rest in peace.

losdajaos

They called it "Celebration Saturday," a June day in 1990 when 58,000 Californians packed the Oakland Coliseum to see Nelson Mandela. I was there, and will not be able to forget these words of him: "I feel like an old taxi that has being rebuilt” Madiba , you will live in my heart forever and you will whisper in my ear: "Ana, it always seems impossible until it’s done".

MakedaJA

For the second time in his life, one amazing human being named Nelson Mandela caused the world to shed tears. So too the world had cried the day he stepped out of 27 years of incarceration celebrating victory in his fight against South Africa's racist apartheid. I thought it was me alone, sitting in my Kingston flat with my 4-year old child explaining why Mummy was crying even though she was smiling and laughing and hugging him. I thought it was me alone, but then when I spoke to other people that day and days after, as I shared our joy and happiness at the sight of that great man walking out of prison, his beautiful wife and warrior queen Winnie at his side, everyone told me they had cried too ...

My tears came from a place where in that instant moment of freedom I suddenly and very personally experienced the great inhumanity, injustice and brutality that Mandela had suffered in those 27 years in prison and the years of struggle. I cried for his pain and suffering, even as I laughed with happiness at his liberation. I think that everyone watching Mandela walk smilingly into the sunlight had that identical moment of experience and that was what caused the world to cry.

Kirsty MacLeod

When I was young I wrote a letter and addressed it to "Nelson Mandela, Qunu". I knew it would never reach him but I felt I had to try to let him know how much he meant to me, a stirred-up South African raised in Scotland at a time when I was beginning to learn about the circumstances surrounding my family's leaving South Africa in the violent early-nineties. Madiba was my inspiration, my education, my motivation. I was surprised by how celebratory I could feel in my grief at his death. We have seen greatness come to pass! He is not gone - he is gone home.

ArtyMartini

The death of beloved Nelson Mandela is a loss not just to South Africa but a loss to the entire world. No amount of words will ever be enough to pay tribute to this legend. I, like many others who admire him, never had the luck to meet him but he unknowingly touched many people’s lives.

During one time, when bogged down by the vagaries of life, I started reading his biography - It drove me to tears but also gave me the inner strength and hope and taught me to never ever give up. It taught me that no matter what life throws at you, you always have that little spark, that little bit of ‘inner steel’ in you to forge on. Don’t let hope ever die in you for when it dies you die too. Hope is the essence of the human spirit – it is what kept Mandela going during his most trying times. This man was tested to the very end of his tether and yet he never broke and never gave up on his dream of a free and democratic South Africa.

Thank you Madiba for all that you have done - sleep well.

erzsik

When Nelson Mandela was released from prison, with other Londoners I made my way to Trafalgar Square (on the number 38 bus), to the non-stop picket of the South African embassy. I had never signed up on the rota of the picket, but had intended to (road to hell, good intentions, etc.), and had stopped there on many occasions, sometimes bringing cups of coffee to people there in the early hours after a night of clubbing.

Also, the picket was the destination of anti-fascist remembrance day demonstrations. I can remember once hanging out there with a more virtuous (i.e. officially on the rota) friend, when a fur-coated old woman came out of the embassy made as if to sign the petition, and sharply muttered in our faces: "Give Mandela the nicklace". I was young and fervent and I thought it was abominable,

But the feeling of joy and hope that I shared with others on the day he was released will remain with me forever ... Today I have been sporadically shedding a few tears. I'm not really sure why, exactly. I feel like some sort of mourning is in line. Or celebrating - his life, what he meant to me, what he meant to many like me. So I will be going along to the South African consulate here in the cosmopolitan but very proper Swiss town I live in, together with a friend or two, said children (now 18 and 20 and with their heads and hearts in the right place - à gauche!) just be to be together, tape some flowers to a lamp-post (a first for me), light a candle, perhaps put that Specials AKA song on, raise a glass of wine. I think that will do the trick.

Rita Okigbo

An African who knew when to leave the corridors of power. Set an example for sit-tight rulers in Africa. Able to leave your sadness and sorrow behind you. To tell your fellow South Africans to unite and march on. Will be greatly missed, but never forgotten. RIP. 

HazelMak

They call my generation, 'born frees'. The first generation of african children born into a world of freedom filled with dreams and possibilities my parents, my grandparents would never have dreamed of. With his passing I reflect on my life and realise that without the likes of Tata everything that I am today would be not be real. I am grateful and honoured. Siyabonga Tata.

But since his passing on Friday I have been reflecting on my people and where we are today. As we have been gifted this gift of freedom we are still not free. Africa is still not where it is supposed to be. I hear the world and the media telling us to 'celebrate' Tata. We have been celebrating Tata from the beginning and will continue to do so forever. What we should be doing is mourning not for Tata but for ourselves and we are still today. My brothers and sisters though free are still shackled with the chains of poverty, disease, corruption of their politicians, lack of education and unemployment ... We need to try save our beloved Africa before it too dies with Tata.

LouiseZaaijman

I remember the day we all waited to see you in Cape Town at Town Hall on the day you were finally released from prison. The crowds stretched as far as you could see. I will never forget the electric atmosphere and the feeling of hope we got from your presence and your words. I will never forget that day. Then you became president. At the end of your presidency, I saw your farewell speech in parliament. I remember thinking I wished that you could stay president forever, but you wanted to set an example of democracy. You were great. You were loved, and always will be. You gave us peace. You were an inspiration. Rest in peace, Madiba. Thank you.

Kurdistan99

Nelson Mandela was not only the roar of unheard whispers, but the voice of the slave, the voice of oppression and the face of freedom. He may be biologically dead, but his philosophy lives on, in my heart and many others. Rest in peace, Mandela.

chaosnanarchy

One thing is forever sure to remain with this world, that is his enduring legacy which will continue to influence the weak and oppressed around the world and humble the arrogant oppressor.

It has always been a sad day for the planet whenever men of such courage, audacity and perseverance are taken away. RIP Sir.

Read more stories and share yours via GuardianWitness

Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning.