President Obama Speaks at a Memorial Service for Nelson Mandela

President Obama delivers remarks at a national memorial service for former South African President Nelson Mandela. December 10, 2013.

[cheers]

Thank you.

[cheers]

Thank you.

[cheers]

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

[cheers]

To Graça Machel and the Mandela family;

To President Zuma and

members of the government;

to heads of state and goverment past and present,

distinguished guests.

It is a singular honor

to be with you today to celebrate a life

like no other.

To the people of South Africa

[cheers]

People of every race and every walk of life

the world thanks you

for sharing Nelson Mandela with us.

His struggle was your struggle

his triumph was your triumph,

your dignity

and your hope found expression in his life

and your freedom. Your democracy

it's his cherished legacy

It is hard to eulogize any man

to capture in words

not just the facts and the dates

that make a life, but the essential truth

of a person, the private joys,

and sorrows, the quiet moments

the unique qualities that illuminate someone's soul.

How much harder to do so for a giant

of history who moved a nation towards justice

and in the process moved billions around the world

Born

during world war one fired from court orders of power

a boy raised herding cattle and

tutored by the elders of his Mambu tribe

Madiba would emerge as the last great liberator

of the 20th century. Like Gandhi,

he would lead a resistence movement, a movement

that at the start had little prospect for success

Like Dr. King, he would give potent voice

to the claims of the oppressed

and the moral necessity of racial justice

He would endure a brutal

imprisonment that began in the time of Kennedy and Khrushchev

and reached the final days of the cold war

Emerging from prison without the force

of arms he would, like Abraham Lincoln, hold his country

together when it threaten to break apart

and like America's founding fathers he would erect

a constitutional order to preserve freedom for future generations

A commitment to democracy

and rule of law, ratified not only by

his election but by his willingness to step down

from power after only one term.

Given the sweep

of his life, the scope of his

accomplishments, the adoration that he so widely owned,

it's tempting, I think, to remember Nelson Mandela

as an icon, smiling and serene,

detached from the tawdry affairs of lessen men

but Madiba himself strongly resisted

such a lifeless portrait

[cheers]

Instead, Madiba

insisted on sharing with us his doubts and his fears

his miscalculations along with his victories

"I am not a saint", he said

"unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps

on trying".

It was precisely because he could admit to imperfection

because he could be so full of good humour

even mischief, despite the heavy burdens that he carried

that we loved him so.

He was not a bust made of marble, he was a man of flesh and blood

a son and a husband, a father

and a friend and that's why we learned

so much from him and that's why we can learn from him still

For nothing he achieved was inevitable

in the arch of his life we see a man

who earned his place in history through struggle

and shrewdness and persistance and faith

he tells us what is possible

not just in the pages of history books, but in our own lives

as well.

Mandela showed us the power of action

of taking risks on behalf of our ideas

perhaps Mandela was right when he inherited

a proud rebelliousness, a stubborn

sense of fairness from his father

and we know he shared with millions of black and coloured Southafricans

the anger born of a thousand slights

a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments

a desire to fight the system that imprisoned

my people, he said

like other early giants of the ANC

the Zulus and the Tambos,

[cheers]

Madiba disciplined his anger

and channelled his desire to fight into organization

and platforms and strategies

for action, so men and women could stand up

for the God given dignity

Moreover, he accepted the consequences of his actions

knowing that standing up to powerful entrance and injustice

carries a price

"I've fought against white domination I've fought black

domination."

I cherished the idea of a democratic and free society

in which all persons live together in harmony and

equal opportunities, it is an ideal which I hope to live

for and to achieve but if needs be it's an ideal

for which I am prepared to die.

[cheers]

Mandela taught us the power of action

but he also taught us the power of ideas

the importance of reason and arguments

the need to study not only those who you

agree with but also those you don't agree with

he understood that ideas cannot be contained by prison walls

extinguished by a sniper's bullet

he turned his trial into an endowment of aparthaid

because of his eloquence and his passion

but also because of his training as an advocate

he used decades of prison to sharpen his arguments

but also to spread his thirst for knowledge to others

in the movement and he learned the language and the customs

of his oppressors so that one day he might better convey

to them how their own freedom depend upon his.

[cheers]

Mandela has demonstrated that action and ideas are not enough

no matter high they must also

be ciselled in the laws and institutions

he was practical, testing his beliefs

against the hard surfice of circumstance

and history, on core

principles he was unyielding which is why he could rebuff

offers of unconditional release reminding the aparthaid regime his

that prisoners cannot enter into contracts

but as he showed in painstaking negotiations

to transfer power and draft new laws he was

not afraid to compromise for the sake of a larger goal.

And because he was not only a leader of a movement but a skilful politician

the constitution that emerged was worthy of this multi-racial

democracy, true to his vision of laws that

protect minority as well as majority rights and the

precious freedoms of every Southafrican.

And finally Mandela uderstood

the ties that bind the human spirit.

There is a word in Southafrican

ubuntu

[cheers]

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 ones to humanity

that we achieve ourselves by sharing

ourselves with others and caring those around us

we can't 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 an inaguration, taking a pitch

in a spring by uniform

turning his family's heartbreak into a call that can run

HIV-AIDS that reveal the depths

of his empathy and his understanding.

He not only embodied truth he taught millions

to find that truth within themselves.

It took a man like Madiba to free

not just the prisoner but the jailer as well

to show that you must trust

others so that they may trust you

teach that reconciliation is not a matter of ignoring

a cruel past but a means of confronting it

with an inclusion and generosity and truth

He changed laws

but he also changed hearts

for the people of South Africa

for those he inspired

around the globe but he was passing ....

a time of morning a time to celebrate a heroic life

but I believe it should also prompt in each of us a time

for self-reflection with honesty

regardless of our station or circumstance

we must ask: "How well have I applied

his lessons in my own life.

It's a question I ask myself

as a man and as a president

we know that white South Africa

and the United States have overcome centuries of racial

subjugation as was

it was true here it took sacrifice, the sacrifices of countless people

known and unknown to see the dawn of a new day

Michelle and I are beneficiaries

of that struggle

but in America

and in South Africa and in countries all over

the globe we cannot allow our progress to cloud the fact

that our work is not yet done

The struggles that follow the victory

formal equality or universal franchise

may not be as filled with drama and moral clarity as those

.... that came before but they are not less important

for around the world today we still see

children suffering from hunger and disease, we still

see run down schools, we still see young people

without prospects for the future, around the world

today men and women are still imprisoned for their political

believes and are still persecuted for what they look like

how they worship and who they love and it is still happening today

And so we

too must act on behalf of justice

we too must act on behalf of peace

There are too many people that too happily embrace

Madiba's legacy of racial reconciliation but

passionately resist even modest reforms, they would challange

... of property and bringing in equality

there are too many leaders who claim solidarity

with Madiba's struggle for freedom but do not tollerate

the same for their own people

and there are too many of us

too many of us on the side lines, confortable

in complacency or cynicism

when our voices must be heard, the question

we face today

had a promotive quality and justice, how to uphold

freedom and human rights, how to end conflict and

sectarian war, these things do not have

easy answers, but there were no easy answers

in front of that child born in

in World War I, Nelson Mandela reminds us that

it always seems impossible until it is done

South Africa shows that it is true

South Africa shows we can change, that we can

choose a world defined not by our differences but by our common

hopes, we can choose a world defined not by conflict

but by peace and justice and opportunity

We will never see

the likes of Nelson Mandela again

well I may say that the young people of Africa

that the young people around the world

you too can make his life's work

your own.

Over thirty years ago, whilst still a student

I learned of Nelson Mandela

and the struggles taking place in this beautiful land

and it stured something in me

it woke me up to my responsibilities to other

and to myself and send me into 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 is best inside us

after this great liberator is let to rest

and we return to our cities and

and villages and rejoined our daily routine

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 weights heavy on our hearts

when our best laid plans seem out of reach

let us think of Madiba

and the words that brought him comfort within the 4 walls

of his cell: "It matters not

how streight the gate, how charged

the punishment, the scroll

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul,

what 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.