WEBVTT

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(Crowd cheering and clapping hands)

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Thank you.....

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(Crowd cheering continues...

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Thank you....

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Thank you so much..

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Thank you..

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To Graça Machel and the Mandela family..

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To President Zuma and the members of the government,

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to heads of states and goverment, past and present,distinguished guests..

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It is a singular honour to be with you today to celebrate a life like no other.

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To the people of South Africa [CROWD CHEERING]

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people of every race and every walk of life, the world thanks you for sharing Nelson Mandela with us.

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His struggle was your struggle. His triumph was your triumph.

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Your dignity and your hope found expression in his life and your freedom, your democracy is his cherished legacy.

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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

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their private joys and sorrows; the quiet moments and unique qualities that illuminate someone’s soul.

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How much harder to do so for a giant of history, who moved a nation toward justice,

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and in the process moved billions around the world.

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Born during World War I, far from the corridors of power, a boy raised herding cattle and tutored by the elders of his Thembu tribe,

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Madiba would emerge as the last great liberator of the 20th century, like Gandhi, he would lead a resistance movement,

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a movement that at its start had little prospect for success.

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Like Dr King, he would give potent voice to the claims of the oppressed and the moral necessity of racial justice.

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He would endure a brutal imprisonment that began in the time of Kennedy and Khrushchev, and reached the final days of the Cold War.

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Emerging from prison, without the force of arms, he would, like Abraham Lincoln, hold his country together when it threatened to break apart.

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And like America’s Founding Fathers, he would erect a constitutional order to preserve freedom for future generations.

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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.

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( crowd cheeing...)

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Given the sweep of his life, the scope of his accomplishments, the adoration that he so rightly earned,

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it’s tempting I think to remember Nelson Mandela as an icon, smiling and serene,

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detached from the tawdry affairs of lesser men. But Madiba himself strongly resisted such a lifeless portrait.

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(Crowd cheering.......)

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Instead, Mandela insisted on sharing with us his doubts and his fears, his miscalculations along with his victories

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"I am not a saint", he said “unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.”

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It was precisely because he could admit to imperfection -- because he could be so full of good humor, even mischief,

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despite the heavy burdens he carried -- that we loved him so.

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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.

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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.

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In the arc of his life, we see a man who earned his place in history through struggle and shrewdness, and persistence and faith.

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He tells us what is possible not just in the pages of history books, but in our own lives as well.

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Mandela showed us the power of action; of taking risks on behalf of our ideals.

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Perhaps Madiba was right that he inherited, “a proud rebelliousness, a stubborn sense of fairness” from his father.

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and we know he shared with millions of black and colored South africans the anger borne of thousands slights,

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a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments,

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a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people, he said.

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But like other early giants of the ANC -- the Sisulus and Tambos -- ( Crowd cheers.....) Madiba disciplined his anger and channeled his desire to fight into organization,and platforms,

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and strategies for action, so men and women could stand up for their God-given dignity.

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Moreover, he accepted the consequences of his actions, knowing that standing up to powerful interests and injustice carries a price.

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“I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination.

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I’ve cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and equal opportunities.

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It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve.

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But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

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(Crowd cheering....)

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Mandela taught us the power of action, but he also taught us the power of ideas;

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the importance of reason and arguments; the need to study not only those who you agree with, but also those who you don’t agree with.

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He understood that ideas cannot be contained by prison walls, or extinguished by a sniper’s bullet.

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He turned his trial into an indictment of apartheid because of his eloquence and his passion, but also because of his training as an advocate.

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He used decades in prison to sharpen his arguments, but also to spread his thirst for knowledge to others in the movement.

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And he learned the language and the customs of his oppressor

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so that one day he might better convey to them how their own freedom depend upon his.

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Mandela demonstrated that action and ideas are not enough.

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No matter how right, they must also be chiseled into law and institutions.

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He was practical, testing his beliefs against the hard surface of circumstance and history.

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On core principles he was unyielding, which is why he could rebuff offers of unconditional release,

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reminding the Apartheid regime that “prisoners cannot enter into contracts.”

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But as he showed in painstaking negotiations to transfer power and draft new laws,

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

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And because he was not only a leader of a movement but a skillful politician, the Constitution that emerged was worthy of this multiracial democracy,

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true to his vision of laws that protect minority as well as majority rights, and the precious freedoms of every South African.

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And finally, Mandela understood the ties that bind the human spirit.

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There is a word in South Africa -- Ubuntu --

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(Crowd cheers....)

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a word that captures Mandela’s greatest gift:

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his recognition that we are all bound together in ways that are invisible to the eye;

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that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us.

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We can never know how much of this sense was innate in him, or how much was shaped in a dark and solitary cell.

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But we remember the gestures, large and small -- introducing his jailers as honored guests at his inauguration;

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taking a pitch in a Springbok uniform; turning his family’s heartbreak into a call to confront HIV/AIDS --

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that revealed the depth of his empathy and his understanding.

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He not only embodied Ubuntu, he taught millions to find that truth within themselves.

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It took a man like Madiba to free not just the prisoner,

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but the jailer as well to show that you must trust others so that they may trust you;

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to teach that reconciliation is not a matter of ignoring a cruel past,

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but a means of confronting it with inclusion and generosity and truth.

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He changed laws, but he also changed hearts.

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For the people of South Africa, for those he inspired around the globe,

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Madiba’s passing is rightly a time of mourning, and a time to celebrate a heroic life.

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But I believe it should also prompt in each of us a time for self-reflection.

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With honesty, regardless of our station or our circumstance, we must ask:

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How well have I applied his lessons in my own life?

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It’s a question I ask myself, as a man and as a President.

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We know that, like South Africa, the United States had to overcome centuries of racial subjugation.

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As was true here, it took sacrifice -- the sacrifice of countless people, known and unknown, to see the dawn of a new day.

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Michelle and I are beneficiaries of that struggle.

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But in America, and in South Africa, and in countries all around the globe,

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we cannot allow our progress to cloud the fact that our work is not yet done.

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The struggles that follow the victory of formal equality or universal franchise

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may not be as filled with drama and moral clarity as those that came before, but they are no less important.

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For around the world today, we still see children suffering from hunger and disease.

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We still see run-down schools.

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We still see young people without prospects for the future.

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Around the world today, men and women are still imprisoned for their political beliefs,

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and are still persecuted for what they look like, and how they worship, and who they love.

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That is happening today.

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And so we, too, must act on behalf of justice.

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We, too, must act on behalf of peace.

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There are too many people who happily embrace Madiba’s legacy of racial reconciliation,

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but passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic poverty and growing inequality.

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There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba’s struggle for freedom,

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but do not tolerate dissent from their own people.

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And there are too many of us.. too many of us on the sidelines,

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comfortable in complacency or cynicism when our voices must be heard.

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The questions we face today -- how to promote equality and justice;

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how to uphold freedom and human rights;

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how to end conflict and sectarian war -- these things do not have easy answers.

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But there were no easy answers in front of that child born in World War I.

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Nelson Mandela reminds us that it always seems impossible until it is done.

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South Africa shows that is true.

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South Africa shows we can change, that we can choose a world defined not by our differences, but by our common hopes.

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We can choose a world defined not by conflict, but by peace and justice and opportunity.

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We will never see the likes of Nelson Mandela again.

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But let me say to the young people of Africa and the young people around the world -- you, too, can make his life’s work your own.

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Over 30 years ago, while still a student, I learned of Nelson Mandela

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and the struggles taking place in this beautiful land, and it stirred something in me.

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It woke me up to my responsibilities to others and to myself,

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and it set me on an improbable journey that finds me here today.

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And while I will always fall short of Madiba’s example, he makes me want to be a better man.

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He speaks to what’s best inside us.

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After this great liberator is laid to rest, and

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when we have returned to our cities and villages and rejoined our daily routines, let us search for his strength.

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Let us search for his largeness of spirit somewhere inside of ourselves.

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And when the night grows dark, when injustice weighs heavy on our hearts, when our best-laid plans seem beyond our reach,

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let us think of Madiba and the words that brought him comfort within the four walls of his cell:

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“It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll,

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I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”

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What a magnificent soul it was.

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We will miss him deeply.

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May God bless the memory of Nelson Mandela.

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May God bless the people of South Africa.

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(Crowd cheering...)