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[cheers]

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Thank you.

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[cheers]

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Thank you.

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[cheers]

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Thank you so much.

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Thank you.

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[cheers]

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To Graça Machel and the Mandela family;

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To President Zuma and

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members of the government;

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to heads of state and goverment past and present,

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distinguished guests.

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It is a singular honor

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to be with you today to celebrate a life

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like no other.

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To the people of South Africa

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[cheers]

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People of every race and every walk of life

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the world thanks you

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for sharing Nelson Mandela with us.

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His struggle was your struggle

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his triumph was your triumph,

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your dignity

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and your hope found expression in his life

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and your freedom. Your democracy

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it's his cherished legacy

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It is hard to eulogize any man

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to capture in words

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not just the facts and the dates

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that make a life, but the essential truth

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of a person, the private joys,

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and sorrows, the quiet moments

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the unique qualities that illuminate someone's soul.

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How much harder to do so for a giant

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of history who moved a nation towards justice

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and in the process moved billions around the world

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Born

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during world war one fired from court orders of power

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a boy raised herding cattle and

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tutored by the elders of hix Mambu tribe

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Madiba would emerge as the last great liberator

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of the 20th century. Like Gandhi,

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he would lead a resistence movement, a movement

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that at the start had little prospect for success

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Like ..... he would get

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...voice the claims of the oppressed

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and a moral necessity of racial justice

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He would endure a brutal

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imprisonment that began in the time of Kennedy and Krushiov

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and reached the final days of the cold war

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Emerging from prison without the force

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

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together when it threaten to break apart

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and like America's founding fathers he would erect

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a constitutional order to preserve freedom for future generations

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A commitment to democracy

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and rule of law, ratified not only by

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his election but by his willingness to step down

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from power after only one term.

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Given the sweep

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of his life, the scope of his

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accomplishments, the adoration that he so widely owned,

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

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as an icon, smiling and serene,

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detached from the tawdry affairs of lessen men

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but Madiba himself strongly resisted

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such a lifeless portrait

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[cheers]

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Instead, Madiba

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insisted on sharing with us his doubts and his fears

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his miscalculations along with his victories

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"I am not a saint", he said

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

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on trying".

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It was precisely because he could admit to imperfection

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because he could be so full of good humour

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even mischief, despite the heavy burdens that he carried

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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

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a son and a husband, a father

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and a friend and that's why we learned

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

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For nothing he achieved was inevitable

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in the arch of his life we see a man

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who earned his place in history through struggle

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and shrewdness and persistance and faith

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he tells us what is possible

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

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as well.

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Mandela showed us the power of action

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of taking risks on behalf of our ideas

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perhaps Mandela was right when he enherited

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a proud rebelliousness, a stabborn

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sense of fairness from his father

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

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the anger born of a thousand slights

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a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments

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a desire to fight the system that imprisoned

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my people, he said

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like other early giants of the ANC

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the Zulus and the Tambos,

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[cheers]

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Madiba disciplined his anger

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and sharold his desire to fight into organization

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and platforms and strategies

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for action, so men and women could stand up

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for the God given dignity

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moreover he accepted the consequences of his actions

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knowing that standing up to powerful entrance and injustice

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carries a price

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I fought against white domination I fought black

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domination

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I cherished the idea of a democratic and free society

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in which all persons live together in harmony and

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

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

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for which I am prepared to die.

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[cheers]

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Mandela taught us the power of action

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but he also taught us the power of ideas

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the importance of reason and arguments

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the need to study not only those who you

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agree with but also those you don't agree with

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he understood that ideas cannot be contained by prison walls

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extinguished by a sniper's bullet

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he turned his trial into an endowment of aparthaid

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because of his eloquence and his passion

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but also because of his training as an advocate

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he used decades of prison to sharpen his arguments

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but also to spread his thirst for knowledge to others

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in the movement and he learned the language and the customs

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of his oppressors so that one day he might better convey

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to them how their own freedom depend upon his.

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[cheers]

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Mandela has demonstrated that action and ideas are not enough

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no matter high they must also

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be ciselled in the laws and institutions

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he was practical, testing his beliefs

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against the hard surfice of circumstance

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and history, on core

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principles he was unyielding which is why he could rebuff

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offers of unconditional release reminding the aparthaid regime his

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that prisoners cannot enter into contracts

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but as he showed in painstaking negotiations

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to transfer power and draft new laws he was

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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 skilful politician

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the constitution that emerged was worthy of this multi-racial

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democracy, true to his vision of laws that

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protect minority as well as majority rights and the

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precious freedoms of every Southafrican.

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And finally Mandela uderstood

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the ties that bind the human spirit.

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There is a word in Southafrican

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ubuntu

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[cheers]

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a word that captures

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Mandela's greatest gift: his recognition

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that we are all bound together in ways that are invisible

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to the eye, that there is a ones to humanity

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that we achieve ourselves by sharing

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ourselves with others and caring those around us

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we can't never know how much of this

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sense was innate in him or how much was shaped

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in a dark and solitary cell.

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But we remember the gestures large and small

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introducing his jailers as

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honored guests at an inaguration, taking a pitch

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in a spring by uniform

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

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HIV-AIDS that reveal the depths

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of his empathy and his understanding.

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He not only embodied truth he taught millions

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to find that truth within themselves.

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It took a man like Madiba to free

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not just the prisoner but the jailer as well

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to show that you must trust

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others so that they may trust you

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teach that reconciliation is not a matter of ignoring

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a cruel past but a means of confronting it

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with an inclusion and generosity and truth

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He changed laws

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but he also changed hearts

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for the people of South Africa

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for those he inspired

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around the globe but he was passing ....

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a time of morning a time to celebrate a heroic life

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

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for self-reflection with honesty

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regardless of our station or circumstance

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we must ask: "How well have I applied

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his lessons in my own life.

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It's a question I ask myself

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as a man and as a president

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we know that white South Africa

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and the United States have overcome centuries of racial

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subjugation as was

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

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known and unknown to see the dawn of a new day

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Michelle and I are beneficiaries

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of that struggle

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but in America

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and in South Africa and in countries all over

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the globe we cannot allow our progress to cloud the fact

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that our work is not yet done

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The struggles that follow the victory

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formal equality or universal franchise

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

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

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for around the world today we still see

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children suffering from hunger and disease, we still

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see run down schools, we still see young people

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without prospects for the future, around the world

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today men and women are still imprisoned for their political

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believes and are still persecuted for what they look like

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

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And so we

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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 that too happily embrace

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Madiba's legacy of racial reconciliation but

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passionately resist even modest reforms, they would challange

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... of property and bringing in equality

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there are too many leaders who claim solidarity

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with Madiba's struggle for freedom but do not tollerate

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the same for their own people

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and there are too many of us

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too many of us on the side lines, confortable

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in complacency or cynicism

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when our voices must be heard, the question

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we face today

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had a promotive quality and justice, how to uphold

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freedom and human rights, how to end conflict and

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sectarian war, these things do not have

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easy answers, but there were no easy answers

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in front of that child born in

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in World War I, Nelson Mandela reminds us that

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it always seems impossible until it is done

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South Africa shows that it is true

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South Africa shows we can change, that we can

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

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hopes, we can choose a world defined not by conflict

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but by peace and justice and opportunity

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We will never see

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the likes of Nelson Mandela again

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well I may say that the young people of Africa

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that the young people around the world

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you too can make his life's work

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your own.

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Over thirty years ago, whilst still a student

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I learned of Nelson Mandela

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and the struggles taking place in this beautiful land

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and it stured something in me

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it woke me up to my responsibilities to other

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and to myself and send me into an improbable journey

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that finds me here today

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and while I will always fall short of Madiba's

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example he makes me want to be a better man

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he speaks

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to what is best inside us

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after this great liberator is let to rest

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and we return to our cities and

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and villages and rejoined our daily routine

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let us search for his

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strength, let us search for his

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largeness of spirit somewhere inside of ourselves

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and when the night grows dark

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when injustice weights heavy on our hearts

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when our best laid plans seem out of reach

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let us think of Madiba

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and the words that brought him comfort within the 4 walls

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of his cell: "It matters not

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how streight the gate, how charged

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the punishment, the scroll

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I am the master of my fate,

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I am the captain of my soul,

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what magnificent soul it was. 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.