[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 get
...voice the claims of the oppressed
and a moral necessity of racial justice
He would endure a brutal
imprisonment that began in the time of Kennedy and Krushiov
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 enherited
a proud rebelliousness, a stabborn
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 sharold 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 fought against white domination I 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.