Nelson Mandela in Jail

Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, Hero or Villain?

Aaron Ramsey had scored against Manchester United, one nil to the Arsenal...the next day, Bin Laden was declared dead, he was killed by special forces in operation neptune spear. Aaron Ramsey's on the score sheet again against Marseille, one nil to the Arsenal...this time not so special forces lynched Gaddafi to an embarrassing death.

News houses have been busy, from Sky News to Al Jazeera, each struggling to transmit videos of better resolution without success, of how the Colonel was dragged from drainage to last breath. You would never win an argument on whether it was fair or unfair treatment, but you can make a case.

Gaddafi could have been that dictator, and perhaps, also rabied as the mad dog he was advertised to be. With his humanitarian crimes definitely unforgivable, his pro-family styled leadership was surely unacceptable in 2011, it confuted the prospect of representation. The secrets of the Lockerbie Bombing, the La Belle Night Club and countless mayhems have died with him. But are these all that Gaddafi was?

Gaddafi was also a people's man, as a Northern and Arab African, he courted Libya with Black Africa and with bizarre humour, encouraged Arab Libyan Men to marry Black wives and Arab Libyan Women to marry Black husbands. On the continental stage, he was the newest and loudest voice for the United States of Africa, a proposition with a distant hearing, the dreams of Marcus Garvey (if you remember him). For his people, commodity prices have remained one of the lowest in the world, refined oil costs less than bottled water, and we do not forget the water project he christened the eighth wonder of the world. Without the need to prove outstanding intellect, Gaddafi sponsored Libyans to study in European universities, and perhaps in other parts of the developed world. Plus, healthcare was without charge...the list of his magnanimity is in volumes, and no doubt, as voluminous as his malice.

To digress a bit, he made the African Union meetings a little bit of a fashion runway with his colourful regalia...that will be a personal miss. You'd often think he shared Michael Jackson's dressing room when he adorned his military insignia...and with that golden pistol, he reserved some James Bond swagger for the last. Without a doubt, Gaddafi had a special friendship with Madiba, and I wonder what he thinks of all these.

But, the point is, are the celebrations of his ousting in order? May be in Libya, but in sub-saharan Africa, a leader of Gaddafi's stature has long been prayed for. If replicated in sub-saharan Africa, his exuberance weighed against his success would be ignored, in the same way a lousy but successful superstar is tolerated. Every icon, rapper, sportsman or activist is afforded moments of madness. Celebrations of his death in that quarter will either be a delusion or a misinformation, or both. Cost free healthcare, uninterrupted electricity, stable and clean water supply and guaranteed education have not burdened the Libyan people. Granted, the greatest plague of man is the denial of freedom, or democracy in real terms...but man must also learn to listen, to listen to a greater freedom that exceeds institutionalism. In Walter Beverragi's words, democracy and liberalism are the twin evils of modern, decadent society (that most of democratic Africa already is).

Why wasn't Gaddafi rescued by any of the Arab Nations? Could it be because of his defection subsequent to being frustrated that the Arab super power he so pushed for was never supported? Could this be why he was left alone to "shout in the desert" when he needed a friend? But what is certain is that Gaddafi was a smaller Rogue than Idi Amin, a more rabied pup embraced for 24 years in the same zone after killing 300,000, and surprisingly, was never even teased with extradition orders. Whilst the latter called himself "His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular", the former preferred to be only Colonel Gaddafi, long after his peers elevated him to Major General. And while we called him that, he chose the title of "Guide of the Revolution". Simply put, it takes more than dictatorial powers to lead for 42 years and to survive 7 assassination attempts between 1969 and 1998.

Now the new Libya must show to be better without Gaddafi, free healthcare must get even better, as much as free education and an improved living standard. The Libyan people must reject templates for economic and social progress and make of that country what their enthusiasm on TV only suggests. Anything less and Gaddafi will find loud laughter, in heaven or hell. Hero or Villain? The new Libya will answer...and we are watching.

And as you dread Ramsey's next one nil to the Arsenal, I'd be dreading his first hattrick!

iRespect Steve Jobs.

It's been a week of grief with the passing of Steve Jobs. And yes, it's true, many have died for noble causes without a fraction of the recognition Steve has got. But I guess that's what it makes it more noble for them, to affect humanity and die without recognition for me is the highest form of nobility. So this brief article, without regret, joins millions of others to deny Mr. Jobs his already endangered nobility.

First of all, thank you Steve. You didn't just invent things, you created our needs. You earned a fortune for yourself, yes,

but your 7 billion dollars net worth as wikipedia tells me today is wretched by the standards of time. The media tell us that you were not a charitable person, that you scrapped corporate social responsibility schemes at Apple after your second coming. But we know that you lived your private and professional life in secrecy, I can bet £50 that you were a secret giver. All we see are iPods, iPad, iPhones and Macs, and the bills we pay for them. We don't see the millions of people you have enriched, the small app developers in India whose families live on applications they sell through the iPhone. You gave their intelligence a lifeline.

We thought we knew you, but now we think we didn't. Your affinity with Buddhism, the deep meditations in the centre of your life. Your private moments and private battle with cancer, your insight into the future. We didn't know all of these. But the best you could do was inspire us, be assured that you have.

Rest in peace Steve!

Nigeria at 51. Always...always optimistic!

We were born not of fine politics, our nation's birth theatre echoed loud languages, and rued the ruses of "as soon as practicable". The colonial surgeons, by will or pressure, forfeited sweet cocoa in the west of the Niger, wealth beneath the East, and now with nostalgia, pyramids of grains heaped by the commitment of the Hausas in that dusty, audacious landscape. And then to the south, the Atlantic stayed ours, we gazed at the alluring scenery and vessel traffic.

And so we became a nation not of UN resolution, but from the courage of men, the self denial of the Tafawa Balewa of our history, sailing across the oceans through tricky currents of daylight and wild tides of nighttime in the multiethnic and multifaith company of our 100, 200 and 500 Naira faces, himself being only 5 Naira.To London and back in 1957, to London and back again in 1958, the voyage never less perilous, they returned with a constitution, our swaddling documents.

A nation, fresh in breath, Nnamdi Azikiwe-President, Tafawa Balewa-Prime Minister, Nation Building-The Agenda. Forlornly, ethnic factionalism began to pull the handbrake of a toddling state set in brave motion more by character than by scheme...we jerked to 1966, and in the mid days of the first month, the lifeless body of Sir Balewa awaited picking by the roadside near Lagos.And the Sardauna, slain by the stroke of the same coup, both were in unity with older spirits, with the Dan Fodios. In stepped Aguiyi-Ironsi with the suicidal Decree No. 34, with the calendar turning only 7 times, he was shot by the order of Theo, the Jukun Soldier. Not resting on old heads but on the young shoulders of the man trained in Sandhurst, the young nation brazed itself to counter the intentions of Ikemba. For three years, 1967-1970, 3 million armed men and civilians fell to bullets, malnutrition and disease, but Nigeria won and fire ceased. Only 10 years old, the child labour of Reconciliation, Reconstruction, and Rehabilitation beckoned.

60 months later, democracy still procrastinated and Gowon caught offside in Kampala, Radio Nigeria's makeshift presenter voiced:

'Fellow countrymen and women, I, Colonel Joseph Nanven Garba, in consultation with my colleagues, do hereby declare that in view of what has been happening in our country in the past few months, the Nigerian Armed Forces decided to effect a change of the leadership of the Federal Military Government.
As from now, General Yakubu Gowon ceases to be head of the Federal Military Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria. The general public is advised to be calm and to go about their lawful duties'.

With Gowon ousted to Hertfordshire, in came the face of 20 Naira, with "fellow Nigerians" and "with immediate effect" on his lips, and the ammunition against corruption, inflation and gerrymandering. But not for too long, nearing 8 months of popularity, Ramat sipped the bullets of Buka Suka Dimka through Mercedes glass shields. Who stood up? The Balogun of Owu, he promised democracy straightaway and shook the hands of the Turakin Sakkwato on this day in 1979. "One Nation, One Destiny" promised the bespectacled Fulani...but when the pockets of fraud and public indiscipline fattened, the slender uniformed chieftain of the war against it toppled bloodlessly on the last day of 1983. Corruption not abating, history gave us gap teeth for gap teeth, the genius of our own Maradona in military regalia. No more Reconciliation, Reconstruction, and Rehabilitation but the Structural Adjustment Program, the little General mortgaged our future to the IMF and dribbled the nation beyond the promise for democracy in 1990, in the process nutmegging Orkar in a Dodan Barracks two-a-side game of coup, and journalists did not live to read their letters. Deep into extra time, exhausted from dribbling, he moved the goal post MKO attacked in gorgeous route one fashion for a sterile victory. In Ernest, 33 years old, middle-aged Nigeria was headless under a Transitional Council. Off the bench came the General behind tinted glasses, cheeks lined with Kanuri marks, corruption will be monumental, he decreed:

'The Interim National Government is hereby dissolved.
The National and State Assemblies are also dissolved.
The State Executive Councils are dissolved.
Decree 61 of 1993 is hereby abrogated'

Yet, with the first gap teeth in the PTF, roads were tarred and networked, hospitals and schools were supplied for five years until private fatality consumed the man with the best fitting for every hat. One year on the job, the last Gwari General stepped aside for a man just freed from prison and not backed by his kinsmen but by antecendence- the return of Aremu, the Balogun of Owu. 1999-2007, power, education, security, transportation, healthcare still wishful thinking. In the same style as 1979, he shook the hands of a slim former teacher thinned to his grave to the ascension of another man wholly representative of his name in 2011. The handbrake never reclined.

In spite of these, what makes us 51 is the character Sir Balewa sailed with, and the spirit of compatriots who by ignorance or awareness, by confidence or delusion, and without connection to things but the failure of a fatherland may fret in their ambitions but never in the belief that one day the Nigeria conceived in 1960 will come true. This is how we are 51, hope is the teeming lubricant of this engine with 160 million moving parts. We are 51 because we were never a political or ethnic calculation, but a human calculation and we exist for things extraethnic, extrareligious, and extrapolitical. Always...always optimistic!

Steps Back Home

From the Greenland we have come, all of us from one heritage, to the north the kingdom of the pharaohs with the sacred sun to the South where Madiba was born on the banks of the Mbashe River, to the West that is Chinua Achebe’s home, where special intellect scripts deft literature; and then to the East, where the divine, Haile Selassie I, descendant of King Solomon lived in our fathers’ youth. From this land we come, motioned by rocking dance to the jingle of burdensome rhythm, still connected by a spirit that is unseen, a resilient one, a black one by which we are charmed to thrive and not be chastised.

To many other lands we have gone in suspended engines, to the lands of the Gettysburg Address and King Henry’s, to the lands once conquered by the Raffles, lands that slaved the signing of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty in centuries that long ago awaited our birth. In that time, when men lived like men, with hard-knock brevity, when culture was identity and identity was a man’s forte; there was nothing different between the Niger and the Malaya, nothing different in the Singapura and the Nairobi; nothing at all. Chinua, how things fell apart.

We still go, many of us, born in wards of privilege within districts of clear lack, baked in the ovens of care; but ahead of others we choose to go, ahead of those born few metres away, where hope and health, love and respect, esteem and common sense have never been neighbours. How far can we go…till we tip over the edges of the earth? Can we still ignore?

No, we have seen enough, they build towers in pairs, tubes beneath the earth, calmly travelling under gravity. Oh we have seen enough, it is not here nor there we want to thrive but in our Greenland, spurred by our coloured heritage in the tales of forebears, and feeling again the meaning of being Zulu and Xhosa, Idoma and Igede, Igbo and Maasai, or the intensity to scream tswana syllables, that's when we discover ourselves for a second time.

So this day we vow, descendants of the horned continent, we lead ourselves back, chins held high, we have seen the best of the rest, and at home we shall bring out first our pride and then our love before blocks and knowledge to build from our hearts. And then we shall bring out the old and the sick, the young and the mentally lifeless, to breathe that special air of the green grass on which we play jabulani. Leading the troops, Matthew and Kelly, let’s go home…let’s go home…let’s take steps back home.

Smelt the face of DEATH!

This is the second time I write beyond politics in this space,and this is truly beyond, indeed it is "death", the beyond itself. Gahtan, my Tanzanian friend and I boarded the KLIA Express Train at about 9:22pm on Sunday, the 22nd of August after we broke our fast. The KLIA Express is perhaps the most executive of the trains around here but we soon found out it had other things to offer, like to remind us of how mortal we are, how much our lives are not in our hands and what it means to snap out of this world.

Baaaaannnnnnnngggggg!!!!!Came the sound from behind, a not so fast train had collided with us. Hmm, not so fast with that bomb-blast-esque sound and impact just spells how lucky we were. The impact was no less felt than a high magnitude earthquake, but we were not consumed. I wish those with sprained and dislocated bones a quick recovery, and hope that they discover no more than seen or felt at the time. Gahtan and I were totally unscathed.

People of Mandela, it is not to recount the accident that this is written, but to say how fast we must move in this mission called life to impact on others, because it might be all gone in a twinkle.I do not proselytize here, but this favourite prayer of mine by St.Francis tells us exactly what to do before it's all gone, beyond us and beyond our reach.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.


O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.


And by the way, the face of death was phenomenally ugly, nothing smelt worse!

South Africa 2010: More than football, more than the round leather

People of Mandela, it's not over yet but it is safe to say South Africa has done itself proud, and the entire continent even prouder but being the people that we are-People of Mandela, we draw more than pride but purpose because we know that beyond this hill lies another and another.

Unfortunately, Madiba lost Zenani and was unable to be there. I hope we get a party for his 92nd birthday next month. What a fulfilled man he Madiba must be, it was Rugby to unite White and Black South Africans, now it is football to unite the World.

Indeed in South Africa, the world has come together to stand apart from the prejudice and deprivations it riddles in. We hope this unity goes beyond the turf, to create a platform for more inclusiveness and skillfulness in our global polity. We hope it sends a message that together, we can be hosts of eachother. We hope to see that South Korean spectator with the placard "We are friends for 90 minutes" in support of North Korea remove that time limit and say "We are friends". We hope it sends a message to other African Nations to take their socio-economic development needs seriously, not to say South Africa is there yet, but the country has shown sufficient potential. We hope, we hope, we hope...

Because we hope, whoever wins the tournament, the World is the Champion!

GUESS WHAT BITCHES?!?!?!?

working on some new pieces and drawings....started atleast three.....

this is your fault chandler....

"I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it"
=================- Whitney Houstank

Stereotyping! You’re in no Position to be a Moral Judge

Only a petite few would have heard of Louis Farrakhan, the Afro American Head of the Nation of Islam (NOI) in the US; but most of us, white or black, Africans or non-Africans know about stereotyping and have either been champions or victims of it. If you’re like me and you like to observe how people react to skin colours and typecasts, you’d find stereotyping comically entertaining. But if you don’t and you think it’s a social mayhem and anomaly, this piece is for you.
Straight to the point, I am Nigerian! Haha…what are your thoughts at the moment? You’re either thinking “here they go again, being noisy in every place” or “gosh…how did he get a chance to write in this space” among other things, the thoughts are yours and I do not know them all. What I know for sure nonetheless is that you are stereotyping, you judge me on prior assumptions that Nigerians are rude, loud, unproductive, unserious, dubious etcetera.
You won’t get from me the kind of response Mike Wallace got in that famous 1996 interview with Louis Farrakhan. Mike Wallace, the highly rated Journalist labeled Nigeria the most corrupt nation on earth and what a response he got. Louis Farrakhan said in summary “NO! You are in no position to be a moral judge so let’s not play holy and moralize on them”. It was sterner than that, you can see for yourself with this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bktQsfARjdU&feature=related.
In my judgment, the effort to understand individuals against the groups they belong to is more objective to do than to rest in the comfort of stereotyping and “playing safe” when dealing with different races or a nation’s people. Margaret Mead was spot on when she said “instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful”. I do not claim ignorance, there are bad Nigerians but there are also too many admirably good ones.
If you care to know, we are a country of over 250 ethnic groups with piercingly diverse ways of life and languages united only by Geography and Nationhood with a population of over 140 million brought together by colonization. The problems we face and the stereotypes borne are the seepages of all big populations with scarce resources; I refrain from naming other such countries.
I was at Low Yat Plaza recently and the Chinese fellow at a counter would just not talk to me, I tried to inquire the price of a camera I liked and the response I got was “Stupid”! That’s everything he said. I paid a price in that way and in other ways every other day for being Nigerian, but again it was and still is free entertainment to me. I won’t talk about the generic stereotypes here, but most people don’t know or think that some dark skinned People around are not Nigerians, and so they judge by Stereotype or treat all Africans by prior assumptions. But, I do not extricate myself and my compatriots from any wrongdoing, neither do I detest fellow Africans, I embrace you all because we are a great people. I do not also think that all Malaysians refer to me as stupid by their words or in their thoughts, I know and we should know that we are in no position to be moral judges.
I love my country, I love Nigeria but I love your country too. The entertainment continues!

Days of Jackflection

There's a place in your heart, and I know that...
Heal the World, make it a better place, for ...
I'm talking to the man in the mirror...

Lyrics of a man cursed by fame, redeemed by his death.

I must have thought I'd die before Michael Jackson, I didn't think any funeral would challenge the grief and significance of John Paul II's in my lifetime. He voiced the rhythm of civilization, he danced our souls out and sharpened music to be subtle but earsplitting, every thing about him was an incredible blast.

In the last days, boys like me, People of Mandela, must have been struck by the surge to escort Michael Jackson to his resting place and immersed in the deepest reflection, a jackflection. More than his music, he championed the fight against HIV/AIDS, he sang for freedom, for the earth in earth song, for people, for people of Mandela...he sang for humanity. Civilization would have endured massive boredom without the moonwalker, even in the bubble he lived...he sang into the hearts of a planet more than if he was a personal friend, he had a wireless affection, e-affection from an electrical performer, the King of Pop.

How much he loved children, he loved little things, tender in his heart, gentle in his voice, he wore tattered clothes to win privacy in public, a star too human he was and like the biblical one, he led us to musical satisfaction, the kind of star you wanna see every night, like those three lined up in a straight line in the sky above my childhood backyard. Michael had talent the height of the sky!

As we jackflect,we are reminded once more that talent is different, it is in music, in sports, in academics, in medicine, in warfare, in engineering and all human enterprise, but it is all in service of a people. Michael served us, he tickled our ears and our hearts spinned in excitement, that was service!

If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and then make a change!

The Paradox of our Time

It's always politics when I write but today, the business student that I am presented something old in a new way to me. I just got back from my Strategic Management class, it's the most mind blowing subject for all business students around and thankfully, Dr. Winnie, my favourite lecturer is the instructor for the subject. She's not a Mandelatic like me, born over 50 years ago, she's a Harry Porter fan.

Dr. Winnie will always immerse exciting photos and stories in her lecture notes, from Hollywood images to grand business models, what she does is always amusing and prolific. Today, she shared with us "The Paradox of Time", she said it was profound, If it's known to you, it wasn't to me. People of Mandela, search your souls, reflect and enjoy below the paradox of time:

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints; we spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy it less.

We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time; we have more degrees, but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, but more problems; more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get angry too quickly, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too seldom, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life; we've added years to life, not life to years.

We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We've conquered outer space, but not inner space; we've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul; we've split the atom, but not our prejudice.

We write more, but learn less; we plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait; we have higher incomes, but lower morals; we have more food, but less appeasement; we build more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication; we've become long on quantity, but short on quality.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men, and short character; steep profits, and shallow relationships. These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare; more leisure, but less fun; more kinds of food, but less nutrition.

These are days of two incomes, but more divorce; of fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throw away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer to quiet to kill.

Madiba's image

Nelson’s image before he was the president in the Afrikaans press was a very bad person who influenced the county and he was in jail several times for causing troubles tin the country. The Afrikaans press represent nelson as very dangerous person to the community. He was always the accused number one in the Revonia trial to life. However, his people knew that he was fighting for them. And they took Mandela as a very remarkable man. But now, Nelson is portrait in a well mannered way. He is well respected. His relationship with the media is a very good one, because the media always represent him as big world peace-maker. Since South Africa has been reluctant to commit forces to international peacekeeping operations, but actively pursued political solutions to international crises by diplomatic means. Nelson has been the symbol all over the world not only because of unyielding the resistance to racism and despotic rule, but also of reconciliation with the enemy.

Nelson as president

As a president he never did things for publicity, he did them because they needed to be done. Little is it known that the same day that he had comforted the family of a black girl shot "accidentally" by a while farmer, he'd taken a helicopter to the home of a dying 12-year-old white African girl, who was suffering of leukaemia, whose dream was to meet him. Its amazing that a politician today has managed to free himself from his schedule and grant a dying girl's wish without making publicly known (learn to question). As president of South Africa, Mandela was committed to the principles of Western democratic parliament system. He did however, address the dilemma of how involve traditional tribal leaders in the political structure (Hagemann 1995:152). He was described as a strong personality by his colleagues.

Mandela's characteristics

Media highlights most of Mandela’s characteristics, but ignores the fact that he was not the only black South African who fought for democracy. The fact that he did not go to the exile alone, where are the other freedom fighters? Apart from those who died on strikes? Through ANC, Nelson became the first black South African president. In the form of class, the right political leadership in modern democratic societies based on the consent of those are led. unlike in the past where the ruling class could establish its ruling through force, repression or terror. The media has changed the class and status of Nelson Mandela. This essay will look and focus on Madiba’s status as the first black president and the particular role that he plays through the media to the nation. Nelson is used in commercials subjected to variety of influences. He is influential and can help the media to maintain their profitability

mandela's uniqueness

Factors that made him unique and form part of his personality or his image are the class and race. Before the democracy, Nelson was presented as the economic gains black people have made and the lack of progress they have made in terms of how they were seen by the others. Berger wrote that ‘even when black people are shown at the summit of their achievements, they often fail to carry it off’. In a way, Nelson proved Berger wrong. Behavior of people who are minorities is frequently interpreted in this binary form of representation with complementary polar oppositions such as good or bad and civilized or primitive. Hall said that black people always shown ‘being good at something, winning at last!’(Berger 2005:169). A political power determines how people are being represented, classified, stereotyped and made different. Mandela was, in a post-apartheid, as a negative stereotyping, but now the media portrayed him in positive and influential way.

representation

Nelson Mandela represents the black social group. He was the first black South African president. He is represented in a well respected manner, because of his repetition of being the world savior and for sacrificing his entire childhood for his country. The media represent him based on his skin color. He has his name on streets, roads, bridge, buildings and others. Race has seen to be an issue in dipicticting males; it has been argued that black men seem to be much more on display than the white men (Briggs & Cobley 2002: 329). Race after apartheid is not simply a matter of discarding or embracing already formed racial positions, but of renegotiating it in a new context. Race itself is significance as a ground for politics and category for the organization of daily life (McCarthy 2000: 8). Most covers we see on men’s’ magazines are of a well known politicians or other public officials, not because their body matters, but power and representation of more abstract value (Briggs & Cobley 2002: 331). Because Madiba is a first black president, he was presented as a man who rescued South Africa from the apartheid and he brought peace and reconciliation amongst different cultures.

What is Next For Sri-Lanka's Minority?

Ok, the War is over, we're at peace, generations born within the last 25 years can claim 0 bombs in the inner cities and countrysides for the first time. We're happy ain't we?

Well, just a reminder, the War never really ends when issues that precipitated it remain unsolved, or at least when negotiations to solve them have not been inspired. What is the degree of good we derive from peace when the welfare of the people continues to be abused, very marginal if any. What is the guarantee of lasting peace if compensations and compromises and an improved relationship is not emphasized? Zilch I tell you, People of Mandela.

Let us not make the mistake we so often make, forgetting the intrinsic reponsibilities of our national lives and obligations. So we say to those in Sri-Lankan Authority, this is the time not only to clear the debris of War, but to strenghten National Reconciliation, to promote unity and a common destiny for majorities and monorities alike. In R words, this is the time for renewal, reconciliation, revival, revamp and reconstruction.

We the People of Mandela in the spirit of Madiba the great one, who brought peace to people of majorities and minorities through dialogue, send half congratulations to all peace loving Sri-Lanka's for the victory that pacifies them, but we ask the government to effectively congratulate the people with the machinery of good governance, national cohesiveness and a sense of affection for all tribes especially minorities. Only when this is achieved would we send full congratulations, let's watch on!

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela( Madiba)

Rolihlahla a Xhosa name that signified that he could be a troublemaker. his clan honorific Madiba associated him with his aristocrafic Thembu lineage[...]Nelson, [...] imprinted his life with the name of one of the imperal Britain's naval heroes.(Ellen Boehmer.Nelson Mandela:A Very Short Introdution.p1) A man who is a hero in his own country, a country whose freedom he had to win. A living legacy of Mahatma Gandhi, The Gandhi(king) of South Africa, as known to the peeple of Burundi. A man who upon release greeted South Africa in the name of "peace, democracy and freedom for all". A father who atfer being politicaly imprison for more than 26 years Said he stood before us all not as a prophet but as a humble servant for all, and "places the remainder of his years in our hands". Mandela a man of steel, an unshakable, an absolute upright man, courageous, heroic, peace upholding, peace resembling and a father not only to me, but to all South Africans." [...] to be free is not merely to cast off one's chain, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others," this is what Mandela says in his poem Our greatest fear is not that we are inadeqeate, but that we are poerful beyond measure. You are the 'maker of your own destiny',and this is what Mandela believed.

Third marriage

Mandela remarried in 1998 on his 80th birthday, to Graça Machel, widow of Samora Machel, the former Mozambican president and ANC ally who was killed in an air crash 12 years earlier. The wedding followed months of international negotiations to set the unprecedented bride-price to be remitted to Machel's clan. Said negotiations were conducted on Mandela's behalf by his traditional sovereign, King Buyelekhaya Zwelibanzi Dalindyebo, born 1964. The paramount chief's grandfather was the regent Jongintaba Dalindyebo. Chief Jongintaba had arranged a marriage for Mandela, from which he fled to Johannesburg in 1940.[6]

Second marriage

Mandela's second wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, also came from the Transkei area, although they, too, met in Johannesburg, where she was the city's first black social worker. They had two daughters, Zenani (Zeni), born 4 February 1958, and Zindziswa (Zindzi), born 1960. Later, Winnie would be deeply torn by family discord which mirrored the country's political strife; while her husband was serving a life sentence on the Robben Island prison, her father became the agriculture minister in the Transkei. The marriage ended in separation (April 1992) and divorce (March 1996), fuelled by political estrangement.

Mandela still languished in prison when his daughter Zenani was married to Prince Thumbumuzi Dlamini in 1973, elder brother of King Mswati III of Swaziland. As a member by marriage of a reigning foreign dynasty, she was able to visit her father during his South African imprisonment while other family members were denied access. The Dlamini couple live and run a business in Boston. One of their sons, Prince Cedza Dlamini (born 1976), educated in the United States, has followed in his grandfather's footsteps as an international advocate for human rights and humanitarian aid. Thumbumuzi and Mswati's sister, Princess Mantfombi Dlamini, is the chief consort to King Goodwill Zwelithini of KwaZulu-Natal, who "reigns but does not rule" over South Africa's largest ethnic group under the auspices of South Africa's government. One of Queen Mantfombi's sons is expected to eventually succeed Goodwill as monarch of the Zulus, whose Inkatha Party leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, was one of the political rivals of Mandela, before and during his presidency.