Nelson Mandela Memorial Interpreter 'Was a Fake'

Man who provided sign language interpretation on stage for Nelson Mandela's memorial service, attended by scores of heads of state, was simply "making childish hand gestures" for hours

Read the Telegraph article here | Josie Ensor | Wednesday, December 11, 2013

The Mandela Coverage and the Banality of Goodness

FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela

THE GUARDIAN: To discuss Mandela alongside Mother Teresa, Gandhi and Jesus is barking mad. I bet he's laughing his head off right now

Enough is enough. The publicity for the death and funeral of Nelson Mandela has become absurd. Mandela was an African political leader with qualities that were apt at a crucial juncture in his nation's affairs. That was all and that was enough. Yet his reputation has fallen among thieves and cynics. Hijacked by politicians and celebrities from Barack Obama to Naomi Campbell and Sepp Blatter, he has had to be deified so as to dust others with his glory. In the process he has become dehumanised. We hear much of the banality of evil. Sometimes we should note the banality of goodness.

Part of this is due to the media's crude mechanics. Millions of dollars have been lavished on preparing for Mandela's death. Staff have been deployed, hotels booked, huts rented in Transkei villages. Hospitals could have been built for what must have been spent. All media have gone mad. Last week I caught a BBC presenter, groaning with tedium, asking a guest to compare Mandela with Jesus. The corporation has reportedly received more than a thousand complaints about excessive coverage. Is it now preparing for a resurrection?

More serious is the obligation that the cult of the media-event should owe to history. There is no argument that in the 1980s Mandela was "a necessary icon" not just for South Africans but for the world in general. In what was wrongly presented as the last great act of imperial retreat, white men were caricatured as bad and black men good. The arrival of a gentlemanly black leader, even a former terrorist, well cast for beatification was a godsend. » | Simon Jenkins | Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Nelson Mandela Memorial Service: Obama Eulogises 'Giant of History'

Celebrating one of his personal heroes, Obama praised Mandela as the last great liberator of the 20th century, urging the world to carry on his legacy by fighting inequality, poverty and discrimination

Read the Telegraph article here | Aislinn Laing, and Neil Tweedie at the FNB stadium in Soweto | Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Nelson Mandela Obituary Part One: One of the Most Inspiring Figures of the 20th Century

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Former President of South Africa, who guided the country from apartheid to democracy during a life filled with hardship and struggle


Nelson Mandela, who has died aged 95, was the architect of South Africa’s transformation from racial despotism to liberal democracy, saving his country from civil war and becoming its first black president.

This singular triumph crowned a tempestuous life, filled with hardship and struggle. Mandela spent 27 years behind bars, and more than a decade before that as a hardened enemy of the white supremacist regime, serving variously as street activist, guerrilla leader and township lawyer.

As such, he was the one man with the credibility to secure the political settlement that toppled apartheid and allowed the birth of a democratic South Africa in 1994. Not even the fiercest black radical could question Mandela’s devotion to the struggle and, by the same token, no white South African could doubt the sincerity of his remarkable gestures of reconciliation. » | Thursday, December 05, 2013

NELSON MANDELA OBITUARY PART 2: Stirring up trouble » | Thursday, December 05, 2013