On Mandela's Passing

I am not South African, but I mourn Mandela's passing as I think we must all mourn the extinguishing of a great light.

And while I am not a citizen of the rainbow nation, I have lived in this part of the world for what comes to basically half of my adult life, and so I also mourn Madiba, who remade this country into something so beautiful, so complex, so impossible.  Out of his idealism, his obstinacy, his sacrifices, his collaborations, his imperfections -- and those of so many, many other women and men here and around the world -- came a country that I strive to understand, and that I have come to love.

Hamba kahle, Madiba.

Today, in Cape Town, our meeting began with a moment of silence.  And as we stood there, a woman began to sing:

Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika
Maluphakanyisw' uphondo lwayo,
Yizwa imithandazo yethu,
Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo.

God bless Africa
Let it's horn be raised
Hear our prayers
God bless us, we are the family of Africa.

It was haunting.  And we sang with her.  We stood in silence, as South Africans, Americans, British, Swazi, Zimbabwean, and a dozen others, and then we sang, and people wept.  And I sang too.  It is a beautiful, haunting national anthem.  In full, it incorporates five different languages, including Afrikaans and English, an incredible symbolic gesture that I think really demonstrates the generosity of spirit and moral strength of the architects of this new South Africa.  And then the woman called:

Amandla!

And there was the response:

Ngawethu!

And then again, with fists raised in the air:

Amandla!
Ngawethu!

The power -- it is ours.

I don't have anything to say that has not been said more eloquently than anybody else.   Mandela was 95, and he was tired, and he had done more great work in his lifetime than anyone can aspire to -- nor would any sane person aspire to the physical, social, and emotional costs it took to accomplish the new South Africa.  So many died.  So many have been broken or damaged, maybe beyond repair.  But as perhaps you can tell from the pages and pages of other entries that precede this one, what came from that was a beautiful, troubled, brand new country.  A country that I love.  And so I will mourn with the rest in Cape Town.  And I too will sing Nkosi sikelela Afrika.

Hamba kahle, Madiba