Out of Africa

Credit: RICHARD LEWIS/AP

Today Nelson Mandela turns 90.

Not only does this man represent a sense of pride, progress and change for South Africans, he represents it for Africans as a whole.

He represents the moral integrity Africans need from the leaders to move forward into a better tomorrow.

Even in the Diaspora, he represents an image that is large than life.

He’s won a Nobel Peace Prize. He’s been TIME’s Man of the Year. He was South Africa’s first black president. He’s a man who changed history.

BBC has a collection of his most famous quotes. My favorite:

“The value of our shared reward will and must be measured by the joyful peace which will triumph, because the common humanity that bonds both black and white into one human race, will have said to each one of us that we shall all live like the children of paradise…

“But there are still some within our country who wrongly believe they can make a contribution to the cause of justice and peace by clinging to the shibboleths [dogmas] that have been proved to spell nothing but disaster.

“It remains our hope that these, too, will be blessed with sufficient reason to realise that history will not be denied and that the new society cannot be created by reproducing the repugnant past, however refined or enticingly repackaged.”

Here’s an interview he gave to CNN, looking back on his life. There’s also a series of news coverage on his life and how this landmark birthday is being celebrated. His life already is, and forever will be, memorialized.

Happy 90th Birthday, Mr. Mandela!

Update: If you’re in the Chicago area, on Monday, July 21, the Jazz Philharmonic is hosting a free concert in honor of Mandela’s 90th birthday.

In an earlier post, I wrote about Nigerians being killed and harassed in South Africa. Well, the violence against African immigrants in South Africa has been increasing. While the government is attempting to quell this issue, quite a few people have died and continued to be displaced.

One South African compares the country to America and it’s illegal immigration debates. She writes:

South Africa has been considered an inspiration to those fighting for freedom and equality through its grassroots movements for racial equality, voting reform and the unique way it has dealt with its violent past. In our appreciation of how far it has come, we seem to have forgotten that the struggles of the democratic South Africa are far from over.

Leading up to this, statements have been made bringing this growing xenophobia to the light and urging South Africans to flee from it. There had also been a call to naturalize the millions of illegal immigrants living in the country, many listed as refugees and receiving asylum.

So the U.S. has a list of “terror groups” that are basically blacklisted, in terms of our involvement with them, immigration rights, and all that jazz. Also, it’s considered illegal for Americans to even communicate with terrorist groups.

Well, if you’ve spoken to anyone who is/was a member of South Africa’s African National Congress (former president Nelson Mandela’s party), you’ve committed a crime.

Today (Thursday), the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a bill to remove the ANC from the terrorist blacklist. They’ve been on this list for over 20 years, since the legislation went into play in the 1980s.

Crazy, yeah?  

The bill was passed unanimously, as many Representatives had to say the following:

… the legislation introduced during the 1980s while Ronald Reagan was president is anachronistic and wrongfully labels as terrorists men and women who are heroes and freedom fighters.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said:

“… it is really a rather embarrassing matter that I still have to waive in my own counterpart, the foreign minister of South Africa, not to mention the great leader Nelson Mandela.”

Here are the stats in regards to South Africa:

This story published by IOL says that these statistics reveal that 2 million more South Africans are infected with HIV than the most recent government estimates show.

While we can’t expect everyone to get tested (as we’d hope they would), that number is kind of high. Two million more infected than current estimates? How is a government supposed to stop the spread of this disease, which is killing millions of Africans daily, if they can’t keep track of the numbers infected in the first place?

This might be a result of South African president Thabo Mbeki’s shallow views on AIDS. While the South African government has been doing a lot to reverse the effects of AIDS, Mbeki seems to feel that AIDS receives a disproportionate attention, given that poverty is Africa’s main problem — not the disease.

South Africa is seen as the most progressive nation on the African continent — at least in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, lately, the country has been in the news for a lot of things that aren’t considered so progressive.

For one, a lot of Nigerians are being killed and harassed in South Africa. How much of this is true, I’m not sure. But the Nigerian Senate is urging its federal government to issue a travel alert, and its definitely something to look into. South Africa, however, is listed as the country with the second highest number rate of violent crimes.

Also, here’s an editorial urging South Africans to live in harmony with foreigners, “in order to develop respect for human rights and bring peace and humanity to their communities.”