Friday, 20 December – Thursday, 26 December 2013 issue 512
WWW.AFRICANVOICEONLINE.CO.UK
SINCE 2001
B R I TA I N ’ S N O . 1 A F R I C A N N E W S PA P E R Government set out to ban zero hour work contracts
New tensions as ex-VP accused of attempted coup
SEE PAGE 12
NOW REST
£1.00
SEE PAGE 17
Accelerating action to stop rogue EU benefit claims
SEE PAGE 22
By Alan Oakley
Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president and one of the modern era’s most iconic political figures, was laid to rest on Sunday in his ‘home’ village, Qunu.
The man who led a whole nation on its ‘long walk to freedom’ received a send-off befitting a national hero as fellow freedom-fighters, princes and princesses, potentates, dignitaries, business moguls and celebrities gathered from far and wide to pay tribute to South Africa’s “greatest son”. If one cannot escape the feeling that, having insisted on this humble final resting place, this man of the people would have been somewhat perturbed that his people and their traditions were largely ignored, then the silver lining is that the world is less ignorant of those people and traditions as a consequence. Mourners who turned out along the 19 mile route to Qunu from Mthatha air-
port complained bitterly that the cortege moved too quickly for them to see the flag-draped casket, never mind properly pay their respects and bid their liberator farewell. Efforts to observe the traditional burial rituals of Mandela’s Xhosa clan were somewhat thwarted by the scale of the event but 4,500 attendees and a global TV audience of hundreds of millions could never have been contemplated when those tribal funeral edicts were first conceived. Less forgivable, given the disposition of the man being honoured, was the cordon erected to keep out ‘undesirables’ but which also served to exclude the people a fit and healthy Mandela chose to spend his leisure time with. Even if he saw all South Africa’s oppressed - perhaps all South Africans – perhaps all the world’s oppressed - as his people, the people of Qunu were HIS people in its truest sense.
The front cover of Nelson Mandela’s funeral programme
Continued on page 2