A great light has gone out

The world yesterday mourned the death of Nelson Mandela, the most universally loved and revered leader in history, hailed as an “incredible gift” to humanity.
South African President Jacob Zuma announced an extended schedule of activities, befitting Mandela’s status as South Africa’s most beloved son, starting with a day of prayer tomorrow and culminating in a state funeral expected to rival that of Pope John Paul II in 2005.
“We should all work together to organise the most befitting funeral for this outstanding son of our country and the father of our young nation,” said Zuma, anticipating the massive logistical challenge ahead.
The president announced a memorial service to be held at the FNB stadium in Johannesburg, the venue of the 2010 World Cup final, on Monday 10 December, which is expected to be broadcast around the world. Mandela’s body will then lie in state in Pretoria for three days, in a glass-topped coffin allowing well-wishers to pay their respects. A funeral will be held on 15 December, attended by world leaders.
Mandela’s final resting place will be the modest village of Qunu in the Eastern Cape, a place where Mandela wrote in his memoir, Long Walk to Freedom, that he had spent “some of the happiest years of my boyhood”.
Mandela spent 27 years in an apartheid prison before becoming president and unifying his country with a message of reconciliation after the end of white minority rule. He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with South Africa’s last white president FW de Klerk in 1993.
The strength and breadth of Mandela’s global appeal was reflected by the range of tributes from world leaders, piling up with every minute that passed after his death at home in Johannesburg at 8.50pm on Thursday night.
Presidents and prime ministers, from Washington to Beijing, Havana to Delhi, from Jerusalem to the West Bank, all claimed to draw inspiration from the South African legend. Mandela set a benchmark for statesmanship against which all others have been measured.
It is not just the powerful who mourn his death. Many people, interviewed around the world, expressed their sense of loss, and in many places gathered to pay their respects.
Outside his house in the upmarket Houghton suburb and at his former residence in the once blacks-only township of Soweto, scores of well-wishers danced and sang old songs of struggle to celebrate the man they lovingly call Madiba.
Some in Johannesburg rushed from their homes in their pyjamas after hearing of his passing, while many brought along children too young to have known the brutal and racist South Africa that Mandela fought to overcome.
“I did not come here to mourn. We are celebrating the life of a great man. A great unifier,” said local resident Bobby Damon.
An impromptu shrine sprang up in London’s Trafalgar Square as people left flowers outside the South African embassy, scenes of countless anti-apartheid protests during his long imprisonment.
In Kiev, where Ukrainians have gathered for anti-government demonstrations around the clock for the past week, protesters took a moment to recall Mandela’s legacy.
In New York City’s Harlem neighbourhood, Franco Gaskin, 85, an artist, stood before a mural featuring Mandela that he had painted on a shop front almost 20 years ago. He remembered Mandela visiting there in 1990. “It was dynamic, everyone was so electrified to see him in Harlem,” Gaskin said. “I idolised him. He leaves a legacy that all of us should follow.”
Mandela, who made reconciliation and dignity the twin pillars of his political philosophy, sought to follow in the footsteps of earlier heroes of peaceful resistance such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, but not even they were lionised around the globe by so many leaders from such a wide ideological spectrum.
Flags flew at half-mast in numerous countries, including the United States, France and Britain and at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
In Paris, the Eiffel Tower lit up in green, red, yellow and blue to symbolise the South African flag while India declared five days of mourning for a man the premier labelled “a true Gandhian”.
US leader Barack Obama, his country’s own first black president led a global roll call of commemorations.
“I am one of the countless millions who drew inspiration from Nelson Mandela’s life,” said a visibly moved Obama. “And like so many around the globe, I cannot fully imagine my own life without the example that Nelson Mandela set, and so long as I live I will do what I can to learn from him.”
In the Middle East, the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, found rare common cause in paying homage.
“He was never haughty,” Netanyahu said. “He worked to heal rifts within South African society and succeeded in preventing outbreaks of racial hatred.”
Abbas said Mandela was a “symbol of freedom from colonialism and occupation” and his death was a great loss for Palestine, whose cause he championed.
“The Palestinian people will never forget his historic statement that the South African revolution will not have achieved its goals as long as the Palestinians are not free,” Abbas said.
Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, referenced his country’s own independence leader, Mahatma Gandhi. “A giant among men has passed away. This is as much India’s loss as South Africa’s. He was a true Gandhian. His life and work will remain a source of eternal inspiration for generations to come. I join all those who are praying for his soul.”
Gandhi spent formative years as a political activist in South Africa and Mandela knew Gandhi’s son Manilal, historians pointed out.
In London, David Cameron said Mandela was a towering figure: “A great light has gone out in the world. Nelson Mandela was a towering figure in our time; a legend in life and now in death, a true global hero.”
The Dalai Lama said he would miss his “dear friend”, whom he hailed as “a man of courage, principle and unquestionable integrity”.
Mandela is survived by three daughters, 18 grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren and three step-grandchildren.