Final goodbye: Madiba ‘comes home’ to rest

Relatives, political leaders and foreign guests attend last rites of Mandela.

QUNU: South Africa buried Nelson Mandela on Sunday, leaving the multi-racial democracy he founded without its living inspiration.

The Nobel peace laureate, who was held in apartheid prisons for 27 years before emerging to preach forgiveness and reconciliation, was laid to rest at his ancestral home in Qunu after a send-off combining military pomp with the traditional rites of his Xhosa abaThembu clan.

As the coffin was lowered into the wreath-ringed grave, three army helicopters bearing the South African flag flew over – a poignant echo of the anti-apartheid leader’s inauguration as the nation’s first black president nearly two decades ago.

A battery fired a 21-gun salute, the booms reverberating around the rolling hills of South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, before five fighter jets flying low in formation roared over the valley.

“Yours was truly a long walk to freedom, and now you have achieved the ultimate freedom in the bosom of your maker,” armed forces Chaplain General Monwabisi Jamangile said at the grave site, where three of Mandela’s children already lie.

Among the mourners at the private burial ceremony were relatives, political leaders and foreign guests including Britain’s Prince Charles and American talk show host Oprah Winfrey.

When his body arrived on Saturday in Qunu, 700km south of Johannesburg, it was greeted by ululating locals overjoyed that Madiba – the clan name by which he was affectionately known – had ‘come home’.

“After his long life and illness he can now rest,” said grandmother Victoria Ntsingo.  “His work is done.”

‘Greatest son’

Before the burial, 4,500 family, friends and dignitaries attended the state funeral service in a huge domed tent, its interior draped in black, in a field near Mandela’s homestead.

The flag-covered casket was carried in by military chiefs, with Mandela’s grandson and heir, Mandla, and South African President Jacob Zuma following in their footsteps.

It was then placed on black and white cattle skins in front of a crescent of 95 candles, one for each year of Mandela’s life, as a choir sang Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika – the national anthem South Africa adopted after the end of apartheid in 1994.

“The person who is lying here is South Africa’s greatest son,” said Cyril Ramaphosa, deputy leader of the ruling African National Congress, who presided over the three-hour ceremony broadcast live across the nation and around the world. In some locations, big screens transmitted the event live.

“Qunu is too far to go, so I gathered with some people here so we can mourn together. I can say he is a hero, a man of the people,” said 29-year-old Johannesburg resident Message Sibanda.

‘Farewell, my brother’

At the service, touching tributes were paid to the father of the ‘Rainbow Nation’ he helped forge from apartheid’s ashes.

“Farewell my dear brother, my mentor, my leader,” said lifelong friend and fellow Robben Island inmate Ahmed Kathrada, his voice cracking with emotion, drawing tears from mourners.

In his eulogy, Zuma paid tribute to a life that went from freedom-fighter to political prisoner to president. He also briefly turned attention to the future, pledging to continue Mandela’s quest for a free and equal society, free from racial discrimination.

“Whilst the long walk to freedom has ended in the physical sense, our own journey continues. We have to continue building the type of society you worked tirelessly to construct. We have to take the legacy forward,” Zuma said.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 16^th, 2013