•Mandela with his family during the celebrations…yesterday
South Africans rose in salute to their legendary former president, Nelson Mandela, who turned 94 yesterday, celebrating him with “67 minutes of good deeds”.
Leading the celebrations were no fewer than 12 million school children, who sang a specially composed birthday song for Madiba as Mandela is popularly known.
Each minute of the “67 minutes of good deeds” marks each year of Mandela’s struggle against white-minority rule. He was in prison for 27 years under the apartheid regime.
Mandela regained his freedom in 1990 and led the African National Congress (ANC) to victory in 1994 in elections that followed the post-apartheid years. He left office in 1999 after serving for one term.
Mandela marked the birthday quietly in his ancestral village of Qunu in the remote Eastern Cape province.
He spent the day with close family, friends and former United States (US) President Bill Clinton.
Clinton, accompanied by his daughter Chelsea, opened a new library for the No-Moscow Primary School in Qunu, ahead of his meeting with Mr Mandela.
He told the children - believed in the future and not the past.
“When I think about Mandela I always think about someone committed to the future,” Clinton said.
US President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, also paid tributes to Mr Mandela.
The US first couple hailed Mr Mandela’s “extraordinary life and steadfast commitment to the principles of democracy and reconciliation”.
Mandela’s birthday is traditionally celebrated with the poor communities receiving help from those who are more fortunate.
To celebrate the number of years Mr Mandela spent in public life, people are encouraged to spend at least 67 minutes of their time helping those who are less fortunate.
The guest list for a private lunch with Mr Mandela was kept a closely guarded secret.
South Africans celebrated with giant cakes, mass renditions of “Happy Birthday”
But beyond the mawkish tributes to South Africa’s first black president, the day revealed the unseemly scramble among companies, politicians and charities for a slice of the reflected glory of “Madiba”.
The ANC released a 1,450 word eulogy to its totemic former leader, exhorting the country’s 50 million people to “continue to build the South Africa of Madiba’s dreams”.
Yet only last week, anti-apartheid heroine and Mandela ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was accusing the ANC in a leaked letter of “shabby treatment” of the family and wanting to wheel them out only “when we have to be used for some agenda”.
The “67 minutes” Mandela Day charity push has also re-opened old wounds amid criticism it is merely a vehicle for whites and the newly rich black elite to assuage the guilt of living at the top of what remains one of the most unequal societies, even 18 years after the end of apartheid.
Leading the charge was Luther Lebelo, head of an ANC branch in Johannesburg, who wrote an article in the Sowetan newspaper suggesting the day was about “little cosmetic charity activities” that only served to perpetuate class divisions.
The Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory, as the official guardians of his image are known,
hit back in the same paper, taking particular exception to Lebelo’s reference to the “so-called Mandela Foundation”.
The jibe reflects a view widely held among South Africa’s overwhelming black majority that whites have managed to co-opt Mandela and his image since the first all-race elections in 1994.
The Mandela centre has also become embroiled in a commercial battle with members of his family over the selling of Mandela-branded clothing via its ‘46664’ fashion range, named after the number he was given during his 27 years in prison.
