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Fesman2009

“Mandela Day” for a better world
mandela_dayNelson Mandela succeeded in reconciling the Blacks and the Whites and teaching them how to live together. « Mandela Day » organised on July 18th 2009, was the perfect occasion for the whole world to pay homage to this great icon, whom was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1993.
“By making scintillate our light, we offer the others the opportunity to do so,” said Nelson Mandela, in his inauguration speech in 1994. He himself made scintillate his light during sixty-seven years, in order to fight against apartheid and to build up a democratic, united, non-racial and non-sexist South-African society. Jacob Zuma, the current President of South Africa, stressed the impact of this light on humanity: “If there were only one history to be told of an icon that inspired the world by its humility and its humanity, it would be that of Nelson Mandela”.

In order to celebrate the 91st anniversary of this great icon that is the champion of the fight against apartheid, the whole world was gathered, on July 18th 2009, the date symbolising this year the "Mandela Day", following an initiative of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
At this major event in tribute to the first black President of South Africa, Mandela’s sixty-seven years of struggle, were transformed into sixty-seven minutes that the South Africans spent on different kinds of actions devoted to support the community. Thus, like in the case of "Madiba", the South Africans tried to overcome selfishness and vanity realising charitable activities such as cleaning schools, public parks, cemeteries or clinics.     

Moreover, as usual, the event was celebrated in music. Many celebrities such as Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin and France’s First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy paid homage to Mandela at a charity concert in the Radio City Music Hall in New York.

All profits raised at the "Mandela Day" were directly transferred to "46664", the association founded by Nelson Mandela and referring to the number that the 10th President of the Republic of South Africa bore during his 27 years of incarceration.     
Although Nelson Mandela was too weak to attend this concert for his 91st birthday, he stressed, in a press release, the importance he attached to the initiative of the "Mandela Day" in the following way: "Our struggle for freedom and justice is a collective struggle, and this is the meaning of the" Mandela Day ". The responsibility to work for a better world belongs to all of us”.