Today was the turn of Port Elizabeth to hold a memorial service for our beloved Tata Madiba. A significant one because it was being held in the stadium bearing his name and presented by the Municipality named for Nelson Mandela.
All mourners were presented with a voucher for lunch and a cooldrink as they filed into the stadium.
Umhlobo Wenene’s Putco Mafani had the job of linking all the events together and of warming the crowd up. The estimated crowd numbers varied from 14 to 18 000 – my quick and dirty method of counting came to 16 000 attendees. One of the media wags said; “I am sure there are more unemployed persons than this in PE, though!”
Before the main proceedings the crowd were treated to entertainment by Chapter 3, Raven Blu, the East Cape Gospel Choir and the Lusanda Spiritual Group. Zahara arrived fashionably late but in time for her Madiba Tribute Song with ‘People’s Poet’ Mzwaki Mbuli.
As a political agnostic I found myself pretty disappointed in the fact that political parties other than the ruling one were conspicuous by their abscence. Maybe I was disappointed that the ruling party missed a wonderful opportunity to practise inclusion and well as having missed an opportunity to preach and convert others to their cause. One does think that if the poor number of attendees represent the voting majority then the ruling party needs to play a little bit of catch up before next year’s elections.
But, we were there to pay homage to a man that we all hold in high esteeem, a man who has transcended his poilitical party with grace and aplomb to become the world’s icon for tolerance and forgiveness – something that even the assembled clergy have failed to do.
I did have my own quiet moment and shed a tear to the memory of Nelson Mandela – rather fortuitously I might add as if there was a moment for quiet reflection and contemplation on the programme I missed it completely. Somehow I came away feeling robbed of the ability to have shared a powerful quiet moment with my fellow Africans as we gave thanks for an extraordinary life. But we still have Sunday to come, maybe that moment will manifest then.
In this time of mourning and reflection it gives me great satisfaction to hear speaker after speaker spout the words of Nelson Mandela that have been the ethos of MyPE from the beginning; “I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society. If need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
Images from today:
Alan Straton
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