Nelson Mandela Foundation

Statement of AU Commission Chairperson Dr Dlamini-Zuma at the AU memorial service in honour of Nelson Mandela, 8 December, Addis Ababa.

"Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela’s life must be understood in the context of the struggle of South African and African people, and indeed the struggle of oppressed peoples everywhere.

When Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in the village of Mvezo, Transkei on 18 July 1918, what was known during the First World War as the ‘Africa Campaign’ just ended a year earlier. This campaign affected Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Uganda and the DR Congo in the east and on the west Nambia, Togo, Cameroon and Ghana. Its conclusion was yet another reshuffling of African territories by colonial powers after the Berlin Conference of 1884.

In Madiba’s birthplace of South Africa, it was five years after the introduction of the infamous Land Act of 1913, an event which saw 80% of the population crammed into 13% of the country, making the majority of South Africans in the words of Sol T Plaatje, a pariah in the land of their birth.

This world of colonialism and apartheid into which he was born, and the resistance of the peoples of this continent, are what shaped Mandela."

Please click on the file below to download the full statement