Madiba

"Ahmed Kathrada says that his eulogy to Nelson Mandela was the most difficult speech he ever had to deliver. His words at the burial, ten years before, of his beloved comrade, Walter Sisulu, were written for him. In some way this protected his emotions at the funeral of the man he considered to be his second father. Then it was the speech speaking rather than Kathy himself. Madiba’s was different, he says, ‘I wrote it myself.’

On Sunday 15 December 2013, the time had come to say goodbye. Kathy walked slowly onto the stage in a giant marquee on Nelson Mandela’s farm in Qunu. There he stood before a huge portrait of a smiling Mandela, ninety-five candles representing the span of Madiba’s life, and his coffin draped in the South African flag. In front of him the four and a half thousand mourners. Mandela’s widow, Graça Machel, his former wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Row upon row of politicians, clergy, celebrities. President Jacob Zuma, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Oprah Winfrey, Idris Elba and Richard Branson among them. With emotion grabbing his throat, Kathy soldiered through the eulogy to Madala, the ‘old man’ as they called each other in later years. It was Kathy’s words that captured the hearts of millions in mourning.

'The last time I saw Madiba alive is when I visited him in hospital. I was filled with an overwhelming mixture of sadness, emotion and pride. He tightly held my hand – it was profoundly heart-breaking – and it brought all emotions in me. And my mind automatically flashed back to the picture of the man under whom I grew up. How I wished I’d never had to confront what I saw. I first met him 67 years ago and I recalled the tall, healthy, strong man, the boxer, the prisoner who easily wielded the pick and shovel when we couldn’t do so, the prisoner who vigorously exercised every morning before we were unlocked.

What I saw in hospital was a man, helpless and reduced to a shadow of himself. And now the inevitable has happened. He has left us to join the ‘A-Team’ of the ANC – the ANC in which he cut his political teeth; and the ANC for whose non-racial, non-sexist policy he sacrificed his whole life and for which he was prepared to die. He has joined the ‘A-Team’ of:

Chief Luthuli
Walter Sisulu
Oliver Tambo
Govan Mbeki
Raymond Mhlaba
Yusuf Dadoo
Jack Simons
Moses Kotane
Bram Fischer
Monty Naicker
JB Marks
Helen Joseph
Ruth First"