Obama tours Mandela's island prison
President Barack Obama is paying tribute to the man who inspired his political activism by taking his family on a tour of the island prison where anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela spent 18 years.
Mr Obama’s visit to Robben Island comes as Mr Mandela remains in hospital for a third week in a critical condition. Mr Obama was near the Pretoria hospital yesterday but did not see him and instead met privately with Mr Mandela’s relatives.
Mr Obama visited Robben Island when he was a senator but this time is bringing his family.
He said he is eager to teach them about Mr Mandela’s role in overcoming white racist rule, first as an activist and later as a president who forged a unity government with his former captors.
He told reporters he wants to ``help them to understand not only how those lessons apply to their own lives but also to their responsibilities in the future as citizens of the world, that's a great privilege and a great honour''.
Mr Obama, who has spoken movingly about Mr Mandela throughout his trip to Africa, praised the former South African president’s “moral courage” during remarks from the grand Union Buildings where Mr Mandela was inaugurated as his nation’s first black president.
“We as leaders occupy these spaces temporarily and we don’t get so deluded that we think the fate of our country doesn’t depend on how long we stay in office,” Mr Obama said during a news conference with South African president Jacob Zuma.
Mr Obama’s ascent to the White House has drawn inevitable comparisons to Mr Mandela. Both are their nations’ first black presidents, symbols of racial barrier breaking and winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. And Mr Obama attended his first political rally while a 19-year-old college student protesting against apartheid.
Mr Zuma said Mr Obama and Mr Mandela “both carry the dreams of millions of people in Africa and in the diaspora who were previously oppressed”.
Mr Mandela’s legacy also will be a prominent theme throughout Mr Obama’s speech later Sunday at the University of Cape Town, said White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes. The president will emphasise “the ability for societies to change,” Mr Rhodes said, along with the need for democratic development and empowering young people.
Mr Rhodes said Mr Mandela’s vision was always going to feature prominently in the speech given that the address will follow Mr Obama’s visit to Robben Island, the prison where Mr Mandela was confined for 18 years. But the former South African leader’s deteriorating health “certainly puts a finer point on just how much we can’t take for granted what Nelson Mandela did”.
Mr Obama will speak at the University of Cape Town nearly 50 years after Robert Kennedy delivered his famous “Ripple of Hope” speech from the school. Mr Kennedy spoke in Cape Town two years after Mr Mandela was sentenced to life in prison.
