A giant arena is being built in view of Nelson Mandela’s home to stage the biggest funeral in South Africa’s history for him.

Final preparations are being made before more than 70 world leaders fly in this week to attend a series of events to mark the extraordinary life of one of humanity’s great peacemakers. They include Cuban leader Raul Castro and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe who could rub shoulders with British Prime Minister David Cameron and Prince Charles in an unprecedented gathering.

Iran’s Hassan Rouhani will also be among the heads of state flying in to commemorate Mr Mandela, as will U.S. President Barack Obama and former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter.





However, the Dalai Lama will not attend memorial services for his fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate in South Africa, where he has twice been unable to obtain a visa.

A spokesman did not say why the Buddhist spiritual leader is missing the memorial service in Johannesburg and funeral in Mandela’s hometown. He said only that ‘logistically it’s impossible at this time.’

South Africa blocked the Dalai Lama from attending a Nobel laureates’ peace conference in 2009, and stalled on a 2011 visa until the Tibetan leader withdrew the application.





Makgale said South African police, diplomats and intelligence services had been in touch with foreign delegations to protect visiting heads of state, including Mr Obama.

Millions of mourners are expected to attend the ten-day programme of memorial services announced by the South African government.





They will culminate in Mr Mandela’s funeral, which will be held in his home village of Qunu on Sunday. Prince Charles will attend, to represent the Queen.

Yesterday officials hastily announced three ‘overflow’ stadia would also be used, amid fears the Soweto stadium would not be able to cope with the number of mourners expected to pay their respects.

The former wife of Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela Madikizela, arrives for a mass in memory of late South African President’s Nelson Mandela yesterday. They also warned that security would be tight, telling people from outside the city area not to travel in. They said: ‘Our advice is that people outside Gauteng come together in their own provinces.’

Although officials have declared that all roads around the stadium will be closed to traffic, they have not explained how mourners will be able to get there.

Similarly, a government minister, Collins Chabane, struggled to explain how he would manage the crowds expected to view Mr Mandela’s body. He admitted he had no idea how many people would come, saying only: ‘We expect as many people as possible.’

Mandela’s body will lie in state for three days at Pretoria’s government buildings from Wednesday. The first day will be set aside for ‘VVIP’ visitors. From Thursday, members of the public will be able to file past the body, but will be banned from taking photographs.

However the most serious concerns relate to the funeral itself, which will be held in Qunu, the remote village where Mr Mandela lived as a child. It is accessible by only one minor road and the nearest airport, 20 miles away, is unable to accommodate more than a few aircraft at a time. Locals expect the entire area to be gridlocked as dignitaries, ordinary mourners and film crews descend for the funeral.

A senior South African diplomat said: ‘He is the hero of the planet. It’s going to be the biggest state funeral since Winston Churchill. I think any country would struggle to organise that.’

It is not yet clear who will attend the private funeral. It is understood that world leaders, particularly those with large entourages and special security needs, have been encouraged to attend the memorial in Johannesburg instead.

The service is expected to last for four hours, and President Obama is likely to deliver an address.

SOURCE: HERE

Eish, let me provide a little bit of clarity. There is the funeral on Sunday to be held in rural Qunu and then there is the memorial service tomorrow to be held in Johannesburg. There is no way that all these world leaders will make their way to Qunu, it will be a logistical nightmare. All the presidents of the countries of the world have been arriving since this afternoon, they will all fill up the Soccer City stadium tomorrow for the memorial severice. They will then leave and go back to their country after the service. It's a in-and-out type of thing.

Eg: The Americans have planned it such that Obama lands tomorrow morning, flies by helicopter to the stadium and flies back to the airport after the service.

I don't think that the funeral on Sunday will be as big as the memorial service tomorrow.

.

paniki: Eish, let me provide a little bit of clarity. There is the funeral on Sunday to be held in rural Qunu and then there is the memorial service tomorrow to be held in Johannesburg. There is no way that all these world leaders will make their way to Qunu, it will be a logistical nightmare. All the presidents of the countries of the world have been arriving since this afternoon, they will all fill up the Soccer City stadium tomorrow for the memorial severice. They will then leave and go back to their country after the service. It's a in-and-out type of thing.

Eg: The Americans have planned it such that Obama lands tomorrow morning, flies by helicopter to the stadium and flies back to the airport after the service.

I don't think that the funeral on Sunday will be as big as the memorial service tomorrow.

Paniki read this article and learn something:

Mandela legacy betrayed by hypocrisy

09/12/2013 00:00:00
by Bernard Bwoni



FIRST and foremost I would want to express my sincere condolences to the Mandela family, the people of South Africa for their loss and may his kind and selfless soul rest in peace. The man was a revolutionary first and global statesman second no doubt about that. It is quite endearing to see how the man was loved by so many, a hero to South Africans he helped liberate, a celebrity to those who once referred to him as a terrorist and detained indefinitely and a global statesman to those who heard about him.

Some have called him a “sell-out” who pandered to the whims of the racist apartheid system, some have labelled him a global icon and some Africans have remained neutral. Mandela brought political independence and peace to South Africa and at that contentious and crucial time political power was more than enough. Black South Africa had to learn to crawl before they could walk. The man deserves our respect as Africans. Let this African hero rest in peace after 27 years of torture, privation, humiliation and being broken by a racist and unforgiving system.

Let us respect and honour what Mandela stood for and not what he achieved or did not achieve and could not achieve. He was absent for 27 years and to be fair there was not enough time to achieve it all. The man has left a legacy for politically independent South Africa and for those who he forgave and indirectly or directly re-empowered. Africa has its heroes and legends and they are not worldwide political celebrities.

The Mandela legacy was hijacked by the same system that incarcerated and broke him. I sympathise with Mandela, a selfless man under siege from his own legacy due to the hypocrisy of a permanently irreversible racist system that continually manifests itself in duplicitous and disingenuous forms. One moment Mandela is a terrorist because of his pro-people policies, the next he is the world’s greatest statesman because his selflessness safeguarded the interests of white apartheid South Africa. It is quite insincere how the establishment wants the world to perceive this great son of Africa. He is portrayed as a man who forgave and forgot the evils of an unforgiving and relentless system that only serves its own interests and no one else; an unrepentant system that continues to deceive and misinform at the expense of the African continent.

Mandela was a fiery and uncompromising young black African revolutionary who challenged a racist and unjust system. A young man with the African ideology indelibly tattooed on his spirit. 27 years in penitentiary for that ideological tattoo he paid. That is the Mandela the western media circus will never celebrate. The Mandela the racist system broke down we respect for his resilience and humility. The man had a cause, a just cause for that matter. The worldwide media celebrity that got separated from the revolutionary we still respect and honour. The establishment that separated the revolutionary from the man Africa must forever guard against.

I always wonder why men of principle and uncompromising commitment to the African ideology such as Patrice Lumumba, Robert Mugabe, Kwame Nkrumah, Steve Biko, Amilcar Cabral, Thomas Sankara and Muammar Gadaffi just to name a few have been confined to the back pages of history books. The common defining feature about these Africans is their unswerving assiduity to the African cause, to upgrade and economically empower black African lives.

The selfless, humble and broken Mandela had no choice but to choose peace and political power over economic emancipation. On the other hand the forgotten and invisible visionary African leaders put emphasis on cascading real power down to the people, advocating for policies that focused on African self-sustenance and self-reliance and deconstructing that neo-colonial structure that continues to render Africans perennially indebted to those who subjugated and economically raped the African continent for centuries.

Who really defines our heroes as Africans? How come it is African leaders who focused on ameliorating black African people’s lives who are portrayed as demons and devils worldwide? Patrice Lumumba was mercilessly slaughtered for his people-orientated policies and his resistance to Belgian neo-colonial advances in the Katanga region. Thomas Sankara, a morally upright and pragmatic African legend who at the time of his brutal assassination owned a Renault 5 car, a handful bikes and received a $450 a month salary has never and most likely will never feature on the celebrity-crazy establishment media.

Robert Mugabe has endured unimaginable western media onslaught and demonization for his unwavering committal to economically empower the people of Zimbabwe through his people-focused land reform and indigenisation policies. Colonel Gadaffi was callously and cowardly murdered for it. Lumumba suffered the same fate, so did Cabral. The African ideology will never be allowed to take root because it goes against the 500 year plan to continually exploit the continent of its abundant natural resources until fully exhausted. Any ideology that seeks to economically empower black Africa will forever be suffocated and ridiculed.

It is quite disheartening that our heroes are being defined by those who have historically relegated Africans to perpetual serfdom and servitude. Mandela is an African icon, a legend and revolutionary, a young man who got up one day and said enough is enough of this injustice and racism and the price he paid for his dedication to the African cause was 27 years in prison. An Africa which decides and defines its own heroes is a truly liberated Africa. Let us respect and honour our heroes and never forsake them because the establishment said so. Let us honour our heroes and respect them for putting their lives on hold to liberate us all.

Bernard Bwoni (the African ideology will not die)

responses to above article:



Jukwa
• 7 hours ago

If the white man, the spawn of demons and HISTORICAL ENEMY of Africans, is suddenly praising an African, does this mean that the pale leopard has suddenly changes his sick spots?

Or is this laughable lauding of Mandela, just another tool from the wicked white man 'bag of tricks', a bag of tricks that have REPEATEDLY employed against those Africans who are in a state of mental slumber?

Lobengula was deceived by said devils.

Let the descendants of the Lobengulas of South Africa not forget that significant bit of the white invaders' history in Africa.

When the African is revolutionary for the liberties and empowerment of his people and preservation of his Ancestral properties, the white TRICK is to label said African a terrorist (YOUNGER Mandela) and imprison him; or murder him (Lobengula, Lumumba).

When the African is PERCEIVED (wrongly or rightly) as serving the interests of whites and at the expense of fellow Africans, said African is lauded with DISINGENUOUS praises!

As long as Africans remain alert to the fact that the Europeans ARE HISTORICAL ENEMIES of Africans, no tool in the boer 'bag of tricks' are going to divert African focus their righteous goal -- Uhuru for Africans in their Ancestral lands.

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Jukwa
• 7 hours ago

Mandela's history is a 'mixed bag'.

1. Those who like and benefit most from status quo in South Africa, are eager to present the aspect of Mandela's history that is perceived as being LESS ABOUT the liberty and empowerment of Africans in their own Ancestral lands. Living the splendor of STOLEN AFRICAN WEALTH, while Africans live the squalor in THEIR Ancestral lands, is the status quo the white THIEVES would like to preserve and promote in the FAKE lauding of the later Mandela.
The earlier version of Mandela, the real Mandela, was a so-called "terrorist", whom the USA CIA helped to imprison.

2. Awake Africans care more about the young, robust and revolutionary, which defines the earlier Madiba.
That is the content of the 'bag' that should be of most interest to Africans.

All this comical hoopla over Mandela by the deceptive, disingenuous, racist & THIEVING white invaders, is meant to lull Africans into a state of accepting status quo in South Africa. Africans should accept their pathetic state of squalor in THEIR OWN Ancestral lands. lol

Everyone with even a bit of intellectual candlepower, knows that it was the ACTION of the YOUNG African Lions and Lionesses of South Africa that ACTUALLY toppled the nazi apartheid of the invading and beastly boers?

So let the invading white THIEVES and their 'kith and kin' around the world, continue to focus on Mandela and the DELUSION that Mandela represented the toppling of apartheid and the future of South Africa. lol

Very soon the Mandela MYTH that the whites are trying desperately to promote, will be no more. lol

And 'REALITY ON THE GROUND' in South Africa will AGAIN rouse the Young African Lions and Lionesses to 'finish the job', which was suspended out of respect for the 'Old Man', the less revolutionary Mandela.

After all, no matter how much the FAKE outpouring FOR ONE MAN by the white tricksters, the bulk of the Africans of South Africa KNOW that they are STILL "Not Yet Uhuru"? lol



Avatar

The Fuhrer > Jukwa
• 3 hours ago


A bit of intellectual candlepower" that's killing me!!


Avatar

truth0001
• 12 hours ago

well said

finally someone with the talent and interllect to articulate whats at stake here....someone with diplomacy too...me, i dont have the diplomacy so here i go..

i was watching the news today and heard many western leaders talk about Mandela been the only human who sacrified so much for his people because steve biko was brutally murdered and quickly got ridden off, he therefore is less a hero than mandela?? how many hundreds of black leaders in africa languished in jail in thier fight against racism. Is the fact he was in jail for 27 not evedence of the fact he was not an effective a leader? zanu/zapu leadership strategised from jail and toppled the racist faster..and CLEARLY mandela failed to do the same this man has, if you look at it objectively, has been ineffective and inefficient as leader. He owes his popularity more to symbathy than by been an effective revolutionary


ZackieBwerawa > truth0001
• 5 hours ago



Though I hate to say it, " Why didn't he accept the conditions set out for his release, get released, lie low and when the prying apartheid eyes got tired hit the road to Lusaka and continue with the struggle?"

http://www.newzimbabwe.com/opinion-13418-Mandela+legacy+betrayed+by+hypocrisy/opinion.aspx

mukwerekwere > ZackieBwerawa
• 2 hours ago

What did you do for your countrymen? Gentlemen, let's not try to be too clever here. All you people having your subtle gos at him...you will never be half the man he was. The man admitted himself that he did not want to be a seen as a Saint, he wanted to be seen as a normal human being with flaws.... so you calling him out is not exactly news but shows you bear enmity to the man. The man is dead for God's sake, let him be. I'm pretty sure we have great leaders in our country hence Zimbabweans living the greatest standard of life ever on the planet.


http://www.newzimbabwe.com/opinion-13418-Mandela+legacy+betrayed+by+hypocrisy/opinion.aspx

I love this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGHq17MsnjM

I have read what Bernard Bwoni had to say and I haven't learned anything new. He should understand that Mandela was a hero to black South Africans before he went to prison, he was a hero while in prison, and he was more of a hero after being released.

Maybe you should watch this and learn

[flash]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKDrRdfvUg8[/flash]

With the media against you, it will be very hard to get people to see things they way people like Bernard Bwoni does...they always talk about peace and how he forgave all, yet those same people are as unforgiving as ever, and the same hand that praises the peaceful fool praises the unpeaceful invader for his unpeacefulness., look at France and Haiti, Israel and Germany, US and Middle east.. same praise different things.