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 President Jacob Zuma said Mandela would be buried on December 15
at his ancestral home in the Eastern Cape.
South Africans heard from Zuma late on Thursday that their first
black president, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, had died peacefully at
his Johannesburg home in the company of his family after a long
illness.
On Friday, the country's 52 million people absorbed the news that
the statesman, a global symbol of reconciliation and peaceful
co-existence, had departed forever.
Zuma also announced Mandela would be honored at a December 10
memorial service at Johannesburg's Soccer City stadium, the site of
the 2010 World Cup final.
"We will spend the week mourning his passing. We will also spend it
celebrating a life well lived," Zuma said.
Mandela would be laid to rest at his ancestral village of Qunu, 700
km (450 miles) south of Johannesburg, in a plot where three of his
children and other close family members are buried.
Despite reassurances from public figures that Mandela's death at 95,
while sorrowful, would not halt South Africa's advance from its
apartheid past, there were those who expressed unease about the
absence of a man famed as a peacemaker.
"It's not going to be good, hey! I think it's going to become a more
racist country. People will turn on each other and chase foreigners
away," said Sharon Qubeka, 28, a secretary from Tembisa township.
"Mandela was the only one who kept things together."
Flags flew at half mast across the country, and trade was halted for
five minutes on the Johannesburg stock exchange.
But the mood was not all somber. Hundreds filled the streets around
Mandela's home in the upmarket Johannesburg suburb of Houghton, many
singing songs of tribute and dancing.
The crowd included toddlers carrying flowers, domestic workers still
in uniform and businessmen in suits.
Another veteran anti-apartheid campaigner, former Anglican
Archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu, said that like all South
Africans he was "devastated" by Mandela's death.
"Let us give him the gift of a South Africa united, one," Tutu said,
holding a mass in Cape Town's St George's Cathedral.
Tributes continued to pour in for Mandela, who had been suffering
for nearly a year from a recurring lung illness dating back to the
27 years he spent in apartheid jails, including the Robben Island
penal colony.
U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron
were among those who praised him. The White House said Obama would
travel to South Africa next week to participate in memorial events.
The flags of the 193 United Nations member states along First Avenue
in Manhattan, New York were lowered at 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT) in
honor of Mandela. The U.N. General Assembly observed a minute of
silence.
The loss was also keenly felt across the African continent. "We are
in trouble now, Africa. No one will fit Mandela's shoes," said
Kenyan teacher Catherine Ochieng, 32.
Former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda, an old ally of Mandela's in
the struggle against apartheid, hailed him as "a great freedom
fighter".
POLITICIANS NOW "NOTHING LIKE MANDELA"
For South Africa, the death of its most loved leader comes at a time
when the nation, which basked in global goodwill after apartheid
ended, has been experiencing labor unrest, growing protests against
poor services, poverty, crime and unemployment and corruption
scandals tainting Zuma's rule.
Many saw today's South Africa — the continent's biggest economy but
also one of the world's most unequal — as still distant from the
"Rainbow Nation" ideal of social peace and shared prosperity that
Mandela had proclaimed on his triumphant release from prison in
1990.
"I feel like I lost my father, someone who would look out for me,"
said Joseph Nkosi, 36, a security guard.
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Referring to Mandela by his clan name, he added: "Now without Madiba
I feel like I don't have a chance. The rich will get richer and
simply forget about us. The poor don't matter to them. Look at our
politicians, they are nothing like Madiba."
The crowd around Mandela's home in Houghton preferred to celebrate
his achievement in bringing South Africans together.
For 16-year-old Michael Lowry, who has no memory of the apartheid
system that ended in 1994, Mandela's legacy means he can have
non-white friends.
"I hear stories that my parents tell me and I'm just shocked that
such a country could exist. I couldn't imagine just going to school
with just white friends," Lowry said.
Tutu tried to calm fears that the absence of the man who steered
South Africa to democracy might revive some of the ghosts of
apartheid.
"To suggest that South Africa might go up in flames — as some have
predicted — is to discredit South Africans and Madiba's legacy,"
Tutu said on Thursday. "The sun will rise tomorrow, and the next day
and the next ... It may not appear as bright as yesterday, but life
will carry on."
MAY HURT ANC IN LONG TERM
Zuma and his ruling African National Congress face presidential and
legislative elections next year which are expected to reveal
discontent among voters about poverty and unemployment 20 years
after the end of apartheid.
But the former liberation movement is expected to maintain its
dominance in South African politics.
Mark Rosenberg, Senior Africa Analyst at the Eurasia Group, said
that while Mandela's death might give the ANC a sympathy-driven
boost for the next elections, it would hurt the party in the long
term.
He saw Mandela's absence "sapping the party's historical legitimacy
and encouraging rejection by voters who believe the ANC has failed
to deliver on its economic promises and become mired in corruption".
Mandela rose from rural obscurity to challenge white minority rule — a struggle that gave the 20th century one of its most respected and
loved figures. He was among the first to advocate armed resistance
to apartheid in 1960, but was quick to preach reconciliation and
forgiveness when the white minority began easing its grip on power
30 years later.
He was elected president in all-race elections in 1994 after helping
to steer the divided country towards reconciliation and away from
civil war.
Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, an honor he
shared with F.W. de Klerk, the white Afrikaner president who
released him in 1990.
In 1999, Mandela handed over power to younger leaders better
equipped to manage a modern economy, a rare voluntary departure from
power cited as an example to African leaders.
This made him an exception on a continent with a bloody history of
long-serving autocrats and violent coups.
(Additional reporting by Ed Cropley, Dave Dolan, Tiisetso
Motsoeneng, Xola Potelwa and Stella Mapenzauswa in Johannesburg,
Wendell Roelf in Cape Town, Lou Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols in
New York, Brian Moonga in Lusaka.; writing by Pascal Fletcher;
editing by Matthew Tostevin, David Stamp and Giles Elgood)
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