He was a great man:
Former South African President Nelson Mandela died peacefully at his Johannesburg home on Thursday after a prolonged lung infection, President Jacob Zuma said.
Mandela, the country's first black president and anti-apartheid icon known in South Africa by his clan name of Madiba, emerged from 27 years in apartheid prisons to help guide South Africa through bloodshed and turmoil to democracy.
I had fears of his rise to the presidency--despite the rightness of the cause of achieving majority rule--and he guided his country into a democracy.
Communists who led rebels against minority rule could have made South Africa far worse than it was. You have only to look at Zimbabwe as an example of how bad can become worse. Mandela had the moral force to prevent that.
South Africa has great problems, still, but the country is far better than it was, under his guidance and example.
Rest in Peace.
UPDATE: No, Mandela did not teach a continent to forgive. Wasn't it enough to have done that for South Africa in a critical moment of time? That alone was an impressive feat without making a ridiculous boast.
Africa is where more than half of UN peacekeeping forces are, and then remember that Somalia, Nigeria, and Libya don't have UN peacekeepers.
Don't put that record on Mandela.
UPDATE: More here along the lines I was addressing. I think we can be grateful that Mandela achieved majority rule in 1994 rather than in 1984 when the Soviet Union was a force to be reckoned with. I suspect that made a difference.
