5 September 2013, 16:39. Africa/Lagos.
Nelson Mandela Statue To Be Unveiled In Nation's Capital
WASHINGTON, Sept. 5, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is being released by Brand South Africa:
A statue of former South African President
Nelson Mandela is to be unveiled on
September 21
at the spot where thousands of Americans from all walks of life
symbolically surrendered their liberty to demand Mr Mandela's release
from prison and the freedom of millions of South Africans from the bonds
of apartheid.
(Photo:
http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130905/DC74789)
The 9-foot statue by
Cape Town sculptor
Jean Doyle will stand outside
South Africa's
newly renovated embassy on Massachusetts Ave. The figure is modelled
from photographs of the South African statesman striding triumphantly to
freedom on
February 11, 1990, after 28 years of incarceration.
South Africa's Minister of
International Relations and Cooperation Maite Nkoana Mashabane and
former Deputy President Baleka Mbete, now chair of Mr Mandela's African
National Congress, will be among the dignitaries flying in for the
ceremony.
The US will be represented by senior administration officials,
members of Congress and civil rights leaders, including the four whose
sit-in and arrest at the embassy on
November 21, 1984, marked the birth of the Free South Africa Movement.
They were
Randall Robinson, founder of TransAfrica,
Mary Frances Berry, former chair of the US Civil Right Commission, Congresswoman
Eleanor Holmes Norton and her predecessor as DC delegate, Rev.
Walter Fauntroy.
They will be joined by Mark Cutifani, the new CEO of Anglo-American Corp., the South African mining group, and
David Constable,
CEO of South African's synthetic fuels and chemicals giant Sasol which
recently announced one of the largest direct investments in the US ever
by a foreign company.
In addition to Anglo and Sasol, donors include Old Mutual, Wal-Mart,
MTN, Skadden Arps, the Coca-Cola Company, Black and Veatch, Solar
Reserve, Standard Bank and
Stanley and Bea Tollman.
South African Airways, the national carrier, has also contributed
generously to the project and is transporting the half ton bronze plated
statue to
Washington at no charge.
Almost every day from
Thanksgiving 1983 through the following year, a cross-section of American society, from congressional leaders and celebrities like
Stevie Wonder to mothers pushing strollers, gathered at the South African embassy and peaceably had themselves arrested for trespass.
The campaign built momentum toward passage of the 1986 Comprehensive
Anti-Apartheid Act (CAAA), a bipartisan measure adopted over President
Reagan's veto (as retold in the current hit film, The Butler) to put
pressure on
Pretoria to release Mr Mandela and other political prisoners and begin negotiations for a new non-racial democratic order.
Skadden Arps partner and former White House chief counsel
Greg Craig, who as foreign policy adviser to the late Senator
Edward Kennedy played a significant role in crafting the CAAA, supported the statue project with legal services.
A plaque at the base of the statue quotes from Mr Mandela's address
to a joint session of Congress months after his release in 1990:
"The stand you took established…that here we have friends…fighters
against racism who feel hurt because we are hurt, who seek our success
because they too seek the victory of democracy over tyranny. I speak…of
the millions of people throughout this great land who stood up and
engaged the apartheid system in struggle. Let us keep our arms locked
together so that we form a solid phalanx against racism…Let us ensure
that justice triumphs without delay."
"We like to think this statue completes a golden triangle of monuments to leaders – Mahatma Ghandi, Dr
Martin Luther King and now
Nelson Mandela
– who have shown by their examples that while the arm of the universe
is long, it does not only tend towards justice of its own accord, it can
be hastened in that direction peacefully by inspired leadership,"
South African Ambassador
Ebrahim Rasool said.
The statue, a copy of one that stands outside the Drakenstein
Correctional Facility, where Mr Mandela spent his final years in prison,
faces onto Massachusetts Avenue, an artery that takes much of
Washington's elite to its offices downtown.
"Decisions that affect the world are made by men and women –
including the US Vice President -- who pass this way every day on their
way to and from work. We hope they may draw inspiration from this
reminder of a great South African," said
Simon Barber, US Country Manager for Brand SA.
Across the road is a statue of
Winston Churchill,
placed in front of the British ambassador's residence in 1966 by the
English Speaking Union, with right hand raised in the trademark
Churchill V-for-victory. Mr Mandela's right hand is raised in the fist
of a power salute.
"As you know," said Ambassador Rasool with a grin, "rock beats scissors".
SOURCE Brand South Africa
CONTACT: Simon Barber, simonb@brandsouthafrica.com, +1 202 276 5084
Web Site:
http://www.brandsouthafrica.us
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