Mandela: Tributes to a Global Icon by Toyin Falola (review)

In Mandela: Tributes to a Global Icon, Toyin Falola, the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker professor and university distinguished teaching professor at the University of Texas at Austin, has assembled moving tributes and other written expressions from world leaders and intellectuals to honor the memory of Nelson Mandela, who served from May 10, 1994, to June 14, 1999, as postapartheid South Africa’s first elected president. Mandela was born at Mvezo in the Cape Province on July 18, 1918. Deciding to retire after one presidential term, he died aged 95 at Gauteng, Johannesburg, on December 5, 2013; he was succeeded as president by Thabo Mbeki, who served from June 14, 1999, to September 24, 2008.

In the introduction, “Suffering and Struggling: South Africa, Apartheid, and Nelson Mandela” (pp. 1–13), Falola provides a brief but solid history of South Africa, a nation that “in the first half of the twentieth century was dominated by the establishment of white minority rule over the black population and the institutionalization of an apartheid policy” (p. 1). He divides the introduction into sections: “Historical Background” (pp. 1–3); “British Imperialism, 1870–1910” (p. 3); “The South African (or Boer) War and Its Aftermath” (pp. 3–4); “Minority Rule and Black Segregation” (pp. 4–5); “Apartheid Theory and Practice after 1948” (pp. 5–7); “The Fall of Apartheid and the Advent of Nelson Mandela’s Government, 1994–1999” and “Black Radicalism” (pp. 7–9); “Reforms” (pp. 9–11); “President Mandela in Power” (pp. 11–13); and “Suggested Further Reading” (p. 13).

Among the world leaders who contributed tributes are Shinzo Abe, Japan’s ninety-sixth prime minister (2012–present); Barack H. Obama, president of the United States; Joyce Banda, president of Malawi (2012–14); Kofi Annan, former UN secretary general; Tony Blair, former British prime minister; Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, former US presidents; Raul Castro, Cuban president; F. W. de Klerk, former South African president; Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, South Africa–born African Union chair; William Hague, Baron Hague of Richmond, British secretary of state for foreign and Commonwealth affairs; the Rev. Jesse Jackson, president of Operation Push; Goodluck Jonathan, former president of Nigeria; Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan; Uhuru Kenyatta, president of Kenya; John Kerry, US secretary of state; Ban Ki-Moon, former UN secretary general; Angela Merkel, German chancellor; Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwean president; Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister; Nancy Pelosi, US House of Representatives minority leader; Desmond Tutu, South Africa’s retired Anglican archbishop; Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s leader; and Jacob Zuma, South African prime minister.

Select world-class intellectuals and university professors contributed tributes grouped in five categories: A, “Mandela and Politics; World Leaders and Public Figures memorialize Madiba”; B, “Mandela in History: Scholarship on His Legacy”; C, “Mandela in the Media: Journalists and Activists”; D, “Mandela in Verse: Poetry and Tributes; E, Post-Mandela: After Madiba.” Among the verses honoring Mandela’s memory is a one-page “Praise Poem for Nelson Mandela” by President Thabo Mbeki, Mandela’s former vice president. Mbeki recalls that his late boss “walked along the road of the heroes and the heroines,” having “borne the pain of those who have known fear and learnt to conquer it” (p. 69). Daisaku Ikeda, 2013 president of Soka Gakkai International, submitted the poem “A Lion of Humanitarian Causes” (p. 55).

Apart from important photographs used for illustrative purposes, generous acknowledgments and images are interspersed in the texts. Most certainly, this volume should benefit experts, students of African studies, and general readers.