Capped, gowned and glowing, with his Rhodes University honorary doctorate in hand and more than 50 others from other universities across the world in the bank, former president Nelson Mandela said on Saturday he wished for one more thing.
He told of how one day he had dialled a wrong number and a “lady” had answered. Unsure of his telephonic whereabouts Mandela had queried who was on the line. The woman refused to say and instead demanded who he was.
“As we were debating who should say first who the other was she became impatient.” She accused him of being backward and uneducated and queried if he had a matric.
Mandela replied that if a matric certificate was what was required to speak to her, he would “work hard” so that he could then be “in the same class” as she.
She informed the then president that he could “never be in the same class” as herself and banged down the telephone.
“How I wish she was here now,” said a beaming Mandela, waving his honorary degree in laws (LLD). “Then she could see me passing matric.”
Mandela urged the other graduates to use their education to fight HIV-Aids, poverty, unemployment and economic inequality.
He warned graduates that HIV-Aids was a “threat of such proportions as we have not faced in centuries”.
“Your education and the skills with which you are equipped, are the major weapons in the war we are fighting against all of those social and economic problems. You are the fighters in the vanguard of those battles.”
Mandela also urged them to “live together in ways that make all South Africans confident that the country belongs equally to all who live in it.
“We have to harness all of the different strands of our history as we reconstruct and develop our country.”
He pointed out that it was for this reason that he had joined the university recently in launching the Mandela-Rhodes Trust, despite the fact that the Cecil John Rhodes, after whom the trust was partially named, and himself, came from such “different and even conflicting strands of South African history”.
He said it was up to the present generation, which were growing up in a democratic, non-racial and non-sexist dispensation, to build a society “free from the baggage and legacy of our past”.
To a standing ovation, a visibly delighted Mandela, gowned and hooded in bright red, was capped by his old friend and former advisor, Rhodes Chancellor Dr Jakes Gerwel.
University orator, Professor Vivian de Klerk, spoke glowingly of Madiba’s long struggle against apartheid and injustice. “Nelson Mandela is living proof of the triumph of the human spirit against unbearable adversity and deprivation”. She said forgiveness had been his “chief weapon”.
“Few people in our time or in any time, have symbolised the spirit of freedom and courage as well as this figure of monumental integrity and humanity.”
African Languages Professor Peter Mtuze briefly swapped his academic role for that of Imbongi and sang Madiba’s praises in a more traditional way.
A total of 1 246 degrees, diplomas and certificates were awarded by the university this weekend, including 220 honours degrees, 53 masters degrees and 21 doctoral degrees.
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