Mandela: Speeches in Japan (1)

Thanks in great part to its “honorary white” status in apartheid South Africa, Japan in 1990 was one of the largest trading partners of South Africa, following the sanctions that other western countries had implemented in cutting their economic ties with the isolated apartheid regime.

Nelson Mandela had been out of prison eight months when he was invited by the Japanese government to Japan on a six-day visit as a state guest. A month or so before Mandela’s arrival a high-ranking Japanese government minister happened to make disparaging public comments about Black people that ignited a firestorm of criticism within and outside Japan. It was against this backdrop that Mandela visited Japan for his first-ever visit to the wealthiest country in Asia.

Read more...
Comments

Mandela: Speeches in Japan (2)

Two days after Nelson Mandela’s memorable welcoming rally in the Japanese city of Osaka, Mandela stood before a joint session of Japan’s Diet (parliament) in downtown Tokyo on Tuesday, 30 October 1990 to make his appeal for support directly to the government and people on the national stage of Japan.

It was indeed a rare honor for a private citizen to be invited to address the Diet, reportedly only the second time in Japanese history that such an event had happened. It was a measure of the high esteem in which Mandela was held in Japan and in the other countries around the world that he had been visiting in the eight months since he was released from 27 years of imprisonment in South Africa.

Read more...
Comments

‘Mandela in Japan’ — A Retrospective

I’m a firm believer in honoring our elders, heroes and inspirations while they are still with us in this life, that we may deepen our respect and remember anew how they lived, what they stood for and how they changed our lives in their own special ways.

Since no one has had for me a more positive impact and influence than Mr. Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa, and since he is still with us, I'd like to post here a few thoughts of my own about him.

Read more...
Comments

Show more posts >>