For the people of South Africa, for those he inspired around the globe, Madiba’s passing
is rightly a time of mourning, and a time to celebrate a heroic life.
But I believe it should also prompt in each of us a time for self-reflection.
With honesty, regardless of our station or our circumstance, we must ask: How well have
I applied his lessons in my own life?
It’s a question I ask myself, as a man and as a President.
We know that, like South Africa, the United States had to overcome centuries of racial
subjugation.
As was true here, it took sacrifice — the sacrifice of countless people, known and unknown,
to see the dawn of a new day.
Michelle and I are beneficiaries of that struggle.
(Applause.)
But in America, and in South Africa, and in countries all around the globe, we cannot
allow our progress to cloud the fact that our work is not yet done.
The struggles that follow the victory of formal equality or universal franchise may not be
as filled with drama and moral clarity as those that came before, but they are no less
important.
For around the world today, we still see children suffering from hunger and disease.
We still see run-down schools.
We still see young people without prospects for the future.
Around the world today, men and women are still imprisoned for their political beliefs,
and are still persecuted for what they look like, and how they worship, and who they love.
That is happening today.
(Applause.)
And so we, too, must act on behalf of justice.
We, too, must act on behalf of peace.
There are too many people who happily embrace Madiba’s legacy of racial reconciliation,
but passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic poverty and growing
inequality.
There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba’s struggle for freedom, but
do not tolerate dissent from their own people.
(Applause.)
And there are too many of us on the sidelines, comfortable in complacency or cynicism when
our voices must be heard.
The questions we face today — how to promote equality and justice; how to uphold freedom
and human rights; how to end conflict and sectarian war — these things do not have
easy answers.
But there were no easy answers in front of that child born in World War I. Nelson Mandela
reminds us that it always seems impossible until it is done.
South Africa shows that is true.
South Africa shows we can change, that we can choose a world defined not by our differences,
but by our common hopes.
We can choose a world defined not by conflict, but by peace and justice and opportunity.
We will never see the likes of Nelson Mandela again.
But let me say to the young people of Africa and the young people around the world — you,
too, can make his life’s work your own.
Over 30 years ago, while still a student, I learned of Nelson Mandela and the struggles
taking place in this beautiful land, and it stirred something in me.
It woke me up to my responsibilities to others and to myself, and it set me on an improbable
journey that finds me here today.
And while I will always fall short of Madiba’s example, he makes me want to be a better man.
(Applause.)
He speaks to what’s best inside us.
After this great liberator is laid to rest, and when we have returned to our cities and
villages and rejoined our daily routines, let us search for his strength.
Let us search for his largeness of spirit somewhere inside of ourselves.
And when the night grows dark, when injustice weighs heavy on our hearts, when our best-laid
plans seem beyond our reach, let us think of Madiba and the words that brought him comfort
within the four walls of his cell: “It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with
punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”
What a magnificent soul it was.
We will miss him deeply.
May God bless the memory of Nelson Mandela.
May God bless the people of South Africa.