In the News

 

 

By Annysa Johnson and Akbar Ahmed

 

Tracey Joubert, the South African chief financial officer of MillerCoors, will never forget the moment when President Nelson Mandela walked onto the Johannesburg pitch at the final game of the 1995 Rugby World Cup.

 

Dressed in the jersey of the Springboks, South Africa's traditionally all-white rugby team — in the year after the fall of apartheid — the former political prisoner inspired a fractured nation, black and white, to seek a new, united future.

 

"A lot of people realized then that we can live together and we can win together," said Joubert, who mourned Thursday the passing of the man she called the "father of a new South Africa."

 

"He was just an amazing human being," Joubert said. "I'm absolutely devastated."

 

Mandela died Thursday at the age of 95 after months of ill health. He was mourned in Wisconsin and around the world by countrymen and admirers.

 

Although he'd been expecting it for months, the news came as a jolt Thursday when a friend texted Johannes Britz, provost and vice chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, that Mandela had died.

 

"This is a huge loss," said Britz, a native South African who came to Milwaukee in 2001.

 

Mandela's legacy, he said, went far beyond the political agenda and vision for the country.

 

"There was something special about President Mandela that I don't think words or language can capture," Britz said. "What happened in South Africa — the moral compass he gave us, the moral imperative to forgive and to reconcile — that was a miracle."

 

Mandela's passing prompted an outpouring of sorrow and condolences from state and local officials.

 

"Today we have lost a visionary leader and hero for human rights," U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) said in a statement. "Nelson Mandela broke the chains of oppression in South Africa and opened the hearts and minds of millions."

 

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who met Mandela in 2005 and forged a sister city relationship with uMhlathuze, South Africa, in 2008, spoke on his death at a news conference at City Hall on Thursday.

 

"There are few, if any, human beings who have lived in the last century who have had as much impact on the history of the world as Nelson Mandela," Barrett said. "His courage and strength freed a nation and reshaped our history."

 

Milwaukee Ald. Joe Davis Sr., Wisconsin's honorary consul to South Africa, issued a statement extending his condolences to Mandela's family and country. "I send my deepest regrets to the people of South Africa, who today lost their greatest leader."

 

Others recalled their meetings with Mandela, however brief.

 

Earlier this year as Mandela was ailing, former Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate and ambassador to Tanzania Mark A. Green recalled meeting Mandela at the South African embassy in Washington during his early years on Capital Hill.

 

He thanked the anti-apartheid hero for "making it OK to be the son of a South African."

 

Green, who now serves as the president of a nonprofit called the Initiative for Global Development, said Mandela contributed to Africa's future by championing the idea of Africans working to create progress on their own. While Mandela is undeniably South African, "every country in Africa in some way claims Mandela as his own," he said.

 

Bishop Hee-Soo Jung of the Wisconsin Conference United Methodist Church recalled meeting Mandela — a Methodist himself — during a Council of Bishops visit to Mozambique in 2006.

 

"We were in awe. It was a great and blessed moment," said Jung, who described Mandela as a servant leader.

 

"He lived an extraordinary life. The whole world will miss his powerful presence and solidarity of spirit," he said. "We will remember his courageous and bold fight for God's justice for all people."