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“... I think, as many do, that of the things in her that are hard to like or condone her treatment of Nelson Mandela as a wicked terrorist who deserved to spend the rest of his life in jail is very important. What did she do to make up for making an enemy of Mandela and of welfare? Well, she made a friend, and a working ...”

“... is still the region’s premier power: nothing has upset Comrade Bob as much as his eclipse by Mandela. The Congo intervention has moved the Army to the centre of national life and there are rumours about every aspect of this action – no one knows exactly how many Zimbabwean troops have gone to the Congo or how many military police were sent to keep the ...”

“... The tendency is to reduce this remarkable development to the single, exceptional personality of Nelson Mandela. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is lionised but Codesa is largely forgotten, and Africa’s abiding problem – violent civil war – is said to require a different solution: the atrocities committed are so extreme, the argument ...”

“... in southern Angola, which jump-started the disintegration of apartheid. It was no surprise when Nelson Mandela made one of his first trips as president to Havana.New York City has long been used as a propaganda venue for outspoken critics of America, who figure that they are unlikely to be assassinated in the vicinity of Wall Street and Rockefeller ...”

“... will continue to encourage all manner of fantastical expectations.11 June. The death last night of Nelson Mandela’s 13-year-old great-grand-daughter, Zenani, has cast a considerable pall. She was on her way home from the big concert in Soweto when their car overturned near the motorway sliproad to Selby in central Jo’burg. I know that sliproad well ...”

“... it is a political reality.’ A white liberal would say the same, but then, I take it, so would Nelson Mandela. The difference is in the intensity with which the political reality is experienced or denied. Baldwin understands the needs met by the Black Muslim movement in America, even as he recognises that there is ‘nothing new’ in its reverse ...”

“... and F.D. Roosevelt is central to the story of America’s interwar economic recovery, and Nelson Mandela is central to South Africa’s new-found racial harmony. Exalted company for our two great heroes – but surely justified? Not according to the great British public. The poll which the BBC commissioned in 2001 to recruit its initial ...”

“... toes.’ Matar suffers no such inhibition. His filial conscience lets no one off lightly, not even Nelson Mandela, who wasn’t prepared to imperil pan-African relations by raising the case of Jaballa Matar with Gaddafi (Desmond Tutu, by contrast, did his bit). Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson are fingered too, for cosying up to the Libyans, and though ...”

“... had left him a bit short of obvious villains and hate-figures – until, incredibly, he settled on Nelson Mandela’) and even more tremendous jokes. Amis is a much-envied man, but this relationship really is worth envying:My father and I often had occasion to agree that ‘fuck off’ was very funny. One naturally admired its brutality and brevity ...”

“... the role of the ANC in South Africa is the prime example. Adams has expressed his admiration for Nelson Mandela and the feeling seems to have been mutual: he was in the guard of honour at Mandela’s funeral. Whether that distinction was granted for his role in peace-making or violent struggle is unclear: it could ...”

“... group as terroristic is of course always a political act: the IRA never made it onto the US list; Nelson Mandela remained a terrorist in US eyes until 2008. The MEK’s record of mounting attacks goes back to the 1970s, when it opposed the shah and railed against America for backing him. The State Department believes that in 1973 the MEK killed a US Army ...”

“... who are ‘capable of being shamed into conceding defeat’ – like Britain. He insists that Nelson Mandela, while acknowledging Gandhi as a great source of inspiration, ‘explicitly disavowed non-violence as useless in his struggle against the ruthless apartheid regime’. But was it so useless? Was there not in South Africa in the 1980s a moral ...”

“... bad sign when people’s birthdays get to be celebrated, whether it be Nero, Joseph Stalin, Nelson Mandela or the Queen. But it is, above all, the Great Lie at the Centre. It demeans and corrupts our culture by commanding the worship of rank, not merit; of inheritance, not achievement. It makes people accept that sheer humbug is normal, it makes ...”

“... the only fully racially integrated farmers’ body in southern Africa: it is not surprising that Nelson Mandela attended its inauguration. All the other farmers’ unions in South Africa are still racially segregated, and the same is true in Zimbabwe, where the white Commercial Farmers Union faces the Zimbabwe National Farmers Union, a highly political ...”

“... the dreamer from our own lives. We are very pleased that Martin Luther King had a dream, and that Nelson Mandela held to his dream through 28 years in jail, mostly because we are grateful that we don’t have to do it ourselves. Impractical dreaming that amounts to something in the world we positively venerate, at least in retrospect. But then very often ...”