If You Are Poor, You Are Not Likely To Live Long

By Totie Mesia

“There are many people in South Africa who are rich and who can share those riches with those not so fortunate who have not been able to conquer poverty. Poverty has gripped our people. If you are poor, you are not likely to live long.” –Nelson Mandela’s Message to the World on his 90th Birthday (07/18/08)

A towering symbol of anti-apartheid, an inspiration of decency, pardon, and resolute defiance against injustice, Nelson Mandela, 1993 Nobel peace prize awardee who served 27 years in jail, celebrates his 90th birthday on Friday, July 18, 2008, in his home with his family in Qunu, South Africa, 18 years after he was released from prison, 14 years after he was elected president in his country’s first democratic National Assembly election, 10 years after he married his 3rd wife Marcha Grachel, and 4 years after his recession from public life. Photo Credit: Habebe/AP

“This man, who had been vilified and hunted down as a dangerous fugitive, incarcerated for nearly three decades, would soon be transformed into the embodiment of forgiveness and reconciliation. Those who had hated him would, most of them, be eating out of his hand----the prisoner become President, in time to be admired by the whole world in an extraordinary outpouring of adulation.“ No Future Without Forgiveness (1999, Tutu, Desmond. p10.)=0=

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