Skip to footer

Sec. Clinton visits Nelson Mandela in South Africa

The US Secretary of State made a special trip during her African journey to visit the aging former South African president.

|
Jacquelyn Martin/REUTERS
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton poses for a photograph with Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa, at his home in Qunu, August 6.
  • By Associated Press

| Qunu, South Africa

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited with Nelson Mandela at his home on Monday to pay her respects to the aging South African icon.

Clinton and a small group flew to the 94-year-old Mandela's home village of Qunu, where they reminisced and had a small private lunch.

Clinton and Mandela's wife, Graca Machel, talked as photographers snapped pictures and Mandela looked on smiling from his wingback chair.

"That's a beautiful smile!" Clinton said.

"Madiba's smile is a trademark," Machel said, affectionately referring to Mandela by his Xhosa clan name.

Afterwards, Clinton, Machel and the others went into the main dining room for lunch. Mandela remained in the living room with his medical attendants.

The former president of South Africa has homes in Johannesburg and Qunu. In recent years, he has spent more and more time in Qunu and in May, it was announced that he would stay there indefinitely.

Mandela, a Nobel peace laureate who spent 27 years in prison for fighting racist white rule, has retired from public life.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Sec. Clinton visits Nelson Mandela in South Africa
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0806/Sec.-Clinton-visits-Nelson-Mandela-in-South-Africa
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe