Staff Writer
AN UNFINISHED book by Nelson Mandela about his presidency could be completed and launched next year.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation said in a statement it was not widely known that Mandela intended to write a sequel to Long Walk to Freedom and that he began writing the manuscript, which he had provisionally titled The Presidential Years, in 1998.
He had worked on it until 2002, when he “ran out of steam”.
“The foundation’s archive has versions of 10 chapters from that work,” the statement read.
“It has embarked on a project to see the completion of The Presidential Years as an authorised account of Mr Mandela’s presidency.
“We are working closely with (the) government and the ANC, and are aiming to publish the work in 2015.”
The foundation brought a close to a 10-day tribute period, marking the first anniversary of the passing of Mandela, on Monday night with an event commemorating the day he was buried in Qunu. ANC Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa gave the keynote address.
The event also coincided with the 20th anniversary of the publication of Long Walk to Freedom as well as the foundation’s release this week of an online feature about the writing of the book, which began in 1976, and the text’s long journey to publication in 1994.
Foundation spokeswoman Danielle Melville said the foundation had partnered with the ANC for the event in recognition of Madiba’s history as an ANC member and the party’s role in his journey.
In his speech, Ramaphosa called for the principles that Madiba stood for to be implemented by all sectors, and said his morality was not theoretical but practical, and thus the means of changing the world.
Ramaphosa spoke out against waste and theft of public money and what he called a culture of entitlement in government.
He called for morality not only in public servants and government representatives, but also in business.
“The principles that Madiba embodied find meaning both at the lofty heights of global affairs and in our day- to-day interactions with each other,” he said.
Mandela’s greatest contribution to peoples’ sense of worth was his respect for equal rights and the dignity of all people, Ramaphosa said.
“It must therefore be a matter of grave concern that we live in a society where respect for the rights and integrity of another is so frequently and shamelessly violated.”