Mandela, legacy celebrated on his 90th birthday

10 grandchildren serenade him in ancestral village

Students clamored yesterday to touch a sculpture of Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg as they celebrated their school's 90th year on his 90th birthday. (Denis Farrell/Associated Press)

LONDON - There was a time, not all that long ago, when he was the invisible man whose name was a battle cry, his appearance known to most people only from an out-of-date photograph, a hidden hero on a prison island off the coast of Africa.

But as he celebrated his 90th birthday yesterday, Nelson Mandela was anything but invisible, a figure of reverence whose nine decades have been marked and observed at a huge rock concert in London's Hyde Park, a gala dinner for his children's charity in the august, chandeliered Long Room at Lord's cricket ground, and a host of tributes.

His birthday yesterday was a quiet affair in his ancestral village of Qunu in the southeast of his country. Ten grandchildren crowded around to serenade him with "Happy Birthday." He was going to have lunch today with 500 dignitaries and friends.

"We are honored that you wish to celebrate the birthday of a retired old man, who no longer has power or influence," he said in a radio message.

Yesterday was also the 10th anniversary of Mandela's marriage to Graca Machel, the widow of Samora Machel, the former president of Mozambique. He divorced Winnie Mandela in 1996.

In an interview with reporters at his rural home, Mandela urged the wealthy to share their prosperity with the less fortunate, the Associated Press reported. "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," he said.

Mandela said he was fortunate to have reached 90, but "poverty has gripped our people" in the countryside and the towns. "If you are poor, you are not likely to live long," he said.

Part of Mandela has always seemed to be public property, owned initially by foes of apartheid rule in South Africa and now a kind of universal talisman of integrity and dignity - a name to bring a flush of moral ardor to the most jaded celebrity visages.

Where his name once resonated around the segregated black townships of apartheid South Africa, chanted by the rebellious youths who challenged white rule, it now seems to head a list of encounters with notables sought by rock stars and politicians. He has apparently enjoyed a degree of mutual admiration: in 1997, for instance, he referred to the British pop group the Spice Girls as his "heroes" when he met them.

In his presence, even the most battle-scarred and cynical of politicians seem to feel they are wafted to the high ground wrought by Mandela's 27 years in prison. His stature and charisma have given him entree from the White House in Washington to 10 Downing St.

Remarkably, it is now 18 years since Mandela was released from jail, 14 years since he triumphed in his country's first democratic elections, eight since he left office and four since he formally withdrew from public life. But he is still seen as a guarantor of his country's remarkable transition from a segregated to a majority-ruled society.

F.W. de Klerk, the last white president of South Africa who negotiated the transition with Mandela and shared a Nobel Peace Prize with him in 1993, hailed Mandela's role in molding "our widely diverse communities into an emerging multicultural nation."

Mandela has lent his name to the struggle against the AIDS epidemic, which has been a scourge of Africa. He also has asfdentered the dispute over the electoral, social, and economic crises of Zimbabwe, saying there had been a "tragic failure of leadership" there.

Critics have accused Mandela's successor, Thabo Mbeki, of being far more divisive than Mandela and of overseeing a massive centralization of the power of the ruling African National Congress.

"Mandela is 90," the Mail and Guardian said in its online edition yesterday. "But the sweet celebration of a life of leadership, service, and generosity is mixed with the sour taste of a legacy being polluted."

"Where Mandela united, Mbeki has divided," the South African newspaper added, saying the "politics of total takeover has gripped the ruling party."

It is with a certain wistfulness that some South Africans contemplate a post-Mandela era.

"Mandela can't come to our rescue anymore. But his example can," the newspaper said.