(The text of President Obama’s original speech, in which he praised Nelson Mandela and chided the rest of the world for continuing injustice, was replaced at the last minute by the US State Department. I am happy to be able to produce the original. At least it has made Madiba happy. Claude Alvares)

Remarks by President Obama at Memorial Service for Former South African President Nelson Mandela

First National Bank Stadium
Johannesburg, South Africa

1:31 P.M. SAST

Thank you.  (Applause.) Thank you so much. Thank you. To Graça Machel and the Mandela family; to President Zuma and members of the government; to heads of states and government, past and present; distinguished guests — it is a singular honor that you have graciously allowed a President of the United States (and some former US Presidents as well) to come here and be with you all today. The plain fact of the matter is I have come here to apologize for all that the US did – and is continuing to do – to violate Mandela’s vision of a humane and just society. While you can legitimately celebrate “a life like no other,” I have come here to ask for nothing more than forgiveness.

To the people of South Africa – (applause) – people of every race and walk of life – the world thanks you for the gift of Nelson Mandela. His struggle against the white Apartheid regime in South Africa and governments like mine was your struggle. His triumph against Apartheid and supporters of Apartheid (which included my government) was your triumph. Your dignity and your hope found expression in his life. And your freedom, your democracy is his cherished legacy. In my remaining years as President of the United States, I promise to amend our ways and ensure we do not undermine or sabotage that legacy in any way. That is the gist of the simple message I wish to use this occasion to announce, even if it promises to invite a planeload of drones from the Republicans back home.

It is hard to eulogize any man – to capture in words not just the facts and the dates that make a life, but the essential truth of a person – their private joys and sorrows; the quiet moments and unique qualities that illuminate someone’s soul.  How much harder to do so for a giant of history, who moved a nation toward justice, and in the process moved billions of ordinary people around the world –with the exception of Afrikaners, Israelis and governments like ours.

Born during World War I, far from the corridors of power, a boy raised herding cattle and tutored by the elders of his Thembu tribe, Madiba would emerge as the last great liberator of the 20th century. Like Gandhi, he would lead a resistance movement – a movement that at its start had little prospect for success. Like Dr. King, he would give potent voice to the claims of the oppressed and the moral necessity of racial justice.

He would endure a brutal imprisonment that began in the time of Kennedy and Khrushchev, and reached the final days of the Cold War. One can forgive Khrushchev: he was after all a communist! But we too didn’t raise a finger! Instead we supported the Apartheid regime to the hilt. We all – all of us who have come here today ostensibly to mourn – supported the Apartheid regime till the day it collapsed. It makes me endlessly miserable to merely list the kinds of support.

Israel is often portrayed as the only rogue state that did business with South Africa’s hated Apartheid regime. Israel hasn’t turned up for this memorial occasion simply because it knows that the world sees it as the new and willing inheritor of the apartheid mantle on the planet. (In fact, without the support of my government, Israel would simply cease to exist.) Trade between Israel and South Africa at one stage was between $500-800 million and more than half of this was in arms, used to wage war against the black population of South Africa and the rest of the African continent as well.

But what the world does not know very well is that the trade between the US and South Africa around the same time was about $3.32 billion, with Britain, some $2.50 billion, and with Japan – yes Japan as well – $3.27 billion. At a critical moment, the Soviet Union cooperated with Apartheid South Africa’s De Beers, one of the world’s largest diamond companies, to artificially prop up world diamond prices.

White South Africa also survived because it got oil supplies from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and other oil states for which it simply had to pay a premium of $20 to $30 a ton. This made the oil producers and brokers even richer, so they were happy with Apartheid as well.

As for arms, South Africa bought weapons from Britain, France, Israel, Spain and the U.S. It enjoyed nuclear cooperation with Israel, France, the U.S., and West Germany. The Israelis promised it a nuclear reactor to build nuclear weapons.

One of my predecessors, Ronald Reagan, actually declared Mandela – then still in jail – a terrorist. So did former Vice President Dick Cheney (before he occupied that post). While the oppression of the blacks continued and intensified, Reagan and later, Margaret Thatcher, befriended P.W. Botha, the former even welcoming him to the White House. Mandela and other ANC officials remained on the terror watch list until 2008, 14 years after Mandela had been elected president and nine years after he had left power. He was 90 at the time.

Emerging from prison, without the force of arms, Mandela would hold his country together when it threatened to break apart.  And like America’s Founding Fathers, he would erect a constitutional order to preserve freedom for future generations — a commitment to democracy and rule of law ratified not only by his election, but by his willingness to step down from power after only one term.

Mandela showed us the power of action; of taking risks on behalf of ideals. Perhaps Madiba was right that he inherited, “a proud rebelliousness, a stubborn sense of fairness” from his father. And we know he shared with millions of black and colored South Africans the anger born of, “a thousand slights, a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments…a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people.”

But like other early giants of the ANC – the Sisulus and Tambos – Madiba disciplined his anger and channeled his desire to fight into organization, and platforms, and strategies for action, so men and women could stand up for their God-given dignity. Moreover, he accepted the consequences of his actions, knowing that standing up to powerful interests and injustice carries a price. “I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I’ve cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and [with] equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” (Applause.)

Mandela also taught us the power of ideas; the importance of reason and arguments; the need to study not only those who you agree with, but also those who you don’t agree with. He understood that ideas cannot be contained by prison walls, or extinguished by a sniper’s bullet or American drones. Nevertheless, as President of the United States, I sit every week with my advisors and select and approve human targets for the following week’s drone attacks. I know these drones kill more innocent people than real targets, but so long as the English dictionary invents new terms (“collateral damage”), we feel we are a civilized nation.

Madiba turned his trial into an indictment of apartheid because of his eloquence and his passion, but also because of his training as an advocate. He used decades in prison to sharpen his arguments, but also to spread his thirst for knowledge to others in the movement. And he learned the language and the customs of his oppressor so that one day he might better convey to them how their own freedom depend upon his.

Mandela demonstrated that action and ideas are not enough. No matter how right, they must be chiseled into law and institutions. He was practical, testing his beliefs against the hard surface of circumstance and history. On core principles he was unyielding, which is why he could rebuff offers of unconditional release, reminding the Apartheid regime that “prisoners cannot enter into contracts.”

And finally, Mandela understood the ties that bind the human spirit. There is a word in South Africa – Ubuntu – (applause) – a word that captures Mandela’s greatest gift: his recognition that we are all bound together in ways that are invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us.

We can never know how much of this sense was innate in him, or how much was shaped in a dark and solitary cell. But we remember the gestures, large and small – introducing his jailers as honored guests at his inauguration; taking a pitch in a Springbok uniform; turning his family’s heartbreak into a call to confront HIV/AIDS – that revealed the depth of his empathy and his understanding.  He not only embodied Ubuntu, he taught millions to find that truth within themselves.

That “large spirit” seems to us eminently to elude us. The United States does not share, it takes. What it cannot make subservient, it harms. We have destroyed Iraq irrevocably as a society and as a birthplace of civilization. We have fatally damaged Afghanistan. We have undone Libya. We tried to undo Syria. Now we almost nixed Iran. The US government is everything that Mandela’s spirit was not. So we have come here because maybe you South Africans – who have inherited Madiba’s spirit – will show us a way out being the rogue state that we have become.

Just as I stand here speaking bluntly before you on this memorable occasion, Madiba never minced words about the US government:

In 2003, just before the war was launched by the US against Iraq, he condemned my predecessor Bush for undermining the United Nations in the strongest possible language:

“It is a tragedy, what is happening, what Bush is doing. But Bush is now undermining the United Nations. If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don’t care for human beings. Who are they now to pretend that they are the policemen of the world, the ones that should decide for the people of Iraq what should be done with their government and their leadership?”

After Bush went to war in Iraq, Mandela denounced Bush:

“What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust. Why is the United States behaving so arrogantly? All that he wants is Iraqi oil.”

In the context of our war in Afghanistan, Mandela was no less severe:

“The United States has made serious mistakes in the conduct of its foreign affairs, which have had unfortunate repercussions long after the decisions were taken…If you look at those matters, you will come to the conclusion that the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace.”

He lashed out against us for its hypocritical stance on Israel:

“Neither Bush nor Tony Blair has provided any evidence that such weapons [of mass destruction] exist [in Iraq]. But what we know is that Israel has weapons of mass destruction. Nobody talks about that. Why should there be one standard for one country, especially because it is black, and another one for another country, Israel, that is white?”

Madiba soundly thrashed Israel and its supporters for the treatment of the Palestinian people. We all admit that Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children. Madiba had only one solution:

“Israel should withdraw from all the areas which it won from the Arabs in 1967, and in particular Israel should withdraw completely from the Golan Heights, from south Lebanon and from the West Bank.”

To our utter discomfiture, Mandela praised Castro and defended the Cuban Revolution:

“From its earliest days, the Cuban Revolution has also been a source of inspiration to all freedom-loving people. We admire the sacrifices of the Cuban people in maintaining their independence and sovereignty in the face of the vicious imperialist-orchestrated campaign to destroy the impressive gain made in the Cuban Revolution….Long live the Cuban Revolution. Long live comrade Fidel Castro.”

For the people of South Africa, for those he inspired around the globe, Madiba’s passing is rightly a time of mourning. But I believe it should also prompt in each of us a time for self-reflection. With honesty, regardless of our station or our circumstance, we must ask: How well have I applied his lessons in my own life? It’s a question I ask myself, as a man and as a President. Despite my universally acknowledged speech-making ability, I am unable to answer those questions with any degree of honesty.

We know that, like South Africa, the United States had to overcome centuries of racial subjugation. As was true here, it took sacrifice – the sacrifice of countless people, known and unknown, to see the dawn of a new day. Michelle and I are beneficiaries of that struggle. (Applause.)

The struggles that follow the victory of formal equality or universal franchise may not be as filled with drama and moral clarity as those that came before, but they are no less important. For around the world today, we still see children suffering from hunger and disease. We still see run-down schools. We still see young people without prospects for the future. Around the world today, men and women are still imprisoned for their political beliefs, and are still persecuted for what they look like, and how they worship, and who they love. That is happening today. (Applause.)

To come to my own country, in the United States where I am President, there are even greater signs of depleted ideals.

Despite America being headed by a black President for the first time in its history, America’s jails and prisons – which are terrible places for the human spirit – still harbor more people as a percentage of the population than any other country. Ironically, the majority of them are black. Imprisonment of African-American males is five times higher that the imprisonment of people by Soviets during the gulag. We so love prisoners and prisons that we now attempt to rival the prisons of the gulag: we have Abu Ghraib and Guantano Bay, and when we do not like to see what we are asking our millions to do, we support a policy of “rendition” – torture in countries that need cash for these facilities.

Everything has been turned into criminality. Between 80,000 to 1,00,000 prisoners remain in solitary confinement. If you do not pay your rent, you now have to go answer in our criminal courts. Some 3,000 Americans have been sentenced to life without parole for non-violent offences including one of stealing 3 belts from a store.

Seven year old schoolboy, Wilson Reyes, was handcuffed in New York and interrogated because he was accused of stealing 5 dollars – a crime he did not commit. Felony charges in Mississippi have been used against kids who threw peanuts on a bus. Most schools now have metal detectors, as if the children are catching a flight every morning: the world knows some of our children may bring a gun to school.

After 9/11, we have installed the “digital infrastructure” of a vast police state. We police everything, including emails and phone calls. We assume all our citizens are guilty unless proven innocent. We hound and imprison people who are upset with our surveillance and who protest against it offends the American constitution. We have more than 40 million people on food stamps, more than 80 million living from paycheck to paycheck. Our greatest exports are of junk food chains, sugar-laden soft drinks and GMOs which ruin the health of people worldwide.

There are too many people who happily embrace Madiba’s legacy of racial reconciliation, but passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic poverty and growing inequality. There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba’s struggle for freedom, but do not tolerate dissent from their own people. (Applause.) And there are too many of us on the sidelines, comfortable in complacency or cynicism when our voices must be heard.

The questions we face today — how to promote equality and justice; how to uphold freedom and human rights; how to end conflict and sectarian war – these things do not have easy answers. But there were no easy answers in front of that child born in World War I. Nelson Mandela reminds us that it always seems impossible until it is done. South Africa shows that is true. South Africa shows we can change, that we can choose a world defined not by our differences, but by our common hopes. We can choose a world defined not by conflict, but by peace and justice and opportunity.

We will never see the likes of Nelson Mandela again. But let me say to the young people of Africa and the young people around the world – you, too, can make his life’s work your own. Over 30 years ago, while still a student, I learned of Nelson Mandela and the struggles taking place in this beautiful land, and it stirred something in me. I received my first lessons in politics when I found myself at an anti-apartheid meeting. After my association with these meetings, I was persuaded to change my name from Barry to Barrack. So in a sense I owe both my inclination to politics and my name to Madiba.

It woke me up to my responsibilities to others and to myself, and it set me on an improbable journey that finds me here today making this improbable speech as well. And while I have shown that I – and the government I represent – have always fallen short of Madiba’s example, he makes me want to be a better man. (Applause.) He speaks to what’s best inside us.

After this great liberator is laid to rest, and when we have returned to our cities and villages and rejoined our daily routines, let us search for his strength. Let us search for his largeness of spirit somewhere inside of ourselves. And when the night grows dark, when injustice weighs heavy on our hearts, when our best-laid plans seem beyond our reach, let us think of Madiba and the words that brought him comfort within the four walls of his cell: “It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”

And that’s why we have so much to learn from him, and why we can learn from him still. For nothing he achieved was inevitable. In the arc of his life, we see a man who earned his place in history through struggle and shrewdness, and persistence and faith. He tells us what is possible not just in the pages of history books, but in our own lives as well.

What a magnificent soul he was. We will miss him deeply. May God bless the memory of Nelson Mandela. May God bless the people of South Africa. (Applause.)

END OF LAMPOON