JOHANNESBURG AFP) – Nelson Mandela is set to spend his 95th birthday in hospital Thursday, but across the world admirers hope to honour their icon’s legacy through millions of acts of kindness.
In Mandela’s native South Africa, biker gangs will clean streets, volunteers will paint schools and politicians will spend 67 minutes on worthy projects in a tidal wave of charity to mark Mandela’s 67 years of public service.
The United Nations declared the Nobel peace laureate’s birthday Mandela Day in 2010, but for many this year it takes on extra poignancy.
Mandela has spent the last six weeks in a Pretoria hospital, where he is still in a critical but stable condition.
Breathing with the help of a machine, family and friends have said he is now responding to treatment.
His successor as president, Thabo Mbeki, even suggested he might be discharged from hospital soon.
But a day away from his 95th birthday, that seems optimistic to many after four hospitilisations in a year.
Children in schools around South Africa will begin their day by singing “Happy Birthday” to the former statesman.
According to a survey released Wednesday, 89 percent of young South Africans plan to take part in some way.
Near Pretoria, South African President Jacob Zuma will also do his bit.
He will try to channel Mandela’s cross-community appeal by delivering government housing to poor whites.
Global luminaries, pop stars and companies also plan to pledge support.
“I will also be giving my 67 minutes to make the world a better place, one small step at a time,” British business magnate Richard Branson pledged in a recorded message.
In Manila, 50 abandoned street children will get a television studio tour and see performances by local artists.
On Saturday, Australian city Melbourne will hold a concert featuring local and African artists, while a music festival later this year in Norway will promote equality in schools.
Born July 18 in 1918, Mandela fought against white rule as a young lawyer and was convicted of treason in 1964.
He spent the next 27 years in jail.
But it was through his willingness to forgive his white jailers that Mandela made his indelible mark on history.
After negotiating an end to apartheid, he became South Africa’s first black president, drawing a line under centuries of colonial and racist suppression.
He then led reconciliation in the deeply divided country.
Mandela’s peace-making spirit has won him worldwide respect.
“Never before in history was one human being so universally acknowledged in his lifetime as the embodiment of magnanimity and reconciliation as Nelson Mandela,” said archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu, himself a Nobel peace laureate.
But the sunset of his life has been somewhat overshadowed by bitter infighting among his relatives.
A row over his final resting place has seen three of his children’s graves dug up and their remains moved, public brawling and legal action among his children and grandchildren.
In a televised address, his grandson Mandla accused a sibling of impregnating his wife and Mandela’s oldest daughter Makawize, of sowing divisions in the most famous family of South Africa.
Mandela’s oldest granddaughter Ndileka spoke of the pain caused by the rift in an interview published Wednesday.
“It was something that we did not want to take in the public space but because of who we are it was, it did spill over to the public space,” she told the BBC.
“There is no way that I can never forgive but it’s just that right now I’m still hurting.”
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