A banner featuring the late South African President Nelson Mandela is displayed at an auditorium where current South Africa President Jacob Zuma is delivering a speech in Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, Friday, Dec. 5, 2014. Zuma is in Beijing on a state visit focused on economic relations, including possible Chinese investment in South Africa's nuclear power sector. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A banner featuring the late South African President Nelson Mandela is displayed at an auditorium where current South Africa President Jacob Zuma is delivering a speech in Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, Friday, Dec. 5, 2014. Zuma is in Beijing on a state visit focused on economic relations, including possible Chinese investment in South Africa’s nuclear power sector. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
(BBC) – It does not seem that it was a year ago that South Africans danced and sang in the streets all night to remember the life of Nelson Mandela, the man who liberated them from the scourge of racial oppression.
They did not mourn the 95-year-old’s death – instead they rejoiced that Madiba (Mandela’s clan name) had saved them from a potential racial bloodbath.
Yet despite this sense of unity, there were many, especially white South Africans, who were visibly worried that the man they regarded as the insurer of a peaceful future had gone too soon and had left them exposed.
They feared his departure opened up a door for the angry poor black masses to destroy their comfortable lives.
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