Source: United Nations (video statements)
Remarks by Earle Courtenay Rattray, Chef de Cabinet, on behalf of António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General on the Observance of the annual Nelson Mandela International Day.
Marking the Nelson Mandela International Day, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that ending poverty and inequality requires re-wiring economies and societies to focus on people.
Rattray said, “Madiba was blessed with a rare kind of double vision. He saw the world both for what it was — and what it could be.”
The Chef de Cabinet continued, “he also recognized that progress is never automatic. Progress is the result of action. It’s up to all of us to come together to make that progress real — and through our actions, our advocacy, and our voice, to defeat poverty and inequality. Not as an act of charity, but as an act of justice.”
Rattray also said, “as we mark Mandela Day, let’s re-commit to the timeless principles that defined his life. Freedom. Justice. Equality. Solidarity. Reconciliation. Compassion. Peace.”
“Let’s carry forward Mandela’s vision of a just, inclusive, equal and peaceful world,” he concluded.
President of the General Assembly Annalena Baerbock said, “Nelson Mandela reminded this Assembly, us, of the same principles that guided the founding of this organization. That peace requires more than the absence of conflict. That requires human dignity, justice and equality for all.”
She said, “as we mark the Nelson Mandela International Day, we honor not only that vision. We acknowledge our own responsibility to carry this work, this spirit, forward, as reflected in this year’s theme. It is still in our hands to combat poverty inequality.”
For his part, New York City Mayor’s Office official Shaffiou Assoumanou said, “we need government that commit to the tasks of delivering a life of dignity by putting in place policies that make food, housing and care affordable and available to everyone. Policies that demonstrate our commitment to universal human rights, regardless of where people were born, their gender identity or sexual orientation, their nationality or their immigration status.”
Assoumanou highlighted, “our commitment to this Mandela Day is to nourish the brilliance of people who do small acts of courage and care, and to demand the same kind of brilliance from all of us in government and from our institution.”
International Broadcaster Redi Tlhabi also addressed the General Assembly.
She said, “Mandela understood something that remains profoundly relevant today. Peace without justice is not peace at all. It is only a pause — one that delays the hard work of crafting our shared humanity.”
Tlhabi added that peace without justice is “a fragile truce.”
She also reiterated that the world needs the courage that made Mandela “so deeply inconvenient.” She said, “it needs leaders willing to disturb comfortable injustice before history rewards them for doing so. It needs nations prepared to defend international law, even when it inconveniences powerful allies. It needs institutions that are willing to reform themselves before the world loses faith in them. It needs us to reject forever the seductive argument that the might makes right because it never has and it never will.”
In recognition of the former South African President’s contribution to the culture of peace and freedom, UN General Assembly declared 18 July "Nelson Mandela International Day".