Madiba's light shone so brightly, even from that narrow Robben Island cell, said the 44th US President Barack Obama during the sixteenth annual Nelson Mandela Lecture, on Tuesday, in Johannesburg.

The speech was well received by almost 15 000 South Africans and dignitaries from many countries including former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former United Nations secretary general Ban Ki Moon.

The annual lecture is the flagship programme of the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the 2018 lecture was in partnership with the Motsepe Foundation.  

Delivering this year’s anticipated lecture, Obama highlighted how struggle icon and former South African President Nelson Mandela inspired him while he was a college student in the ‘70s.

“Madiba's light shone so brightly, even from that narrow Robben Island cell, that in the late '70s he could inspire a young college student on the other side of the world to re-examine his own priorities, could make me consider the small role I might play in bending the arc of the world towards justice.

“And when later, as a law student, I witnessed Madiba emerge from prison, just a few months, you'll recall, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I felt the same wave of hope that washed through hearts all around the world,” said Obama.

He went on to remind South Africans how the iconic Statesman guided this nation through painstaking negotiation, reconciliation and the first fair and free elections in 1994.

“As we all witnessed the grace and the generosity with which he embraced former enemies, the wisdom for him to step away from power once he felt his job was complete, we understood that­ it was not just the subjugated, the oppressed who were being freed from the shackles of the past. The subjugator was being offered a gift, being given a chance to see in a new way, being given a chance to participate in the work of building a better world,” said Obama.

The former US President reminded attendees that the previous structures of privilege and power and injustice and exploitation that Madiba always fought against never completely went away and were never fully dislodged.

He gave as examples caste differences that still impact the life chances of people on the Indian subcontinent and from Central Europe to the Gulf where ethnic and religious differences still determine opportunities.

He stressed that racial discrimination still existed in both the US and South Africa and that the accumulated disadvantages of years of institutionalised oppression have created disparities in income, wealth, education, health, personal safety and access to credit.

He pronounced that women and girls around the world continued to be blocked from positions of power and authority, are prevented from getting a basic education and are disproportionately victimised by violence and abuse.

“They're still paid less than men for doing the same work. That's still

happening. Economic opportunity, for all the magnificence of the global economy, all the shining skyscrapers that have transformed the landscape around the world, has bypassed entire neighbourhoods, entire cities, entire regions, entire nations,” he said to loud applause.

Obama warned that the politics of fear and resentment was gathering at a pace that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago.

He pointed out that in the West, there are far-right parties that oftentimes are based not just on platforms of protectionism and closed borders, but also on barely hidden racial nationalism.

Further, many developing countries now are looking at China's model of authoritarian control combined with mercantilist capitalism as preferable to the “messiness of democracy”, he added.

He said that free press was under attack and censorship and State control of media was on the rise.

“Social media­ once seen as a mechanism to promote knowledge and understanding and solidarity ­has proved to be just as effective at promoting hatred and paranoia and propaganda and conspiracy theories,” he stated.

In his conclusion, Obama said we had to follow Madiba's example of persistence and of hope.

“Let me tell you what I believe. I believe in Nelson Mandela's vision. I

believe in a vision shared by [Mohandas] Gandhi and [Martin Luther] King [Jr] and Abraham Lincoln. I believe in a vision of equality and justice and freedom and multi-racial democracy, built on the premise that all people are created equal, and they're endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights.

“And I believe that a world governed by such principles is possible and that it can achieve more peace and more cooperation in pursuit of a common good. That's what I believe,” he declared.

Obama went on the say that by the end of his life, Madiba embodied the successful struggle for human rights, despite the journey being difficult.

He pointed out that Mandela’s power actually grew during those years in prison­ and said the power of his jailers diminished.

“… ultimately, right makes might, not the other way around, ultimately, the better story can win out and as strong as Madiba's spirit may have been, he would not have sustained that hope had he been alone in the struggle; part of what buoyed him up was that he knew that each year the ranks of freedom fighters were replenishing - young men and women, here in South African, in the ANC [African National Congress] and beyond, black and Indian and white, from across the countryside, across the continent, around the world, who in those most difficult days would keep working on behalf of his vision,” Obama passionately conveyed.

He said what was needed in the world was “collective spirit” and called on the youth to “keep believing, keep marching, keep raising your voice”.

He said everyone had an obligation to help the youth succeed and added that many were taking over the work of those who came before them.

“Love comes more naturally to the human heart, let's remember that truth. Let's see it as our North Star, let's be joyful in our struggle to make that truth manifest here on earth so that in 100 years from now, future generations will look back and say, ‘they kept the march going, that's why we live under new banners of freedom’", Obama concluded.