South Africans celebrate Mandela birthday

South Africans of all ages and races heaped praise on Nelson Mandela today as he and the entire nation celebrated his 85th birthday.

The hero of the anti-apartheid struggle is adored like a favourite uncle, idolised like a rock star and revered like a religious icon.

Newspapers printed commemorative editions, businesses sponsored billboards and TV pieces saluting him, and South African Airways named a new jet in his honour.

It also gave him and his wife free first class flights for life.

“I personally think he is a saint,” said Jill Dos Reis, 37, after the former president warmly greeted her 10-year-old daughter Nikita, who has leukaemia.

In South Africa, his incarceration for 27 years at the hands of the racist, white regime turned him into a figure of near-mythic proportions for most of the population.

He won the nation’s first all-race elections after the fall of apartheid in 1994, retired in 1999, and is as popular now as he ever was.

“He’s loved by all and sundry, whether you are white or black, whether you are young or old,” said Ali Bacher, South Africa’s former cricket chief.

Mandela’s face has appeared on a South African coin, a city district was named after him and some business leaders hope to build a massive, rotating statue in his likeness – the Statue of Freedom – taller than New York’s Statue of Liberty.

Mandela’s birthday is being marked by a whirlwind of celebrations.

Former US President Bill Clinton is scheduled to deliver the first annual Nelson Mandela lecture tomorrow in his honour.

Later that evening, 1,600 guests will pay tribute to Mandela at a gala banquet.

The guest list has been kept secret, but local reports say it includes Barbra Streisand and Michael Jackson, as well as several world leaders and members of royalty.

The Nelson Mandela Bridge in Johannesburg will officially be opened on Sunday with a road race.

But the celebration of his actual birthday today was more low key.

A white tent was set up in the closed road outside his house so he could greet visitors throughout the day.

Instead of 85 candles on a birthday cake, a four-tiered tower of 85 birthday cakes was set up inside.

A military band played Happy Birthday before breaking into a specially written tune called March for Madiba” referring to the clan name South Africans affectionately use for Mandela.

“I feel very happy indeed,” the Nobel Peace Prize winner said as he met a group of disabled children outside his house.

“So nice to see you,” he told the children, greeting each in turn.

“I want you to be encouraged to know that in spite of your disabilities, you are human beings and you have hopes and wishes like all of us. You are accepted as ordinary human beings, like myself.”

Many South Africans view Mandela as far from ordinary.

“He is a hero,” said Johnson Ibe, 29.

“He saved the country,” said Spiros Micouris, 58.

“He is the greatest man that ever lived in this country and one of the best leaders the world has ever seen,” said Waheed Arai, 34.

“Through the ages, the human race has had its icons – men and women who rose above ordinariness to inspire their generations,” The Mail and Guardian newspaper said today.

“In our generation, the gods bequeathed us Nelson Mandela.”