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In an extraordinary ceremony last September, South African President Nelson Mandela became a Harvard man. He is the first non-Westerner among a select group of historical figures (ranging from George Washington to Winston Churchill) who have been awarded honorary degrees by the University outside its June graduation ceremonies.
Mandela, 80, an invited keynote speaker at the HBS Global Alumni Conference in Cape Town, delighted 25,000 people in Harvard's Tercentenary Theater with his regal bearing, broad smile, and warm sense of humor. Accepting his Doctor of Laws degree, Mandela, who was imprisoned for 27 years before becoming South Africa's president in 1994, noted that this would likely be his last official visit to America before he leaves the presidency next year.
He then delivered a twenty-minute address that focused on the new international economic order and African development.
"The greatest single challenge facing our globalized world is to combat and eradicate its disparities," Mandela said. Asserting that the current worldwide economic crisis calls in to question conventional free-market economic theory, he urged greater input from Third World economists and "a genuine partnership between those of the North and the South in helping to shape a world order that answers to the shared and common needs of all peoples."
Mandela, noting that many of his countrymen have benefited from Harvard and its programs, observed in his closing remarks that "as South Africans play their role in helping to conceptualize and give content to the African renaissance, we continue to draw upon the intellectual skills nurtured and honed here."
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