Bound Together in Invisible Ways: Eulogising a Giant of History

Abstract

This article examines Barack Obama’s eulogy on the occasion of Nelson Mandela’s memorial on 10 December, 2013. Using a critical discourse analysis framework, the article demonstrates that Obama’s eulogy is an act of memorialising Mandela that captures the life story of this statesman and also generates conversations about identity, participation and agency in both local and the global spaces. The eulogy privileges three qualities: making emotional connections with the audience through the use of adjectives, enhancing the ethos of Mandela by strengthening the pathos of the occasion and finally, interpolating Obama’s own identity-formation by calling for action that perpetuates Mandela’s magnanimous contributions. Although the word Ubuntu is only used twice in the eulogy, this article contends that it is this experience of being bound together in ways invisible to the eye that Obama focuses upon in order to make connections between apartheid and Jim Crow, the South African nationalist struggle and the Black American civil rights movement. In 1 945 words, Obama captures the complex selves of Mandela as politician, prisoner, husband, father, divorcee and sage statesman.

Opsomming

Hierdie artikel ondersoek Barack Obama se lofrede ter geleentheid van Nelson Mandela se gedenkdiens op 10 Desember 2013. Die artikel gebruik ʼn raamwerk van kritiese diskoersanalise om te demonstreer dat Obama se lofrede ʼn herdenking van Mandela is wat die lewensverhaal van hierdie staatsman saamvat en ook gesprekke oor identiteit, deelname en agentskap in sowel plaaslike as globale ruimtes genereer. Die lofrede sonder drie eienskappe uit: emosionele aanklank by die gehoor deur die gebruik van adjektiewe, verhoging van Mandela se etos deur versterking van die patos van die gebeurtenis, en laastens, interpolering van Obama se eie identiteitsvorming deur ʼn oproep tot aksie wat Mandela se groothartige bydraes verewig. Hoewel die woord ubuntu slegs tweemaal in die lofrede gebruik word, voer hierdie artikel aan dat dit hierdie ervaring van saamgebondenheid op maniere wat onsigbaar is vir die oog, is waarop Obama fokus om die verband tussen apartheid en Jim Crow, die Suid-Afrikaanse nasionalistiese struggle en die Swart Amerikaanse burgerregtebeweging daar te stel. In 1 945 woorde vat Obama die komplekse self van Mandela as onderskeidelik politikus, gevangene, eggenoot, vader, geskeide man en wyse staatsman saam.