The waiting game

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THE INSIDE VIEW

Nelson Mandela has been pulled out of retirement twice since his 90th birthday, both within the last week. First, to congratulate United States President-elect Barack Obama on his election victory: 'Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place,' wrote Mandela. It does not get much better for a serious politician than to be called an inspiration by Nelson Mandela.

The more reserved expressions of support for Obama by other senior members of the ruling ANC were consistent with the poor state of US-South African relations. Improving them will be a priority for Obama's Africa policy.

Mandela's other mission this week was the sad one of paying tribute to Mama Afrika. Zenzile Miriam Makeba died of a heart attack, aged 76, on 10 November. 'Her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us,' Mandela said. After a 1954 tour with the Manhattan Brothers helped her leave South Africa, Makeba became a cultural force against apartheid and a star, singing with Harry Belafonte and then at President John F. Kennedy's birthday party in 1962 alongside Marilyn Monroe.

Some Americans were less happy with her marriage to black power leader Stokely Carmichael and her sojourn in Guinea under Sékou Touré. But Makeba campaigned to the end: hours before she died she was singing at a concert near Naples, organised to fight racism and the mafia.