Nelson Mandela was a towering figure, Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday.
Paying tribute to the former South African president, Mr Cameron told the House of Commons the Union and South African flags would fly at half-mast on Sunday – the day of Mr Mandela’s funeral.
Mr Cameron said: “Nelson Mandela was a towering figure in our lifetime – a pivotal figure in the history of South Africa and the world – and it is right that we meet in this Parliament to pay tribute to his character, his achievements and his legacy.”
Mr Cameron, Labour Party leader Ed Miliband and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, were due to fly to South Africa last night for a memorial service to Mr Mandela, who died last Thursday aged 95. The Prince of Wales would attend Mr Mandela’s funeral, MPs were told.
The prime minister added: “When looking back over history it can be easy to see victories over prejudice and hatred as somehow inevitable.
“As the years lengthen and events recede, it can seem as though the natural tide of progress continually bears humanity ever upwards, away from brutality and darkness and towards something better. But it is not so.
“Progress is not just handed down as a gift, it is won through struggle – the struggle of men and women who believe things can be better, who refuse to accept the world as it is but dream of what it can be. Nelson Mandela was the embodiment of that struggle.
“He did not see himself as the helpless victim of history – he wrote it.” Mr Cameron added: “We must never forget the evil of Apartheid and its effect on every day life. Separate benches, separate buses, separate schools – even separate pews in church. Inter-racial relationships criminalised, pass laws and banning orders, a whole language of segregation that expressed man’s inhumanity to man.”
The best tribute Britain can pay to Mr Mandela is standing up for human rights and equality around the world, Mr Clegg said.
He said Mr Mandela’s upholding of the principles of truth and reconciliation after being released from prison and becoming South Africa’s first black president laid down a blueprint for other societies ridden with conflict and division to follow.