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Taken you. >> an hour. >> and we wait. >> and clearly you felt quite strongly about being here. >> absolutely. absolutely. on madiba's birthday this year i announced to the world i am not an hiv victim. i'm an hiv survivor. madiba taught me freedom of speech and forgiveness. i have forgiven my rapist as well. >> these are the kind of thing he is taught you and the rest of the country. >> absolutely. >> how much optimism do you have for the future now? >> a beautiful, bright future. >> tell me why. >> he left us a future. a legacy to love proud. to love with forgiveness. to love with pride and ...

Forward as divided. more forward as the poor and the rich or move forward as just a nation. [ inaudible ] and i'm hoping that all south africans, you know, will use today and use madiba's vision to move forward. and what -- [ inaudible ] >> if you're just waking up with us, you're watching the memorial in south africa in honor of nelson mandela. it was supposed to get underway at 4:00 eastern time. here it is at 4:42. you can still hear the music. you can see this man singing and a lot of the crowd gathering there and dancing as the cig y

That people are eager to get inside. eager to battle their way through very heavy rain and wind to honor the man. the man they call father. madiba, that was the clan name for nelson mandela. he was the person that changed this country. he was the person that brought this country out of a horrendous apartheid racial system that kept blacks down and kept them away from a democratic participation in the government and kept them away from the jobs they wanted and needed. he was seen along with others that are a part of the struggle as a person that changed this country. that's why this country tod...

Let's not be vengeful. it's the opportunity for any leader to say let's drop these negotiations. let's go for them. but madiba managed to convince his own leadership that that would not be a right thing to do. so we are a little like him at the time when we needed that type of leadership. >> what's the best message that you could send out this week in memory of nelson mandela? what's the vision you have? what would you like people to take away from this week of celebration? >> to take away all the statements, statements that came from the community, from international leaders. statements that ...

>> he was a policy man, wasn't he? >> through and through. >> he saw himself as a party man. >> he saw himself as a party man and, in fact, because i was on the anc during madiba's term, this is my second term in this job. madiba was -- no matter how much he believed on an issue on the table, no matter his viewpoint but he would be guided by the viewpoint of the coelellective. of course he will have some views. he'll try to convince that this is the right thing to do. this is the right thing.