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Though with kind words for Nelson Mandela and for the speeches given at his tribute, the
Daily Mail's David Jones
reports from the scene that the event was "a shambles" and embarrassing for the late leader.
In a scathing column for the
Mail, Jones laments the empty stadium, the chronic booing of the event's host, and the fact that the ceremony -- four hours long -- began 57 minutes late. "It's my view that yesterday's memorial ceremony for Nelson Mandela not only failed to reflect the towering achievements of the man," he writes, "at times, it was a shambolic disgrace to his name."
Jones notes the stadium, home to the last World Cup, was only two-thirds full. Despite warnings of potentially discordant crowds, "we gazed down upon rows of empty seats" and an "embarrassingly poor" turnout. What's more, he adds, the crowd that was there required disciplining as
it booed the image of current South African President Jacob Zuma, the host of the event, whenever he appeared on the jumbotron. The crowd also cheered Mandela's second wife, Winnie, more than his third, Jones recounts.
The crowd played a winners-and-losers game with the guests that made the event "almost like being in a Roman amphitheatre" and "frankly distasteful," writes Jones.
Poor turnout: The 80,000 seat FNB Stadium in Johannesburg was only two-thirds full for Mandela's memorial.
Comment: Imagine what the sentence would be if the crime was committed by one of the youths from a minority community in the U.S., one of those who do not suffer from "affluenza"!