University pays tribute to inspiring leader for making the world a better, kinder place
JOHANNESBURG - Malaysia’s Limkokwing University of Creative Technology yesterday bestowed an Honorary Doctorate of Humanity on former South African President Nelson Mandela. It described the honour as a tribute to the “world’s greatest statesman”.
JOHANNESBURG - Malaysia’s Limkokwing University of Creative Technology yesterday bestowed an Honorary Doctorate of Humanity on former South African President Nelson Mandela. It described the honour as a tribute to the “world’s greatest statesman”.
Mandela, who turned 90 on July 18, however, could not make it to personally receive the award but he was represented by Ahmed Katrada, a fellow freedom fighter who, like Mandela, spent long years in prison before their release in 1989 and 1990 respectively.
The university’s founder and president, Dr Lim Kok Wing, presented the award at a ceremony held at the Nelson Mandela Foundation building here.
Lim said that awarding Mandela the honorary doctorate was the highest the university could honour a “man who exemplifies the best qualities attainable by humanity”.
Opponents against apartheid
Best known as Malaysia’s public relations guru, Lim has set up branch campuses internationally with 20,000 students and a strong presence in Africa.
Lim said the award reflected the close relationship between Malaysia and South Africa that began when the first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, became one of the world’s most vocal opponents against the policy of apartheid imposed by the then white minority government on the black majority.
Lim recalled that he was dispatched by the Government to South Africa in 1993 when Mandela turned to Malaysia to help organise his country’s first democratic elections.
He said he had traveled all over the country for months working with leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) in a voter education programme.
“It was then that I first met Mandela and developed a friendship with this great statesman. I count myself as among those privileged to have known Mandela, worked with him during his untiring efforts to bring to a close the apartheid era” he said.
Lim said that his advice to the ANC to adopt a soft stance rather than an aggressive approach in its election campaign was accepted, and the most famous depiction of this was the highly recognisable poster showing Mandela with smiling South African children, including white children.
A reproduction of the poster was presented by Lim to the Nelson Mandela Foundation at the ceremony. Mandela led the ANC in winning the elections in May 1994, ending 300 years of white minority rule.
“My exposure to Mandela’s leadership inspired a change in my own priorities and set this university on a path that today has brought us to set up universities in Africa,” said Lim of the university’s campuses in Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland with more to come in Zambia, Namibia, Kenya, Sudan and Mauritius.
Next generation of leaders
Its other foreign campuses are in the United Kingdom, China, Indonesia and Cambodia with plans to expand to the Middle East and the US.
Limkokwing’s main campus in Malaysia now hosts students from 42 out of 52 African nations. Many of them are granted government scholarships.
“It is upon Mandela’s vision that I have built my own mission to work with the people of Africa to develop Africa’s next generation of leaders and thinkers to help build human capital in Africa.
“This is where I believe we can make a difference, where we can make a contribution, however small it may be,” he said.
Lim also said Malaysia remained South Africa’s strongest ally in South East Asia as it was one of the first countries to invest in the new democracy. Since 1994 when Mandela became president, Malaysia has been among the largest investors in sectors related to tourism and hospitality, telecommunications, IT, energy, agro-based processing, automotive and textile industries.
On Mandela, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, Lim said: “Because of him, the world is a better place. Because of him, the world is working to be a kinder place”.
