Sara Malm
Daily Mail
The wife of former president Nelson Mandela has warned that South Africa has become an ‘angry nation’, as it is refusing to deal with its apartheid past. Human rights activist Graca Machel, 67, said the nation is on the brink of ‘something very dangerous’ which it may not be able to stop.
The Mozambican third wife of ANC icon Mandela was speaking at the memorial service of a taxi driver who died in police custody after officers tied his hands to the back of their van and dragged him to this death. Taxi driver Mido Macia is alleged to have argued a traffic violation after which police handcuffed the 27-year-old to their vehicle in front of a horrified crowd. He was found dead two hours later in a police cell in the Daveyton township of Johannesburg, last Tuesday. At the memorial Mrs Machel said South Africa’s anger came from ‘unaddressed issues’ referring to the nation’s history of apartheid, The Telegraph reports. Mrs Machel, said a reluctance to deal with the nation’s past has resulted in an ‘increasing institutionalisation of violence and a police force which is ‘actively aggressive’ towards the public. ‘South Africa is an angry nation,’ she said. ‘We are on the precipice of something very dangerous with the potential of not being able to stop the fall.’
