JOHANNESBURG - For all his years of struggle, imprisonment and political leadership, it was Nelson Mandela's capacity to embrace his former oppressors without bitterness in order to achieve a multiracial national reconciliation that stands out as his most enduring legacy.
"A lot of us regard him almost like a second Jesus,'' said Zanele Zikalala, a young black woman raised in the black township of Soweto but who now lives in middle-class suburbia. "I think he taught a lot of people and the world what true reconciliation is – and what forgiveness is.''
