The days since Nelson Mandela's death have been marked in South Africa with an undefined doubt, a rumor of ambivalence, a whisper of disenchantment. Away from the crowds of hundreds lighting candles outside his home, away from the thousands of mourners who laid flowers in front of his statues, events to commemorate the passing of South Africa's first black President have been poorly attended and the myriad broadcasts of remembrances of him often seemed to be going unheard. On Tuesday, as more than 100 world leaders from U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe gathered for a memorial at a soccer stadium on the edge of Soweto, South Africa's unease moved closer into focus. A crowd of tens of thousands braved torrential rain to cheer on Presidents, Prime Ministers and celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Bono. Obama, American's first black President, received the loudest cheer and a standing ovation for a rousing speech in which he said: "While I will always fall short of Madiba's example, he made me want to be a better man." (MORE: Obama Honors Nelson Mandela: 'His Triumph Was Your Triumph') Whenever the cameras alighted on South Africa's own President, Jacob Zuma, however, the crowd loudly booed him. Entreaties from Zuma's subordinates in the African National Congress to be quiet and more polite failed to silence them. By the time Zuma stood to give a wooden keynote address, read from a sheath of papers, the stadium was all but empty. "Madiba was one of a kind," Zuma said. And that, apparently, was precisely the problem. South Africa's memorial day began promisingly enough, with tens of thousands traveling in the early hours to the giant FNB Stadium, to the southwest of Johannesburg. But even as the event was scheduled to begin, it was clear whole tiers of seats were not going to be filled. Outside South Africa's business capital, the mood was even more subdued. In Cape ...
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