Happy Birthday, Nelson Mandela!

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From Time: "Mandela is the closest thing the world has to a secular saint, but he would be the first to admit that he is something far more pedestrian: a politician. He overthrew apartheid and created a nonracial democratic South Africa by knowing precisely when and how to transition between his roles as warrior, martyr, diplomat and statesman. Uncomfortable with abstract philosophical concepts, he would often say to me that an issue 'was not a question of principle; it was a question of tactics.'" World citizens of a certain age have been privileged to live in the time of Nelson Mandela. I salute him, and wish him the happiest of birthdays.