The City of Brussels will honour the former South African president Nelson Mandela on Wednesday. The anti-apartheid hero and former Nobel Prize winner, who died in Johannesburg in December of 2013, would have turned 100 on July 18.
The commemorative event, which will take place at the Sainte-Gudule square, is being organised together with the embassy of South Africa.
“It is important to pay homage to this man who shaped history and to mark his long fight against inequality and oppression,” Brussels alderwoman for culture Karine Lalieux said in a press release.
Carl Van Eyndhoven, a Belgian carillon player, will play the South African national anthem at the Saints Michel-et-Gudule cathedral, which is situated close to the city’s Central Station, at 11.00. Manneken-Pis, Brussel’s most famous monument, will be decked out in a “Nelson Mandela costume” designed by Dierdre Rudman in 2004, according to a press release sent out by the City of Brussels.
A delegation from the South African embassy will also be received by Lalieux and mayor Philippe Close at the Brussels city hall later that day.
July 18 has marked International Nelson Mandela Day since 2010.
Linda A. Thompson
The Brussels Times
