Pool photo by Juda Ngwenya
As world leaders ready their jets for South Africa, U2 lead singer Bono has penned a eulogy of his own. “As an activist I have pretty much been doing what Nelson Mandela tells me since I was a teenager,” Bono writes in an obituary published in Time. “He has been a forceful presence in my life going back to 1979, when U2 made its first anti-apartheid effort.” He adds that the Irish particularly related to Mandela and the plight of ethnic minorities being persecuted. Bono, who worked with Mandela on humanitarian efforts in Africa, recalls seeing him choke up but be unable to cry because of damage to his tear ducts from the limestone mines where he was imprisoned. He had surgery to correct the problem in 1994. “Now, he could cry,” Bono writes. “Today, we can.”