Celebrating Mandela 100

18 July 2018 will mark the centenary of the birth of Nelson Mandela (1918-2013). This occasion will be celebrated around the world with lectures, concerts and debates. Mandela, former President of South Africa, received an honorary doctorate from Leiden University in 1999. The then Rector Magnificus Willem Wagenaar honoured Mandela as ‘a true defender of freedom.’

To celebrate the legacy of Nelson Mandela, Leiden University, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam - that has a long tradition of academic cooperation with South Africa through the South Africa VU Strategic Alliances (SAVUSA) programme - and the South African Embassy to the Netherlands are organising the ‘Celebrating Mandela 100’ event on 1 June, with a keynote lecture by Prof. Tom Lodge (University of Limerick, Ireland), author of the biography Mandela. A Critical Life (2006). 

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