Mandela leads Rhodes celebrations

By Ollie Stone-Lee
BBC News Online political staff

Having Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair as speakers at your student reunion is rather better than the average rubber chicken affair put on for most graduates.

But then the Rhodes scholars, celebrating their centenary in Westminster Hall on Wednesday, have always produced a pretty elite bunch.

Mandela urged people to tackle the stigma associated with Aids

The scholarships were set up by former British imperialist Cecil Rhodes to help people from the Commonwealth and America study at Oxford University.

Mr Clinton was quick to joke about the eminence of the thousand Rhodes scholars gathered for the celebration - and to launch the Mandela Rhodes foundation in the UK.

"At this time when our people are worried about the future of the modern world, it is symbolic of all the progress we have made that all these politicians feel safe in this room where Sir Thomas More and Charles I were tried and found wanting," he said.

"They lost their heads and we're looking forward to the reception afterwards."

Reminiscing

Mr Clinton recalled his own time at Oxford, where his daughter Chelsea graduated this week, at the turbulent end of the 1960s.

Mr Blair too reminisced about his Oxford days and how it was an Australian Rhodes Scholar who was his best friend and who got him interested in politics.

"I don't know whether that's a recommendation for him but it's true," laughed the prime minister.

Bill Clinton was himself a Rhodes scholar

Mr Mandela's presence - and the launch of his new foundation aimed at bringing more social justice to Africa - ensured it was more than an evening for remembering exuberant student days.

Former president Mr Clinton said the new foundation would help bring some of Cecil Rhodes' wealth back to its origins to help build the new South Africa.

"Africa is the 21st century globalisation's great test. Can we move from the present situation of inter-dependence with many winners but too many losers?"

That meant moving away from a world with "thriving diversity but angry alienation so vulnerable to the claims of fundamentalism and terror", he argued.

The goal was a "truly global community with shared beliefs, shared responsibilities and shared values in which our differences make life more interesting but where our common humanity is more important".

The question was not what the rest of the world could do for Africa but what it could do with Africa, said Mr Clinton.

War-torn nations

Mr Blair said the scourge of HIV/Aids in Africa was a "call on the conscience of the world" to act.

With the right will and determination, other nations knew they could do something about the problem, he argued.

"We know too that Africa is a wealthy continent in potential but scarred by conflict," the prime minister went on.

The latest round of world trade talks later this year gave the chance for developed countries to give the developing world access to their markets, he added.

In his speech, Mr Mandela said some people believed he and Mr Blair must be "common enemies" because of their differences over the Iraq war.

Instead, they remained "best of friends" and were able to discuss other issues constructively and he held Mr Blair in "high esteem", he said.

The former South African president paid tribute to anti-apartheid fighter Walter Sisulu, who died earlier this year.

Mr Sisulu had shown essential simplicity and humility, he said.

Diana's example

Mr Mandela said the combination of his name with that of Cecil Rhodes in the new foundation had "historic symbolism".

But his own name represented all Africans - those in rural poverty, a labourer struggling for his living and the child trying to realise her potential.

And he urged people to follow the example of Diana, Princess of Wales in tackling the stigma associated with HIV/Aids.

"If you do not go to the doctor, you are actually signing your own death warrant," added Mr Mandela.