There is a light and it never goes out

On the passing of Nelson Mandela, David Cameron said "a great light has gone out" but he was wrong (just as he was wrong to go on a 'fact-finding' mission paid for by a firm seeking to lift sanctions against apartheid South Africa).  A man may have died but the flame he has lit will live on down the generations, both in South Africa and abroad and in this way the song title by The Smiths seems more appropriate.  I was born 14 years after Dr Martin Luther King Jnr's assassination but his legacy is just as vibrant and important in my lifetime and today as it was when he was alive.  It will be the same with Mandela.
He was not a Moses for his oppressed people to a pharaonic racist white government but a man who could embrace all and knew the overwhelming need to show the example of forgiveness can be the best solution in conflict resolution.  The hope for new Mandelas (such as in Eritrea) was a false dawn, demonstrating what a truly remarkable man he was.  Yet Mandela himself will always remain an indelible example of fortitude and fairness and will provide much inspiration in the decades, even centuries, to come.