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Making the most of this milestone moment: Learn from the Mandela story

January 17, 2009 By GABEBA BADEROON Gabeba Baderoon is a South African writer and literary scholar. She teaches women's studies and African and African-American studies at Pennsylvania State University.

In November as Americans voted, I had a flashback to my experience in South Africa in 1994, when millions stood in calm April queues to vote, most for the first time, for Nelson Mandela for president. After the four-hour wait, when I finally reached the booth, I felt - really felt - connected to the millions of people, divided and unequal and different, doing this one same thing. I shook with the...

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