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U2's Bono Pays Tribute To Nelson Mandela

12/06/2013
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(Radio.com) Nelson Mandela, the first black President of South Africa and anti-apartheid icon, died on Thursday (Dec. 5) at his home. He was 95. Bono of U2 wrote an essay for TIME and shared how the leader of South Africa had a "forceful presence" in his life.

"As an activist I have pretty much been doing what Nelson Mandela tells me since I was a teenager. He has been a forceful presence in my life going back to 1979, when U2 made its first anti-apartheid effort. And he's been a big part of the Irish consciousness even longer than that. Irish people related all too easily to the subjugation of ethnic majorities. From our point of view, the question as to how bloody South Africa would have to get on its long road to freedom was not abstract," he wrote.

He added: "He was also a hardheaded realist, as his economic policy demonstrated. To him, principles and pragmatism were not foes; they went hand in hand. He was an idealist without -naiveté, a compromiser without being compromised." See more stars reactions.

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Copyright Radio.com/CBS Local - Excerpted here with permission.

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