Vol.62/No.35           October 5, 1998 
 
 
Mandela speaks in Boston  
Nelson Mandela, leader of the struggle to overthrow apartheid in South Africa and now the president of that country, received an honorary doctorate from Harvard University in Boston September 18. "The greatest single challenge facing our globalized world is to combat and eradicate its disparities. While in all parts of the world progress is being made in entrenching democratic forms of governance, we constantly need to remind ourselves that the freedoms which democracy brings will remain empty shells if they are not accompanied by real and tangible improvement in the material lives of the millions of ordinary citizens of those countries," Mandela told the 25,000 students and others attending the ceremony to great applause. "Where men and women and children go burdened with hunger, suffering from preventable diseases, languishing in ignorance and illiteracy, or finding themselves bereft of decent shelter, talk of democracy and freedom that does not recognize these material aspects can erode confidence exactly in those values we seek to promote," he continued.  
 
 
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