The late anti-apartheid hero’s foundation revealed Friday that Nelson Mandela was on a first-name terms with Queen Elizabeth II, a rare privilege that went against royal protocol.
The longest-reigning monarch in British history, Queen Elizabeth II, passed away on Thursday at the age of 96 at her vacation home in Scotland.
In a statement offering condolences to the royal family, the Nelson Mandela Foundation said that Nelson Mandela was anglophile and had developed a personal friendship with the Queen in the years after his release from jail.
They spoke on the phone regularly and showed respect and admiration for one another by calling each other by their first names.
According to the Foundation, Mandela believed it was crucial for the former colonial state to establish friendly and fruitful ties with the newly democratic nation of South Africa.
Mandela spoke about how he came up with a particular moniker for the queen when she visited South Africa two years previously during a luncheon for Prince Charles, now King Charles III, in 1997, according to the non-profit organisation he created to advance freedom and equality.
Mandela had remarked, referring to her visit as a “watershed,” “Like a symbol of our devotion to Her Majesty, we awarded on her the name Motlalepula, since her visit coincided with heavy rains as we had not experienced in a long time.”
Later in life, Madiba would take delight in reminding British interlocutors that South Africa had freed itself from colonial rule and would often question anybody who had been to Britain, “And did you get to see the Queen?
According to the Foundation,