We Love and Thank You, Madiba page gains rapid Facebook traction

There are bound to be a ton of tributes to former South African president and globally renowned statesman Nelson Mandela popping up in the next few days, but one Facebook page has already grabbed our attention.

The page, which has been liked by nearly 14 000 people (up from 6 000 a few hours ago), is called “We Love and Thank You Madiba” as promises that messages posted on it “will be published in a book that will be available for purchase” before encouraging people to “go ahead and say a few words to our amazing, Madiba”.

Update: The page has now been liked over 31 000 times

Initially we were a little sceptical. While the header image promises that the proceeds of the book will go to charity, it doesn’t say which charity. The page’s extended description, which reads as follows, did little to lift the veil on the mystery:

Please add your personal thank you message to this world’s amazing man so that we may publish it in a book that will be one of the greatest tributes to our Madiba.

We own the rights to all information published on this page and the rights to publish it.

When we reached out to the founders of the page however, we found that the answers to our questions were far from sinister.

It turns out that We Love and Thank You, Madiba actually started with a group of friends, including the page’s primary editors Nabeelah Akoon and Tasneem Kathrada, sitting around a dining room table in April 2011 and coming to terms with the fact that elderly statesman wasn’t going to be around forever.

They therefore decided that they should try and contribute to his legacy and the idea of the page (initially five or six different pages) was born. At first though it seemed to fall flat, with only a few friends and family members contributing.

With Mandela’s health taking a turn for the worse in the last few weeks however, the page began to see momentum and, with a little push here and there from the founders, over the past few days it’s been growing by the hour.

While the people behind the page say they have yet to decide how they’re going to publish the book, they have decided that all the profits will go to the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund.

Mandela remains in a critical condition in hospital, although his family does say that the global icon is responsive.