The life of Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was the son of one of South Africa’s leading dignitaries, Chief Henry Mandela of the Tembu Tribe, and it was as a young law student that he became involved in opposition to the white minority regime

Joining the African National Congress (ANC) in 1942, he co-founded its more dynamic Youth League two years later.

After the 1948 election victory of the Afrikaner-dominated National Party, with its apartheid policy of racial segregation, Mandela was prominent in the ANC’s 1952 Defiance Campaign and the 1955 Congress of the People, whose adoption of the Freedom Charter provided the fundamental programme of the anti-apartheid cause.

Initially committed to non-violent mass struggle and acquitted in the marathon Treason Trial of 1956 - 1961, Mandela and his colleagues accepted the case for armed action after the shooting of unarmed protesters at Sharpeville, in March 1960, and the banning of anti-apartheid groups.
In 1961, he became the commander of the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. In August of the following year, he was arrested and jailed for five years. In June 1964 he was sentenced again, this time to life imprisonment, for his involvement in fighting the brutality of the apartheid regime.

During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people, I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if it needs be it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

He started his prison years in the infamous Robben Island Prison, a maximum security facility on a small island off the coast of Cape Town. In April 1984, he was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town and in December 1988 he was moved the Victor Verster Prison near Paarl from where he was eventually released.

While in prison, Mandela rejected offers made by his jailers for remission of sentence in exchange for accepting the bantustan policy by recognising the independence of the Transkei region and agreeing to settle there. Among opponents of apartheid in South Africa and internationally, he became a symbol of freedom and equality.

Mandela remained in prison until February 1990, when sustained ANC campaigning and international pressure led to his release. On 2nd February 1990, South African President F.W. de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC and other anti-apartheid organisations. Mandela was released from Victor Verster Prison on 11th February 1990.

He and President de Klerk - who did much to dismantle the institutions of apartheid - shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. In Mandela’s 1994 autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, he did not reveal anything about the alleged complicity of de Klerk in the violence of the 1980s and 90s, or the role of his ex-wife Winnie Mandela in that bloodshed. However, he later discussed those issues in Mandela: The Authorised Biography.

A Better World
Nelson Mandela and his wife Graca Machel attended the unveiling of nine foot (2.74m) bronze statue of himself unveiled in Parliament Square, in honour of his struggle and that of many others against apartheid.

The unveiling on 29 August was attended by Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, anti-apartheid campaigner Wendy Woods, the Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other public figures, anti-apartheid campaigners, community and church representatives and thousands of members of the public.

It marks the culmination of a seven-year campaign for the statue to be erected in central London, lead by the Mayor of London, Wendy Woods and Lord Attenborough, following the initial proposal by Mrs Woods’ late husband Donald in 2000.

Lord Attenborough says: ‘How appropriate that the most revered statesman of our time, a man who refused to succumb to bitterness or seek revenge, who went on to lead his people to freedom, should stand for all time in Parliament Square.’

Wendy Woods says: ‘To honour Mandela with a statue in a prominent place was my husband’s idea – it’s what he envisaged and worked for – so this is tremendous news. Parliament Square is a fitting place to acknowledge Mandela’s statesmanship and international stature.’

Pic : During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people, I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if it needs be it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”