Hero Of The Month: Nelson Mandela!

He has dedicated his life in fighting for justice to all and equal rights, the great Nelson Mandela.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (born 18 July 191 is a former President of South Africa, the first to be elected in fully representative democratic elections. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress. He spent 26 years in prison, much of it in a cell on Robben Island, for spearheading the struggle against apartheid that began after the Second World War. He had been sentenced to life imprisonment in June 1964 and was not released until February 1990.

Among opponents of apartheid in South Africa and internationally, he became a symbol of freedom and equality while the apartheid government and nations sympathetic to it condemned him and the ANC as communists and terrorists.

Following his release from prison in 1990, his switch to a policy of reconciliation and negotiation helped lead the transition to multi-racial democracy in South Africa. Since the end of apartheid, he has been widely praised, even among white South Africans and former opponents.

Birth and lineage

He was born in the small village of Mvezo in the district of Mthatha, the Transkei capital. His great-grandfather was Ngubengcuka (died 1832), the Inkosi Enkhulu or King of the Thembu people, who were eventually subjected to British colonial rule. One of the king’s sons, named Mandela, became Nelson’s grandfather and the source of his surname. However, being only the Inkosi’s child by a morganatic wife of the Ixhiba clan (the so-called “Left-Hand House”), the descendants of his branch of the royal family were not eligible to succeed to the Thembu throne.

His father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa (1880 – 1928), was nonetheless designated chief of the town of Mvezo. Upon alienating the colonial authorities, however, he was deprived of his position, and moved his family to Qunu. Gadla remained, however, a member of the Inkosi’s Privy Council, and was instrumental in the ascension to the Thembu throne of Jongintaba Dalindyebo, who would later return this favour by informally adopting Mandela upon Gadla’s death.

Mandela’s father had four wives, with whom he fathered a total of thirteen children (four boys and nine girls). Mandela was born to Gadla’s third wife (’third’ by a complex royal ranking system), Nosekeni Fanny, daughter of Nkedama of the Mpemvu Xhosa clan, the dynastic Right Hand House, in whose umzi or homestead Mandela spent much of his childhood. His given name Rolihlahla means “to pull a branch of a tree”, or more colloquially, “troublemaker”.

Education

At seven years of age, Rolihlahla Mandela became the first member of his family to attend a school, where he was given the name “Nelson,” after the British admiral Horatio Nelson, by a
Methodist teacher who found his native name difficult to pronounce.

His father died of tuberculosis when Rolihlahla was nine, and the Regent, Jongintaba, became his guardian. Mandela attended a Wesleyan mission school next door to the palace of the Regent.

Following Thembu custom, he was initiated at age sixteen, and attended Clarkebury Boarding Institute. He completed his Junior Certificate in two years, instead of the usual three. Destined to inherit his father’s position as a privy councillor, in 1937 Mandela moved to Healdtown, the Wesleyan college in Fort Beaufort which most Thembu royalty attended.

Aged nineteen, he took an interest in boxing and running. After matriculating, he started to study for a B.A. at the Fort Hare University, where he met Oliver Tambo, and the two became lifelong friends and colleagues. He also became close friends with his kinsman, Kaiser (”K.D.”) Matanzima who, however, as royal scion of the Thembu Right Hand House, was destined for the throne of Transkei, a role that later led him to embrace Bantustan policies which made he and Mandela political enemies. At the end of Nelson’s first year, he became involved in a boycott by the Students’ Representative Council against the university policies, and was asked to leave Fort Hare.

Later, while imprisoned, Mandela studied for a Bachelor of Laws from the University of London External Programme.

Move to Johannesburg

Shortly after leaving Fort Hare, Jongintaba announced to Mandela and Justice (the Regent’s own son and heir to the throne) that he had arranged marriages for both of them. Both young men were displeased by this and rather than marry, they elected to flee the comforts of the Regent’s estate to go to Johannesburg.

Upon his arrival, Mandela initially found employment as a guard at a mine. However, this was quickly terminated after the employer learned that Mandela was the Regent’s runaway adopted son. He later started work as an articled clerk at a law firm thanks to connections with his friend, lawyer Walter Sisulu. While working there, he completed his B.A. degree at the University of South Africa via correspondence, after which he started with his law studies at the University of Witwatersrand. During this time Mandela lived in Alexandra township, north of Johannesburg.

Political activity

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 program of the anti-apartheid cause.

During this time, Mandela and fellow lawyer Oliver Tambo operated the law firm of Mandela and Tambo, providing free or low-cost legal counsel to many blacks who would otherwise have been without representation.

Mandela’s approach was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, who inspired him and succeeding generations of South African anti-apartheid activists. Indeed, Mandela took part in the 29 January - 30 January 2007 conference in New Delhi which marked the 100th anniversary of Gandhi’s introduction of satyagraha in South Africa.

Initially committed to non-violent mass struggle, Mandela was arrested with 150 others on 5 December 1956 and charged with treason. The marathon Treason Trial of 1956-61 followed, and all were acquitted.From152-59 the ANC experienced disruption as a new class of Black activists (Africanists) emerged in the townships demanding more drastic steps against the National Party regime.

The ANC leadership of Albert Luthuli, Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu felt not only that events were moving too fast, but also that their leadership was challenged. They consequently bolstered their position by alliances with small White, Coloured and Indian political parties in an attempt to appear to have a wider appeal than the Africanists.

In 1961, Mandela became the leader of the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (translated as Spear of the Nation, also abbreviated as MK), which he co-founded. He coordinated a sabotage campaign against military and government targets, and made plans for a possible guerrilla war if sabotage failed to end apartheid.

A few decades later, MK did wage a guerrilla war against the regime, especially during the 1980s, in which many civilians were killed. Mandela also raised funds for MK abroad, and arranged for paramilitary training, visiting various African governments.

Mandela explains the move to embark on armed struggle as a last resort, when increasing repression and violence from the state convinced him that many years of non-violent protest against apartheid had achieved nothing and could not succeed.

Mandela later admitted that the ANC, in its struggle against apartheid, also violated human rights, and has sharply criticized attempts by parts of his party to remove statements supporting this fact from the reports of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Arrest and Rivonia trial

On 5 August 1962 Mandela was arrested after living on the run for seventeen months, and was imprisoned in the Johannesburg Fort. The arrest was allegedly made possible because the CIA tipped off the police as to Mandela’s whereabouts and disguise. Three days later, the charges of leading workers to strike in 1961 and leaving the country illegally were read to him during a court appearance. On 25 October 1962, Mandela was sentenced to five years in prison. Two years later on 11 June 1964, a verdict had been reached concerning his previous engagement in the African National Congress (ANC).

While Mandela was imprisoned, police arrested prominent ANC leaders on 11 July 1963, at Liliesleaf Farm, Rivonia, north of Johannesburg. Mandela was brought in, and at the Rivonia Trial, Mandela, Ahmed Kathrada, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Andrew Mlangeni, Raymond Mhlaba, Elias Motsoaledi, Walter Mkwayi (who escaped during trial), Arthur Goldreich (who escaped from prison before trial), Denis Goldberg and Lionel “Rusty” Bernstein were charged by the chief prosecutor Dr. Percy Yutar, the deputy attorney-general of the Transvaal, with the capital crimes of sabotage (which Mandela admitted) and crimes which were equivalent to treason, but easier for the government to prove.

The second charge accused the defendants of plotting a foreign invasion of South Africa, which Mandela denied.In his statement from the dock at the opening of the defence case in the trial on 20 April 1964 at Pretoria Supreme Court, Mandela laid out the clarity of reasoning in the ANC’s choice to use violence as a tactic. His statement revealed how the ANC had used peaceful means to resist apartheid for years until the Sharpeville Massacre.

That event coupled with the referendum establishing the Republic of South Africa and the declaration of a state of emergency along with the banning of the ANC made it clear that their only choice was to resist through acts of sabotage. Doing otherwise would have been tantamount to unconditional surrender.

Mandela went on to explain how they developed the Manifesto of Umkhonto we Sizwe on 16 December 1961 intent on exposing the failure of the National Party’s policies after the economy would be threatened by foreigners’ unwillingness to risk investing in the country. He closed his statement with these words:

“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to the 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 needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

All except Rusty Bernstein were found guilty, but they escaped the gallows and were sentenced to life imprisonment on 12 June 1964. Charges included involvement in planning armed action, in particular four charges of sabotage, which Mandela admitted to, and a conspiracy to help other countries invade South Africa, which Mandela denied.

Imprisonment

Nelson Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island where he remained for the next eighteen of his twenty-seven years in prison.

On the island, he and others performed hard labour in a lime quarry. Prison conditions were very basic. Prisoners were segregated by race, with black prisoners receiving the fewest rations. Political prisoners were kept separate from ordinary criminals and received fewer privileges.

Mandela describes how, as a D-group prisoner (the lowest classification) he was allowed one visitor and one letter every six months. Letters, when they came, were often delayed for long periods and made unreadable by the prison censors.

Whilst in prison Mandela undertook study with the University of London by correspondence through its External Programme and received the degree of Bachelor of Laws. He was subsequently nominated for the position of Chancellor of the University of London in the 1981 election, but lost to Princess Anne.

In his 1981 memoir Inside BOSS secret agent Gordon Winter describes his involvement in a plot to rescue Mandela from prison in 1969: this plot was infiltrated by Winter on behalf of South African intelligence, who wanted Mandela to escape so as to be able to shoot him during recapture. The plot was foiled by British Intelligence.

In March 1982 Mandela was moved from Robben Island to Pollsmoor Prison, along with other senior ANC leaders Walter Sisulu, Andrew Mlangeni, Ahmed Kathrada and Raymond Mhlaba. It was speculated that this was to remove the influence of these senior leaders on the new generation of young black activists imprisoned on Robben Island, the so-called “Mandela University”. However, National Party minister Kobie Coetzee says that the move was to enable discreet contact between them and the South African government

In February 1985 President P.W. Botha offered Mandela conditional release in return for renouncing armed struggle. Coetzee and other ministers had advised Botha against this, saying that Mandela would never commit his organisation to giving up the armed struggle in exchange for personal freedom.

Mandela indeed spurned the offer, releasing a statement via his daughter Zindzi saying:

“What freedom am I being offered while the organisation of the people remains banned? Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts.”

Throughout Mandela’s imprisonment, local and international pressure mounted on the South African government to release him, under the resounding slogan Free Nelson Mandela!

In 1989, South Africa reached a crossroads when Botha suffered a stroke and was replaced as president by Frederik Willem de Klerk. De Klerk announced Mandela’s release in February 1990.
Release

On 2 February 1990, State President F.W. de Klerk unbanned the ANC and other anti-apartheid organisations, and announced that Mandela would shortly be released from prison. Mandela was released from Victor Verster Prison in Paarl on 11 February 1990. The event was broadcast live all over the world.

On the day of his release, Mandela made a speech to the nation. He declared his commitment to peace and reconciliation with the country’s white minority, but made it clear that the ANC’s armed struggle was not yet over:

“Our resort to the armed struggle in 1960 with the formation of the military wing of the ANC (Umkhonto we Sizwe) was a purely defensive action against the violence of apartheid. The factors which necessitated the armed struggle still exist today. We have no option but to continue. We express the hope that a climate conducive to a negotiated settlement would be created soon, so that there may no longer be the need for the armed struggle.”

He also said his main focus was to bring peace to the black majority and give them the right to vote in both national and local elections.

Negotiations

Following his release from prison, Mandela returned to the leadership of the ANC and, between 1990 and 1994, led the party in the multi-party negotiations that led to the country’s first multi-racial elections.

In 1991, the ANC held its first national conference in South Africa after its unbanning, electing Mandela as President of the organization. His old friend and colleague Oliver Tambo, who had led the organization in exile during Mandela’s imprisonment, became National Chairperson.

Mandela’s leadership through the negotiations, as well as his relationship with President F.W. de Klerk, was recognised when they were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
Following the assassination of senior ANC leader Chris Hani in April 1993, there were renewed fears that the country would erupt in violence. Mandela addressed the nation appealing for calm, in a speech regarded as ‘presidential’ even though he was not yet president of the country at that time:

“Tonight I am reaching out to every single South African, black and white, from the very depths of my being. A white man, full of prejudice and hate, came to our country and committed a deed so foul that our whole nation now teeters on the brink of disaster. A white woman, of Afrikaner origin, risked her life so that we may know, and bring to justice, this assassin. The cold-blooded murder of Chris Hani has sent shock waves throughout the country and the world. …Now is the time for all South Africans to stand together against those who, from any quarter, wish to destroy what Chris Hani gave his life for – the freedom of all of us.”

While some riots did follow the assassination, the negotiators were galvanised into action, and soon agreed that democratic elections should take place on 27 april 1994, just over a year after Hani’s assassination.

Policy of reconciliation

As President from May 1994 until June 1999, Mandela presided over the transition from minority rule and apartheid, winning international respect for his advocacy of national and international reconciliation.

Invasion of Lesotho

In South Africa’s first post-apartheid military operation, Mandela ordered troops into Lesotho in September 1998 to protect the government of Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili. This came after a disputed election prompted fierce opposition threatening the unstable government.

Marriage and family

Mandela has been married three times, has fathered six children, has twenty grandchildren, and a growing number of great-grandchildren. His grandson is Chief Mandla Mandela.

Mandela’s first marriage was to Evelyn Ntoko. Couple had two sons, Madiba Thembekile (Thembi) (born 1946) and Makgatho (born 1950), and two daughters, both named Makaziwe (known as Maki; born 1947 and 1953). Their first daughter died aged nine months, and they named their second daughter in her honour.

The couple broke up in 1957 after 13 years, divorcing under the multiple strains of his constant absences, devotion to revolutionary agitation, and the fact she was a Jehovah’s Witness, a religion which requires political neutrality. Thembi was killed in a car crash in 1969 at the age of 25, while Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island. All their children were educated at the Waterford Kamhlaba. Evelyn Mase died in 2004.

Second marriage

Mandela’s second wife was, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.They had two daughters, Zenani (Zeni), born 4 February 1958, and Zindziswa (Zindzi), born 1960. Later, Winnie would be deeply torn by family discord which mirrored the country’s political strife; while her husband was serving a life sentence on the Robben Island prison, her father became the agriculture minister in the Transkei. The marriage ended in separation (April 1992) and divorce (March 1996), fuelled by political estrangement.

Their daughter, Zenani, was married to Prince Thumbumuzi Dlamini in 1973, elder brother of King Mswati III of Swaziland. As a member by marriage of a reigning foreign dynasty, she was able to visit her father during his South African imprisonment while other family members were denied access. The Dlamini couple lives and run a business in Boston.

One of their sons, Prince Cedza Dlamini (born 1976), educated in the United States, has followed in his grandfather’s footsteps as an international advocate for human rights and humanitarian aid.

Thumbumuzi and Mswati’s sister, Princess Mantfombi Dlamini, is the chief consort to King Goodwill Zwelithini of KwaZulu-Natal, who “reigns but does not rule” over South Africa’s largest ethnic group under the auspices of South Africa’s government. One of Queen Mantfombi’s sons is expected to eventually succeed Goodwill as monarch of the Zulus, whose Inkatha Party leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, was the rival of Mandela during much of his presidency.

Third marriage

Mandela himself was re-married in 1998, on his 80th birthday, to Graça Machel née Simbine, widow of Samora Machel, the former Mozambican president and ANC ally killed in an air crash 12 years earlier.

Mandela still maintains a home at Qunu in the realm of his royal nephew (second cousin thrice-removed in Western reckoning), whose university expenses he defrayed and whose privy councillor he remains.

Retirement

Mandela became the oldest elected President of South Africa when he took office at the age of 77 in 1994. He decided not to stand for a second term as President, and instead retired in 1999, to be succeeded by Thabo Mbeki.

Iraq invasion views

In 2003 Mandela criticised the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration in a number of speeches. Criticizing the lack of UN involvement in the decision to begin the War in Iraq, he said, “It is a tragedy, what is happening, what Bush is doing. But Bush is now undermining the United Nations”. Mandela stated he would support action against Iraq only if it is ordered by the UN. Mandela also insinuated that Bush may have been motivated by racism in not following the UN and its secretary-general Kofi Annan on the issue of the war.

“Is it because the secretary-general of the United Nations is now a black man? They never did that when secretary-generals were white”.

“What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, now wants to plunge the world into a holocaust.”

“If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don’t care.”

Orders and decorations

Mandela has received many South African, foreign and international honours, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, the Order of Merit and the Order of St. John from Queen Elizabeth II and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush.

In July 2004, the city of Johannesburg bestowed its highest honour on Mandela by granting him the freedom of the city at a ceremony in Orlando, Soweto.

In 2001, he was the first living person to be made an honorary Canadian citizen. While in Canada, he was also made an honorary Companion of the Order of Canada, one of the few foreigners to receive Canada’s highest honour.

In 1990 he received the Bharat Ratna Award from the government of India.

In 1992 he was awarded the Atatürk Peace Award by Turkey. He refused the award citing human rights violations committed by Turkey at the time, but later accepted the award in 1999.

Marianne Williamson quotation

The following famous text by Marianne Williamson is often claimed to have been spoken by Mandela at his inauguration as President of South Africa. This is an urban myth; there is no record of Mandela ever having spoken these words in public:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Re-edited and published by Njoro.