Mandela, Nelson 1918—

views updated May 21 2018

Nelson Mandela 1918

Social and political activist

At a Glance

Became Political Activist

ANC Banned

Sentenced to Life in Prison

Freed at Last

Hopes for South Africas Future

Selected writings

Sources

Nelson Mandela has spent a lifetime fighting for the rights of black South Africans, enduring trial and incarceration for his principles. A political prisoner in his native South Africa for more than twenty-seven years, the eloquent and statesman-like Mandela became the human embodiment of the struggle against government-mandated discrimination. His courage and determination through decades of imprisonment galvanized not only South African blacks, but also concerned citizens on every continent. Since his release from prison on February 11, 1990, Mandela has reclaimed his position in the once-banned African National Congress and has fought tirelessly for democratic reform in his troubled homeland.

With his magnetic personality and calm demeanor, Mandela is widely regarded as the last best hope for conciliating a peaceful transition to a South African government that will enfranchise all of its citizens. For whites, wrote John F. Burns in the New York Times, a man once presented to them as a threat to everything they prize is now widely viewed as the best hope for a political settlement that will guarantee them a future. For blacks, Mr. Mandela has achieved a legendary stature, towering above most other leaders in the way that Lenin dominated the revolutionary cause in Russia, and Churchill the fight for Englands survival in World War II.

Time magazine contributor Richard Lacayo Characterized Mandela as a figure who is unique among heroes because he is a living embodiment of black liberation. His soft-spoken manner and unflappable dignity bespeak his background as a lawyer, a single-minded political organizer and a longtime prisoner still blinking a bit in the spotlight. Lacayo continued: For the many blacks who have begun to call themselves African Americans, [Mandela] is a flesh-and-blood exemplar of what an African can be. For Americans of all colors, weary of their nations perennial racial standoffs, [he] offers the opportunity for a full-throated expression of their no less perennial hope for reconciliation.

Nelson Mandela could have lived a relatively comfortable life in obscurity had he wished. He was born in 1918 in rural Umtata in what is now the black homeland of Transkei, the son of a highly placed tribal adviser. As a youth Mandela spent his days farming and herding cattle.

At a Glance

Full name, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela; born in 1918 in Umtata, Transkei, South Africa; son of Henry (a Tembu tribal chief) Mandela; married Evelyn Ntoko Mase (a nurse), divorced; married Nomzamo Winnie Madikileza (a social worker and political activist), June 14, 1958; children: (first marriage) Thembi (a son; deceased), Makgatho (son), Makaziwe (daughter); (second marriage) Zenani (daughter), Zindziswa (daughter). Education: Attended University College of Fort Hare and Witwatersrand University; University of South Africa, law degree, 1942.

Lawyer, political activist, and leader of the African National Congress, 1944. Joined African National Congress, 1944, became secretary and president of the Congress Youth League, 1944, and president of the Youth League, 1951-52; helped to draft ANCs Freedom Charter, 1955. Appointed honorary secretary of the All-African National Action Council, 1961; became head of Umkonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), an underground paramilitary wing of the ANC, 1961.

Sentenced to five years in prison for inciting Africans to strike and for leaving South Africa without a valid travel document, 1962; sentenced to life imprisonment for sabotage and treason, 1964; incarcerated in various penal institutions in South Africa, including Robben Island and Pollsmoor prison, 1962-90. Released February 11, 1990.

Awards: Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding from the government of India, 1980; Bruno Kreisky Prize for Human Rights from the government of Austria, 1981; Simon Bolivar International Prize from UNESCO, 1983; Nobel Peace Prize nomination, 1987.

Addresses: Officec/o African National Congress of South Africa, 801 Second Ave., New York, NY 10017.

After the death of his father in 1930, the twelve-year-old was sent to live with the chief of the Tembu tribe. There he impressed his elders with his quick intelligence and maturity. Many thought he would someday become chief himself.

Became Political Activist

Mandelas tribal name, Rolihlahla, means one who brings trouble upon himself. It is therefore quite descriptive of the difficult path the young man chose when he reached adulthood. In his late teens Mandela renounced his hereditary right to the tribal chiefdom and entered college in pursuit of a law degree. He became a political activist in short order and in 1940 was expelled from University College at Fort Hare for leading a student strike. Soon thereafter he moved closer to the commercial capital of Johannesburg, where he worked in the gold mines and studied law by correspondence course. He earned his law degree from the University of South Africa in 1942.

Mandela was twenty-four when he joined the African National Congress, a group that sought to establish social and political rights for blacks in South Africa. In 1944 Mandela and several friends founded a sub-group, the Congress Youth League, and adopted a platform calling for nonviolent protest and black African self-reliance and self-determination. The country Mandela and his Youth League comrades lived in was then, as it is now, populated primarily by blacks but governed completely by whites. Black citizens were legally discriminated against in housing, education, and economic opportunity; they could not vote and were subjected to numerous white-authored laws and restrictions. The Youth League responded to this racist political climate by calling for civil disobediencenonviolent strikes and stay-at-home days in protest of no less than six hundred racist laws.

From his position as a leader of the Youth League, Mandela helped to coordinate labor strikes and campaigns to defy the unjust laws. Unfortunately, ANC protest rallies were often repulsed by police brutality. In 1950 eighteen blacks were killed during a labor walkout, and again in 1952 a great number of protestersincluding Mandelawere beaten and jailed for opposing the South African government. On that occasion Mandela received a nine-month suspended jail sentence and was ordered to resign from the ANC leadership. Mandela refused to resign and moved into underground work because he was forbidden to attend public meetings.

By the time Mandela reappeared in public in 1955, apartheid meaning apartness in the Afrikaans languagehad been taken to extreme ends in South Africa. The government continued to tighten restrictions on its black non-citizens, creating segregated townships and homelands where blacks were forced to settle. Late in 1956, Mandela was arrested with 155 other anti-apartheid leaders and was charged with treason under a convenient anti-Communist statute. Freed on bail, Mandela mounted his own defense and practiced law on the side as the infamous Treason Trial dragged on and on. Although he was again banned from political activity, he persisted in his efforts for the cause of the African National Congress. He also found time to marry his second wife, a social worker named Nomzamo Winnie Madikileza. She too was a dedicated activist who supported her husbands efforts to end apartheid.

ANC Banned

Early in 1960, a demonstration in the Johannesburg suburb of Sharpeville turned violent when police killed sixty-nine unarmed protesters. The massacre sparked nationwide outrage, and the government acted quickly to ban the African National Congress and some of its splinter groups. Mandela once again found himself detained by police without being charged with a crime. Sickened by the failure of the nonviolent protests, he quietly decided that more extreme measures needed to be taken against the white supremacist government. In a 1961 speech before the Pan-Africanist Conference in Ethiopia, he said: Peace in our country must be considered already broken when a minority government maintains its authority over the majority by force and violence.

Meanwhile, the Treason Trial entered its final stages and proved to be an effective forum for Mandelas views. As his own defense attorney, Mandela mounted a spirited justification of the ANCs goals and methods. He insisted that his organization sought the franchise and equal rights for South Africans of all races, and he maintained that nonviolent disruptive tactics were the only means by which South African blacks could air their discontent. Mandela and his co-defendants were acquitted in 1961, but their African National Congress had been declared illegal. Although he was free to go about his business, Mandela realized that he could no longer conduct his business without breaking the law.

Forced underground, Mandela founded a new group, Umkonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), a guerrilla organization that directed sabotage actions against government installations and other symbols of apartheid. Mandela travelled throughout Africa seeking funds for his cause, at every turn eluding capture by South African security police. The hardships he faced affected his family as well, as Winnie Mandela remembered in People magazine. He told me to anticipate a life physically without him, that there would never be a normal situation where he would be head of the family, Mrs. Mandela said. He told me this in great pain. I was completely shattered.

Sentenced to Life in Prison

Mass protests continued in South Africa, and the Spear of the Nation claimed responsibility for more than seventy acts of sabotage. On August 4, 1962, Mandela was arrested by South African police and charged with organizing illegal demonstrations. Once again he used his courtroom appearance as an opportunity to challenge the legality of South Africas minority rule. His defense was masterful and eloquent, but he was nevertheless convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. While he was serving this sentence, the police connected him to Spear of the Nation and charged him with the more serious crimes of treason and sabotage. After yet another trial, he was sentenced to life in prison in June of 1964.

Mandela was sent to Robben Island, a prison seven miles off the coast of Cape Town. There he endured years of hard labor quarrying limestone and harvesting seaweed, while his wife faced almost constant police harassment at home. In the eyes of the South African government, Nelson Mandela had effectively ceased to exist. Mere discussions of his views or questions about his health were illegal, and he was allowed no contact with the outside world and few visitors. Mandela never lost faith in his cause, howeverand the black people of South Africa never forgot their fearless hero. As his years of imprisonment dragged on, he assumed the mantle of martyrdom and became a symbol of the governments desperate efforts to maintain minority rule.

In 1982 Mandela was moved from Robben Island to the maximum security Pollsmoor Prison outside Cape Town. The authorities offered official administrative reasons for the move, but most observers agree that Mandela was simply exerting a powerful influence over the other inmates of Robben Island. Mandela spent much of the next six years in solitary confinement, bolstered by a weekly thirty-minute visit with his wife. He was offered a conditional freedom in 1984provided that he would settle in the black homeland of Transkeibut absolutely refused this option, affirming his allegiance to the African National Congress.

Inevitably, Mandelas health deteriorated. In 1988 he was hospitalized with tuberculosis. After he recovered he returned to prison, but under somewhat more benign circumstances. By the late 1980s, social conditions in South Africa had become even more desperate, with frequent violent confrontations between young blacks and government forces. The international tide was also turning against South Africa. Many private enterprises and national governments withdrew financial support for the beleaguered nation, and the resulting economic downturn literally forced the South African government to reconsider its dedication to apartheid. Finally, after twenty-seven years, the white leadership heeded the calls of citizens of numerous nations to release the most important political prisoner of the late twentieth century, Nelson Mandela.

Freed at Last

The whole world watched on February 11, 1990, as Mandelathin and gray, but unbowedwalked out of Verster Prison. Cheering crowds met him at every turn. He told People: I was completely overwhelmed by the enthusiasm. It is something I did not expect. Mandela quickly assumed a leadership position in the African National Congress, restored to legal status by the government. Within weeks he and his wife were travelling across their nation, calling for a truce in the armed struggle and open negotiations toward equal rights in South Africa. In July of 1990 Mandela brought his message to the United States when he toured a series of big cities, raising funds for his cause. He also asked the American government to continue imposing economic sanctions against South Africa until apartheid is completely dismantled.

Mandela and the ANC continue to face enormous problems in South Africa, some of which involve murderous feuds between black factions and terrorist actions in the townships. Time correspondent Michael S. Serrill noted that the violence in his nation has forced Mandela to face a sobering reality: He may have wielded more moral authority as the worlds most famous prisoner than he does as a political leader in his freedom. Serrill continued: To some South African blacks, Mandela out of prison has become an irrelevant figurehead, a dignified gentleman with Utopian socialist ideas that have little to do with their daily lives. Mandelas damaged stature has achieved an important aim of [the] white government: to demystify the A.N.C. and make clear that Mandela is only one of many black players. The role Mandela takes in a more enlightened South Africa may depend on the degree of cooperation he can muster among the countrys black majority.

Hopes for South Africas Future

Now in his mid-seventies with several grown children, Mandela remains ever zealous in his pursuit of rights for all South Africans. He is still a revolutionary who counts as allies anyone who supports his causeincluding Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, Libyas Colonel Muammar Kaddafi, and the Palestine Liberation Organization. In Newsweek, Tom Masland claimed that Mandela hasnt renounced the use of violence, he wants to nationalize at least some industries, and he remains willing to take help from anyone and return the favor.

This attitude only illustrates the persistent state of concern Mandela and the ANC feel about social conditions in South Africa. Since 1955, when it published its Freedom Charter, the groups aims have changed little. Its political objectives include a unified South Africa with no artificial homelands, a black representation along with all other races in a central parliament, and a one-man, one-vote democracy in a multi-party system.

In a speech in New York City during the summer of 1990, Mandela thanked the American people for taking such an interest in him and his struggle. You, the people, never abandoned us, he said. From behind the granite walls, political prisoners could hear loud and clear your voice of solidarity. We are winning because you made it possible.

Selected writings

No Easy Walk to Freedom, Basic Books, 1965.

The Struggle Is My Life, Pathfinder Press, 1986.

Sources

Books

Benson, Mary, Nelson Mandela: The Man and the Movement, Norton, 1986.

Black Writers: A Selection of Sketches From Contemporary Authors, Gale, 1989.

Mandela, Nelson, No Easy Walk to Freedom, Basic Books, 1965.

Mandela, Nelson, The Struggle Is My Life, Pathfinder Press, 1986.

Mandela, Winnie, Part of My Soul Went With Him, Norton, 1985.

Periodicals

Newsweek, September 9, 1985; July 2, 1990.

New York Times, May 12, 1980; February 2, 1985; August 16, 1985; November 24, 1985; December 1, 1985; February 1, 1986; February 12, 1986; February 4, 1990; February 11, 1990.

Observer, April 22, 1973.

People, February 26, 1990.

Time, January 6, 1986; January 5, 1987; April 9, 1990; July 2, 1990.

Anne Janette Johnson

Mandela, Nelson 1918–

views updated May 21 2018

Nelson Mandela 1918

President of South Africa

Became Political Activist

ANC Banned

Sentenced to Life in Prison

Freed at Last

Hopes for South Africas Future

Battle Not Over

Sources

Nelson Mandela has spent a lifetime fighting for the rights of black South Africans, enduring trial and incarceration for his principles. A political prisoner in his native South Africa for more than 25 years, the eloquent and statesman-like Mandela became the human embodiment of the struggle against government-mandated discrimination. His courage and determination through decades of imprisonment galvanized not only South African blacks, but also concerned citizens on every continent. Since his release from prison in 1990, Mandela has reclaimed his position in the once-banned African National Congress (ANC) and has fought tirelessly for democratic reform in his troubled homeland.

With his magnetic personality and calm demeanor, Mandela is widely regarded as the last best hope for conciliating a peaceful transition to a South African government that will enfranchise all of its citizens. For whites, wrote John F. Burns in the New York Times, a man once presented to them as a threat to everything they prize is now widely viewed as the best hope for a political settlement that will guarantee them a future. For blacks, Mr. Mandela has achieved a legendary stature, towering above most other leaders in the way that [Communist leader Vladimir] Lenin dominated the revolutionary cause in Russia, and [Prime Minister Winston] Churchill the fight for Englands survival in World War II.

Time magazine contributor Richard Lacayo characterized Mandela as a figure who is unique among heroes because he is a living embodiment of black liberation. His soft-spoken manner and unflappable dignity bespeak his background as a lawyer, a single-minded political organizer and a longtime prisoner still blinking a bit in the spotlight. Lacayo continued: For the many blacks who have begun to call themselves African Americans, [Mandela] is a flesh-and-blood exemplar of what an African can be. For Americans of all colors, weary of their nations perennial racial standoffs, [he] offers the opportunity for a full-throated expression of their no less perennial hope for reconciliation.

Became Political Activist

Nelson Mandela could have lived a relatively comfortable life in obscurity had he wished. In 1918, he was born the son of a highly-placed tribal advisor in rural Umtata

At a Glance . . .

Full name, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela; born in 1918 in Umtata, Transkei, South Africa; son of Henry (a Tembu tribal chief) Mandela; married Evelyn Ntoko Mase (a nurse), 1944, divorced, 1956; married Nomzamo Winnie Madikileza (a social worker and political activist), June 14, 1958, separated, 1992; children: (first marriage) Thembi (a son; deceased), Makgatho (son), Makaziwe (daughter); (second marriage) Zenani (daughter), Zindziswa (daughter). Education : Attended University College of Fort Hare and Witwatersrand University; University of South Africa, law degree, 1942.

Lawyer, political activist, and leader of the African National Congress, 1944. Joined African National Congress, 1944, became secretary and president of the Congress Youth League, 1944, and president of the Youth League, 1951-52; helped to draft ANCs Freedom Charter, 1955. Appointed honorary secretary of the All-African National Action Council, 1961; became head of Umkonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), an underground paramilitary wing of the ANC, 1961.

Sentenced to five years in prison for inciting Africans to strike and for leaving South Africa without a valid travel document, 1962; sentenced to life imprisonment for sabotage and treason, 1964; incarcerated in various penal institutions in South Africa, including Robben Island and Pollsmoor prison, 1962-90; released February 11, 1990; elected ANC president, 1991; elected president of South Africa, April 27, 1994; inaugarated, May 12, 1994.

Selected awards: Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding from the government of India, 1980; Bruno Kreisky Prize for Human Rights from the government of Austria, 1981; named an honorary citizen of Rome, 1983; Simon Bolivar International Prize from UNESCO, 1983; W. E. B. DuBois Medal, 1986; Nobel Peace Prize, 1987; Liberty Medal, 1987; Sakharov Prize, 1988; Gaddaff Human Rights Prize, 1989; Houphouet Prize, 1991; numerous international honorary degrees.

Addresses: Office c/o African National Congress of South Africa, 801 Second Ave., New York, NY 10017.

(later the black homeland of Transkei). As a youth Mandela spent his days farming and herding cattle. After the death of his father in 1930, the 12-year-old was sent to live with the chief of the Tembu tribe. There he impressed his elders with his quick intelligence and maturity. Many thought he would someday become chief himself.

Mandelas tribal name, Rolihlahla, means one who brings trouble upon himself--quite descriptive of the difficult path the young man chose when he reached adulthood. In his late teens Mandela renounced his hereditary right to the tribal chiefdom and entered college in pursuit of a law degree. He became a political activist in short order, and, in 1940, was expelled from University College at Fort Hare for leading a student strike. Soon thereafter, he moved closer to the commercial capital of Johannesburg, where he worked in the gold mines and studied law by correspondence course. He earned his law degree from the University of South Africa in 1942.

Mandela was 24 when he joined the ANC, a group that sought to establish social and political rights for blacks in South Africa. In 1944, Mandela and several friends founded a sub-group, the Congress Youth League, and adopted a platform calling for nonviolent protest and black African self-reliance and self-determination. The country Mandela and his Youth League comrades lived in was then, as it is now, populated primarily by blacks but governed completely by whites. Black citizens were legally discriminated against in housing, education, and economic opportunity; they could not vote, and they were subjected to numerous white-authored laws and restrictions. The Youth League responded to this racist political climate by calling for civil disobedience--nonviolent strikes and stay-at-home days in protest of no less than 600 apartheid laws.

From his position as a leader of the Youth League, Mandela helped to coordinate labor strikes and campaigns to defy the unjust laws. Unfortunately, the ANC protest rallies were often met by police brutality. In 1950, 18 blacks were killed during a labor walkout, and again, in 1952, a great number of protesters--including Mandela--were beaten and jailed for opposing the South African government. On that occasion Mandela received a nine-month suspended jail sentence and was ordered to resign from the ANC leadership. Refusing, he moved into underground work because he was forbidden to attend public meetings.

By the time Mandela reappeared in public in 1955, apartheid --meaning apartness in the derivative dutch language spoken by South African whites known as Afrikaans--had been taken to extreme ends in South Africa. The government continued to tighten restrictions on its black non-citizens, creating segregated townships and homelands where blacks were forced to settle. Late in 1956, Mandela was arrested with 155 other anti-apartheid leaders and was charged with treason under a convenient anti-Communist statute. Freed on bail, Mandela mounted his own defense and practiced law on the side as the infamous Treason Trial dragged on and on. Although he was again banned from political activity, he persisted in his efforts for the cause of the ANC. He also found time to marry his second wife, a social worker named Nomzamo Winnie Madikileza. She too was a dedicated activist who supported her husbands efforts to end apartheid, and would later be jailed herself throughout much of his decades-long prison term.

ANC Banned

Early in 1960, a demonstration in the Johannesburg suburb of Sharpeville turned violent when police killed 69 unarmed protesters. The massacre sparked nationwide outrage, and the government acted quickly to ban the ANC and some of its splinter groups. Mandela once again found himself detained by police without being charged with a crime. Sickened by the failure of the nonviolent protests, he quietly decided that more extreme measures needed to be taken against the white supremacist government. In a 1961 speech before the Pan-Africanist Conference in Ethiopia, he said: Peace in our country must be considered already broken when a minority government maintains its authority over the majority by force and violence.

Meanwhile, the Treason Trial entered its final stages and proved to be an effective forum for Mandelas views. As his own defense attorney, Mandela mounted a spirited justification of the ANCs goals and methods. He insisted that his organization sought the franchise and equal rights for South Africans of all races, and he maintained that nonviolent disruptive tactics were the only means by which South African blacks could air their discontent. Mandela and his co-defendants were acquitted in 1961, but their ANC had been declared illegal. Although he was free to go about his business, Mandela realized that he could no longer conduct his business without breaking the law.

Forced underground, Mandela founded a new group, Umkonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), a guerrilla organization that directed sabotage actions against government installations and other symbols of apartheid. Mandela travelled throughout Africa seeking funds for his cause, at every turn eluding capture by South African security police. The hardships he faced affected his family as well, as Winnie Mandela remembered in People magazine. He told me to anticipate a life physically without him, that there would never be a normal situation where he would be head of the family, Mrs. Mandela said. He told me this in great pain. I was completely shattered.

Sentenced to Life in Prison

The mass protests continued in South Africa, and the Spear of the Nation claimed responsibility for more than 70 acts of sabotage. On August 4, 1962, Mandela was arrested by South African police and charged with organizing illegal demonstrations. Once again he used his courtroom appearance as an opportunity to challenge the legality of South Africas minority rule. His defense was masterful and eloquent, but he was nevertheless convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. While he was serving this sentence, the police connected him to Spear of the Nation and charged him with the more serious crimes of treason and sabotage. After yet another trial, he was sentenced to life in prison in June of 1964.

Mandela was sent to Robben Island, a prison seven miles off the coast of Cape Town. There he endured years of hard labor quarrying limestone and harvesting seaweed, while his wife faced almost constant police harassment at home. In the eyes of the South African government, Nelson Mandela had effectively ceased to exist. Mere discussions of his views or questions about his health were illegal, and he was allowed no contact with the outside world and few visitors. Mandela never lost faith in his cause, however--and the black people of South Africa never forgot their fearless hero. As his years of imprisonment dragged on, he assumed the mantle of martyrdom and became a symbol of a governments desperate efforts to maintain minority rule.

In 1982 Mandela was moved from Robben Island to the maximum security Pollsmoor Prison outside Cape Town. The authorities offered official administrative reasons for the move, but most observers agree that Mandela was simply exerting a powerful influence over the other inmates of Robben Island. Mandela spent much of the next six years in solitary confinement, bolstered by a weekly 30-minute visit with his wife. He was offered a conditional freedom in 1984--provided that he would settle in the black homeland of Transkei--but he absolutely refused this option, affirming his allegiance to the ANC. And the New York Times Biographical Service reported that P. W. Botha, then president of South Africa, offered Mandela complete freedom in 1985 in return for his renunciation of violence, but he refused to do so until the government granted blacks full political rights.

Inevitably, Mandelas health deteriorated. In 1988 he was hospitalized with tuberculosis. After he recovered he returned to prison, but under somewhat more benign circumstances. By the late 1980s, social conditions in South Africa had become even more desperate, with violent confrontations between young blacks and government forces. The international tide was also turning against South Africa. Many private enterprises and national governments withdrew financial support for the beleaguered nation, and the resulting economic downturn literally forced the South African government to reconsider its dedication to apartheid. Finally, after 27 years, the white leadership heeded the calls from citizens of numerous nations to release the most important political prisoner of the late twentieth century, Nelson Mandela.

The winds of change were also spurred by the ascension of F. W. de Klerk to the presidency of South Africa after Botha suffered a mild stroke. Named as acting state president, de Klerk was elected to a five-year term as president in September of 1989. A reformer, de Klerk released several anti-apartheid leaders. According the New York Times Biographical Service, de Klerk then legalized the ANC and 60 other formerly banned organizations, clearing the way for Mr. Mandelas release. Though apartheid and security laws remained in place, he said he was accepting freedom to work for peace.

Freed at Last

In what was one of the most notable events of the year, the entire world watched on February 11, 1990, as Mandela--thin and gray but unbowed--walked out of Verster Prison. Writing about Mandelas release for the New York Times Biographical Service, Robert D. McFadden noted that anyone could see that the years of prison had ravaged only the body, not the spirit; they had, if anything, solidified his resolve and raised his stature as the embodiment of black liberation. Indeed, cheering crowds met him at every turn in South Africa. Mandela told People, I was completely overwhelmed by the enthusiasm. It is something I did not expect. In his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, he later added, I saw a tremendous commotion and a great crowd of people, hundreds of photographers and television cameras and news people as well as thousands of well wishers. I was astounded and a bit alarmed. I had truly not expected such a scene.

Upon his release, Mandela quickly assumed a leadership position in the ANC, restored to legal status by the government. Within weeks he and his wife were travelling across their nation, calling for a truce in the armed struggle and open negotiations toward equal rights in South Africa. Before releasing him from prison, the South African government had repeatedly asked Mandela to renounce violence as a condition of his freedom whereupon he would always respond that he would not separate his freedom from that of his people. However, within six months of his release, Mandela officially suspended the ANCs armed struggle. This move alienated him from some of his previously most ardent supporters, forcing him to depend on the degree of cooperation he could both muster and maintain among the countrys black majority.

The Mandelas also embarked on a world tour, during which Nelson was welcomed as a hero and a world leader. In July of 1990, Mandela brought his message to the United States, where he toured a series of big cities raising funds for his cause. He also asked the American government to continue imposing economic sanctions against South Africa until the complete dismantlement of apartheid.

Meanwhile, Mandela and the ANC continued to face enormous problems in South Africa, some of which involved murderous feuds between black factions and terrorist actions in the townships. During apartheid, blacks had absolutely no rights to organize or to vote. As most exiled leaders continued returning to South Africa, the ANC, under Mandela, began the enormous task of negotiating for a democratic, multi-party, non-racial government. It was during these negotiations that South Africa experienced one of the bloodiest crisis in a short period of time.

Clashes between ANC supporters and the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party, led by Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, escalated and more than 6,000 people were killed between 1990 and 1991. The turmoil was compounded by hardliner whites within the Defense Force, the police, and the Afrikaner Resistance Movement--militant white right wing supremacists led by Eugene Terreblanche. Terreblanche believed President de Klerk was selling out to the blacks. His group demanded their own Afrikaner state or volkstaat within the borders of South Africa.

Time correspondent Michael S. Serrill noted that the violence in his nation forced Mandela to face a sobering reality: he may have wielded more moral authority as the worlds most famous prisoner than he does as a political leader in his freedom. Serrill continued: To some South African blacks Mandela out of prison has become an irrelevant figurehead, a dignified gentleman with utopian socialist ideas that have little to do with their daily lives. Mandelas damaged stature has achieved an important aim of [the] white government: to demystify the ANC and make clear that Mandela is only one of many black players.

Those who figured Mandela, an amateur heavyweight boxer in his youth, was down and out for the count were vastly mistaken, however. In July of 1991, the ANC held its first full convention in South Africa, and Mandela was elected president of the organization. By the end of the year, a number of the political parties--except the militant white right wing, which still insisted on a separate state--took part in a Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA). Despite a pact to end factional fighting endorsed by the government, the ANC, and Inkatha, killing continued and on several occasions talks broke down. At one point, the ANC even withdrew from CODESA. A breakthrough came a few weeks later when Mandela and de Klerk signed the Record of Understanding, stipulating that a single, freely elected constitutional assembly would serve as a transitional legislature and would draft a new constitution. Though the agreement met several key ANC demands, Buthelezi withdrew his Inkatha Freedom Party from negotiations.

Hopes for South Africas Future

Major hurdles were overcome by the end of 1993, moving the nation close to free and fair elections. Notable progress included the formation of a transitional Executive Council, which was charged with overseeing some aspects of government, including security. Meanwhile, April 27, 1994, was selected as the date for the much anticipated, first-ever democratic elections. A few days before the elections, the Inkatha Party agreed to participate after Buthelezis appeal to delay the elections was rejected by all concerned parties, clearly leaving Inkatha very little time to campaign. In the meantime, Mandela officially entered the race and campaigned freely.

As polls opened on election day, long lines of people were scattered throughout the country. In the black townships, some waited for several hours in order to exercise the right to vote for the first time in their lives. When the final tally was assessed, the ANC had picked up 62.6 percent of the vote, de klerk earned 20.3 percent, and the Inkatha Party garnered 10.5 percent, with the rest divided amongst smaller factions. Nelson Mandela had unanimously won the presidency of the Republic of South Africa, a nation whose racist government he had opposed and fought most of his life.

On May 12, 1994, after de Klerks graceful concession speech, Mandela addressed a cheering crowd with Coretta Scott King on stage with him. Echoing the sentiments of her slain husband, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mandelas proclamation was reprinted in Ebony : This is one of the most important moments in the life of our country. I stand here before you filled with deep pride and joy--pride in the ordinary, humble people of this country. You have shown such calm, patient determination to reclaim this country as your own, and now the joy that we can loudly proclaim from the rooftops: Free at last! Free at last. I stand before you humbled by your courage, with a heart full of love for all of you. Mandela went on to state, I am your servant. It is not the individuals that matter, but the collective. This is the time to heal the old wounds and build a new South Africa.

Battle Not Over

Following his inauguration, Mandela appointed a cabinet that included members of the Inkatha Freedom Party and the National (white) Party. Government officials also held discussions with the right wing Conservative Party and the fascist Afrikaner Resistance Movement, prompting Patrick Laurence to write in Africa Report, Even if Mandela achieves little more before he retires, he will have won a special niche in South African history as the dignified, white-haired patriarch who won the respect of his political enemies. Still, in 1996, de Klerk and members of his party resigned their cabinet positions to allow themselves time to organize as an effective opposition party.

Mandelas national unity government began drafting a program of reconstruction and development aimed at meeting some of the concerns of the long disenfranchised black population. Mandela, cognizant that many years and generations will pass before the deep wounds of apartheid are remedied, cautioned his people not to expect change overnight. Ebony quoted him as saying, You won t be driving a Mercedes or swimming in your own backyard pool [anytime soon]. Instead the statesman was focused on such issues as health, housing, education, and the development of public utilities, economic stability.

Social conditions in South Africa also scream for attention. Detroit News reporter Jeffrey Herbst suggested that one of the greatest tragedies of apartheid--the presence of an entire generation uneducated during the 1980s--further aggravates criminality. He went on to report that the South African crime rate had soared, particularly in Johannesburg, where a wave of violent assaults and carjackings affected business and scared tourists away. The same article noted that South Africas murder rate was estimated to be 10 times that of the United States, and an increase in money laundering and drug shipments had occurred. Crime and affirmative action spurred white flight; unemployment skyrocketed, and the value of the rand (South African currency) plunged. In July of 1996, a poll showed support for the ANC dropping from 60 percent in 1994 to 53 percent in July of 1996.

Since 1955, when the ANC published its Freedom Charter, the groups aims have changed little. Its political objectives include a unified South Africa with no artificial homelands, a black representation along with all other races in a central parliament, and a one-man, one-vote democracy in a multi-party system. That much has been accomplished.

Still a revolutionary in his mid-70s with several grown children, Mandela remains ever zealous in his pursuit of rights for all South Africans. Before becoming president, Mandela was much criticized for embracing and expressing his support for such notorious international figures as the Palestine Liberation Organizations Yasir Arafat, Cubas Fidel Castro, and Libyas Muamar Qaddafi. According to the New York Times Biographical Service, Mandela retorted to his detractors on this issue, What concerns me is the foreign policy of those countries, especially in so far as it relates to us [South Africa]. Those countries who are committed to assisting the antiapartheid forces in our country are our friends.

In keeping with that criteria, Mandelas cabinet passed a provisional approval of arms sales to Syria, prompting to the Clinton administration, in 1997, to threaten suspending U.S. aid to South Africa. Without question, relations between the United States and Mandelas South Africa are important to both sides. In a speech in New York City during the summer of 1990, Mandela thanked the American people for taking such an interest in him and his struggle. You, the people, never abandoned us, he said. From behind the granite walls, political prisoners could hear loud and clear your voice of solidarity. We are winning because you made it possible.

Mandela, recipient of several humanitarian awards, including a Nobel Prize (along with de Klerk), has spoken of possibly stepping down after his first term. Even if he does, Mandelas long walk will have ended in jubilation and triumph. As he reflected in his 1994 autobiography, I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter. I have discovered that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are more hills to climb. I have taken a moment to rest. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.

Writings

No Easy Walk to Freedom, Basic Books, 1965.

The Struggle Is My Life, Pathfinder Press, 1986.

Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, Little, 1994.

Sources

Books

Benson, Mary, Nelson Mandela: The Man and the Movement, Norton, 1986.

Black Writers, Gale, 1989.

Current Biography Yearbook, 1995.

Mandela, Nelson, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, Little, 1994.

Mandela, Nelson, No Easy Walk to Freedom, Basic Books, 1965.

Mandela, Nelson, The Struggle Is My Life, Pathfinder Press, 1986.

Mandela, Winnie, Part of My Soul Went with Him, Norton, 1985.

Periodicals

Africa Report, November/December 1994.

Business Day, January 14, 1997.

Detroit News, November 17, 1996, pp. 1B, 6B, 7B.

Ebony, August 1994; January 1995.

Newsweek, September 9, 1985; July 2, 1990.

New York Times, May 12, 1980; February 2, 1985; August 16, 1985; November 24, 1985; December 1, 1985; February 1, 1986; February 12, 1986; February 4, 1990; February 11, 1990; November 10, 1996, pp. 1, 8.

New York Times Biographical Service, February 1990, pp. 156-57.

Observer, April 22, 1973.

People, February 26, 1990.

South Africa News UPDATE, January 1997.

Time, January 6, 1986; January 5, 1987; April 9, 1990; July 2, 1990.

Other

DISCovering World History [CD ROM], Gale, 1997.

Anne Janette Johnson and Doris H. Mabunda

Mandela, Nelson

views updated May 17 2018

Nelson Mandela

BORN: July 18, 1918 • Transkei, South Africa

South African social activist, politician

Nelson Mandela is a South African political leader and lawyer who emerged as a national voice in the fight against apartheid. Apartheid is an official policy of racial separation and discrimination that literally means "separateness." In his struggle against racial discrimination, Mandela became a leader in the African National Congress and cofounder of the African Youth League. He was also a cofounder and leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation). His political activities resulted in a long imprisonment that made him an international symbol of the conflict in South Africa. Mandela's prison number, 46664, has been immortalized in song and film in recognition of his role as a cultural icon (familiar symbol) of freedom and equality worldwide.

"I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society…. 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."

From 1994 until 1999, Mandela presided over South Africa as the first president to be elected in a multi-racial democratic election. Faced with a deeply divided nation, he received global praise for his diplomacy in bringing South Africa into the twenty-first century and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. In South Africa, he is respectfully known as Madiba, an honorary title descending from his elders, who ruled in the eighteenth century.

Rolihlahla: The troublemaker

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, in the tiny village of Mvezo, South Africa. He is the son of Nosekeni Fanny and Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa, appointed chief of Mvezo by the Thembu tribal king. The village is located in the district of Umtata, capital of the Transkei, which is situated 800 miles east of Cape Town and over 500 miles south of Johannesburg. Transkei is home to the Thembu, who belong to the Xhosa nation and speak the Xhosa language. Gadla named his son Rolihlahla, which literally means "pulling the branch of a tree," but whose meaning would more accurately translate as "troublemaker." Gadla was an advisor to the king of the Thembu people and a historian of the Xhosa nation. Each Xhosa belongs to a clan that is named after a male ancestor. Mandela belongs to the Madiba clan, named after a Thembu chief who ruled in the eighteenth century.

When Mandela was seven years old, he became the first member of his family to attend school. His mother Fanny was a Christian and sent him to a nearby Methodist mission school where he would receive an English education. On his first day of school, his teacher, Miss Mdingane, told him his new English name was Nelson. Two years later, Gadla died and Mandela was informally adopted by Jongintaba Dalindyebo, reigning king of the Thembu people. He would be Mandela's guardian and benefactor (one who assists another) for the next ten years. Mandela transferred to a Methodist school next door to the palace and received all the benefits and advantages provided to the king's other children. At the age of sixteen, Mandela participated in the Xhosa ceremony, which marked his passage to manhood. He received the name Dalibunga, meaning "Founder of the Bungha." Bungha is the traditional ruling body of the Transkei.

A continuing education

As a member of the royal household, Mandela was being prepared to counsel (officially advise) the rulers of the tribe, just as his father had done before him. In order for that to happen, it was necessary that Mandela continue his education. In 1937, nineteen-year-old Mandela traveled to Healdtown to attend the Methodist College at Fort Beaufort. He received a liberal arts education. He also developed an interest in long-distance running and boxing as well. An excellent student, Mandela finished his courses with such high marks that he was enrolled in the South African Native College at Fort Hare to begin work on his bachelor of arts degree.

The College at Fort Hare was the only residential center of higher education for blacks in South Africa. Anglican, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches combined their resources to establish the college. It drew scholars from all over Southern, Central, and Eastern Africa. To receive a degree from the college ensured personal advancement in any career then open to black Africans. Mandela arrived in 1938 wearing his first suit, an outfit given to him by Jongintaba to celebrate the occasion. During Mandela's second year at Fort Hare, he reacted to university policies he found objectionable. He participated in a boycott (to stop buying a certain product until demands are met) of the Students' Representative Council and was asked to leave the institution. Upon his return home, King Jongintaba announced that he had arranged marriages for both his son Justice and for Mandela, according to Thembu law and custom. Both young men were displeased with the selections made for them. They agreed that their best option was to escape. They departed for Johannesburg.

Life under apartheid

Mandela managed to find work as a clerk in a law firm in Johannesburg. With ambitions of becoming a lawyer, he registered at the University of South Africa (UNISA) and completed his degree by correspondence course (method of schooling where study materials and tests are mailed between instructor and student) in 1942. Early in 1943, Mandela enrolled at the University of Witwatersrand to work on a bachelor of laws degree, or LL.B. Witwatersrand, also located in Johannesburg, was one of only four English-speaking universities in South Africa that allowed blacks to attend courses in specialized fields. For the first time, he attended classes with white students. It was a new experience for Mandela as well as for the university because he was the only black student. His law professor was not especially encouraging, as he held the view that neither women nor Africans were meant to be lawyers. He believed they all lacked the discipline to master the fine points of the law.

Keenly aware of the racist laws that separated whites from nonwhites in South Africa, Mandela chose to dedicate himself to the liberation of his people. In 1943, he and other young members of the African National Congress (ANC) formed the African Youth League (AYL) to work for social change in their country. In 1944, Mandela married Evelyn Mase. They had four children together.

The AYL advocated non-cooperation with the ruling political party by encouraging strikes and boycotts (to stop using a certain service or buying a certain product). Racial tensions were high in South Africa as World War II (1939–45) came to an end. The Nationalist Party (NP) proposed a system of government called apartheid (a policy of racial separation and discrimination). The NP won the general election in 1948 and immediately began putting laws in place to impose apartheid in South Africa.

That same year, Mandela was admitted to the bar. He and a partner set up the country's first black legal practice. His law firm provided affordable legal counsel to many blacks who were caught up in the increasing discrimination of the apartheid system but had no other means to fight back.

Mandela continued in an active role with the ANC, and when it launched the Defiance Campaign in 1952, he was the national organizer. For his part, Mandela was arrested and given a nine-month suspended sentence. Under the national Suppression of Communism Act, Mandela's name was added to the list of those who were banned from public meetings and had their movements and activities severely restricted. Mandela used some of his newfound free time to renew his interest in the sport of boxing.

In 1955, South Africa's nonwhite population formed the Congress of the People to oppose the policies and practices of apartheid. They met outside of Johannesburg that year and adopted the Freedom Charter, a formal declaration of freedom. The NP responded by arresting 156 individuals and charging them with treason (attempting to overthrow the government). The Treason Trials lasted until 1961, with all of the accused being acquitted (found not guilty). Mandela's marriage to Evelyn ended in divorce in 1957 and the following year he married Winnie Nomzano. They had two children together.

Spear of the Nation

The Treason Trials had served to focus the world's attention on South Africa and its racial policies by the time they ended in March 1961. Continuing oppression and escalating violence within the country resulted in the NP banning the ANC in the spring of 1960. Lacking a political outlet for liberating his people, Mandela no longer focused on nonviolent methods. He joined other ANC leaders in forming Umkhonto we Sizwe, meaning the "Spear of the Nation," in November 1961. Mandela was chosen as their leader. The fight was taken underground (secretly conducted) with a campaign of sabotage. The movement targeted government offices used to administer apartheid and military bases used to enforce it.

Mandela began a life on the run from the authorities. He secretly left the country and met with African leaders in Algeria and elsewhere in January 1962. He returned at the end of summer and was arrested, charged with incitement (urging civil disobedience), and sentenced to five years in prison. In 1964, this became a life sentence when Mandela was convicted with other prominent ANC leaders at the Rivonia Trial. Charges involved sabotage and crimes of treason. Mandela was moved to a high-security prison on Robben Island, off the coast of Cape Town, to serve out his life sentence. While at Robben Island, a movement began to secure Mandela's release, with Winnie Mandela campaigning constantly on behalf of her husband. Mandela's name became closely associated with anti-apartheid campaigns. Global interest grew in the future political actions of South Africa.

Stephen Biko

Stephen Biko became a prominent opponent to apartheid while a student at the University of Natal Medical School. Convinced that nonwhites in South Africa needed an organization of their own, he cofounded the South African Students' Organization (SASO) in 1969 and was elected its first president. The SASO urged blacks to reject their physical and mental subjection. Biko encouraged all races, not just blacks, to work together toward that end. In 1972, Biko began working full time for the Black Community Programmes (BCP). He also submitted articles to the SASO newsletter under the pen-name (a name used by an author other than their real name) Frank Talk. The BCP's purpose was to draw the black community's attention to its own oppression and to encourage a sense of pride with the slogan of black consciousness. His efforts resulted in the influential Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), with Biko as a leading voice.

Biko was banned by the apartheid government in 1973, which meant he could neither talk to more than one person at a time nor make speeches. His movements were restricted to his home town of King William's Town. The popular young activist was arrested four times between 1975 and 1977 for organizing protests against laws of discrimination. Biko was arrested under the Terrorism Act following the Soweto Riots of 1977 and suffered fatal injuries while in police custody. His death caused outrage in South Africa and international condemnation against the apartheid government. Biko was seen as a martyr by a generation of black students. In 1987, his story was told in Richard Attenborough's film Cry Freedom.

International condemnation of South Africa increased in the aftermath of the Soweto Riots in 1976. The rioting occurred between black youth and government authorities when Stephen Biko (see box), the popular young anti-apartheid leader, died in police custody. Biko became an immediate worldwide symbol, second only to Mandela, in the struggle against apartheid. From prison, Mandela called for continuing pressure by the people to crush apartheid in order to create a democratic and free society. After eighteen years in his tiny cell at Robben Island, Mandela was moved to a prison on the mainland called Pollsmoor because of his ill health. His refusal to make a political deal to secure his own release in 1985 gave him almost mythical status to black South Africans. It also resulted in an outpouring of honors and tributes from around the world.

Rise to the presidency

Mandela was finally released in February 1990, after twenty-eight years in prison. South African president F. W. de Klerk (1936–) called for the release of political prisoners and officially ended apartheid's forty-two-year rule in South Africa. The ban on the ANC was lifted and Nelson Mandela became its president. His triumph was somewhat marred in 1991 when Winnie Mandela was sentenced to six years in prison on four counts of kidnapping a fourteen-year-old black activist who was eventually murdered. Her sentence was suspended and a fine was imposed. The couple separated in 1992 and divorced in 1996 on grounds of Winnie's adultery (extramarital affairs).

The laws of apartheid took years to unravel, but the last whites-only vote was held in 1992. The government negotiated a multi-racial government and a new constitution for South Africa. In 1993, Mandela and de Klerk were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in promoting a new democratic nation. General elections in 1994 resulted in a win for the ANC, and Mandela became the new president of South Africa.

From 1994 until 1999, Mandela presided over South Africa's transition while faced with a devastated economy and ecology. He was praised for his international diplomacy and his ability to heal the wounds of apartheid while bringing the nation into the twenty-first century. Mandela personally promoted racial harmony by publicly embracing former enemies and proponents of apartheid. He invited his prosecutor from the Rivonia trials to lunch as an example of the spirit of tolerance required to heal the divided nation. In 1998, Mandela married Graca Machel, widow of Samora Machel, former president of Mozambique.

Nelson Mandela's political success was tempered by the ruinous HIV/AIDS epidemic that devastated South Africa at the end of the twentieth century. Mandela and his administration were severely criticized for their ineffectiveness in dealing with the disease that took many lives. Following his time in office, Mandela sought every opportunity to bring attention to the tragedy in his country in order to educate and promote research internationally. In 2003, his prison number was used in the 46664 AIDS fund-raising campaign. Despite declining health, Mandela spoke at the XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok in the summer of 2004. His eldest son died of the disease in January 2005. Mandela continued to lend his voice to educational organizations of all kinds that promote the ideals of international understanding and peace.

For More Information

BOOKS

Benson, Mary. Nelson Mandela: The Man and the Movement. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1986.

DeLuca, Anthony R. Gandhi, Mao, Mandela, and Gorbachev: Studies in Personality, Power, and Politics. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2000.

Juckes, Tim J. Opposition in South Africa: The Leadership of Z. K. Matthews, Nelson Mandela, and Stephen Biko. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1995.

Mandela, Nelson R. Long Walk To Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1994.

Meredith, Martin. Nelson Mandela: A Biography. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997.

WEB SITES

Nelson Mandela Foundation. http://www.nelsonmandela.org (accessed on October 28, 2006).

"Nelson Mandela." Nobel Peace Prize. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1993/mandela-bio.html (accessed on December 11, 2006).

Mandela, Nelson

views updated May 18 2018

Mandela, Nelson

[JULY 18, 1918–]

Anti-apartheid peace activist; former president of South Africa

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in 1918 in Quno, a village near Umtata in the province of Transkei on the southeastern coast of South Africa, near the Indian Ocean. A scion of the Madiba tribal clan, he belonged to the Thembu people, his great-grandfather having been a Thembu king. Nelson's father, Gadla Henry Mphakayiswa Mandela, was chief counselor to the paramount chief of Thembuland. He had four wives and thirteen children, but died in 1927. Young Mandela then became the ward of the chief and was groomed for the chieftainship. An African teacher at the local primary school gave the young Mandela the English name Nelson, but he was affectionately known as Madiba by his friends. He attended Healdtown Methodist Boarding School and matriculated for a bachelor's degree at Fort Hare University, where he completed two years before leaving for Johannesburg in 1940. He received his degree, completed articles of clerkship, and met Walter Sisulo, who introduced him to the law firm Witkin, Sidelsky, and Eidelman. He attended the University of Witwatersrand and became a lawyer.

Struggle against Apartheid

In 1943 Mandela joined the African National Congress (ANC). Founded in 1912, the goal of the ANC was to end white domination and create a multiracial South Africa. At this time he made friends with the leaders of the Indian community, who were protesting against new legislation restricting their right to purchase land. Mandela observed their practice of peaceful resistance and learned about the philosophy of nonviolent disobedience advocated by the Indian lawyer Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi spent twenty-one years in South Africa helping the Hindu population defend their human rights.

In 1944 Mandela, together with Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu, formed the Youth League of the African National Congress. The Youth League was impatient with the slow pace of progress and was determined to make the ANC an activist organization. Also in 1944 Mandela married Evelyn Mase, a nursing student who had grown up in Thembuland. He had three children with Mase. They divorced in 1957 and a year later he married Winnie Madikiyela, a social worker from Pondoland. She bore him two daughters, Zenani and Zindzi.

In 1948 the white National Party came to power under Daniel Malan, whose platform was called apartheid, or "apartness." Although racial laws and land dispossession had already been known during the colonial period, the National Party enacted new laws providing for racial segregation, including the Separate Representation of Voters Act and the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act.

In 1949 the ANC Youth League drafted a program of action calling for mass strikes, boycotts, and passive resistance. As a response, the National Party passed the Suppression of Communism Act, the Population and Registration Act, and the Group Areas Act, aimed at enforcing apartheid policies and crushing any mass resistance movement.

As a member of the ANC executive committee from 1949, Mandela organized the Defiance Campaign in 1952, a nonviolent mass resistance movement against apartheid laws. Also in 1952 Mandela and Tambo opened a law firm in downtown Johannesburg, the first black law firm in South Africa, specializing in defending black South Africans from the injustices associated with apartheid laws, particularly the so-called pass laws that restricted freedom of residence and movement.

White rule in South Africa meant that some 5 million whites governed over a population of 25 million blacks, Indians, and other ethnicities. As an alternative to apartheid, Mandela offered a plan for a multiracial society, in which majority black rule would guarantee the welfare of all South Africans, black and white alike. As early as June 1955 he drafted an idealistic program, the "Freedom Charter," containing principles of coexistence and reconciliation.

Mandela also struggled against the so-called Bantustan policy launched by the government of prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd in 1959, a program that aimed at forcibly resettling parts of the black population into larger reservations or ghettos, called "homelands," frequently separating the work force from their families. This partly implemented policy of resettlement constituted a crime against humanity according to the Nuremberg judgment, which condemned Nazi demographic manipulations, including mass deportations, population transfers, and internal displacements carried out during World War II. These acts of war affected nearly one million Poles, who were expelled from the Warthegau into eastern Poland, and more than 100,000 French Alsatians expelled into Vichy, France.

Conflict and Imprisonment

While the African National Congress vigorously condemned the 1959 Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act, which fragmented the black African population into eight separate black homelands, some tribal leaders accepted the policy and cooperated with the apartheid government. Mandela's vocal opposition to the Bantustan policy exacerbated tensions with the government, and he was repeatedly arrested and harassed, ultimately being charged with high treason and subjected to the treason trial, which dragged on for several years.

In a climate of escalating violence, demonstrations in March 1960 culminated in a massacre at Sharpeville, a town southwest of Johannesburg, in which sixty-nine protesters were killed by the white police. The government declared a state of emergency and banned the ANC. Mandela was again arrested and kept for five months at the prison center known as Pretoria Local. Quite unexpectedly, when the treason trial ended in March 1961, he was found not guilty.

Facing the reality that peaceful overtures were met with force, in the summer of 1961 Mandela endorsed the necessity of armed struggle and formed the Umkhonto we Sizwe ("the Spear of the Nation") or MK, the military wing of the ANC, which mainly targeted government offices, economic installations, and symbols of apartheid.

Early in 1962 Mandela illegally left South Africa for a period of six months, to canvas in London and elsewhere for financial support for the armed struggle. He took military training in Ethiopia and addressed the Conference of the Pan African Freedom Movement of East and Central Africa in Addis Ababa. Upon his return to South Africa in August 1962 he was arrested, charged with illegal exit and incitement to strike, tried, and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. He was first held in Pretoria and then transfered to the maximum security prison at Robben Island, some four miles off the coast of Cape Town. Although already imprisoned, he was newly indicted on charges of sabotage and attempting to overthrow the government by violence. Mandela's statements from the dock at his trial in Rivonia, a suburb of Johannesburg, constitute classics in the history of resistance movements:

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 needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die (Meredith, 1998, p. 268).

Mandela escaped capital punishment, but was sentenced to life imprisonment. In all, he spent twentyseven years in prison, including eighteen at Robben Island as prisoner number 466/64, where he worked in a lime quarry until he was transferred in March 1982 to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town. In December 1988 he was transferred to the Victor Verster Prison near Paarl, from which he was released on February 11, 1990.

Peacemaker and Renowned Leader

Decades of international condemnation of apartheid, accompanied by severe economic sanctions, denial of bank loans, widespread disinvestment in South Africa, and international ostracism, including exclusion from the United Nations General Assembly and from participation in the work of international organizations, persuaded the South African government that the price of maintaining the apartheid system was too high, even for the white South African population. Thus, in February 1990 president Frederik Willem de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC and paved the way for a nonviolent departure from apartheid.

In 1991, at the first national conference of the ANC held inside South Africa, Mandela was elected president of the ANC. In 1992 president de Klerk and Mandela signed a Record of Understanding and established an elected constitutional assembly to develop a new democratic constitution for South Africa. Later they developed the idea of "truth commissions" aimed at reconciliation of white and black in the post-apartheid period.

In 1992 Mandela separated from Winnie, who had become a controversial figure in South Africa. They divorced in March 1996 and on his eightieth birthday, in 1998, Mandela married Graca Machel, the widow of the former president of neighboring Mozanbique.

Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Price in 1993, together with de Klerk. Mandela was the second opponent of apartheid to win the prize; in 1984 archbishop Desmond Tutu had been honored for his efforts to end apartheid in South Africa.

From April 26 to April 29, 1994, the first all-races election took place in South Africa on the basis of the one-man/one-vote principle. Mandela was elected president, the ANC won 252 of the 400 seats in the national assembly, and de Klerk became deputy president.

On May 10, 1994, Mandela took office as the first democratically elected president of South Africa and served one term until June 1999. His generosity of spirit and unwillingness to take revenge won him the respect of his white South African adversaries. Mandela's legacy is a new South Africa that enjoys greater racial harmony than ever before and a quality of reconciliation that remains an example for other conflict-ridden societies.

SEE ALSO Apartheid; South Africa

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Benson, Mary (1986). Nelson Mandela: The Man and the Movement. New York: W.W. Norton.

de Klerk, Willem (1991). F. W. de Klerk: The Man in His Time. Johannesburg, South Africa: Jonathan Ball.

Holland, Heidi (1989). The Struggle: A History of the African National Congress. London: Grafton.

Mandela, Nelson (1993). Nelson Mandela Speaks: Forging a Democratic, Non-Racial South Africa. New York: Pathfinder.

Mandela, Nelson (1994). Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Boston: Little, Brown.

Mandela, Winnie (1985). Part of My Soul (1985). Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin.

Meredith, Martin (1998). Nelson Mandela: A Biography. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Sampson, Anthony (1999). Mandela: The Authorized Biography New York: Knopf.

Alfred de Zayas

Mandela, Nelson

views updated May 29 2018

Mandela, Nelson 1918-

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is South Africas iconic elder statesman and winner of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize. After almost fifty years of antiapartheid activism as a leader in the African National Congress (ANC), including over twenty-seven years in prison (19621990), Mandela became South Africas first democratically elected president in 1994. Since stepping down from the presidency in 1999, he has continued to play a visible role in South African and international affairs.

Born into the royal Tembu family near Umtata in the Transkei, Mandela attended missionary schools prior to entering Fort Hare University College in 1939. Suspended for participation in student protests in 1940, he moved to Johannesburg, completing a bachelors degree through correspondence in 1942. Working and studying part time, he qualified as an attorney through apprenticeship and passage of the qualifying exam in 1952.

His political career began in 1944, when he became a founding member of the Youth League of the ANC. He was prominent in efforts to galvanize the senior ANC to greater militancy that culminated in passage of the Program of Action in 1949. Dropping his opposition to collaboration with communists and Indian nationalists in the wake of their determined opposition to the relentless post-1948 implementation of apartheid, Mandela was at the center of the ANC-led Defiance Campaign (19521953), uniting Africans and antiapartheid volunteers of all races and ideological persuasions in nonviolent protest actions. Elected provincial president of the Transvaal ANC and deputy national president of the ANC in 1953, he was banned from political activity by the government and forced to resign. For the remainder of the decade, he concentrated on organizational activities behind the scenes. Only during the long-running treason trial (19561961) of 156 ANC members and their non-African allies was Mandela highly visible as lawyer, witness, and spokesman from the dock.

After the defendants in the treason trial were acquitted, Mandela went underground to organize support for unsuccessful mass protests in May 1961. Popularly dubbed the Black Pimpernel, surfacing sporadically in South Africa and during a seven-month overseas trip, he evaded arrest and prison for seventeen months. While underground, he participated in clandestine meetings of the ANC (banned in 1960 under the Unlawful Organizations Act in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre) at which the ANC decided to end its policy of nonviolence. Mandela and other leaders of the banned ANC and its also proscribed ally, the Communist Party, then formed a unit called Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) in mid-1961 to conduct sabotage and prepare for eventual guerrilla warfare. In August 1962 Mandela was apprehended by the police in Howick, Natal, and in November 1962 he was sentenced to five years in prison for incitement to strike and leaving the country illegally.

Subsequent to the separate arrest of nine other leaders at the underground Rivonia headquarters of Umkhonto we Sizwe in Johannesburg in July 1963, Mandela was brought from Robben Island prison to face trial with them on charges of sabotage. In the glare of worldwide publicity at the end of the trial, he delivered a dramatic final statement from the dock, concluding that the ideal of a democratic and free society is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

Receiving a life sentence (instead of the death sentence that could have been passed), Mandela returned to Robben Island and became the worlds most famous political prisoner. Despite South African efforts to black out news about him, the world increasingly became aware of his assertive demands that the government adhere to prison regulations and his leadership of fellow inmates across the political spectrum. Transferred to Pollsmoor prison on the mainland in 1982 and then to a cottage in Victor Verster prison in 1987, Mandela became the star of a deft and media-smart campaign for unconditional release from prison. Simultaneously, he conducted secret talks with government ministers to set the stage for negotiations to achieve majority rule.

Released unconditionally from prison on February 11, 1990, by the newly elected president F. W. de Klerk, Mandela immediately assumed the leadership of the ANCs negotiations with the Nationalist Party government. Against a backdrop of rising violence, he showed repeated willingness to compromise with former opponents without abandoning the goal of nonracial constitutional democracy based on one person, one vote. In November 1993 an agreement was reached on a constitution, and in December 1993 Mandela and de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Victorious at the head of the ANC ticket in the countrys first election open to all citizens, Mandela assumed the presidency of South Africa on May 10, 1994. During his five-year term, he won extraordinary respect at home and abroad for his advocacy and practice of national reconciliation. After completion of his presidency, he turned to international issues, successfully mediating ethnic strife in Burundi. He also spoke out strongly on HIV/AIDS, urging both the South African government and the international community to greater commitment. In June 2004, shortly before his eighty-sixth birthday, he announced his retirement from public life.

SEE ALSO African National Congress; Apartheid; Colonialism; Mandela, Winnie

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Johns, Sheridan, and R. Hunt Davis Jr., eds. 1991. Mandela, Tambo, and the African National Congress: The Struggle against Apartheid, 19481990. New York: Oxford University Press.

Mandela, Nelson. 1994. Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Boston: Little Brown.

Sampson, Anthony. 1999. Mandela: The Authorized Biography. New York: Knopf.

Sheridan Johns

Mandela, Nelson

views updated May 18 2018

Mandela, Nelson
1918–

Born in Transkei, South Africa, on July 18, 1918, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is one of Africa's greatest nationalists, political activists, and statesmen. The son of Chief Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa of the Thembu and his wife, Nosekeni Fanny of the amaMpemvu clan, Mandela's father named him Rolihlahla, which literally means "pulling the branch of a tree" or "troublemaker" in Xhosa. The English name "Nelson" was added later by a primary school teacher—an example of the imperial arrogance that characterized South Africa's colonial history.

Nelson Mandela's nature was deeply rooted in his chiefly upbringing in the royal house of the Thembu after the death of his father. Mandela's life, however, was defined by the struggle against racism, an inequality that defined white-black relations in South Africa until 1995, when the country became a democracy.

Mandela was educated at Healdtown, a Wesleyan secondary school, and the missionary University College of Fort Hare. His membership in the Student's Representative Council exposed him as a firebrand young radical and activist. He was suspended from college for joining in a protest boycott against the white racist policy of the institution. But it was only after he left Fort Hare and went to Johannesburg, where he completed his bachelor of arts degree by correspondence, took articles of clerkship, and commenced study for his law degree with the University of Witwatersrand, that he set out on the long task for national liberation.

Mandela was exposed daily to the inhumanities of apartheid, where being black reduced one to the status of a nonperson. Mandela joined a small but vocal group of African political activists with the aim of uprooting centuries of colonial rule that had concentrated all political and economic power in the hands of the white minority. He joined the African National Congress (ANC), the premier black political organization, in 1942. Mandela and a small group of young African members of the African National Congress, including William Nkomo (1915–1972), Walter Sisulu (1912–2003), Oliver R. Tambo (1917–1993), and Ashby P. Mda, under the leadership of Anton Lembede (1913–1947), founded the African National Congress Youth League in September 1944. They argued that the political tactics of the old leadership of the ANC were proving inadequate.

Members of the ANC Youth League set themselves the task of transforming the ANC into a mass movement that would derive its strength and motivation from the working people in the towns and countryside, peasants, and professionals. Mandela's leadership impressed his peers, and he was elected the secretary of the Youth League in 1947. He became deeply involved in programs of passive resistance against the pass law, which made it compulsory for all black South Africans over the age of sixteen to carry, at all times, a pass book that stipulated where, when, and for how long a person could remain in a particular part of the country. He was also involved with other apartheid legislation that kept blacks in a position of permanent servility.

The victory of the National Party in the all-white elections of 1948 on the platform of apartheid spurred more radical action from black political leaders. At its 1949 annual conference, the ANC adopted the "Programme of Action." The Programme of Action, inspired by the Youth League, advocated boycotts, strikes, civil disobedience, and noncooperation, tactics that were accepted as official ANC policy. The Youth League called for full citizenship, direct parliamentary representation for all South Africans, the redistribution of the land, trade union rights, and free and compulsory education for all children, as well as mass education for adults.

In 1950 Mandela was elected into the National Executive Committee of the ANC. From this period, the ANC became more radical in its attempt to transform South African society. Mandela was elected national volunteer-in-chief when the ANC launched its Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws in 1952. This initiative was conceived as a civil disobedience campaign that would ultimately culminate in mass defiance by ordinary people.

Mandela's role as volunteer-in-chief took him to many parts of the country to organize resistance to discriminatory legislation. Mandela played an important part in leading the resistance to the Western Areas removal scheme, which forced residents out of their homes in Sophiatown and relocated them to Meadowlands (now part of Soweto), and also to the introduction of the Bantu Education Act (1953), which enforced separation of races in all educational institutions including the curriculum. In recognition of his outstanding contribution during the Defiance Campaign, Mandela was elected to the presidency of both the Youth League and the ANC in Transvaal in 1952, and thus became a deputy president of the ANC.

Mandela was constantly under the radar of the white racist regime during the whole of the 1950s. He was brought to trial for his role in the Defiance Campaign and convicted of contravening the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950, for which he received a suspended prison sentence. Shortly after the campaign ended, he was also prohibited from attending gatherings and confined to Johannesburg for six months.

The Sharpeville Massacre on March 21, 1960, occurred when sixty-nine black South Africans, protesting against pass laws, were killed as the police opened fire on them. This marked a turning point in the struggle for liberation in South Africa. A state of emergency was declared at the beginning of April 1960, and several leading anti-apartheid politicians, black and white, were arrested. Following this, the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) were outlawed. The leadership of the ANC went underground. Mandela emerged at this time as the leading figure in this new phase of the struggle. It was during this time that he, together with other ANC leaders, formed a new section of the liberation movement known as Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) as an armed wing of the ANC in 1961. Mandela was its commander-in-chief.

In 1962 Mandela left the country unlawfully and traveled abroad for several months. He was warmly received by senior political leaders in several countries including Algeria and Ethiopia. Anticipating an intensification of the armed struggle, Mandela began to arrange guerrilla training for members of Umkhonto we Sizwe. Not long after his return to South Africa in July 1962, he was arrested and charged with illegal exit from the country and incitement to strike. Mandela was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.

Exasperated, the government mounted a massive treason trial against ANC leaders, Mandela among them. While serving his sentence, Mandela was charged with sabotage in the Rivonia Trial, which began on November 26, 1963. During the trial, he uttered these immortal words: "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."

Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment and started his prison years in the notorious Robben Island Prison, a maximum-security prison on a small island off the coast of Cape Town. Released on February 11, 1990, Mandela plunged wholeheartedly into his life's work, striving to attain the goals he and others had set out almost four decades earlier. In 1991, at the first national conference of the ANC held inside South Africa after being banned for decades, Nelson Mandela was elected president of the organization.

In 1993 Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Price, which he accepted on behalf of all people who have worked for peace and stood against racism. He became the first democratically elected president of South Africa in 1994 and served until June 1999.

After stepping down as president, Mandela continued to speak with the same moral force and devotion to democracy, equality, and commitment to conflict resolution, and he continued to work for the elimination of poverty, as well as the improvement of public health in Africa, especially with regard to HIV/AIDS. He remained an inspiration to fair-minded people all over the world.

see also African National Congress; Apartheid; Human Rights; Segregation, Racial, Africa.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mandela, Nelson. The Struggle Is My Life, rev. ed. New York: Pathfinder, 1986.

Mandela, Nelson. Nelson Mandela Speaks: Forging a Democratic, Nonracial South Africa. New York: Pathfinder, 1993.

Mandela, Nelson. Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Boston and New York: Little Brown, 1994.

Meredith, Martin. Nelson Mandela: A Biography. New York: Saint Martin's Press, 1998.

Mandela, Nelson

views updated May 29 2018

Mandela, Nelson 1918–

Rolihlahla Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, in the village of Mvezo, a Thembu tribal area that was part of the Xhosa nation in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. At the age of seven he was given the name “Nelson” by an African teacher who insisted on English nomenclature, thereby establishing a moniker that was to surpass in world renown the English naval officer after whom he was named. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was to become the leader of the African National Congress (ANC), the world’s most famous political prisoner (1962–1990), and the overseer (along with F. W. de Klerk) of the political and constitutional negotiations that ended apartheid in South Africa.

The acknowledged “father” of the “new” South Africa, Mandela became president of the country (1994– 1999) following its first democratic elections in 1994, when the ANC won 62 percent of the vote. For their role in helping to dismantle South Africa’s racial formations, Mandela and de Klerk won the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize. Mandela’s achievements in encouraging both a peaceful transition to nonracialism and an acceptance of black majority rule will prove his lasting legacy.

Mandela had a relatively privileged upbringing as a minor member of a royal household. His father died when Mandela was nine years old, and he was brought up under the guardianship of Chief Dalindyebo, Regent of the Thembu people. The Grand Palace in Mqhekezweni was next to a Methodist Mission School, where the young boy excelled under what was, for the time, the very best of education available to Africans. While at school, Mandela converted to Methodism, and he was encouraged to challenge the boundaries that colonialism and apartheid imposed on South Africans. He encountered a number of people who seemed to exemplify this challenge to the status quo, being taught, for example, by the first female African graduate, Gertrude Ntlabathi.

Around 1937, Mandela went on to attend the University of Fort Hare (originally known as the South African Native College), which was established in 1916 as the first university for black South Africans. But his experience there only served to impress upon him some of the paradoxes of apartheid. The widening of educational and socioeconomic opportunities to a small African elite made him aware of how further development for blacks was restricted by race laws, while simultaneously heightening his awareness of the gulf between him and the rest of the African population. This awareness radicalized Mandela, ultimately forcing his expulsion from Fort Hare for organizing student protests.

After leaving Fort Hare, Mandela moved to Johannesburg—partly to escape a traditional tribal arranged marriage—and he found work as a guard at a mine (he was suited to this work because he was also an amateur boxer). He then drifted into law, not on the basis of formal qualifications but as a result of assisting miners to negotiate their way through apartheid’s iniquities. Mandela eventually entered a law firm as a clerk, during which time he obtained a law degree by correspondence. He then went on to study law further at the University of Witwatersrand.

While practicing law, Mandela became involved with the African National Congress (ANC), which had been established in 1912, and he helped to reinvigorate the organization. There was a sense among many younger radicals that the ANC needed to expand recruitment and broaden the base of its coalition to include Communists and community opposition groups, who were themselves mobilizing against the progressive creep of apartheid’s restrictions to Indian and Colored peoples. In addition, many of these radicals thought the group was misguided in putting its faith in white trusteeship, whereby blacks relied on the paternalism of liberal whites to assist them. Under such a system, blacks unwittingly endorsed subservience to white leadership. In 1943, the newly formed ANC Youth League was at the vanguard of these challenges, with Oliver Tambo as secretary, Walter Sisulu as treasurer, and Mandela as a member of its National Executive. The broadening nonracial coalition within the ANC was reinforced in the 1950s by the imposition of even more repressive legislation following the victory of the Afrikaans National Party in the 1948 election. This legislation deepened the level of suffering and intensified the effects of racial discrimination in the country, and it led to the famous Freedom Charter of 1955, a declaration of human and civil rights established by political opposition and community groups in South Africa, deliberately couched in terms redolent of the American Declaration of Independence, outlining the case for freedom and political liberty for South Africans irrespective of race. Despite opposition from radicals who wished to continue with an exclusive form of African nationalism, which would lead eventually to the formation of the rival Pan African Congress, Mandela helped maintain the ANC’s historic commitment to nonracialism.

Periods of detention and arrest followed for Mandela, including a long period spent out on bail, along with 194 other defendants, for the charge of high treason. While he was eventually found not guilty, Mandela was temporarily detained under emergency powers imposed in response to growing political unrest, and he decided to go on the run in 1960 after the ANC was banned. In November 1961 the ANC decided to establish an armed wing, Umkhonto we Siswe (Spear of the Nation), or MK for short, with Mandela as its leader. Mandela would later admit that he never fired a gun in anger, so making him the leader of an armed struggle seems, in retrospect,

an odd choice. Indeed, the relative ineffectiveness of MK’s sabotage campaign between 1961 and 1962 lies in part in Mandela’s reluctance to commit the organization to terror. Nevertheless, the threat of such actions ensured that massive energy was expended in an attempt to arrest him, and Mandela was eventually captured in August 1962. He later ridiculed the speculation that the CIA tipped off the South African police, admitting to having become lax about his own security.

In July 1963 most of the prominent ANC leaders were captured near Rivonia, and the suburb of Johannesburg lent its name to their treason trial, in which Mandela was also a defendant. Those still at large fled overseas (Tambo escaped to London to lead the ANC in exile) or went so deep underground that the ANC essentially had no presence inside the country until at least after the 1976 Soweto uprising. Mandela went to Robben Island, to be freed on February 11, 1990, nine days after the ANC was reinstated as a political entity. He refused early release in 1985, insisting that his freedom had to be part of a comprehensive freeing of the country from racism, one part of which had to be the legalization of the ANC.

Mandela’s commitment to the twin pillars of nonracialism and nonviolence did much to slow the descent into conflict that occurred between 1990 and 1994. There was a political vacuum during this period, and the number of deaths due to political violence was greater than during the worst apartheid years. Mandela’s role in keeping the violence from escalating even further won him respect around the world. He came to be revered as a peacemaker, and he involved himself in many peace processes and issues of conscience throughout the ensuing years. Life-long personal commitments affected other parts of the new South African government’s policies as well, for Mandela resisted economic policies that were anticapitalist or anti-Western, ensuring that tight monetary and fiscal policies would prevent the massive redistribution of wealth that seemed to cripple the economies of other postcolonial societies in Africa. The legitimacy of the man among many white South Africans—founded ironically on the stoicism and dignity with which he bore twenty-eight years of imprisonment imposed in their name—did much to ensure the acceptance of black control of the political system. Likewise, his position as the unrivalled leader of the campaign against apartheid did much to help Africans reconcile themselves to lowered expectations of economic redistribution from the new ANC government. As the figurehead for a moral cause against apartheid, Mandela served as a beacon that shone light around the world and into the hearts of most South Africans. His charisma and steadfastness guided the country during its most difficult period of transition.

SEE ALSO Anti-Apartheid Movement; Apartheid; South African Racial Formations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PRIMARY WORKS

Mandela, Nelson. 1994. Long Walk to Freedom. Boston: Little, Brown.

SECONDARY WORKS

African National Congress. “Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.” Available from http://www.anc.org.za/people/mandela.html.

Brewer, John D. 1986. After Soweto: An Unfinished Journey. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press.

Meer, Fatima. 1988. Higher than Hope: The Biography of Nelson Mandela. Durban, South Africa: Madiba Publishers.

Nelson Mandela Foundation. http://www.nelsonmandela.org/.

Sampson, Anthony. 1999. Mandela: The Authorised Biography. London: Harper Collins.

John D. Brewer

Mandela, Nelson

views updated Jun 27 2018

Nelson Mandela

Born: 1918
Transkei, South Africa

South African president and political activist

Nelson Mandela is a South African leader who spent years in prison for opposing apartheid, the policy by which the races were separated and whites were given power over blacks in South Africa. Upon his release from prison, Mandela became the first president of a black-majority-ruled South Africa in which apartheid was officially ended. A symbol of hope for many, Mandela is also a former winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Youth and education

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in a small village in the southeastern region of South Africa called the Transkei. His father was chief of the village and a member of the royal family of the Thembu tribe, which spoke the Xhosa language. As a boy, Mandela grew up in the company of tribal elders and chiefs, which gave him a rich sense of African self-government and heritage, despite the cruel treatment of blacks in white-governed South Africa.

Mandela was also deeply influenced by his early education in Methodist church schools. The instruction he received there set Mandela on a path leading away from some African tribal traditions, such as an arranged marriage set up by a tribal elder, which he refused. After being expelled from Fort Hare University College in 1940 for leading a student strike, Mandela obtained a degree from Witwatersrand University. In 1942 he received a degree in law from the University of South Africa.

Joining the ANC

In 1944 Mandela joined the African National Congress (ANC), a South African political party. Since its founding, the ANC's main goal had been to work to improve conditions and rights for people of color in South Africa. However, its fairly conservative stance had led some members to call for less timid measures. Mandela became one of the ANC's younger and more radical leaders as a member of the ANC's Youth League. He became president of the league in 1951.

The years between 1951 and 1960 were troubled times, both for South Africa and for the ANC. Younger antiapartheid activists (protesters), including Mandela, were coming to the view that nonviolent demonstrations against apartheid did not work, because they allowed the South African government to respond with violence against Africans. Although Mandela was ready to try every possible technique to destroy apartheid peacefully, he began to feel that nonviolent resistance would not change conditions in the end.

In 1952 Mandela's leadership of ANC protest activities led to a nine-month jail sentence. Later, in 1956, he was arrested with other ANC leaders for promoting resistance to South Africa's "pass laws" that prevented blacks from moving freely in the country. Mandela was charged with treason (a crime committed against one's country), but the charges against him and others collapsed in 1961. By this time, however, the South African government had outlawed the ANC. This move followed events at Sharpeville in 1960, when police fired on a crowd of unarmed protesters.

Sharpeville had made it clear that the days of nonviolent resistance were over. In 1961 antiapartheid leaders created a semi-underground (operating illegally) movement called the All-African National Action Council. Mandela was appointed its honorary secretary and later became head of Umkhonto weSizwe (the Spear of the Nation), a militant ANC organization which used sabotage (destruction of property and other tactics used to undermine the government) in its fight against apartheid.

Political prisoner

In 1962 Mandela was again arrested, this time for leaving South Africa illegally and for inciting strikes. He was sentenced to five years in jail. The following year he was tried with other leaders of Umkhonto weSizwe on a charge of high treason, following a government raid of the group's secret headquarters. Mandela was given a life sentence, which he began serving in the maximum security prison on South Africa's Robben Island.

During the twenty-seven years that Mandela spent in prison, his example of quiet suffering was just one of many pressures on South Africa's apartheid government. Public discussion of Mandela was illegal, and he was allowed few visitors. But as the years dragged on, he was increasingly viewed as a martyr (one who suffers for a cause) in South Africa and around the world, making him a symbol of international protests against apartheid.

In 1988 Mandela was hospitalized with an illness, and after his recovery he was returned to prison under somewhat less harsh conditions. By this time, the situation within South Africa was becoming desperate for the ruling white powers. Protest had spread, and international pressures for the end of apartheid were increasing. More and more, South Africa was isolated as a racist state. It was against this backdrop that F. W. de Klerk (1936), the president of South Africa, finally responded to the calls from around the world to release Mandela.

Freedom

On February 11, 1990, Mandela walked out of prison. He received joyful welcomes wherever he went around the world. In 1991 he assumed the presidency of the ANC, which had been given legal status again by the government.

Both Mandela and deKlerk realized that only a compromise between whites and blacks could prevent civil war in South Africa. As a result, in late 1991, a multiparty Convention for a Democratic South Africa met to establish a new, democratic government that gave people of all colors rights to determine the country's future. Mandela and deKlerk led the negotiations, and their efforts gained them the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. In September 1992, the two leaders signed a document that created a freely elected constitutional assembly to draft a new constitution and to act as a transition government (a government that functions temporarily while a new government is being formed). On April 27, 1994, the first free elections open to all South African citizens were held. The ANC won over sixty-two percent of the popular vote, and Mandela was elected president.

Presidency and retirement

As president, Mandela worked to ease the dangerous political differences in his country and to build up the South African economy. To a remarkable degree he was successful in his aims. Mandela's skill at building compromise and his enormous personal authority helped him lead the transition to democracy. In an effort to help the country heal, he also backed the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission which offered amnesty (exemption from criminal prosecution) to those who had committed crimes during the apartheid era. This action helped to promote discussion about the country's history.

Mandela retired in June 1999, choosing not to challenge Thabo Mbeki, his vice president, in elections. Mbeki won the election for the ANC and was inaugurated as president on June 16, 1999. Mandela quickly took on the role of statesman after leaving office, acting that year as a mediator in the peace process in Burundi, where a civil war had led to the killing of thousands.

In late 2001, Mandela joined the outcry against terrorism when he expressed his support for the American bombing of Afghanistan after terrorist attacks against theUnited States on September 11, 2001. By January 2002, however, Mandela had modified his support somewhat after South African Muslims criticized him for appearing to be insensitive to the sufferings of the Afghan people. As quoted by the Associated Press, Mandela called his earlier remarks supporting the bombings an "overstatement" and urged caution against prematurely labeling Osama bin Laden, the man suspected of plotting the attacks, as a terrorist.

For More Information

Benson, Mary. Nelson Mandela: The Man and the Movement. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1986.

Harwood, Ronald. Mandela. New York: New American Library, 1987.

Hughes, Libby. Nelson Mandela: Voice of Freedom. New York: Dillon Press, 1992.

Johns, Sheridan, and R. Hunt Davis Jr., eds. Mandela, Tambo, & the African National Congress: The Struggle Against Apartheid, 19481990: A Documentary Study. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Mandela, Nelson. Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Boston: Little, Brown, 1994.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

views updated May 29 2018

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (born 1918) was a South African resistance leader who, after years of imprisonment for opposing apartheid, emerged to become the first president of a black-majority-ruled South Africa and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The father of Nelson Mandela was a Xhosa chief in the Transkei, where Mandela was born. He studied law at Witwatersrand University and set up practice in Johannesburg in 1952. The years between 1951 and 1960 were marked by turbulence. The younger nationalists, led by Mandela and others, were coming to the view that non-violent demonstrations against apartheid invited state violence against the Africans. There was also criticism of the type of collaboration with the non-Africans which the African National Congress (ANC) practiced. These nationalists were not unanimous on the alternative to nonviolence.

Unlike the young leaders with whom he grew up, Mandela was ready to try every possible technique to destroy apartheid peacefully, though he, too, realized the futility of nonviolence in view of the conditions which prevailed in his country. His attitude enabled him to support Albert Luthuli when some of the militants walked out of the ANC.

Mandela had joined the ANC in 1944, at a time of crisis for the movement. Its younger members had opposed African participation in World War II and had demanded the declaration of South Africa's war aims for the black people. The Old Guard, led by Dr. Alfred Batini Xuma, was reluctant to embarrass the Jan Smuts government by pressing the African people's demands for the abolition of segregation. The militants, led by Anton M. Lembede, formed the ANC Youth League in 1943. Mandela was elected its president in 1951 and campaigned extensively for the repeal of discriminatory laws. He was appointed volunteer in chief in the resistance movement which the ANC led in 1951-1952, and he was subsequently banned for 6 months and later sentenced to 9 months for his leadership of the defiance campaign.

Mandela was one of the leaders arrested with Luthuli and charged with treason in 1956. The case against him and others collapsed in 1961. He was arrested again during the state of emergency which followed the Sharpeville shootings in 1960. Both the Pan-Africanist Congress, which had organized the demonstrations which led to the shootings, and the ANC were banned.

Sharpeville had made it clear that the days of nonviolent resistance were over. A semi-underground movement, the All-African National Action Council, came into being in 1961. Mandela was appointed its honorary secretary and later became head of Umkhonto we Sizwe (the Spear of the Nation), which used sabotage in its fight against apartheid.

Mandela traveled for a while in free Africa. On his return he was arrested for leaving the country illegally and for inciting the Africans to strike in protest against the establishment of the Republic of South Africa. He was sentenced to 5 years in jail. At the trial, he told the court, "I want at once to make it clear that I am not a racialist and do not support any racialism of any kind, because to me racialism is a barbaric thing whether it comes from a black man or a white man."

Mandela subsequently figured in the Rivonia trial with other leaders of Umkhonto we Sizwe on a charge of high treason and was given a life sentence, which he began serving on Robben Island.

During the 27 years that Mandela spent in prison, hidden from the eyes of the world while he quarried limestome and harvested seaweed, his example of quiet suffering was just one of numerous pressures on the apartheid government. Public discussion of Mandela was illegal, and he was allowed few visitors. But as the years dragged on, he assumed the mantle of a martyr. In 1982 Mandela was moved to the maximum security Pollsmoor Prison outside Cape Town. This move apparently stemmed from fears by the South African authorities that Mandela was exerting too great an influence on the other prisons at Robben Island. Mandela spent much of the next six years in solitary confinement, during which he was allowed a weekly 30-minute visit by his wife, Winnie. He was offered a conditional freedom in 1984 on the condition that he settle in the officially designated black "homeland" of Transkei, an offer Mandela refused with an affirmation of his allegiance to the African National Congress. In 1988, Mandela was hospitalized with tuberculosis, and after his recovery he was returned to prison under somewhat less stringent circumstances. By this time, the situation within South Africa was becoming desperate for the ruling powers. Civil unrest had spread, and international boycotts and diplomatic pressures were increasing. More and more, South Africa was isolated as a racist state. It was against this backdrop that F.W. de Klerk, the President of South Africa and leader of the white-dominated National party, finally heeded the calls from around the world to release Mandela.

On Feb. 11, 1990, Mandela, grey and thin but standing erect and appearing in surprisingly good health, walked out of Verster Prison. He received tumultuous welcomes wherever he went. He visited the United States in July 1990 to raise funds for his cause and received overwhelming acclaim at every turn. In 1991 Mandela assumed the presidency of the African National Congress, by then restored to legal status by the government. Both Mandela and deKlerk realized that only a compromise between whites and blacks could avert a disasterous civil war in South Africa. In late 1991 a multiparty Convention for a Democratic South Africa convened to establish a Democratic government. Mandela and deKlerk led the negotiations, and their efforts later won them the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. In September 1992 the two leaders signed a Record of Understanding that created a freely elected constitutional assembly to draft a new constitution and act as a transition government. On April 27, 1994, the first free elections open to all South African citizens were held. The ANC won over 62 percent of the popular vote and Mandela was elected president.

Mandela's agenda as president consisted of defusing the still dangerous political differences and building up the South African economy. The former he attempted to achieve by former a coalition cabinet with representatives of different groups included. The latter he attempted to attain by inviting new investment from abroad, setting aside some government contracts for black entrepreneurs, and initiating action to return to blacks land seized in 1913. Mandela ran into some personal sorrow during this period in the downfall of his wife, Winnie. After all his years of imprisonment, the Mandelas were separated in 1993 and divorced in 1996. Mandela had appointed his then-wife to his cabinet, but she was forced to exit in 1995 after evidence of her complicity in civil violence was revealed.

However, Mandela's presidency for the most part was successful to a remarkable degree. Mandela's skill as a consensus builder, plus his enormous personal authority, helped him lead the transition to a majority democracy and what promised to be a peaceful future. He backed the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission which offered amnesty to those who had committed crimes during the apartheid era in the interests of clearing up the historical record. The elderly statesman even gave rise to a new style of dress in South Africa known as "Madiba smart." "Madiba" was Mandela's Xhosa clan title, by which he was informally known. And "smart" was local slang for nicely turned out. The style became popular after Mandela traded his business suits for brightly patterned silk shirts, carefully buttoned at the neck and wrists, worn with dress slacks and shoes.

Mandela without question was both the leading political prisoner of the late 20th century and one of Africa's most important reformers. The man who spent nearly three decades in prison out of dedication to his cause became an international symbol of human rights. That he proved to be an effective negotiator and practical politician as well only added to his reputation and proved a blessing to his nation. Indeed, the question as Mandela's term drew near its end and Mandela neared his 80th birthday was ever more pointedly, "After Mandela, who?"

Further Reading

Mandela's address to the court when he was tried for leaving the country without the necessary documents remains an important statement of his views on South Africa's race question. Marion Friedmann reproduced parts of the address in her book, I Will Still Be Moved: Reports from South Africa (1963); Additional statements of Mandela are in No Easy Walk to Freedom: Articles, Speeches and Trial Addresses (1965), edited by Ruth First; For further background see Mary Benson, Nelson Mandela: The Man and the Movement (1986); Ronald Harwood, Mandela (1988); Sheridan Johns and R. Hunt Davis, Jr., editors, Mandela, Tambo, & the African National Congress: The Struggle Against Apartheid, 1948-1990: A Documentary Study (1991); Nelson Mandela, Mandela: An Illustrated Autobiography (1996); Leo Kuper, Passive Resistance in South Africa (1957); and Mary Benson, The African Patriots: The Story of the African National Congress in South Africa (1963). □

Mandela, Nelson

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Mandela, Nelson

SOUTH AFRICAN POLITICAL ACTIVIST AND PRESIDENT
1918–

A life-long anti apartheid activist in South Africa who eventually rose to become the first democratically elected, and first black, president of South Africa, Nelson Rolihlala (meaning troublemaker) Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, into a home composed of three mud huts in the village of Mvezo. Mandela, descended from Thembu (an important people in South Africa) royal blood, was intended to become a councilor to the Thembu king and spent many of his early years in school. Suspended from Fort Hare University in 1940 for leading a student protest against bad food and facing the unwelcome prospect of an arranged marriage, Mandela and a friend fled to Johannesburg, where he soon started working in a law firm, hoping eventually to become a lawyer.

During the 1940s Mandela became active in the political struggle against apartheid, helping to organize the Youth League, on whose executive committee he sat. The Youth League, which was more militant and racially exclusive than the African National Congress (ANC), propelled the anti-apartheid movement toward more direct confrontation with the apartheid system. Though initially racially exclusivist, it began cooperating with anti-apartheid organizations of other races in 1947. In 1949 Mandela, along with others, led the Defiance Campaign, a program promoting the deliberate disobedience of apartheid laws, even to the point of intentionally allowing oneself to be arrested—and indeed, Mandela was among the first to be arrested. Released fairly quickly, Mandela and a close friend became the first blacks in South Africa to open their own law firm in 1956.

The Sharpeville Massacre (in which the police fired on a peaceful demonstration against apartheid, killing sixty-seven and wounding over one hundred) convinced Mandela that nonviolent opposition to apartheid, given the violent lengths to which the South African government was willing to go, was no longer enough. He helped form the Spear of the Nation, a militant group within the ANC devoted to sabotage. Captured by South African forces in 1962, Mandela was put on trial, and, following a dramatic four-hour speech, later reproduced around the world, in which he pledged his willingness to die for his principles, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964. Even while in prison, Mandela remained a vigorous political activist and advocate of justice, helping to organize prisoners and protest for better treatment by prison authorities.

As apartheid began to disintegrate under increasing internal and international pressure, Mandela was moved from the notorious Robben Island Prison to a prison on the mainland. Eventually, in 1990, at seventy-one years of age, Mandela was freed as a result of the reforms of South African President F. W. de Klerk


(b. 1936). His freedom was greeted with loud applause and celebration both within South Africa and around the world.

Mandela would prove instrumental in paving the way for a peaceful transition from the system of apartheid to democratic government, an effort for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize, along with de Klerk, in 1993. The first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994 swept Mandela into the presidency with an overwhelming majority. In true ecumenical fashion, Mandela named de Klerk a deputy president, and in Mandela's only term as president, he proceeded to confront the enormous problems and challenges produced by forty years of apartheid. Mandela's skill as a consensus builder helped him to form a coalition cabinet representing diverse interests, transitioning South Africa to a majority democracy. Mandela's initiatives and policies also were designed to build up the South African economy.

Mandela retired to the village of Qunu, where he was raised, in 1999.

See also: Apartheid; Racism; South Africa.

bibliography

Mandela, Nelson. Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. London: Macdonald Purnell, 1994.

Sampson, Anthony. Mandela: The Authorized Biography. London: HarperCollins, 1999.

Andrew Costello

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