NELSON MANDELA

 FROM SAMPATH’S DESK:

  

 

 

NELSON MANDELA

(18 July 1918 - 5 December 2013) 

NELSON ROLIHLAHLA MANDELA, the most famous South African anti-apartheid activist and politician was the first black to head his country as its President from 1994 to 1999, after decades-long struggle of the native black population against the racial discrimination of sorts practiced towards them by the white rulers. Ideologically an African national and socialist, Nelson Mandela served as the President of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997. He was the key champion of human freedom, saviour of citizenship with all human rights, and crusader of civil liberties who launched a popular movement against the Apartheid legislation and system in South Africa that stood officially repealed on 17^th June 1991 facilitating the first-ever multi-racial elections to be held there in April 1994. 

 

Nelson Mandela studied law and then went on to become one of South Africa's first black lawyers. In the 1950s, he was chosen as the leader of the Youth Wing then engaged in ANC’s liberation movements. His leadership concentrated on overthrowing South Africa’s Apartheid government, which had enforced racial segregation through law. He established a hidden military movement after the government banned the ANC on racial grounds. He had previously participated in non-violent protests, but as the government persistently responded with aberrant and abhorrent barbarism and insane brutalities, he moved on to promote an ideological anti-government battle.

 

Initially influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the Indian nation and devoted to non-violent mass struggle, on December 5, 1956, Mandela was arrested and charged with treason along with 150 others. The 1956-1961 marathon Treason Trial followed, and all were acquitted. As a new class of black activists (Africanists) emerged in the townships seeking more drastic actions against the National Party government, the ANC suffered disruption during 1952-1959. The joint ANC leadership of Albert Luthuli, Oliver Tambo, and Walter Sisulu thought that not only the events were moving too rapidly, but also their leadership was being questioned.

 

Nelson Mandela was influential in the ANC's 1952 Defiance Movement and the 1955 People's Congress. They adopted the Freedom Charter which provided the basic program of the anti-apartheid cause, after the 1948 election victory of the Afrikaner-dominated National Party with its apartheid racial segregation policy. Nelson Mandela and fellow lawyer Oliver Tambo ran the Mandela and Tambo law firm during this period, offering free and/or low-cost legal advice to many blacks who would otherwise have been without legal recourse and representation.

 

Mandela served 27 years in prison - perhaps one of the longest by any freedom fighter in the world - split between Robben Island, Pollsmoor Prison, and Victor Verster Prison. Amid growing domestic and international pressure and fears of a brewing radical racial civil war, President F. W. de Klerk released him in 1990.

 

On April 27, 1994, South Africa's first democratic elections were held in which full enfranchisement was given. In the election, the ANC won the vote, and Nelson Mandela, as ANC leader, was inaugurated as the country's first black president, with de Klerk of the National Party as his Deputy President in the National Unity Government.

 

Nelson Mandela received many South African, foreign, and international awards, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, Queen Elizabeth II's Order of Merit and the Order of St. John, and George W. Bush's Presidential Medal of Freedom. In July 2004, during a ceremony in Orlando, Soweto, the city of Johannesburg, South Africa, conferred its highest honour on Mandela by granting him the Freedom of the City.’

 

As an indication of his popular international recognition, he had a speaking engagement at the SkyDome in the city of Toronto during his Canada visit in 1998, where 45000 school children welcomed him with intense adulations. He was the first living person to be named an honorary Canadian citizen in 2001.

 

In 1992, Turkey awarded him the Ataturk Peace Prize. He initially declined the award, alleging abuses of human rights committed during that period by Turkey, but later accepted it in 1999. He also received the ‘Ambassador of Conscience Award’ from Amnesty International (2006).

 

Nelson Mandela is considered by many as the Father of South Africa.

Some of his golden quotes are -

A winner is a dreamer who never gives up.

It always seems impossible until it's done.

Only after climbing a great hill, one finds that there are many more to climb.

To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.

Retiring from almost all public appearances and activities in 2004, he passed away on December 5, 2013, at the ripe age of 95.

 

 

 

(R.SAMPATH)

13/7/2023