Nelson Mandela
Overview
President of South Africa
The President of the Republic of South Africa is the head of state and head of government under South Africa's Constitution. From 1961 to 1994, the head of state was called the State President....
from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative
Universal suffrage
Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...
democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe
Umkhonto we Sizwe
Umkhonto we Sizwe , translated "Spear of the Nation," was the armed wing of the African National Congress which fought against the South African apartheid government. MK launched its first guerrilla attacks against government installations on 16 December 1961...
, the armed wing of the African National Congress
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
(ANC). In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of sabotage
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...
and other charges, and sentenced to life in prison.
Unanswered Questions
Quotations
Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.
Refusing to bargain for freedom after 21 years in prison, as quoted in TIME (25 February 1985)
I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people. Your tireless and heroic sacrifices have made it possible for me to be here today. I therefore place the remaining years of my life in your hands.
Speech on the day of his release, Cape Town (11 February 1990)
Let's hope that Ken Osterbroek will be the last person to die.
Spoken shortly after Inkatha announced that they would participate in the 1994 elections. (The Bang-Bang Club p. 168)
I must deal immediately and at some length with the question of violence. Some of the things so far told to the Court are true and some are untrue. I do not, however, deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness, nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation, and oppression of my people by the Whites.
Encyclopedia
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (xoˈliːɬaɬa manˈdeːla; born 18 July 1918) served as President of South Africa
from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative
democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe
, the armed wing of the African National Congress
(ANC). In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of sabotage
and other charges, and sentenced to life in prison. Mandela served 27 years in prison, spending many of these years on Robben Island
. Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, Mandela led his party in the negotiations that led to multi-racial democracy in 1994. As president, he frequently gave priority to reconciliation, while introducing policies aimed at combating poverty and inequality in South Africa.
In South Africa, Mandela is often known as Madiba, his Xhosa clan name; or as tata . Mandela has received more than 250 awards over four decades, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize
.
of the Thembu
dynasty, which reign
s in the Transkei region
of South Africa's Eastern Cape Province. He was born in Mvezo
, a small village located in the district of Umtata. He has Khoisan
ancestry on his mother's side. His patrilineal
great-grandfather Ngubengcuka
(who died in 1832), ruled as the Inkosi Enkhulu, or king, of the Thembu people. One of the king's sons, named Mandela, became Nelson's grandfather and the source of his surname. However, because he was only the Inkosi's child by a wife of the Ixhiba clan
(the so-called "Left-Hand House"), the descendants of his branch of the royal family were not eligible to succeed to the Thembu throne.
Mandela's father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa
, served as chief
of the town of Mvezo. However, upon alienating the colonial authorities, they deprived Mphakanyiswa of his position, and moved his family to Qunu
. Despite this, Mphakanyiswa remained a member of the Inkosi's Privy Council
, and served an instrumental role in Jongintaba Dalindyebo's ascension to the Thembu throne. Dalindyebo would later return the favour by informally adopting Mandela upon Mphakanyiswa's death. Mandela's father had four wives, with whom he fathered thirteen children (four boys and nine girls). Mandela was born to his third wife ('third' by a complex royal ranking system), Nosekeni Fanny. Fanny was a daughter of Nkedama of the Mpemvu Xhosa clan, the dynastic
Right Hand House, in whose umzi or homestead
Mandela spent much of his childhood. His given name
Rolihlahla means "to pull a branch of a tree", or more colloquially, "troublemaker".
Rolihlahla Mandela became the first member of his family to attend a school, where his teacher Miss Mdingane gave him the English name "Nelson".
When Mandela was nine, his father died of tuberculosis, and the regent
, Jongintaba, became his guardian
. Mandela attended a Wesleyan
mission school located next to the palace of the regent. Following Thembu custom, he was initiated at age sixteen, and attended Clarkebury Boarding Institute. Mandela completed his Junior Certificate
in two years, instead of the usual three. Designated to inherit his father's position as a privy councillor, in 1937 Mandela moved to Healdtown
, the Wesleyan college in Fort Beaufort
which most Thembu royalty
attended. At nineteen, he took an interest in boxing and running at the school.
After enrolling
, Mandela began to study for a Bachelor of Arts at the Fort Hare University, where he met Oliver Tambo
. Tambo and Mandela became lifelong friends and colleagues. Mandela also became close friends with his kinsman, Kaiser ("K.D.") Matanzima
who, as royal scion
of the Thembu Right Hand House, was in line for the throne of Transkei, a role that would later lead him to embrace Bantustan
policies. His support of these policies would place him and Mandela on opposing political sides. At the end of Nelson's first year, he became involved in a Students' Representative Council
boycott against university policies, and was told to leave Fort Hare and not return unless he accepted election to the SRC. Later in his life, while in prison, Mandela studied for a Bachelor of Laws
from the University of London External Programme
.
Shortly after leaving Fort Hare, Jongintaba announced to Mandela and Justice (the regent's son and heir to the throne) that he had arranged marriages for both of them. The young men, displeased by the arrangement, elected to relocate to Johannesburg
. Upon his arrival, Mandela initially found employment as a guard at a mine. However, the employer quickly terminated Mandela after learning that he was the Regent's runaway ward
. Mandela later started work as an articled clerk
at a Johannesburg law firm, Witkin, Sidelsky and Edelman, through connections with his friend and mentor, realtor Walter Sisulu
. While working at Witkin, Sidelsky and Edelman, Mandela completed his B.A. degree at the University of South Africa
via correspondence, after which he began law studies at the University of Witwatersrand, where he first befriended fellow students and future anti-apartheid political activists Joe Slovo
, Harry Schwarz
and Ruth First
. Slovo would eventually become Mandela's Minister of Housing, while Schwarz would become his Ambassador to Washington. During this time, Mandela lived in Alexandra township, north of Johannesburg.
-dominated National Party
, which supported the apartheid policy of racial segregation
, Mandela began actively participating in politics. He led prominently in the ANC's 1952 Defiance Campaign
and the 1955 Congress of the People, whose adoption of the Freedom Charter
provided the fundamental basis of the anti-apartheid cause. During this time, Mandela and fellow lawyer Oliver Tambo
operated the law firm of Mandela and Tambo
, providing free or low-cost legal counsel to many blacks who lacked attorney representation.
Mahatma Gandhi
influenced Mandela's approach, and subsequently the methods of succeeding generations of South African anti-apartheid activists. (Mandela later took part in the 29–30 January 2007 conference in New Delhi marking the 100th anniversary of Gandhi's introduction of satyagraha
(non-violent resistance) in South Africa).
Initially committed to nonviolent resistance
, Mandela and 150 others were arrested on 5 December 1956 and charged with treason. The marathon Treason Trial
of 1956–1961 followed, with all defendants receiving acquittal
s. From 1952–1959, a new class of black activists known as the Africanists disrupted ANC activities in the townships, demanding more drastic steps against the National Party regime. The ANC leadership under Albert Luthuli, Oliver Tambo
and Walter Sisulu
felt not only that the Africanists were moving too fast but also that they challenged their leadership. The ANC leadership consequently bolstered their position through alliances with small White, Coloured, and Indian political parties in an attempt to give the appearance of wider appeal than the Africanists. The Africanists ridiculed the 1955 Freedom Charter
Kliptown Conference for the concession of the 100,000-strong ANC to just a single vote in a Congressional alliance. Four secretaries-general of the five participating parties secretly belonged to the reconstituted South African Communist Party
(SACP). In 2003 Blade Nzimande
, the SACP General Secretary, revealed that Walter Sisulu
, the ANC Secretary-General, secretly joined the SACP in 1955 which meant all five Secretaries General were SACP and thus explains why Sisulu relegated the ANC from a dominant role to one of five equals.
In 1959, the ANC lost its most militant support when most of the Africanists, with financial support from Ghana
and significant political support from the Transvaal
-based Basotho
, broke away to form the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) under the direction of Robert Sobukwe
and Potlako Leballo
.
(translated Spear of the Nation, and also abbreviated MK), which he co-founded. He coordinated sabotage campaigns against military and government targets, making plans for a possible guerrilla war
if the sabotage failed to end apartheid. Mandela also raised funds for MK abroad and arranged for paramilitary training of the group.
Fellow ANC member Wolfie Kadesh explains the bombing campaign led by Mandela: "When we knew that we [sic] going to start on 16 December 1961, to blast the symbolic places of apartheid, like pass offices, native magistrates courts, and things like that ... post offices and ... the government offices. But we were to do it in such a way that nobody would be hurt, nobody would get killed." Mandela said of Wolfie: "His knowledge of warfare and his first hand battle experience were extremely helpful to me."
Mandela described the move to armed struggle as a last resort; years of increasing repression and violence from the state convinced him that many years of non-violent protest against apartheid had not and could not achieve any progress.
Later, mostly in the 1980s, MK waged a guerrilla war against the apartheid government in which many civilians became casualties. Mandela later admitted that the ANC, in its struggle against apartheid, also violated human rights, sharply criticising those in his own party who attempted to remove statements supporting this fact from the reports of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Until July 2008 Mandela and ANC party members were barred from entering the United States—except to visit the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan
—without a special waiver from the US Secretary of State
, because of their South African apartheid government era designation as terrorists.
(CIA) tipped off the security police as to Mandela's whereabouts and disguise. Three days later, the charges of leading workers to strike in 1961 and leaving the country illegally were read to him during a court appearance. On 25 October 1962, Mandela was sentenced to five years in prison.
While Mandela was imprisoned, police arrested prominent ANC leaders on 11 July 1963, at Liliesleaf Farm
, Rivonia, north of Johannesburg. Mandela was brought in, and at the Rivonia Trial
they were charged by the chief prosecutor Dr. Percy Yutar
with four charges of the capital crimes of sabotage (which Mandela admitted) and crimes which were equivalent to treason
, but easier for the government to prove. They were also charged with plotting a foreign invasion of South Africa, which Mandela denied. The specifics of the charges to which Mandela admitted complicity involved conspiring with the African National Congress and South African Communist Party to the use of explosives to destroy water, electrical, and gas utilities in the Republic of South Africa.
Bram Fischer
, Vernon Berrange, Joel Joffe, Arthur Chaskalson
and George Bizos
were part of the defence team that represented the main accused. Harry Schwarz
represented Jimmy Kantor
, who was not a member of the ANC or MK; Kantor was acquitted long before the end of the trial. Harold Hanson
was brought in at the end of the case to plead mitigation.
In his statement from the dock at the opening of the defence case in the trial on 20 April 1964 at Pretoria
Supreme Court, Mandela laid out the reasoning in the ANC's choice to use violence as a tactic. His statement described how the ANC had used peaceful means to resist apartheid for years until the Sharpeville Massacre
. That event coupled with the referendum establishing the Republic of South Africa and the declaration of a state of emergency
along with the banning of the ANC made it clear to Mandela and his compatriots that their only choice was to resist through acts of sabotage and that doing otherwise would have been tantamount to unconditional surrender. Mandela went on to explain how they developed the Manifesto of Umkhonto we Sizwe
on 16 December 1961 intent on exposing the failure of the National Party's policies after the economy would be threatened by foreigners' unwillingness to risk investing in the country. He closed his statement with these words: "During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to the struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."
All except Rusty Bernstein were found guilty, but they escaped the gallows and were sentenced to life imprisonment on 12 June 1964.
Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island
where he remained for the next eighteen of his twenty-seven years in prison. While in jail, his reputation grew and he became widely known as the most significant black leader in South Africa. On the island, he and others performed hard labour
in a lime quarry. Prison conditions were very basic. Prisoners were segregated by race, with black prisoners receiving the fewest rations. Political prisoner
s were kept separate from ordinary criminals and received fewer privileges. Mandela describes how, as a D-group prisoner (the lowest classification) he was allowed one visitor and one letter every six months. Letters, when they came, were often delayed for long periods and made unreadable by the prison censors.
Whilst in prison Mandela undertook study with the University of London by correspondence through its External Programme
and received the degree of Bachelor of Laws
. He was subsequently nominated for the position of Chancellor
of the University of London in the 1981 election
, but lost to Princess Anne
.
In his 1981 memoir Inside BOSS secret agent Gordon Winter describes his involvement in a plot to rescue Mandela from prison in 1969: this plot was infiltrated by Winter on behalf of South African intelligence, who wanted Mandela to escape so they could shoot him during recapture. The plot was foiled by Britain's Secret Intelligence Service
.
In March 1982 Mandela was transferred from Robben Island to Pollsmoor Prison
, along with other senior ANC leaders Walter Sisulu, Andrew Mlangeni, Ahmed Kathrada
and Raymond Mhlaba
. It was speculated that this was to remove the influence of these senior leaders on the new generation of young black activists imprisoned on Robben Island, the so-called "Mandela University". However, National Party
minister Kobie Coetsee
says that the move was to enable discreet contact between them and the South African government.
In February 1985 President P.W. Botha offered Mandela his freedom on condition that he 'unconditionally rejected violence as a political weapon'. Coetsee and other ministers had advised Botha against this, saying that Mandela would never commit his organisation to giving up the armed struggle in exchange for personal freedom. Mandela indeed spurned the offer, releasing a statement via his daughter Zindzi saying "What freedom am I being offered while the organisation of the people remains banned? Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts."
The first meeting between Mandela and the National Party government came in November 1985 when Kobie Coetsee met Mandela in Volks Hospital in Cape Town
where Mandela was recovering from prostate surgery. Over the next four years, a series of tentative meetings took place, laying the groundwork for further contact and future negotiations, but little real progress was made.
In 1988 Mandela was moved to Victor Verster Prison
and would remain there until his release. Various restrictions were lifted and people such as Harry Schwarz
were able to visit him. Schwarz, a lifelong friend of Mandela, had known him since university when they were in the same law class. He was also a defence barrister at the Rivonia Trial and would become Mandela's ambassador to Washington during his presidency.
Throughout Mandela's imprisonment, local and international pressure mounted on the South African government to release him, under the resounding slogan Free Nelson Mandela! In 1989, South Africa reached a crossroads when Botha suffered a stroke and was replaced as president by Frederik Willem de Klerk. De Klerk announced Mandela's release in February 1990.
Mandela was visited several times by delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross, while at Robben Island and later at Pollsmoor prison. Mandela had this to say about the visits: "to me personally, and those who shared the experience of being political prisoners, the Red Cross was a beacon of humanity within the dark inhumane world of political imprisonment."
F. W. de Klerk reversed the ban on the ANC and other anti-apartheid organisations, and announced that Mandela would shortly be released from prison. Mandela was released from Victor Verster Prison
in Paarl
on 11 February 1990. The event was broadcast live all over the world.
On the day of his release, Mandela made a speech to the nation. He declared his commitment to peace and reconciliation with the country's white minority, but made it clear that the ANC's armed struggle was not yet over when he said "our resort to the armed struggle in 1960 with the formation of the military wing of the ANC (Umkhonto we Sizwe
) was a purely defensive action against the violence of apartheid. The factors which necessitated the armed struggle still exist today. We have no option but to continue. We express the hope that a climate conducive to a negotiated settlement would be created soon, so that there may no longer be the need for the armed struggle."
He also said his main focus was to bring peace to the black majority and give them the right to vote in both national and local elections.
In 1991, the ANC held its first national conference in South Africa after its unbanning, electing Mandela as President of the organisation. His old friend and colleague Oliver Tambo, who had led the organisation in exile during Mandela's imprisonment, became National Chairperson.
Mandela's leadership through the negotiations, as well as his relationship with President F. W. de Klerk, was recognised when they were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
in 1993. However, the relationship was sometimes strained, particularly so in a sharp exchange in 1991 when he furiously referred to De Klerk as the head of "an illegitimate, discredited, minority regime". The talks broke down following the Boipatong massacre
in June 1992 when Mandela took the ANC out of the negotiations, accusing De Klerk's government of complicity in the killings. However, talks resumed following the Bisho massacre
in September 1992, when the spectre of violent confrontation made it clear that negotiations were the only way forward.
Following the assassination of ANC leader Chris Hani
in April 1993, there were renewed fears that the country would erupt in violence. Mandela addressed the nation appealing for calm, in a speech regarded as 'presidential' even though he was not yet president of the country at that time. Mandela said "tonight I am reaching out to every single South African, black and white, from the very depths of my being. A white man, full of prejudice and hate, came to our country and committed a deed so foul that our whole nation now teeters on the brink of disaster. A white woman, of Afrikaner origin, risked her life so that we may know, and bring to justice, this assassin. The cold-blooded murder of Chris Hani has sent shock waves throughout the country and the world. ...Now is the time for all South Africans to stand together against those who, from any quarter, wish to destroy what Chris Hani gave his life for – the freedom of all of us". While some riots did follow the assassination, the negotiators were galvanised into action, and soon agreed that democratic elections should take place on 27 April 1994, just over a year after Hani's assassination.
in which full enfranchisement was granted were held on 27 April 1994. The ANC won 62% of the votes in the election, and Mandela, as leader of the ANC, was inaugurated on 10 May 1994 as the country's first black President
, with the National Party's de Klerk as his first deputy
and Thabo Mbeki
as the second in the Government of National Unity
. As President from May 1994 until June 1999, Mandela presided over the transition from minority rule and apartheid, winning international respect for his advocacy of national and international reconciliation. Mandela encouraged black South Africans to get behind the previously hated Springboks (the South African national rugby team) as South Africa hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup
. (This is the theme of the 2009 film Invictus
.) After the Springboks won an epic final over New Zealand, Mandela presented the trophy to captain Francois Pienaar
, an Afrikaner, wearing a Springbok shirt with Pienaar's own number 6 on the back. This was widely seen as a major step in the reconciliation of white and black South Africans.
After assuming the presidency, one of Mandela's trademarks was his use of Batik
shirts, known as "Madiba shirt
s", even on formal occasions. In South Africa's first post-apartheid military operation
, Mandela ordered troops into Lesotho
in September 1998 to protect the government of Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili
. This came after a disputed election prompted fierce opposition threatening the unstable government. Commentators and critics including AIDS activists such as Edwin Cameron
have criticised Mandela for his government's ineffectiveness in stemming the AIDS crisis. After his retirement, Mandela admitted that he may have failed his country by not paying more attention to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Mandela has since spoken out on several occasions about the AIDS epidemic.
During the course of his presidency, a wide range of progressive social reforms were enacted by Mandela's government, aimed at reducing long entrenched social and economic inequalities in South Africa
. Amongst the measures carried out by Mandela and his ministers included:
's Libya, on the one hand, and the United States and Britain on the other, over bringing to trial the two Libyans who were indicted in November 1991 and accused of sabotaging Pan Am Flight 103
, which crashed at the Scottish town of Lockerbie
on 21 December 1988, with the loss of 270 lives. As early as 1992, Mandela informally approached President George H.W. Bush with a proposal to have the two indicted Libyans tried in a third country. Bush reacted favourably to the proposal, as did President François Mitterrand
of France and King Juan Carlos I of Spain
. In November 1994 – six months after his election as president – Mandela formally proposed that South Africa should be the venue for the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial
.
However, British Prime Minister John Major
flatly rejected the idea saying the British government did not have confidence in foreign courts. A further three years elapsed until Mandela's offer was repeated to Major's successor, Tony Blair
, when the president visited London in July 1997. Later the same year, at the 1997 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
(CHOGM) at Edinburgh
in October 1997, Mandela warned:
A compromise solution was then agreed for a trial to be held at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, governed by Scots law
, and President Mandela began negotiations with Colonel Gaddafi
for the handover of the two accused (Megrahi and Fhimah
) in April 1999. At the end of their nine-month trial, the verdict was announced on 31 January 2001. Fhimah was found not guilty, but Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to 27 years in a Scottish jail. Megrahi's initial appeal was turned down in March 2002, and former president Mandela went to visit him in Barlinnie prison
on 10 June 2002.
Megrahi was subsequently moved to Greenock jail and out of solitary confinement
. In August 2009 Megrahi, suffering from cancer and expected to have only 3 months left to live, was released on compassionate grounds and allowed to return to Libya. The Nelson Mandela Foundation expressed its support for the decision to release Megrahi in a letter sent to the Scottish Government on behalf of Mandela.
Mandla Mandela
.
area of South Africa, although they actually met in Johannesburg. The couple broke up in 1957 after 13 years, divorcing under the multiple strains of his constant absences, devotion to revolutionary agitation, and the fact she was a Jehovah's Witness
, a religion which requires political neutrality. Evelyn Mase died in 2004. The couple had two sons, Madiba Thembekile (Thembi) (1946–1969) and Makgatho Mandela
(1950–2005), and two daughters, both named Makaziwe Mandela
(known as Maki; born 1947 and 1953). Their first daughter died aged nine months, and they named their second daughter
in her honour. All their children were educated at the United World College of Waterford Kamhlaba
. Thembi was killed in a car crash in 1969 at the age of 23, while Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island, and Mandela was not allowed to attend the funeral. Makgatho died of AIDS in 2005, aged 54.
, also came from the Transkei area, although they, too, met in Johannesburg, where she was the city's first black social worker. They had two daughters, Zenani (Zeni), born 4 February 1958, and Zindziswa (Zindzi) Mandela-Hlongwane, born 1960. Zindzi was only 18 months old when her father was sent to Robben island. Later, Winnie would be deeply torn by family discord which mirrored the country's political strife; while her husband was serving a life sentence
on the Robben Island prison, her father became the agriculture minister in the Transkei. The marriage ended in separation (April 1992) and divorce (March 1996), fuelled by political estrangement.
Mandela was still in prison when his daughter Zenani was married to Prince Thumbumuzi Dlamini in 1973, elder brother of King Mswati III
of Swaziland
. Although she had vivid memories of her father, from the age of four up until sixteen, South African authorities did not permit her to visit him. The Dlamini couple live and run a business in Boston
. One of their sons, Prince Cedza Dlamini
(born 1976), educated in the United States, has followed in his grandfather's footsteps as an international advocate for human rights and humanitarian aid.
Zindzi Mandela-Hlongwane made history worldwide when she read out Mandela's speech refusing his conditional pardon in 1985. She is a businesswoman in South Africa with three children, the eldest of whom is a son, Zondwa Gadaffi Mandela.
née Simbine, widow of Samora Machel
, the former Mozambican
president and ANC ally who was killed in an air crash 12 years earlier. The wedding followed months of international negotiations to set the unprecedented bride price
to be remitted to Machel's clan. Said negotiations were conducted on Mandela's behalf by his traditional sovereign, King Buyelekhaya Zwelibanzi Dalindyebo. The paramount chief
's grandfather was the regent Jongintaba Dalindyebo, who had arranged a marriage for Mandela, which he eluded by fleeing to Johannesburg
in 1940.
Mandela still maintains a home at Qunu in the realm of his royal nephew (second cousin thrice-removed in Western reckoning), whose university expenses he defrayed and whose privy councillor he remains.
.
After his retirement as President, Mandela went on to become an advocate for a variety of social and human rights organisations. He has expressed his support for the international Make Poverty History
movement of which the ONE Campaign
is a part. The Nelson Mandela Invitational
charity golf tournament, hosted by Gary Player
, has raised over twenty million rand
for children's charities since its inception in 2000.
This annual special event has become South Africa's most successful charitable sports gathering and benefits both the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and Gary Player Foundation equally for various children's causes around the world.
Mandela is a vocal supporter of SOS Children's Villages
, the world's largest organisation dedicated to raising orphaned and abandoned children. Mandela appeared in a televised advertisement for the 2006 Winter Olympics
, and was quoted for the International Olympic Committee
's Celebrate Humanity campaign:
Three organisations associated with Mandela have been established: the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund
, and the Mandela Rhodes Foundation
.
. He was treated with a seven-week course of radiation. In 2003 Mandela's death was incorrectly announced by CNN when his pre-written obituary (along with those of several other famous figures) was inadvertently published on CNN's web site due to a fault in password protection. In 2007 a fringe right-wing group distributed hoax email and SMS messages claiming that the authorities had covered up Mandela's death and that white South Africans would be massacred after his funeral. Mandela was on holiday in Mozambique at the time.
In June 2004, at age 85, Mandela announced that he would be retiring from public life. His health had been declining, and he wanted to enjoy more time with his family. Mandela said that he did not intend to hide away totally from the public, but wanted to be in a position "of calling you to ask whether I would be welcome, rather than being called upon to do things and participate in events. My appeal therefore is: Don't call me, I will call you." Since 2003, he has appeared in public less often and has been less vocal on topical issues. He is white-haired and walks slowly with the support of a stick. There are reports that he may be suffering from age-related dementia.
Mandela's 90th birthday was marked across the country on 18 July 2008, with the main celebrations held at his home town of Qunu. A concert in his honour
was also held in Hyde Park, London
. In a speech to mark his birthday, Mandela called for the rich people to help poor people across the world. Despite maintaining a low-profile during the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, Mandela made a rare public appearance during the closing ceremony, where he received a "rapturous reception."
In January 2011, he was admitted to the private Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg, for what were at the time described as "routine tests" by his foundation, leading to intense media speculation about the health condition of the increasingly frail Mandela. It later emerged that he had been suffering from a respiratory infection, which had responded well to treatment. He was discharged after two and a half days in hospital in a stable condition, and returned to his Houghton, Johannesburg home in an ambulance.
, and Desmond Tutu
convened a group of world leaders in Johannesburg to contribute their wisdom and independent leadership to address the world's toughest problems. Mandela announced the formation of this new group, The Elders
, in a speech he delivered on the occasion of his 89th birthday.
Archbishop Tutu serves as the chair of The Elders. The founding members of this group also include Graça Machel, Kofi Annan
, Ela Bhatt
, Gro Harlem Brundtland
, Jimmy Carter
, Li Zhaoxing
, Mary Robinson
and Muhammad Yunus
.
"This group can speak freely and boldly, working both publicly and behind the scenes on whatever actions need to be taken", Mandela commented. "Together we will work to support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict, and inspire hope where there is despair."
in 2000, in Durban, South Africa. In 2003, he had already lent his support to the 46664 AIDS fundraising campaign, named after his prison number. In July 2004, he flew to Bangkok
to speak at the XV International AIDS Conference
. His son, Makgatho Mandela
, died of AIDS on 6 January 2005. Mandela's AIDS activism is chronicled in Stephanie Nolen
's book, 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa
.
In 2002 and 2003, Mandela criticised the foreign policy of the administration
of US president George W. Bush
in a number of speeches. Criticising the lack of UN involvement in the decision to begin the War in Iraq, he said, "It is a tragedy, what is happening, what Bush is doing. But Bush is now undermining the United Nations." Mandela stated he would support action against Iraq
only if it is ordered by the UN. Mandela also insinuated that the United States may have been motivated by racism in not following the UN and its secretary-general Kofi Annan
on the issue of the war. "Is it because the secretary-general of the United Nations is now a black man? They never did that when secretary-generals [sic] were white". General Colin Powell
, the first of two African-Americans appointed by Bush to the position of US Secretary of State, presented to the United Nations Assembly the case for the war in Iraq and overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Mandela urged the people of the US to join massive protests against Bush and called on world leaders, especially those with vetoes in the UN Security Council, to oppose him. "What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust." He attacked the United States for its record on human rights
and for dropping atomic bombs on Japan
during World War II. "If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don't care." Nelson Mandela also harshly condemned British Prime Minister Tony Blair
and referred to him as the "foreign minister of the United States".
Mandela, and Kofi Annan, also strongly criticised George W Bush’s PEPFAR initiative at an international AIDS conference in 2004.
was a trusted friend and personal attorney of Mandela for over 30 years. In May 2005, Ayob was asked by Mandela to stop selling prints
signed by Mandela and to account for the proceeds of their sale. This bitter dispute led to an extensive application to the High Court of South Africa
by Mandela that year. Ayob denied any wrongdoing, and claimed that he was the victim of a smear campaign orchestrated by Mandela's advisors, in particular, lawyer George Bizos
.
In 2005 and 2006, Ayob, his wife, and son were subjected to a verbal attack by Mandela's advisors. The dispute was widely reported in the media, with Ayob being portrayed in a negative light, culminating in the action by Mandela to the High Court. There were public meetings at which Mandela associates attacked Ayob and there were calls for Ayob and his family to be ostracised by society. The defence of Ismail and Zamila Ayob (his wife, and a fellow respondent
) included documents signed by Mandela and witnessed by his secretaries, that, they claimed, refuted many of the allegations made by Nelson Mandela and his advisors.
The dispute again made headlines in February 2007 when, during a hearing in the Johannesburg High Court, Ayob promised to pay R700 000 to Mandela, which Ayob had transferred into trusts for Mandela's children, and apologised,
although he later claimed that he was the victim of a "vendetta
", by Mandela. Some media commentators expressed sympathy for Ayob's position, pointing out that Mandela's iconic status would make it difficult for Ayob to be treated fairly.
family, for the benefit of his children and grandchildren. Ayob later resigned from the Trust. In 2006, the two remaining trustees of the Nelson Mandela Trust launched an application against Ayob for disbursing money from the trust without their consent. Ayob claimed that this money was paid to the South African Revenue Service
, to Mandela's children and grandchildren, to Mandela himself, and to an accounting company for four years of accounting work.
Bizos and Trengrove refused to ratify the payments to the children and grandchildren of Nelson Mandela and the payments to the accounting firm. A court settlement was reached in which this money, totalling over R700,000 was paid by Ismail Ayob to the trust on the grounds that Ayob had not sought the express consent of the other two trustees before disbursing the money. It was alleged that Ayob made defamatory remarks about Mandela in his affidavit, for which the court order stated that Ayob should apologise. It was pointed out that these remarks, which centred on Nelson Mandela holding foreign bank accounts and not paying tax on these, had not originated from Ayob's affidavit but from Nelson Mandela's and George Bizos's own affidavits.
article in December 2006, Nelson Mandela was criticised for a number of positive comments he had made about the diamond industry. There were concerns that this would benefit suppliers of blood diamonds. In a letter to Edward Zwick
, the director of the motion picture Blood Diamond
, Mandela had noted that:
The New Republic article claims that this comment, as well as various pro-diamond-industry initiatives and statements during his life and during his time as a president of South Africa, were influenced by both his friendship with Harry Oppenheimer
, former chairman of De Beers
, as well as an outlook for 'narrow national interests' of South Africa (which is a major diamond producer).
, the president of Zimbabwe
who has led the country since independence in 1980, has been widely criticised internationally for the 1980s fighting which killed about 3000 people
as well as corruption, incompetent administration, political oppression and cronyism
that has ultimately led to the economic collapse of the country.
Despite their common background as national liberators, Mandela and Mugabe were seldom seen as close. Mandela criticised Mugabe in 2000, referring to African leaders who had liberated their countries but had then overstayed their welcome. In his retirement, Mandela spoke out less often on Zimbabwe and other international and domestic issues, sometimes leading to criticism for not using his influence to greater effect to persuade Mugabe to moderate his policies. His lawyer George Bizos revealed that Mandela has been advised on medical grounds to avoid engaging in stressful activity such as political controversy. Nonetheless, in 2007, Mandela attempted to persuade Mugabe to leave office "sooner than later", with "a modicum of dignity", before he was hounded out like Augusto Pinochet
. Mugabe did not respond to this approach. In June 2008, at the height of the crisis over the Zimbabwean presidential election
, Mandela condemned the "tragic failure of leadership" in Zimbabwe.
Eve Fairbanks of Newsweek
said "Mandela rightly occupies an untouched place in the South African imagination. He's the national liberator, the saviour, its Washington
and Lincoln
rolled into one".
In November 2009, the United Nations General Assembly
announced that Mandela's birthday, 18 July, is to be known as "Mandela Day
" to mark his contribution to world freedom.
in 1993 (which was shared with Frederik Willem de Klerk), the Order of Merit from, and creation as, a Baliff Grand Cross of the Order of St. John
by Queen Elizabeth II
and the Presidential Medal of Freedom
from George W. Bush
. In July 2004, the city of Johannesburg
bestowed its highest honour on Mandela by granting him the freedom of the city
at a ceremony in Orlando, Soweto
.
As an example of his popular foreign acclaim, during his tour of Canada in 1998, 45,000 school children greeted him with adulation at a speaking engagement in the SkyDome
in the city of Toronto. In 2001, he was the first living person to be made an honorary Canadian citizen (the only previous recipient, Raoul Wallenberg
, was awarded honorary citizenship posthumously). While in Canada, he was also made an honorary Companion of the Order of Canada
, one of the few foreigners to receive the honour.
In 1990 he received the Bharat Ratna
Award from the government of India and also received the last ever Lenin Peace Prize
from the Soviet Union. In 1992 he was awarded the Atatürk Peace Award by Turkey
. He refused the award citing human rights violations committed by Turkey at the time, but later accepted the award in 1999. In 1992 he received of Nishan-e-Pakistan
, the highest civil service award of Pakistan.
who recorded the song "Free Nelson Mandela
" in 1983. Stevie Wonder
dedicated his 1985 Oscar
for the song "I Just Called to Say I Love You
" to Mandela, resulting in his music being banned by the South African Broadcasting Corporation
. In 1985, Youssou N'Dour
's album Nelson Mandela was the Senegal
ese artist's first United States release.
In 1988, the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute
concert at London's Wembley Stadium was a focal point of the anti-apartheid movement, with many musicians voicing their support for Mandela. Jerry Dammers
, the author of Nelson Mandela, was one of the organisers. Simple Minds
recorded the song "Mandela Day" for the concert, Santana
recorded the instrumental "Mandela", Tracy Chapman
performed "Freedom Now", dedicated to Mandela and released on her album Crossroads, Salif Keita
from Mali
, who played at the concert, later visited South Africa and in 1995 recorded the song "Mandela" on his album Folon
. and Whitney Houston
performed and dedicated the gospel song "He I Believe".
In South Africa, "Asimbonanga (Mandela)" ("We Have Not Seen Him") became one of Johnny Clegg's most famous songs, appearing on his Third World Child
album in 1987. Hugh Masekela
, in exile in the UK, sang "Bring Him Back Home (Nelson Mandela)" in 1987. Brenda Fassie
's 1989 song "Black President", a tribute to Mandela, was hugely popular even though it was banned in South Africa. Nigeria
n reggae musician Majek Fashek
released the single, "Free Mandela", in 1992, making him one of many Nigerian recording artists who had released songs related to the anti-apartheid movement and to Mandela himself.
In 1990, Hong Kong rock band Beyond
released a popular Cantonese song, "Days of Glory". The anti-apartheid song featured lyrics referring to Mandela's heroic struggle for racial equality. The group Ladysmith Black Mambazo
accompanied Mandela to the Nobel Peace Prize
ceremony in Oslo, Norway in 1993, and performed for his inauguration in 1994. In 2003, Mandela lent his weight to the 46664 campaign against AIDS, named after his prison number. Many prominent musicians performed in concerts as part of this campaign.
A summary of Mandela's life story is featured in the 2006 music video "If Everyone Cared
" by Nickelback
. Raffi
's song "Turn This World Around" is based on a speech given by Mandela where he explained the world needs to be "turned around, for the children". A tribute concert for Mandela's 90th birthday took place in Hyde Park, London
on 27 June 2008.
Musician Ampie du Preez
and cricketer AB de Villiers wrote a song called "Madibaland" in honour of Mandela. It is featured as the 4th and 14th tracks on their album, "Maak Jou Drome Waar
".
, was published in 1994, an extended version of No Easy Walk to Freedom, published by Heinemann in 1965. Mandela had begun work on it secretly while in prison. In that book Mandela did not reveal anything about the alleged complicity of F. W. de Klerk in the violence of the eighties and nineties, or the role of his ex-wife Winnie Mandela in that bloodshed. However, he later co-operated with his friend, journalist Anthony Sampson
who discussed those issues in Mandela: The Authorised Biography
. Another detail that Mandela omitted was the allegedly fraudulent book, Goodbye Bafana
. Its author, Robben Island warder James Gregory
, claimed to have been Mandela's confidant in prison and published details of the prisoner's family affairs. Sampson maintained that Mandela had not known Gregory well, but that Gregory censored the letters sent to the future president and thus discovered the details of Mandela's personal life. Sampson also averred that other warders suspected Gregory of spying for the government and that Mandela considered suing Gregory.
. Goodbye Bafana
, a feature film that focuses on Mandela's life, had its world premiere at the Berlin film festival on 11 February 2007. The film starred Dennis Haysbert
as Mandela and chronicled Mandela's relationship with prison guard James Gregory
.
On the American television series The Cosby Show
Cliff and Claire Huxtable's grandchildren were named Nelson and Winnie in honour of Mandela and his then wife Winnie.
In the final scene of the 1992 movie Malcolm X
, Mandela – recently released after 27 years of political imprisonment – appears as a schoolteacher in a Soweto
classroom. He recites a portion of one of Malcolm X
's most famous speeches, including the following sentence: "We declare our right on this earth to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence..."
The famous final phrase of that sentence is "by any means necessary
." Mandela informed director Spike Lee
that he could not utter the phrase on camera fearing that the apartheid government would use it against him if he did. Lee obliged, and the final seconds of the film feature black-and-white footage of Malcolm X himself delivering the phrase.
Mandela and Springboks captain, François Pienaar
, are the focus of a 2008 book by John Carlin, Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation, that spotlights the role of the 1995 Rugby World Cup
win in post-apartheid South Africa. Carlin sold the film rights to Morgan Freeman
. The film, entitled Invictus
, was directed by Clint Eastwood
, and featured Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon
as Pienaar.
In the BBC television
one-off drama Mrs Mandela, Nelson Mandela was portrayed by David Harewood
and Sophie Okonedo
played his former wife Winnie Mandela.
was officially opened and Nelson Mandela was awarded the freedom of the city
and awarded a commemorative 'golden owl' (the heraldic symbol of Leeds). In a speech outside Leeds Civic Hall
in front of 5000 people, mistakenly Mandela famously thanked 'the people of Liverpool
for their generosity'.
On 31 March 2004, Sandton Square in Johannesburg
was renamed Nelson Mandela Square
, after a 6-metre statue of Nelson Mandela was installed on the square to honour the famous South African statesman.
On 29 August 2007, a statue of Nelson Mandela was unveiled at Parliament Square
in London by Richard Attenborough
, Ken Livingstone
, Wendy Woods (widow of Donald Woods
), and Gordon Brown
. The campaign to erect the statue was started in 2000 by the late Donald Woods
, a South African journalist driven into exile because of his anti-apartheid activities. Mandela stated that it represented not just him, but all those who have resisted oppression, especially those in South Africa. He added: "The history of the struggle in South Africa is rich with the stories of heroes and heroines, some of them leaders, some of them followers. All of them deserve to be remembered." An earlier London statue resides on the South Bank
of The Thames, dating from 1985.
On 27 August 2008, a statue of Nelson Mandela was unveiled at Groot Drakenstein Correctional Centre between Paarl and Franshhoek on the R301 road, near Cape Town. Formerly known as Victor Verster, this was where Mandela spent the last few years of his 27 years in jail in relative comfort, as he and other ANC stalwarts negotiated with the apartheid government on the terms of his release and the nature of the new South Africa.
It stands on the very spot where Mandela took his first steps as a free man. Just outside the prison gates – the culmination of the Long Walk to Freedom – the title of Mandela's autobiography.
After 1989's Loma Prieta earthquake
demolished the Cypress Street Viaduct
portion of the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland
, California, the city renamed the street-level boulevard that replaced it Mandela Parkway in his honour.
In Leicester
, England there is a Nelson Mandela Park with the slogan "South Africa belongs to all those who live there, Black and White". It is opposite Leicester Tigers
ground Welford Road
.
on his birthday, 18 July, is an annual international day adopted by the United Nations. Individuals, communities and organisations are asked to donate 67 minutes to doing something for others, commemorating the 67 years that Nelson Mandela gave to the struggle for social justice.
, "honouring Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa and one of the great moral leaders of our time."
|-
President of South Africa
The President of the Republic of South Africa is the head of state and head of government under South Africa's Constitution. From 1961 to 1994, the head of state was called the State President....
from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative
Universal suffrage
Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...
democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe
Umkhonto we Sizwe
Umkhonto we Sizwe , translated "Spear of the Nation," was the armed wing of the African National Congress which fought against the South African apartheid government. MK launched its first guerrilla attacks against government installations on 16 December 1961...
, the armed wing of the African National Congress
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
(ANC). In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of sabotage
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...
and other charges, and sentenced to life in prison. Mandela served 27 years in prison, spending many of these years on Robben Island
Robben Island
Robben Island is an island in Table Bay, 6.9 km west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, Cape Town, South Africa. The name is Dutch for "seal island". Robben Island is roughly oval in shape, 3.3 km long north-south, and 1.9 km wide, with an area of 5.07 km². It is flat and only a...
. Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, Mandela led his party in the negotiations that led to multi-racial democracy in 1994. As president, he frequently gave priority to reconciliation, while introducing policies aimed at combating poverty and inequality in South Africa.
In South Africa, Mandela is often known as Madiba, his Xhosa clan name; or as tata . Mandela has received more than 250 awards over four decades, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
.
Early life
Nelson Mandela belongs to a cadet branchCadet branch
Cadet branch is a term in genealogy to describe the lineage of the descendants of the younger sons of a monarch or patriarch. In the ruling dynasties and noble families of much of Europe and Asia, the family's major assets – titles, realms, fiefs, property and income – have...
of the Thembu
Thembu
The Thimbu are one of the handful of nations and population groups which speak Xhosa in South Africa. In Xhosa the name is abaThembu, aba- being a common prefix for peoples....
dynasty, which reign
Reign
A reign is the term used to describe the period of a person's or dynasty's occupation of the office of monarch of a nation or of a people . In most hereditary monarchies and some elective monarchies A reign is the term used to describe the period of a person's or dynasty's occupation of the office...
s in the Transkei region
Transkei
The Transkei , officially the Republic of Transkei , was a Bantustan—an area set aside for members of a specific ethnicity—and nominal parliamentary democracy in the southeastern region of South Africa...
of South Africa's Eastern Cape Province. He was born in Mvezo
Mvezo
Mvezo is a small village on the banks of the Mbashe river in the District of Umtata, the capital of the Transkei, an area in the South Eastern area of South Africa. The village is mainly known as being the birthplace of former South African president Nelson Mandela, whose family serves as its...
, a small village located in the district of Umtata. He has Khoisan
Khoisan
Khoisan is a unifying name for two ethnic groups of Southern Africa, who share physical and putative linguistic characteristics distinct from the Bantu majority of the region. Culturally, the Khoisan are divided into the foraging San and the pastoral Khoi...
ancestry on his mother's side. His patrilineal
Patrilineality
Patrilineality is a system in which one belongs to one's father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritance of property, names or titles through the male line as well....
great-grandfather Ngubengcuka
Ngubengcuka
Ngubengcuka was the king of the Thembu people, in the southern part of the Transkei region of South Africa. Known as Inkosi Enkhulu , Ngubengcuka united the Thembu nation before it was subjected to British colonial rule...
(who died in 1832), ruled as the Inkosi Enkhulu, or king, of the Thembu people. One of the king's sons, named Mandela, became Nelson's grandfather and the source of his surname. However, because he was only the Inkosi's child by a wife of the Ixhiba clan
Clan
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...
(the so-called "Left-Hand House"), the descendants of his branch of the royal family were not eligible to succeed to the Thembu throne.
Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa
Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa was a member of the Thembu tribe of South Africa, and the chief of Mvezo, a tiny village on the banks of the Mbashe River, known today as the Bashee River. He was the father of anti-apartheid activist and South African president Nelson Mandela...
, served as chief
Tribal chief
A tribal chief is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom. Tribal societies with social stratification under a single leader emerged in the Neolithic period out of earlier tribal structures with little stratification, and they remained prevalent throughout the Iron Age.In the case of ...
of the town of Mvezo. However, upon alienating the colonial authorities, they deprived Mphakanyiswa of his position, and moved his family to Qunu
Qunu
Qunu is a small rural village in South Africa's Eastern Cape Province, south-west of Mthatha on the road between Butterworth and Mthatha.Mvezo on Mbashe River is near where Nelson Mandela was born, and Qunu is where he grew up and later retired after leaving office as South Africa's President in...
. Despite this, Mphakanyiswa remained a member of the Inkosi's Privy Council
Privy council
A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a nation, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the monarch's closest advisors to give confidential advice on...
, and served an instrumental role in Jongintaba Dalindyebo's ascension to the Thembu throne. Dalindyebo would later return the favour by informally adopting Mandela upon Mphakanyiswa's death. Mandela's father had four wives, with whom he fathered thirteen children (four boys and nine girls). Mandela was born to his third wife ('third' by a complex royal ranking system), Nosekeni Fanny. Fanny was a daughter of Nkedama of the Mpemvu Xhosa clan, the dynastic
Dynasty
A dynasty is a sequence of rulers considered members of the same family. Historians traditionally consider many sovereign states' history within a framework of successive dynasties, e.g., China, Ancient Egypt and the Persian Empire...
Right Hand House, in whose umzi or homestead
Homestead (small African settlement)
In the southern African context, a homestead is a cluster of several houses characteristic of the Nguni-speaking peoples of Africa. Each homestead is normally occupied by a single extended family....
Mandela spent much of his childhood. His given name
Given name
A given name, in Western contexts often referred to as a first name, is a personal name that specifies and differentiates between members of a group of individuals, especially in a family, all of whose members usually share the same family name...
Rolihlahla means "to pull a branch of a tree", or more colloquially, "troublemaker".
Rolihlahla Mandela became the first member of his family to attend a school, where his teacher Miss Mdingane gave him the English name "Nelson".
When Mandela was nine, his father died of tuberculosis, and the regent
Regent
A regent, from the Latin regens "one who reigns", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Currently there are only two ruling Regencies in the world, sovereign Liechtenstein and the Malaysian constitutive state of Terengganu...
, Jongintaba, became his guardian
Legal guardian
A legal guardian is a person who has the legal authority to care for the personal and property interests of another person, called a ward. Usually, a person has the status of guardian because the ward is incapable of caring for his or her own interests due to infancy, incapacity, or disability...
. Mandela attended a Wesleyan
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
mission school located next to the palace of the regent. Following Thembu custom, he was initiated at age sixteen, and attended Clarkebury Boarding Institute. Mandela completed his Junior Certificate
Junior Certificate
The Junior Certificate is an educational qualification awarded in Ireland by the Department of Education to students who have successfully completed the junior cycle of secondary education, and achieved a minimum standard in their Junior Cert. examinations...
in two years, instead of the usual three. Designated to inherit his father's position as a privy councillor, in 1937 Mandela moved to Healdtown
Healdtown Comprehensive School
Healdtown Comprehensive School is a Methodist school located near Fort Beaufort, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. It was established in 1845 and assuming its current name in 1994, having been known for most of its history as simply "Healdtown"....
, the Wesleyan college in Fort Beaufort
Fort Beaufort
Fort Beaufort is a town in the Amatole District of South Africa's Eastern Cape Province, and has a population of 78,300. The town was established in 1837 and became a municipality in 1883. The town lies at the confluence of the Kat and Brak rivers between the Keiskamma and Great Fish rivers...
which most Thembu royalty
Royal family
A royal family is the extended family of a king or queen regnant. The term imperial family appropriately describes the extended family of an emperor or empress, while the terms "ducal family", "grand ducal family" or "princely family" are more appropriate to describe the relatives of a reigning...
attended. At nineteen, he took an interest in boxing and running at the school.
After enrolling
Matriculation
Matriculation, in the broadest sense, means to be registered or added to a list, from the Latin matricula – little list. In Scottish heraldry, for instance, a matriculation is a registration of armorial bearings...
, Mandela began to study for a Bachelor of Arts at the Fort Hare University, where he met Oliver Tambo
Oliver Tambo
Oliver Reginald Tambo was a South African anti-apartheid politician and a central figure in the African National Congress .-Biography:Oliver Tambo was born in Bizana in eastern Pondoland in what is now Eastern Cape...
. Tambo and Mandela became lifelong friends and colleagues. Mandela also became close friends with his kinsman, Kaiser ("K.D.") Matanzima
Kaiser Matanzima
Kaiser Matanzima was a former leader of the Transkei in South Africa.-Biography:Born in Qamata, Eastern Cape, a nephew of Nelson Mandela, Matanzima received the name Daliwonga upon reaching manhood as an "isikhahlelo" . It means "Maker of Majesty"...
who, as royal scion
Kinship
Kinship is a relationship between any entities that share a genealogical origin, through either biological, cultural, or historical descent. And descent groups, lineages, etc. are treated in their own subsections....
of the Thembu Right Hand House, was in line for the throne of Transkei, a role that would later lead him to embrace Bantustan
Bantustan
A bantustan was a territory set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa , as part of the policy of apartheid...
policies. His support of these policies would place him and Mandela on opposing political sides. At the end of Nelson's first year, he became involved in a Students' Representative Council
Students' Representative Council
A Students' Representative Council represents student interests in the government of a university, school or other educational institution. Generally the SRC forms part of a broader Students' Association which may include other functions such as societies, entertainments and sports Universities...
boycott against university policies, and was told to leave Fort Hare and not return unless he accepted election to the SRC. Later in his life, while in prison, Mandela studied for a Bachelor of Laws
Bachelor of Laws
The Bachelor of Laws is an undergraduate, or bachelor, degree in law originating in England and offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree...
from the University of London External Programme
University of London External Programme
The University of London International Programmes is a division of the University of London that manages external study programmes.Several colleges and institutes of the University of London offer degrees through the programme, including Birkbeck, Goldsmiths, Heythrop College, Institute of...
.
Shortly after leaving Fort Hare, Jongintaba announced to Mandela and Justice (the regent's son and heir to the throne) that he had arranged marriages for both of them. The young men, displeased by the arrangement, elected to relocate to Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
. Upon his arrival, Mandela initially found employment as a guard at a mine. However, the employer quickly terminated Mandela after learning that he was the Regent's runaway ward
Ward (law)
In law, a ward is someone placed under the protection of a legal guardian. A court may take responsibility for the legal protection of an individual, usually either a child or incapacitated person, in which case the ward is known as a ward of the court, or a ward of the state, in the United States,...
. Mandela later started work as an articled clerk
Articled clerk
An articled clerk, also known as an articling student, is an apprentice in a professional firm in Commonwealth countries. Generally the term arises in the accountancy profession and in the legal profession. The articled clerk signs a contract, known as "articles of clerkship", committing to a...
at a Johannesburg law firm, Witkin, Sidelsky and Edelman, through connections with his friend and mentor, realtor Walter Sisulu
Walter Sisulu
Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu was a South African anti-apartheid activist and member of the African National Congress .-Family and Education:...
. While working at Witkin, Sidelsky and Edelman, Mandela completed his B.A. degree at the University of South Africa
University of South Africa
The University of South Africa is a distance education university, with headquarters in Pretoria, South Africa. With approximately 300 000 enrolled students, it qualifies as one of the world's mega universities.-History:...
via correspondence, after which he began law studies at the University of Witwatersrand, where he first befriended fellow students and future anti-apartheid political activists Joe Slovo
Joe Slovo
For Joe Slovo Informal Settlement in Cape Town, see: Joe Slovo .Joe Slovo was a South African politician, long-time leader of the South African Communist Party , and leading member of the African National Congress.-Life:Slovo was born in Obeliai, Lithuania to a Jewish family who emigrated to South...
, Harry Schwarz
Harry Schwarz
Harry Heinz Schwarz was a South African lawyer, statesman and long-time political opposition leader against apartheid, who eventually served as the South African ambassador to the United States during the country’s transition to representative democracy.Schwarz rose from the childhood poverty he...
and Ruth First
Ruth First
Ruth First was a white South African anti-apartheid activist and scholar born in Johannesburg, South Africa...
. Slovo would eventually become Mandela's Minister of Housing, while Schwarz would become his Ambassador to Washington. During this time, Mandela lived in Alexandra township, north of Johannesburg.
Political activity
After the 1948 election victory of the AfrikanerAfrikaner
Afrikaners are an ethnic group in Southern Africa descended from almost equal numbers of Dutch, French and German settlers whose native tongue is Afrikaans: a Germanic language which derives primarily from 17th century Dutch, and a variety of other languages.-Related ethno-linguistic groups:The...
-dominated National Party
National Party (South Africa)
The National Party is a former political party in South Africa. Founded in 1914, it was the governing party of the country from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a...
, which supported the apartheid policy of racial segregation
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
, Mandela began actively participating in politics. He led prominently in the ANC's 1952 Defiance Campaign
Defiance Campaign
The Defiance Campaign against Unjust Laws was presented by the African National Congress at a conference held in Bloemfontein, South Africa in December 1951....
and the 1955 Congress of the People, whose adoption of the Freedom Charter
Freedom Charter
The Freedom Charter was the statement of core principles of the South African Congress Alliance, which consisted of the African National Congress and its allies - the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats and the Coloured People's Congress...
provided the fundamental basis of the anti-apartheid cause. During this time, Mandela and fellow lawyer Oliver Tambo
Oliver Tambo
Oliver Reginald Tambo was a South African anti-apartheid politician and a central figure in the African National Congress .-Biography:Oliver Tambo was born in Bizana in eastern Pondoland in what is now Eastern Cape...
operated the law firm of Mandela and Tambo
Mandela and Tambo
Mandela and Tambo was the name of the law firm run by Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo in South Africa. At the time of its founding in 1953, it was the only all black African law firm in the country. The firm ceased to exist after politics and the anti-Apartheid struggle began to consume most of...
, providing free or low-cost legal counsel to many blacks who lacked attorney representation.
Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
influenced Mandela's approach, and subsequently the methods of succeeding generations of South African anti-apartheid activists. (Mandela later took part in the 29–30 January 2007 conference in New Delhi marking the 100th anniversary of Gandhi's introduction of satyagraha
Satyagraha
Satyagraha , loosely translated as "insistence on truth satya agraha soul force" or "truth force" is a particular philosophy and practice within the broader overall category generally known as nonviolent resistance or civil resistance. The term "satyagraha" was conceived and developed by Mahatma...
(non-violent resistance) in South Africa).
Initially committed to nonviolent resistance
Nonviolent resistance
Nonviolent resistance is the practice of achieving goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, and other methods, without using violence. It is largely synonymous with civil resistance...
, Mandela and 150 others were arrested on 5 December 1956 and charged with treason. The marathon Treason Trial
Treason Trial
The Treason Trial was a trial in which 156 people, including Nelson Mandela, were arrested in a raid and accused of treason in South Africa in 1956....
of 1956–1961 followed, with all defendants receiving acquittal
Acquittal
In the common law tradition, an acquittal formally certifies the accused is free from the charge of an offense, as far as the criminal law is concerned. This is so even where the prosecution is abandoned nolle prosequi...
s. From 1952–1959, a new class of black activists known as the Africanists disrupted ANC activities in the townships, demanding more drastic steps against the National Party regime. The ANC leadership under Albert Luthuli, Oliver Tambo
Oliver Tambo
Oliver Reginald Tambo was a South African anti-apartheid politician and a central figure in the African National Congress .-Biography:Oliver Tambo was born in Bizana in eastern Pondoland in what is now Eastern Cape...
and Walter Sisulu
Walter Sisulu
Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu was a South African anti-apartheid activist and member of the African National Congress .-Family and Education:...
felt not only that the Africanists were moving too fast but also that they challenged their leadership. The ANC leadership consequently bolstered their position through alliances with small White, Coloured, and Indian political parties in an attempt to give the appearance of wider appeal than the Africanists. The Africanists ridiculed the 1955 Freedom Charter
Freedom Charter
The Freedom Charter was the statement of core principles of the South African Congress Alliance, which consisted of the African National Congress and its allies - the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats and the Coloured People's Congress...
Kliptown Conference for the concession of the 100,000-strong ANC to just a single vote in a Congressional alliance. Four secretaries-general of the five participating parties secretly belonged to the reconstituted South African Communist Party
South African Communist Party
South African Communist Party is a political party in South Africa. It was founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa by the joining together of the International Socialist League and others under the leadership of Willam H...
(SACP). In 2003 Blade Nzimande
Blade Nzimande
Dr Bonginkosi Emmanuel "Blade" Nzimande is a South African politician who has been Minister for Higher Education and Training since 2009.He has been the General Secretary of the South African Communist Party since 1998...
, the SACP General Secretary, revealed that Walter Sisulu
Walter Sisulu
Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu was a South African anti-apartheid activist and member of the African National Congress .-Family and Education:...
, the ANC Secretary-General, secretly joined the SACP in 1955 which meant all five Secretaries General were SACP and thus explains why Sisulu relegated the ANC from a dominant role to one of five equals.
In 1959, the ANC lost its most militant support when most of the Africanists, with financial support from Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
and significant political support from the Transvaal
Transvaal Province
Transvaal Province was a province of the Union of South Africa from 1910 to 1961, and of its successor, the Republic of South Africa, from 1961 until the end of apartheid in 1994 when a new constitution subdivided it.-History:...
-based Basotho
Basotho
The ancestors of the Sotho people have lived in southern Africa since around the fifth century. The Sotho nation emerged from the accomplished diplomacy of Moshoeshoe I who gathered together disparate clans of Sotho–Tswana origin that had dispersed across southern Africa in the early 19th century...
, broke away to form the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) under the direction of Robert Sobukwe
Robert Sobukwe
Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe was a South African political dissident, who founded the Pan Africanist Congress in opposition to the apartheid regime. In 2004 Sobukwe was voted 42nd in the SABC3's Great South Africans....
and Potlako Leballo
Potlako Leballo
Potlkako Leballo was an Africanist who led the Pan Africanist Congress until 1979. Leballo was co-founder of the Basutoland African Congress in 1952 and a World War II veteran and primary school headmaster.-Early Years:...
.
Armed anti-apartheid activities
In 1961 Mandela became leader of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we SizweUmkhonto we Sizwe
Umkhonto we Sizwe , translated "Spear of the Nation," was the armed wing of the African National Congress which fought against the South African apartheid government. MK launched its first guerrilla attacks against government installations on 16 December 1961...
(translated Spear of the Nation, and also abbreviated MK), which he co-founded. He coordinated sabotage campaigns against military and government targets, making plans for a possible guerrilla war
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
if the sabotage failed to end apartheid. Mandela also raised funds for MK abroad and arranged for paramilitary training of the group.
Fellow ANC member Wolfie Kadesh explains the bombing campaign led by Mandela: "When we knew that we [sic] going to start on 16 December 1961, to blast the symbolic places of apartheid, like pass offices, native magistrates courts, and things like that ... post offices and ... the government offices. But we were to do it in such a way that nobody would be hurt, nobody would get killed." Mandela said of Wolfie: "His knowledge of warfare and his first hand battle experience were extremely helpful to me."
Mandela described the move to armed struggle as a last resort; years of increasing repression and violence from the state convinced him that many years of non-violent protest against apartheid had not and could not achieve any progress.
Later, mostly in the 1980s, MK waged a guerrilla war against the apartheid government in which many civilians became casualties. Mandela later admitted that the ANC, in its struggle against apartheid, also violated human rights, sharply criticising those in his own party who attempted to remove statements supporting this fact from the reports of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Until July 2008 Mandela and ANC party members were barred from entering the United States—except to visit the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
—without a special waiver from the US Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
, because of their South African apartheid government era designation as terrorists.
Arrest and Rivonia trial
On 5 August 1962 Mandela was arrested after living on the run for seventeen months, and was imprisoned in the Johannesburg Fort. The arrest was made possible because the U.S. Central Intelligence AgencyCentral Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
(CIA) tipped off the security police as to Mandela's whereabouts and disguise. Three days later, the charges of leading workers to strike in 1961 and leaving the country illegally were read to him during a court appearance. On 25 October 1962, Mandela was sentenced to five years in prison.
While Mandela was imprisoned, police arrested prominent ANC leaders on 11 July 1963, at Liliesleaf Farm
Liliesleaf Farm
Liliesleaf Farm in northern Johannesburg, South Africa was the farm used secretly by African National Congress activists in the 1960s and was the location where many prominent African National Congress leaders were arrested, leading to the Rivonia Trial....
, Rivonia, north of Johannesburg. Mandela was brought in, and at the Rivonia Trial
Rivonia Trial
The Rivonia Trial was a trial that took place in South Africa between 1963 and 1964, in which ten leaders of the African National Congress were tried for 221 acts of sabotage designed to overthrow the apartheid system.-Origins:...
they were charged by the chief prosecutor Dr. Percy Yutar
Percy Yutar
Dr. Percy Yutar was South Africa’s first Jewish attorney-general. Yutar was one of eight children in a family of Lithuanian immigrants...
with four charges of the capital crimes of sabotage (which Mandela admitted) and crimes which were equivalent to treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
, but easier for the government to prove. They were also charged with plotting a foreign invasion of South Africa, which Mandela denied. The specifics of the charges to which Mandela admitted complicity involved conspiring with the African National Congress and South African Communist Party to the use of explosives to destroy water, electrical, and gas utilities in the Republic of South Africa.
Bram Fischer
Bram Fischer
Abram Louis Fischer, commonly known as Bram Fischer, was a South African lawyer of Afrikaner descent, notable for anti-apartheid activism and for the legal defence of anti-apartheid figures, including Nelson Mandela at the Rivonia Trial.-Tributes:Fischer is widely acknowledged as a key figure in...
, Vernon Berrange, Joel Joffe, Arthur Chaskalson
Arthur Chaskalson
Arthur Chaskalson, is a former President of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and Chief Justice of South Africa...
and George Bizos
George Bizos
George Bizos is a distinguished human rights advocate who campaigned against apartheid in South Africa, most notably during the Rivonia Trial.-Early life:...
were part of the defence team that represented the main accused. Harry Schwarz
Harry Schwarz
Harry Heinz Schwarz was a South African lawyer, statesman and long-time political opposition leader against apartheid, who eventually served as the South African ambassador to the United States during the country’s transition to representative democracy.Schwarz rose from the childhood poverty he...
represented Jimmy Kantor
James Kantor
James Kantor was a South African Lawyer. He was Nelson Mandela's lawyer in the Rivonia Trial until he too was arrested and was charged with the same crimes as Mandela. Harry Schwarz, a close friend and a well-known politician, stepped in to act as his defense in the trial...
, who was not a member of the ANC or MK; Kantor was acquitted long before the end of the trial. Harold Hanson
Harold Hanson
Harold Joseph Hanson was an eminent South African advocate and Senior Member of the Johannesburg Bar Council. He was born in Johannesburg to Ralph Hanson, a Rand pioneer and Clara Lewis. Harold Hanson first married May Koseff with whom he had a daughter. His second marriage was in 1945 to Anna...
was brought in at the end of the case to plead mitigation.
In his statement from the dock at the opening of the defence case in the trial on 20 April 1964 at Pretoria
Pretoria
Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.Pretoria is...
Supreme Court, Mandela laid out the reasoning in the ANC's choice to use violence as a tactic. His statement described how the ANC had used peaceful means to resist apartheid for years until the Sharpeville Massacre
Sharpeville massacre
The Sharpeville Massacre occurred on 21 March 1960, at the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville in the Transvaal . After a day of demonstrations, at which a crowd of black protesters far outnumbered the police, the South African police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69...
. That event coupled with the referendum establishing the Republic of South Africa and the declaration of a state of emergency
State of emergency
A state of emergency is a governmental declaration that may suspend some normal functions of the executive, legislative and judicial powers, alert citizens to change their normal behaviours, or order government agencies to implement emergency preparedness plans. It can also be used as a rationale...
along with the banning of the ANC made it clear to Mandela and his compatriots that their only choice was to resist through acts of sabotage and that doing otherwise would have been tantamount to unconditional surrender. Mandela went on to explain how they developed the Manifesto of Umkhonto we Sizwe
Umkhonto we Sizwe
Umkhonto we Sizwe , translated "Spear of the Nation," was the armed wing of the African National Congress which fought against the South African apartheid government. MK launched its first guerrilla attacks against government installations on 16 December 1961...
on 16 December 1961 intent on exposing the failure of the National Party's policies after the economy would be threatened by foreigners' unwillingness to risk investing in the country. He closed his statement with these words: "During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to the struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."
All except Rusty Bernstein were found guilty, but they escaped the gallows and were sentenced to life imprisonment on 12 June 1964.
Imprisonment
Robben Island
Robben Island is an island in Table Bay, 6.9 km west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, Cape Town, South Africa. The name is Dutch for "seal island". Robben Island is roughly oval in shape, 3.3 km long north-south, and 1.9 km wide, with an area of 5.07 km². It is flat and only a...
where he remained for the next eighteen of his twenty-seven years in prison. While in jail, his reputation grew and he became widely known as the most significant black leader in South Africa. On the island, he and others performed hard labour
Penal labour
Penal labour is a form of unfree labour in which prisoners perform work, typically manual labour. The work may be light or hard, depending on the context. Forms of sentence which involve penal labour include penal servitude and imprisonment with hard labour...
in a lime quarry. Prison conditions were very basic. Prisoners were segregated by race, with black prisoners receiving the fewest rations. Political prisoner
Political prisoner
According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....
s were kept separate from ordinary criminals and received fewer privileges. Mandela describes how, as a D-group prisoner (the lowest classification) he was allowed one visitor and one letter every six months. Letters, when they came, were often delayed for long periods and made unreadable by the prison censors.
Whilst in prison Mandela undertook study with the University of London by correspondence through its External Programme
University of London External Programme
The University of London International Programmes is a division of the University of London that manages external study programmes.Several colleges and institutes of the University of London offer degrees through the programme, including Birkbeck, Goldsmiths, Heythrop College, Institute of...
and received the degree of Bachelor of Laws
Bachelor of Laws
The Bachelor of Laws is an undergraduate, or bachelor, degree in law originating in England and offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree...
. He was subsequently nominated for the position of Chancellor
Chancellor (education)
A chancellor or vice-chancellor is the chief executive of a university. Other titles are sometimes used, such as president or rector....
of the University of London in the 1981 election
University of London Chancellor election, 1981
The 1981 University of London election for the position of Chancellor was called upon when the incumbent Chancellor, Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother announced in December 1980 that she was retiring from the position...
, but lost to Princess Anne
Anne, Princess Royal
Princess Anne, Princess Royal , is the only daughter of Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...
.
In his 1981 memoir Inside BOSS secret agent Gordon Winter describes his involvement in a plot to rescue Mandela from prison in 1969: this plot was infiltrated by Winter on behalf of South African intelligence, who wanted Mandela to escape so they could shoot him during recapture. The plot was foiled by Britain's Secret Intelligence Service
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
.
In March 1982 Mandela was transferred from Robben Island to Pollsmoor Prison
Pollsmoor Prison
Pollsmoor Prison, officially, Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison is a prison in the Cape Town suburb of Tokai in South Africa. Nelson Mandela was the most famous inmate of the prison...
, along with other senior ANC leaders Walter Sisulu, Andrew Mlangeni, Ahmed Kathrada
Ahmed Kathrada
Ahmed Mohamed Kathrada is a South African politician and former political prisoner and anti-apartheid activist....
and Raymond Mhlaba
Raymond Mhlaba
Raymond Mhlaba was an anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress .Mhlaba spent 25 years of his life in prison. Well known for being sentenced, along with Nelson Mandela, in the Rivonia Trial, he was an active member of the ANC and the South African Communist Party all his...
. It was speculated that this was to remove the influence of these senior leaders on the new generation of young black activists imprisoned on Robben Island, the so-called "Mandela University". However, National Party
National Party (South Africa)
The National Party is a former political party in South Africa. Founded in 1914, it was the governing party of the country from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a...
minister Kobie Coetsee
Kobie Coetsee
Hendrik Jacobus Coetsee was a South African lawyer, National Party politician and administrator as well as a negotiator during the country's transition to democracy....
says that the move was to enable discreet contact between them and the South African government.
In February 1985 President P.W. Botha offered Mandela his freedom on condition that he 'unconditionally rejected violence as a political weapon'. Coetsee and other ministers had advised Botha against this, saying that Mandela would never commit his organisation to giving up the armed struggle in exchange for personal freedom. Mandela indeed spurned the offer, releasing a statement via his daughter Zindzi saying "What freedom am I being offered while the organisation of the people remains banned? Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts."
The first meeting between Mandela and the National Party government came in November 1985 when Kobie Coetsee met Mandela in Volks Hospital in Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
where Mandela was recovering from prostate surgery. Over the next four years, a series of tentative meetings took place, laying the groundwork for further contact and future negotiations, but little real progress was made.
In 1988 Mandela was moved to Victor Verster Prison
Victor Verster Prison
Drakenstein Correctional Centre is a low-security prison between Paarl and Franschhoek, on the R301 road 5km from the R45 Huguenot Road, in the valley of the Dwars River in the Western Cape of South Africa...
and would remain there until his release. Various restrictions were lifted and people such as Harry Schwarz
Harry Schwarz
Harry Heinz Schwarz was a South African lawyer, statesman and long-time political opposition leader against apartheid, who eventually served as the South African ambassador to the United States during the country’s transition to representative democracy.Schwarz rose from the childhood poverty he...
were able to visit him. Schwarz, a lifelong friend of Mandela, had known him since university when they were in the same law class. He was also a defence barrister at the Rivonia Trial and would become Mandela's ambassador to Washington during his presidency.
Throughout Mandela's imprisonment, local and international pressure mounted on the South African government to release him, under the resounding slogan Free Nelson Mandela! In 1989, South Africa reached a crossroads when Botha suffered a stroke and was replaced as president by Frederik Willem de Klerk. De Klerk announced Mandela's release in February 1990.
Mandela was visited several times by delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross, while at Robben Island and later at Pollsmoor prison. Mandela had this to say about the visits: "to me personally, and those who shared the experience of being political prisoners, the Red Cross was a beacon of humanity within the dark inhumane world of political imprisonment."
Release
On 2 February 1990, State PresidentState President of South Africa
State President, or Staatspresident in Afrikaans, was the title of South Africa's head of state from 1961 to 1994. The office was established when the country became a republic in 1961, and Queen Elizabeth II ceased to be head of state...
F. W. de Klerk reversed the ban on the ANC and other anti-apartheid organisations, and announced that Mandela would shortly be released from prison. Mandela was released from Victor Verster Prison
Victor Verster Prison
Drakenstein Correctional Centre is a low-security prison between Paarl and Franschhoek, on the R301 road 5km from the R45 Huguenot Road, in the valley of the Dwars River in the Western Cape of South Africa...
in Paarl
Paarl
Paarl is a town with 191,013 inhabitants in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Its the third oldest European settlement in the Republic of South Africa and the largest town in the Cape Winelands. Due to the growth of the Mbekweni township, it is now a de facto urban unit with Wellington...
on 11 February 1990. The event was broadcast live all over the world.
On the day of his release, Mandela made a speech to the nation. He declared his commitment to peace and reconciliation with the country's white minority, but made it clear that the ANC's armed struggle was not yet over when he said "our resort to the armed struggle in 1960 with the formation of the military wing of the ANC (Umkhonto we Sizwe
Umkhonto we Sizwe
Umkhonto we Sizwe , translated "Spear of the Nation," was the armed wing of the African National Congress which fought against the South African apartheid government. MK launched its first guerrilla attacks against government installations on 16 December 1961...
) was a purely defensive action against the violence of apartheid. The factors which necessitated the armed struggle still exist today. We have no option but to continue. We express the hope that a climate conducive to a negotiated settlement would be created soon, so that there may no longer be the need for the armed struggle."
He also said his main focus was to bring peace to the black majority and give them the right to vote in both national and local elections.
Negotiations
Following his release from prison, Mandela returned to the leadership of the ANC and, between 1990 and 1994, led the party in the multi-party negotiations that led to the country's first multi-racial elections.In 1991, the ANC held its first national conference in South Africa after its unbanning, electing Mandela as President of the organisation. His old friend and colleague Oliver Tambo, who had led the organisation in exile during Mandela's imprisonment, became National Chairperson.
Mandela's leadership through the negotiations, as well as his relationship with President F. W. de Klerk, was recognised when they were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
in 1993. However, the relationship was sometimes strained, particularly so in a sharp exchange in 1991 when he furiously referred to De Klerk as the head of "an illegitimate, discredited, minority regime". The talks broke down following the Boipatong massacre
Boipatong massacre
The Boipatong massacre took place on 17 June 1992 in Boipatong, South Africa when Inkatha Freedom Party members killed 46 people. On the night of 17 June 1992, a heavily-armed force of Inkatha members secretly raided the Vaal township of Boipatong and killed 46 people...
in June 1992 when Mandela took the ANC out of the negotiations, accusing De Klerk's government of complicity in the killings. However, talks resumed following the Bisho massacre
Bisho massacre
The Bisho massacre occurred on 7 September 1992 in Bisho, in the nominally independent homeland of Ciskei in South Africa. Twenty-eight African National Congress supporters and one soldier were shot dead by the Ciskei Defence Force during a protest march when they attempted to enter Bisho to...
in September 1992, when the spectre of violent confrontation made it clear that negotiations were the only way forward.
Chris Hani
Chris Hani, born Martin Thembisile Hani was the leader of the South African Communist Party and chief of staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress . He was a fierce opponent of the apartheid government...
in April 1993, there were renewed fears that the country would erupt in violence. Mandela addressed the nation appealing for calm, in a speech regarded as 'presidential' even though he was not yet president of the country at that time. Mandela said "tonight I am reaching out to every single South African, black and white, from the very depths of my being. A white man, full of prejudice and hate, came to our country and committed a deed so foul that our whole nation now teeters on the brink of disaster. A white woman, of Afrikaner origin, risked her life so that we may know, and bring to justice, this assassin. The cold-blooded murder of Chris Hani has sent shock waves throughout the country and the world. ...Now is the time for all South Africans to stand together against those who, from any quarter, wish to destroy what Chris Hani gave his life for – the freedom of all of us". While some riots did follow the assassination, the negotiators were galvanised into action, and soon agreed that democratic elections should take place on 27 April 1994, just over a year after Hani's assassination.
Presidency of South Africa
South Africa's first multi-racial electionsSouth African general election, 1994
The South African general election of 1994 was an election held in South Africa to mark the end of apartheid, therefore also the first held with universal adult suffrage. The election was conducted under the direction of the Independent Electoral Commission .Millions queued in lines over a three...
in which full enfranchisement was granted were held on 27 April 1994. The ANC won 62% of the votes in the election, and Mandela, as leader of the ANC, was inaugurated on 10 May 1994 as the country's first black President
President of South Africa
The President of the Republic of South Africa is the head of state and head of government under South Africa's Constitution. From 1961 to 1994, the head of state was called the State President....
, with the National Party's de Klerk as his first deputy
Deputy President of South Africa
The Deputy President of South Africa is the acting President of South Africa when the President is outside the country's borders, unable to fulfill the duties of the office, or when the Presidency is vacant. The Deputy President is also a member of the National Assembly and the Cabinet...
and Thabo Mbeki
Thabo Mbeki
Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki is a South African politician who served two terms as the second post-apartheid President of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008. He is also the brother of Moeletsi Mbeki...
as the second in the Government of National Unity
Government of National Unity (South Africa)
Between April 27, 1994 and February 3, 1997 South Africa was governed under the terms of the interim Constitution of South Africa. Clause 88 of the interim Constitution required that any party holding twenty or more seats in the National Assembly could claim one or more cabinet portfolios and enter...
. As President from May 1994 until June 1999, Mandela presided over the transition from minority rule and apartheid, winning international respect for his advocacy of national and international reconciliation. Mandela encouraged black South Africans to get behind the previously hated Springboks (the South African national rugby team) as South Africa hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup
1995 Rugby World Cup
The 1995 Rugby World Cup was the third Rugby World Cup. It was hosted and won by South Africa, and was the first Rugby World Cup in which every match was held in one country....
. (This is the theme of the 2009 film Invictus
Invictus (film)
Invictus is a 2009 biographical sports drama film directed by Clint Eastwood starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon.The story is based on the John Carlin book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation about the events in South Africa before and during the 1995 Rugby World...
.) After the Springboks won an epic final over New Zealand, Mandela presented the trophy to captain Francois Pienaar
Francois Pienaar
Jacobus Francois Pienaar is a South African former rugby union player. He played flanker for South Africa from 1993 until 1996, winning 29 international caps, all of them as captain. He is best known for leading South Africa to victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup...
, an Afrikaner, wearing a Springbok shirt with Pienaar's own number 6 on the back. This was widely seen as a major step in the reconciliation of white and black South Africans.
After assuming the presidency, one of Mandela's trademarks was his use of Batik
Batik
Batik is a cloth that traditionally uses a manual wax-resist dyeing technique. Batik or fabrics with the traditional batik patterns are found in Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, China, Azerbaijan, India, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, and Singapore.Javanese traditional batik, especially from...
shirts, known as "Madiba shirt
Madiba shirt
A Madiba shirt is a batik silk shirt, usually adorned in a bright and colourful print. It has become a well-known nickname for batik shirts in South Africa, being popularised by former South African president Nelson Mandela...
s", even on formal occasions. In South Africa's first post-apartheid military operation
South African intervention in Lesotho
The 1998 military intervention in Lesotho, codenamed Operation Boleas, was a military invasion launched in the name of the Southern African Development Community , and led by South Africa through its South African National Defence Force . Troops from Botsawana were supposed to join SANDF forces...
, Mandela ordered troops into Lesotho
Lesotho
Lesotho , officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a landlocked country and enclave, surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. It is just over in size with a population of approximately 2,067,000. Its capital and largest city is Maseru. Lesotho is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The name...
in September 1998 to protect the government of Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili
Pakalitha Mosisili
Bethuel Pakalitha Mosisili has been the Prime Minister of Lesotho since May 29, 1998. He led his party, the Lesotho Congress for Democracy , to a near-total victory in the 1998 election, and under his leadership the party also won majorities in the 2002 and 2007 elections...
. This came after a disputed election prompted fierce opposition threatening the unstable government. Commentators and critics including AIDS activists such as Edwin Cameron
Edwin Cameron
Edwin Cameron is a South African Rhodes scholar and current Constitutional Court justice. Cameron served as a Supreme Court of Appeal judge from 2000 to 2008. He was the first senior South African official to state publicly that he was living with HIV/AIDS...
have criticised Mandela for his government's ineffectiveness in stemming the AIDS crisis. After his retirement, Mandela admitted that he may have failed his country by not paying more attention to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Mandela has since spoken out on several occasions about the AIDS epidemic.
During the course of his presidency, a wide range of progressive social reforms were enacted by Mandela's government, aimed at reducing long entrenched social and economic inequalities in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. Amongst the measures carried out by Mandela and his ministers included:
- The introduction of free health care (1994) for all children under the age of six together with pregnant and breastfeeding women making use of public sector health facilities (a provision extended to all those using primary level public sector health care services in 1996).
- The launching of the Reconstruction and Development ProgrammeReconstruction and Development ProgrammeReconstruction and Development Programme is a South African socio-economic policy framework implemented by the African National Congress government of Nelson Mandela in 1994 after months of discussions, consultations and negotiations between the ANC, its Alliance partners the Congress of South...
, which invested in essential social services such as housing and health care.
- Increases in welfare spending, with public spending on welfare and social grants increased by 13% in 1996/97, 13% in 1997/98, and 7% in 1998/99.”
- The introduction of parity in grants for communities which were previously, including disability grants, child maintenance grants, and old-age pensions, which had previously been set at different levels for South Africa’s different racial groups.
- The extension of the application of the child maintenance grant to blacks in rural areas, who had been previously excluded from the system.
- A significant increase in public spending on education, with expenditure raised by 25% in 1996/97, 7% in 1997/98 and 4% in 1998/99.
- The Land Restitution Act of 1994, which enabled people who had lost their property as a result of the Natives Land Act, 1913 to claim back their land, leading to the settlement of tens of thousands of land claims.
- The Land Reform Act 3 of 1996, which safeguarded the rights of labour tenants who live and grow crops or graze livestock on farms. This legislation ensured that such tenants could not be evicted without a court order or if they were over the age of sixty-five.
- The introduction of child support grants (1998) to alleviate child poverty.
- The Skills Development Act (1998) which provided for the establishment of mechanisms to finance and promote skills development at the workplace.
- The Labour Relations Act (1995), which promoted workplace democracy, orderly collective bargaining, and the effective resolution of labour disputes.
- The Basic Conditions of Employment Act (1997), which Improved enforcement mechanisms while extending an improved “floor” of rights to all workers.
- The passage of the Employment Equity Act (1998) to put an end to unfair discrimination and ensure the implementation of affirmative action in the workplace.
- The connection of 3 million people to telephone lines.
- The bringing of 1.5 million children into the education system.
- The upgrading or construction of 500 clinics.
- The connection of 2 million people to the electricity grid.
- The construction of 750,000 houses, housing nearly 3 million people in the process.
- The extension of water access to 3 million people.
- The introduction of compulsory schooling for African children between six and fourteen years.
- The provision of free meals for between 3.5 to 5 million school children.
- The passage of the 1996 Mine Health and Safety Act (amended in 1997) to improve health and safety safety conditions for miners.
- The launching of the National Drug Policy in 1996 to improve access to essential medicines.
- The Welfare Laws Amendment Act (1997), which amended the Social Assistance Act of 1992 to provide for equality of access, uniformity and effective regulation of social assistance throughout South Africa, amongst other changes.
- Amendments to the Aged Persons Act (1998), which provided for the establishment of management committees for homes for the elderly, to require reporting on the abuse of elderly persons, and to regulate the prevention of the abuse of elderly people.
- The Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act (1998), Which provided that no individual may be evicted from their home without a Court order after all relevant circumstances have been taken into account.
- The establishment of a National Development Agency (1998), which was mandated to provide funds to civil society organizations to meet the developmental needs of poor communities, amongst other functions.
- The Extension of Security of Tenure Act of 1997, aimed at providing security of tenure to vulnerable occupants of land outside of urban areas. The legislation contained provisions which sought to create and support long-term security for vulnerable occupants while also safeguarding them from unfair eviction.
- Amendments to the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act (COIDA) in 1997 which ensured that the number of dependants of workers who tragically lost their lives as a result of work place accidents and diseases now had an extended right to compensation beyond the age of eighteen. In addition, workers were granted a full right to compensation “for any disease arising out of the course and scope of their employment as compensation will not be limited to diseases resulting from exposure to substances at the workplace or due to workplace practices.”
- Amendments to the Insolvency Act in 1998 which aimed to ensure that in bankruptcy cases preference would be given to workers “to ensure that monies owed to them takes precedence over the claims of other creditors.”
Lockerbie trial
President Mandela took a particular interest in helping to resolve the long-running dispute between GaddafiMuammar al-Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar Gaddafi or "September 1942" 20 October 2011), commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi or Colonel Gaddafi, was the official ruler of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then the "Brother Leader" of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011.He seized power in a...
's Libya, on the one hand, and the United States and Britain on the other, over bringing to trial the two Libyans who were indicted in November 1991 and accused of sabotaging Pan Am Flight 103
Pan Am Flight 103
Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan American World Airways' third daily scheduled transatlantic flight from London Heathrow Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport...
, which crashed at the Scottish town of Lockerbie
Lockerbie
Lockerbie is a town in the Dumfries and Galloway region of south-western Scotland. It lies approximately from Glasgow, and from the English border. It had a population of 4,009 at the 2001 census...
on 21 December 1988, with the loss of 270 lives. As early as 1992, Mandela informally approached President George H.W. Bush with a proposal to have the two indicted Libyans tried in a third country. Bush reacted favourably to the proposal, as did President François Mitterrand
François Mitterrand
François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...
of France and King Juan Carlos I of Spain
Juan Carlos I of Spain
Juan Carlos I |Italy]]) is the reigning King of Spain.On 22 November 1975, two days after the death of General Francisco Franco, Juan Carlos was designated king according to the law of succession promulgated by Franco. Spain had no monarch for 38 years in 1969 when Franco named Juan Carlos as the...
. In November 1994 – six months after his election as president – Mandela formally proposed that South Africa should be the venue for the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial
Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial
The Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial began on 3 May 2000, 11 years, 4 months and 13 days after the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 on 21 December 1988...
.
However, British Prime Minister John Major
John Major
Sir John Major, is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990–1997...
flatly rejected the idea saying the British government did not have confidence in foreign courts. A further three years elapsed until Mandela's offer was repeated to Major's successor, Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
, when the president visited London in July 1997. Later the same year, at the 1997 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 1997
The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 1997 was the fifteenth Meeting of the Heads of Government of the Commonwealth of Nations. It was held in Edinburgh, the United Kingdom, between 24 October and 27 October 1997, and hosted by Prime Minister Tony Blair.It was the largest summit in modern...
(CHOGM) at Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
in October 1997, Mandela warned:
"No one nation should be complainant, prosecutorProsecutorThe prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system, or the civil law inquisitorial system...
and judge."
A compromise solution was then agreed for a trial to be held at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, governed by Scots law
Scots law
Scots law is the legal system of Scotland. It is considered a hybrid or mixed legal system as it traces its roots to a number of different historical sources. With English law and Northern Irish law it forms the legal system of the United Kingdom; it shares with the two other systems some...
, and President Mandela began negotiations with Colonel Gaddafi
Muammar al-Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar Gaddafi or "September 1942" 20 October 2011), commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi or Colonel Gaddafi, was the official ruler of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then the "Brother Leader" of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011.He seized power in a...
for the handover of the two accused (Megrahi and Fhimah
Lamin Khalifah Fhimah
Lamin Khalifa Fhimah was a station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines at Luqa Airport, Malta. On 31 January 2001, he was found not guilty and acquitted of 270 counts of murder in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial by a panel of three Scottish judges sitting in a special court at Camp Zeist,...
) in April 1999. At the end of their nine-month trial, the verdict was announced on 31 January 2001. Fhimah was found not guilty, but Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to 27 years in a Scottish jail. Megrahi's initial appeal was turned down in March 2002, and former president Mandela went to visit him in Barlinnie prison
Barlinnie (HM Prison)
HM Prison Barlinnie is a prison operated by the Scottish Prison Service and located in the residential suburb of Riddrie, in the north east of Glasgow, Scotland.-History:Barlinnie was designed by Major General T.B...
on 10 June 2002.
Megrahi was subsequently moved to Greenock jail and out of solitary confinement
Solitary confinement
Solitary confinement is a special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is sometimes employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, and has been cited as an additional...
. In August 2009 Megrahi, suffering from cancer and expected to have only 3 months left to live, was released on compassionate grounds and allowed to return to Libya. The Nelson Mandela Foundation expressed its support for the decision to release Megrahi in a letter sent to the Scottish Government on behalf of Mandela.
Marriage and family
Mandela has been married three times, has fathered six children, has twenty grandchildren, and a growing number of great-grandchildren. He is grandfather to ChiefTribal chief
A tribal chief is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom. Tribal societies with social stratification under a single leader emerged in the Neolithic period out of earlier tribal structures with little stratification, and they remained prevalent throughout the Iron Age.In the case of ...
Mandla Mandela
Mandla Mandela
Mandla Mandela is the chief of the Mvezo Traditional Council and the grandson of Nelson Mandela. He graduated from Rhodes University with a degree in Politics in 2007....
.
First marriage
Mandela's first marriage was to Evelyn Ntoko Mase who, like Mandela, was also from what later became the TranskeiTranskei
The Transkei , officially the Republic of Transkei , was a Bantustan—an area set aside for members of a specific ethnicity—and nominal parliamentary democracy in the southeastern region of South Africa...
area of South Africa, although they actually met in Johannesburg. The couple broke up in 1957 after 13 years, divorcing under the multiple strains of his constant absences, devotion to revolutionary agitation, and the fact she was a Jehovah's Witness
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The religion reports worldwide membership of over 7 million adherents involved in evangelism, convention attendance of over 12 million, and annual...
, a religion which requires political neutrality. Evelyn Mase died in 2004. The couple had two sons, Madiba Thembekile (Thembi) (1946–1969) and Makgatho Mandela
Makgatho Mandela
Makgatho Lewanika Mandela was the son of former South African President Nelson Mandela and his first wife Evelyn Ntoko Mase. He was an attorney, widowed with four sons. He died of AIDS on 6 January 2005 in Johannesburg....
(1950–2005), and two daughters, both named Makaziwe Mandela
Makaziwe Mandela
Makaziwe Mandela , known as Maki, is the daughter of former South African president Nelson Mandela and his first wife Evelyn Ntoko Mase. She was named after her older sister, born in 1947, who died aged just nine months...
(known as Maki; born 1947 and 1953). Their first daughter died aged nine months, and they named their second daughter
Makaziwe Mandela
Makaziwe Mandela , known as Maki, is the daughter of former South African president Nelson Mandela and his first wife Evelyn Ntoko Mase. She was named after her older sister, born in 1947, who died aged just nine months...
in her honour. All their children were educated at the United World College of Waterford Kamhlaba
Waterford Kamhlaba
Waterford Kamhlaba United World College of Southern Africa is one of thirteen international UWC schools and colleges and is located in Mbabane, Swaziland...
. Thembi was killed in a car crash in 1969 at the age of 23, while Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island, and Mandela was not allowed to attend the funeral. Makgatho died of AIDS in 2005, aged 54.
Second marriage
Mandela's second wife, Winnie Madikizela-MandelaWinnie Madikizela-Mandela
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela is a South African politician who has held several government positions and headed the African National Congress Women's League. She is currently a member of the ANC's National Executive Committee...
, also came from the Transkei area, although they, too, met in Johannesburg, where she was the city's first black social worker. They had two daughters, Zenani (Zeni), born 4 February 1958, and Zindziswa (Zindzi) Mandela-Hlongwane, born 1960. Zindzi was only 18 months old when her father was sent to Robben island. Later, Winnie would be deeply torn by family discord which mirrored the country's political strife; while her husband was serving a life sentence
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
on the Robben Island prison, her father became the agriculture minister in the Transkei. The marriage ended in separation (April 1992) and divorce (March 1996), fuelled by political estrangement.
Mandela was still in prison when his daughter Zenani was married to Prince Thumbumuzi Dlamini in 1973, elder brother of King Mswati III
Mswati III of Swaziland
Mswati III is the King of Swaziland and head of the Swazi Royal Family. In 1986, he succeeded his father Sobhuza II as ruler of the southern African kingdom...
of Swaziland
Swaziland
Swaziland, officially the Kingdom of Swaziland , and sometimes called Ngwane or Swatini, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa, bordered to the north, south and west by South Africa, and to the east by Mozambique...
. Although she had vivid memories of her father, from the age of four up until sixteen, South African authorities did not permit her to visit him. The Dlamini couple live and run a business in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
. One of their sons, Prince Cedza Dlamini
Cedza Dlamini
Prince Cedza Dlamini of Swaziland , grandson of King Sobhuza II of Swaziland and of Nelson Mandela, is a humanitarian, youth activist, spokesman for the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, and the founder of the Ubuntu Institute for Young Social Entrepreneurs...
(born 1976), educated in the United States, has followed in his grandfather's footsteps as an international advocate for human rights and humanitarian aid.
Zindzi Mandela-Hlongwane made history worldwide when she read out Mandela's speech refusing his conditional pardon in 1985. She is a businesswoman in South Africa with three children, the eldest of whom is a son, Zondwa Gadaffi Mandela.
Third marriage
Mandela was remarried, on his 80th birthday in 1998, to Graça MachelGraça Machel
Graça Machel, DBE is a Mozambican politician and humanitarian. She is the third wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela and the widow of Mozambican president Samora Machel...
née Simbine, widow of Samora Machel
Samora Machel
Samora Moisés Machel was a Mozambican military commander, revolutionary socialist leader and eventual President of Mozambique...
, the former Mozambican
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
president and ANC ally who was killed in an air crash 12 years earlier. The wedding followed months of international negotiations to set the unprecedented bride price
Bride price
Bride price, also known as bride wealth, is an amount of money or property or wealth paid by the groom or his family to the parents of a woman upon the marriage of their daughter to the groom...
to be remitted to Machel's clan. Said negotiations were conducted on Mandela's behalf by his traditional sovereign, King Buyelekhaya Zwelibanzi Dalindyebo. The paramount chief
Paramount chief
A paramount chief is the highest-level traditional chief or political leader in a regional or local polity or country typically administered politically with a chief-based system. This definition is used occasionally in anthropological and archaeological theory to refer to the rulers of multiple...
's grandfather was the regent Jongintaba Dalindyebo, who had arranged a marriage for Mandela, which he eluded by fleeing to Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
in 1940.
Mandela still maintains a home at Qunu in the realm of his royal nephew (second cousin thrice-removed in Western reckoning), whose university expenses he defrayed and whose privy councillor he remains.
Retirement
Mandela became the oldest elected President of South Africa when he took office at the age of 75 in 1994. He decided not to stand for a second term and retired in 1999, to be succeeded by Thabo MbekiThabo Mbeki
Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki is a South African politician who served two terms as the second post-apartheid President of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008. He is also the brother of Moeletsi Mbeki...
.
After his retirement as President, Mandela went on to become an advocate for a variety of social and human rights organisations. He has expressed his support for the international Make Poverty History
Make Poverty History
Make Poverty History is the name of a campaign that exists in a number of countries, including Australia, Canada, Denmark , Finland, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Romania, the United Arab Emirates, Great Britain and Ireland...
movement of which the ONE Campaign
ONE Campaign
The ONE Campaign is an international, nonpartisan, non-profit organization which aims to increase government funding for and effectiveness of international aid programs....
is a part. The Nelson Mandela Invitational
Nelson Mandela Invitational
The Nelson Mandela Invitational was a charity golf tournament conceptualised by Marc Player, CEO of Black Knight International, which took place annually in South Africa from 2000 until 2006. It was named in honor of former South African President Nelson Mandela, and hosted by South Africa's most...
charity golf tournament, hosted by Gary Player
Gary Player
Gary Player DMS; OIG is a South African professional golfer. With his nine major championship victories, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of golf. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974. Player has won 165 tournaments on six continents over six...
, has raised over twenty million rand
South African rand
The rand is the currency of South Africa. It takes its name from the Witwatersrand , the ridge upon which Johannesburg is built and where most of South Africa's gold deposits were found. The rand has the symbol "R" and is subdivided into 100 cents, symbol "c"...
for children's charities since its inception in 2000.
This annual special event has become South Africa's most successful charitable sports gathering and benefits both the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and Gary Player Foundation equally for various children's causes around the world.
Mandela is a vocal supporter of SOS Children's Villages
SOS Children's Villages
SOS Children's Villages is an independent, non-governmental international development organisation which has been working to meet the needs and protect the interests and rights of children since 1949. It was founded by Hermann Gmeiner in Imst, Austria...
, the world's largest organisation dedicated to raising orphaned and abandoned children. Mandela appeared in a televised advertisement for the 2006 Winter Olympics
2006 Winter Olympics
The 2006 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XX Olympic Winter Games, was a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated in Turin, Italy from February 10, 2006, through February 26, 2006. This marked the second time Italy hosted the Olympic Winter Games, the first being the VII Olympic Winter...
, and was quoted for the International Olympic Committee
International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee is an international corporation based in Lausanne, Switzerland, created by Pierre de Coubertin on 23 June 1894 with Demetrios Vikelas as its first president...
's Celebrate Humanity campaign:
Three organisations associated with Mandela have been established: the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund
Nelson Mandela Children's Fund
The Nelson Mandela Children's Fund is a charitable organization founded by Nelson Mandela, based in South Africa. Its mission is to help individuals from birth to age 22, particularly orphans of the AIDS crisis.-History:...
, and the Mandela Rhodes Foundation
Mandela Rhodes Scholarship
A Mandela Rhodes Scholarship provides full funding for up to a maximum of two years of postgraduate study. The award is open to all African citizens under the age of 30 years and recipients must study towards Honours or Masters Degrees at recognised South African institutions...
.
Post-retirement health
In July 2001 Mandela was diagnosed and treated for prostate cancerProstate cancer
Prostate cancer is a form of cancer that develops in the prostate, a gland in the male reproductive system. Most prostate cancers are slow growing; however, there are cases of aggressive prostate cancers. The cancer cells may metastasize from the prostate to other parts of the body, particularly...
. He was treated with a seven-week course of radiation. In 2003 Mandela's death was incorrectly announced by CNN when his pre-written obituary (along with those of several other famous figures) was inadvertently published on CNN's web site due to a fault in password protection. In 2007 a fringe right-wing group distributed hoax email and SMS messages claiming that the authorities had covered up Mandela's death and that white South Africans would be massacred after his funeral. Mandela was on holiday in Mozambique at the time.
In June 2004, at age 85, Mandela announced that he would be retiring from public life. His health had been declining, and he wanted to enjoy more time with his family. Mandela said that he did not intend to hide away totally from the public, but wanted to be in a position "of calling you to ask whether I would be welcome, rather than being called upon to do things and participate in events. My appeal therefore is: Don't call me, I will call you." Since 2003, he has appeared in public less often and has been less vocal on topical issues. He is white-haired and walks slowly with the support of a stick. There are reports that he may be suffering from age-related dementia.
Mandela's 90th birthday was marked across the country on 18 July 2008, with the main celebrations held at his home town of Qunu. A concert in his honour
Nelson Mandela 90th Birthday Tribute
The Nelson Mandela 90th Birthday Tribute was held in Hyde Park, London on 27 June 2008 to commemorate Nelson Mandela's ninetieth birthday...
was also held in Hyde Park, London
Hyde Park, London
Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London, United Kingdom, and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.The park is divided in two by the Serpentine...
. In a speech to mark his birthday, Mandela called for the rich people to help poor people across the world. Despite maintaining a low-profile during the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, Mandela made a rare public appearance during the closing ceremony, where he received a "rapturous reception."
In January 2011, he was admitted to the private Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg, for what were at the time described as "routine tests" by his foundation, leading to intense media speculation about the health condition of the increasingly frail Mandela. It later emerged that he had been suffering from a respiratory infection, which had responded well to treatment. He was discharged after two and a half days in hospital in a stable condition, and returned to his Houghton, Johannesburg home in an ambulance.
Elders
On 18 July 2007, Mandela, Graça MachelGraça Machel
Graça Machel, DBE is a Mozambican politician and humanitarian. She is the third wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela and the widow of Mozambican president Samora Machel...
, and Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid...
convened a group of world leaders in Johannesburg to contribute their wisdom and independent leadership to address the world's toughest problems. Mandela announced the formation of this new group, The Elders
Global Elders
The Elders is an international non-government organisation of public figures noted as elder statesmen, peace activists, and human rights advocates, brought together by Nelson Mandela in 2007...
, in a speech he delivered on the occasion of his 89th birthday.
Archbishop Tutu serves as the chair of The Elders. The founding members of this group also include Graça Machel, Kofi Annan
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...
, Ela Bhatt
Ela Bhatt
Ela Ramesh Bhatt is the founder of the Self-Employed Women's Association of India . A lawyer by training, Bhatt is a respected leader of the international labour, cooperative, women, and micro-finance movements who has won several national and international awards.-Early life:Ela Bhatt was born in...
, Gro Harlem Brundtland
Gro Harlem Brundtland
Gro Harlem Brundtland is a Norwegian Social democratic politician, diplomat, and physician, and an international leader in sustainable development and public health. She served three terms as Prime Minister of Norway , and has served as the Director General of the World Health Organization...
, Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
, Li Zhaoxing
Li Zhaoxing
Li Zhaoxing is a former foreign minister of the People's Republic of China. He held that office from 2003 to 2007.He graduated from Peking University in 1964...
, Mary Robinson
Mary Robinson
Mary Therese Winifred Robinson served as the seventh, and first female, President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002. She first rose to prominence as an academic, barrister, campaigner and member of the Irish Senate...
and Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi economist and founder of the Grameen Bank, an institution that provides microcredit to help its clients establish creditworthiness and financial self-sufficiency. In 2006 Yunus and Grameen received the Nobel Peace Prize...
.
"This group can speak freely and boldly, working both publicly and behind the scenes on whatever actions need to be taken", Mandela commented. "Together we will work to support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict, and inspire hope where there is despair."
AIDS engagement
Since his retirement, one of Mandela's primary commitments has been to the fight against AIDS. He gave the closing address at the XIII International AIDS ConferenceXIII International AIDS Conference, 2000
The XII International AIDS Conference was held in Durban, South Africa, during the week of July 9-14 2000. 12,000 people from all over the world attended, including scientists, clinicians, health care workers, public health agencies, people living with HIV/AIDS, AIDS Non-Governmental...
in 2000, in Durban, South Africa. In 2003, he had already lent his support to the 46664 AIDS fundraising campaign, named after his prison number. In July 2004, he flew to Bangkok
Bangkok
Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...
to speak at the XV International AIDS Conference
XV International AIDS Conference, 2004
The XV International AIDS Conference was held in Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand, from July 11 to July 16, 2004. The main venue for the conference was the IMPACT Muang Thong Thani convention centre at Nonthaburi, north-east of downtown Bangkok. It was the first international AIDS conference...
. His son, Makgatho Mandela
Makgatho Mandela
Makgatho Lewanika Mandela was the son of former South African President Nelson Mandela and his first wife Evelyn Ntoko Mase. He was an attorney, widowed with four sons. He died of AIDS on 6 January 2005 in Johannesburg....
, died of AIDS on 6 January 2005. Mandela's AIDS activism is chronicled in Stephanie Nolen
Stephanie Nolen
Stephanie Nolen is a Canadian journalist and writer. She is currently the South Asia correspondent for The Globe and Mail. From 2003 to 2008, she was the Globe's Africa correspondent, and she has reported from more than 40 countries around the world...
's book, 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa
28 (book)
28: Stories of AIDS in Africa is a 2007 nonfiction book by Canadian author Stephanie Nolen, Africa correspondent for The Globe and Mail....
.
Criticism of US and UK foreign policy
Nelson Mandela had strongly opposed the 1999 NATO intervention in Kosovo and called it an attempt by the world's powerful nations to police the entire world.In 2002 and 2003, Mandela criticised the foreign policy of the administration
George W. Bush administration
The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...
of US president George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
in a number of speeches. Criticising the lack of UN involvement in the decision to begin the War in Iraq, he said, "It is a tragedy, what is happening, what Bush is doing. But Bush is now undermining the United Nations." Mandela stated he would support action against Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
only if it is ordered by the UN. Mandela also insinuated that the United States may have been motivated by racism in not following the UN and its secretary-general Kofi Annan
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...
on the issue of the war. "Is it because the secretary-general of the United Nations is now a black man? They never did that when secretary-generals [sic] were white". General Colin Powell
Colin Powell
Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...
, the first of two African-Americans appointed by Bush to the position of US Secretary of State, presented to the United Nations Assembly the case for the war in Iraq and overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Mandela urged the people of the US to join massive protests against Bush and called on world leaders, especially those with vetoes in the UN Security Council, to oppose him. "What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust." He attacked the United States for its record on human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
and for dropping atomic bombs on Japan
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.For six months...
during World War II. "If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don't care." Nelson Mandela also harshly condemned British Prime Minister Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
and referred to him as the "foreign minister of the United States".
Mandela, and Kofi Annan, also strongly criticised George W Bush’s PEPFAR initiative at an international AIDS conference in 2004.
Ismail Ayob controversy
Ismail AyobIsmail Ayob
Ismail Mahomed Ayob is a South African lawyer. Ayob practiced law in South Africa and for much of his career; the bulk of his work was with anti-apartheid cases...
was a trusted friend and personal attorney of Mandela for over 30 years. In May 2005, Ayob was asked by Mandela to stop selling prints
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
signed by Mandela and to account for the proceeds of their sale. This bitter dispute led to an extensive application to the High Court of South Africa
High Court of South Africa
The High Courts are superior courts of law in South Africa. The courts were created in 1996 on the adoption of the Constitution of South Africa, and inherited the jurisdiction of the provincial and local divisions of the former Supreme Court of South Africa...
by Mandela that year. Ayob denied any wrongdoing, and claimed that he was the victim of a smear campaign orchestrated by Mandela's advisors, in particular, lawyer George Bizos
George Bizos
George Bizos is a distinguished human rights advocate who campaigned against apartheid in South Africa, most notably during the Rivonia Trial.-Early life:...
.
In 2005 and 2006, Ayob, his wife, and son were subjected to a verbal attack by Mandela's advisors. The dispute was widely reported in the media, with Ayob being portrayed in a negative light, culminating in the action by Mandela to the High Court. There were public meetings at which Mandela associates attacked Ayob and there were calls for Ayob and his family to be ostracised by society. The defence of Ismail and Zamila Ayob (his wife, and a fellow respondent
Respondent
A respondent is a person who is called upon to issue a response to a communication made by another. In legal usage, this specifically refers to the defendant in a legal proceeding commenced by a petition, or to an appellee, or the opposing party, in an appeal of a decision by an initial fact-finder...
) included documents signed by Mandela and witnessed by his secretaries, that, they claimed, refuted many of the allegations made by Nelson Mandela and his advisors.
The dispute again made headlines in February 2007 when, during a hearing in the Johannesburg High Court, Ayob promised to pay R700 000 to Mandela, which Ayob had transferred into trusts for Mandela's children, and apologised,
although he later claimed that he was the victim of a "vendetta
Feud
A feud , referred to in more extreme cases as a blood feud, vendetta, faida, or private war, is a long-running argument or fight between parties—often groups of people, especially families or clans. Feuds begin because one party perceives itself to have been attacked, insulted or wronged by another...
", by Mandela. Some media commentators expressed sympathy for Ayob's position, pointing out that Mandela's iconic status would make it difficult for Ayob to be treated fairly.
Allegations
Ayob, George Bizos and Wim Trengove were trustees of the Nelson Mandela Trust, which was set up to hold millions of rands donated to Nelson Mandela by prominent business figures, including the OppenheimerNicky Oppenheimer
Nicholas "Nicky" F. Oppenheimer is a South African businessman, the chairman of the De Beers diamond mining company and its subsidiary, the Diamond Trading Company. He also has a large financial interest in the diversified mining company Anglo American. In November 2011 the Oppenheimer family sold...
family, for the benefit of his children and grandchildren. Ayob later resigned from the Trust. In 2006, the two remaining trustees of the Nelson Mandela Trust launched an application against Ayob for disbursing money from the trust without their consent. Ayob claimed that this money was paid to the South African Revenue Service
South African Revenue Service
The South African Revenue Service is the revenue service of the South African government. It was established by legislation to collect revenue and ensure compliance with tax law...
, to Mandela's children and grandchildren, to Mandela himself, and to an accounting company for four years of accounting work.
Bizos and Trengrove refused to ratify the payments to the children and grandchildren of Nelson Mandela and the payments to the accounting firm. A court settlement was reached in which this money, totalling over R700,000 was paid by Ismail Ayob to the trust on the grounds that Ayob had not sought the express consent of the other two trustees before disbursing the money. It was alleged that Ayob made defamatory remarks about Mandela in his affidavit, for which the court order stated that Ayob should apologise. It was pointed out that these remarks, which centred on Nelson Mandela holding foreign bank accounts and not paying tax on these, had not originated from Ayob's affidavit but from Nelson Mandela's and George Bizos's own affidavits.
Blood Diamond controversy
In a The New RepublicThe New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
article in December 2006, Nelson Mandela was criticised for a number of positive comments he had made about the diamond industry. There were concerns that this would benefit suppliers of blood diamonds. In a letter to Edward Zwick
Edward Zwick
Edward M. Zwick is an American filmmaker and film producer noted for his epic films about social and racial issues. He has been described as a "throwback to an earlier era, an extremely cerebral director whose movies consistently feature fully rounded characters, difficult moral issues, and plots...
, the director of the motion picture Blood Diamond
Blood Diamond (film)
Blood Diamond is a 2006 political thriller film co-produced and directed by Edward Zwick and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly and Djimon Hounsou...
, Mandela had noted that:
The New Republic article claims that this comment, as well as various pro-diamond-industry initiatives and statements during his life and during his time as a president of South Africa, were influenced by both his friendship with Harry Oppenheimer
Harry Oppenheimer
Harry Frederick Oppenheimer was a prominent South African businessman and one of the world's richest men...
, former chairman of De Beers
De Beers
De Beers is a family of companies that dominate the diamond, diamond mining, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. De Beers is active in every category of industrial diamond mining: open-pit, underground, large-scale alluvial, coastal and deep sea...
, as well as an outlook for 'narrow national interests' of South Africa (which is a major diamond producer).
Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe
Robert MugabeRobert Mugabe
Robert Gabriel Mugabe is the President of Zimbabwe. As one of the leaders of the liberation movement against white-minority rule, he was elected into power in 1980...
, the president of Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
who has led the country since independence in 1980, has been widely criticised internationally for the 1980s fighting which killed about 3000 people
Gukurahundi
The Gukurahundi refers to the suppression by Zimbabwe's 5th Brigade in the predominantly Ndebele regions of Zimbabwe most of whom were supporters of Joshua Nkomo. A few hundred disgruntled former ZIPRA combatants waged armed banditry against the civilians in Matabeleland, and destroyed government...
as well as corruption, incompetent administration, political oppression and cronyism
Cronyism
Cronyism is partiality to long-standing friends, especially by appointing them to positions of authority, regardless of their qualifications. Hence, cronyism is contrary in practice and principle to meritocracy....
that has ultimately led to the economic collapse of the country.
Despite their common background as national liberators, Mandela and Mugabe were seldom seen as close. Mandela criticised Mugabe in 2000, referring to African leaders who had liberated their countries but had then overstayed their welcome. In his retirement, Mandela spoke out less often on Zimbabwe and other international and domestic issues, sometimes leading to criticism for not using his influence to greater effect to persuade Mugabe to moderate his policies. His lawyer George Bizos revealed that Mandela has been advised on medical grounds to avoid engaging in stressful activity such as political controversy. Nonetheless, in 2007, Mandela attempted to persuade Mugabe to leave office "sooner than later", with "a modicum of dignity", before he was hounded out like Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
. Mugabe did not respond to this approach. In June 2008, at the height of the crisis over the Zimbabwean presidential election
Zimbabwean presidential election, 2008
The Republic of Zimbabwe held a presidential election along with a parliamentary election on 29 March 2008. The three major candidates were incumbent President Robert Mugabe of the Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front , Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change , and...
, Mandela condemned the "tragic failure of leadership" in Zimbabwe.
Acclaim
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
said "Mandela rightly occupies an untouched place in the South African imagination. He's the national liberator, the saviour, its Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
and Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
rolled into one".
In November 2009, the United Nations General Assembly
United Nations General Assembly
For two articles dealing with membership in the General Assembly, see:* General Assembly members* General Assembly observersThe United Nations General Assembly is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation...
announced that Mandela's birthday, 18 July, is to be known as "Mandela Day
Mandela Day
Nelson Mandela International Day is an annual international day in honour of Nelson Mandela, celebrated each 18 July . The day was officially declared by the United Nations in November 2009, with the first UN Mandela Day held on 18 July 2010...
" to mark his contribution to world freedom.
Orders and decorations
Mandela has received many South African, foreign and international honours, including the Nobel Peace PrizeNobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
in 1993 (which was shared with Frederik Willem de Klerk), the Order of Merit from, and creation as, a Baliff Grand Cross of the Order of St. John
Venerable Order of Saint John
The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem , is a royal order of chivalry established in 1831 and found today throughout the Commonwealth of Nations, Hong Kong, Ireland and the United States of America, with the world-wide mission "to prevent and relieve sickness and...
by Queen Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...
and the Presidential Medal of Freedom
Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is—along with thecomparable Congressional Gold Medal bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award in the United States...
from George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
. In July 2004, the city of Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
bestowed its highest honour on Mandela by granting him the freedom of the city
Freedom of the City
Freedom of the City is an honour bestowed by some municipalities in Australia, Canada, Ireland, France, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom, Gibraltar and Rhodesia to esteemed members of its community and to organisations to be honoured, often for service to the community;...
at a ceremony in Orlando, Soweto
Orlando, Soweto
Orlando is a township in the urban area of Soweto, in the city of Johannesburg . It is the most densely populated area of South Africa. The township was founded in 1931 and named after Edwin Orlando Leake, Mayor of Johannesburg from 1925 to 1926...
.
As an example of his popular foreign acclaim, during his tour of Canada in 1998, 45,000 school children greeted him with adulation at a speaking engagement in the SkyDome
Rogers Centre
Rogers Centre is a multi-purpose stadium, in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated next to the CN Tower, near the shores of Lake Ontario. Opened in 1989, it is home to the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball and the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League...
in the city of Toronto. In 2001, he was the first living person to be made an honorary Canadian citizen (the only previous recipient, Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish businessman, diplomat and humanitarian. He is widely celebrated for his successful efforts to rescue thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary from the Holocaust, during the later stages of World War II...
, was awarded honorary citizenship posthumously). While in Canada, he was also made an honorary Companion of the Order of Canada
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...
, one of the few foreigners to receive the honour.
In 1990 he received the Bharat Ratna
Bharat Ratna
Bharat Ratna is the Republic of India's highest civilian award, awarded for the highest degrees of national service. This service includes artistic, literary, and scientific achievements, as well as "recognition of public service of the highest order." Unlike knights, holders of the Bharat Ratna...
Award from the government of India and also received the last ever Lenin Peace Prize
Lenin Peace Prize
The International Lenin Peace Prize was the Soviet Union's equivalent to the Nobel Peace Prize, named in honor of Vladimir Lenin. It was awarded by a panel appointed by the Soviet government, to notable individuals whom the panel indicated had "strengthened peace among peoples"...
from the Soviet Union. In 1992 he was awarded the Atatürk Peace Award by Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
. He refused the award citing human rights violations committed by Turkey at the time, but later accepted the award in 1999. In 1992 he received of Nishan-e-Pakistan
Nishan-e-Pakistan
The Nishan-e-Pakistan is the highest of civil awards and decorations given by the Government of Pakistan for the highest degree of service to the country and nation of Pakistan...
, the highest civil service award of Pakistan.
Musical tributes
Many artists have dedicated songs to Mandela. One of the most popular was from The SpecialsThe Specials
The Specials are an English 2 Tone ska revival band formed in 1977 in Coventry, England. Their music combines a "danceable ska and rocksteady beat with punk's energy and attitude", and had a "more focused and informed political and social stance" than other ska groups...
who recorded the song "Free Nelson Mandela
Free Nelson Mandela
"Nelson Mandela" is a song written by Jerry Dammers and performed by his Coventry-based band The Special A.K.A. - with lead vocal by Stan Campbell - released on the single Nelson Mandela / Break Down The Door in 1984 as a protest against the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela...
" in 1983. Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...
dedicated his 1985 Oscar
Academy Award for Best Original Song
The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...
for the song "I Just Called to Say I Love You
I Just Called to Say I Love You
"I Just Called to Say I Love You" is a song, produced, written and performed by Stevie Wonder. It was one of Wonder's most commercially successful singles....
" to Mandela, resulting in his music being banned by the South African Broadcasting Corporation
South African Broadcasting Corporation
The South African Broadcasting Corporation is the state-owned broadcaster in South Africa and provides 18 radio stations as well as 3 television broadcasts to the general public.-Early years:Radio broadcasting began in South Africa in 1923...
. In 1985, Youssou N'Dour
Youssou N'Dour
Youssou N'Dour is a Senegalese singer, percussionist and occasional actor. In 2004, Rolling Stone described him as, in Senegal and much of Africa, "perhaps the most famous singer alive." He helped develop a style of popular music in Senegal, known in the Serer language as mbalax, a type of music...
's album Nelson Mandela was the Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
ese artist's first United States release.
In 1988, the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute
Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute
The Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute was a popular-music concert staged on June 11, 1988 at Wembley Stadium, London and broadcast to 67 countries and an audience of 600 million. It was also referred to as Freedomfest, Free Nelson Mandela Concert and Mandela Day...
concert at London's Wembley Stadium was a focal point of the anti-apartheid movement, with many musicians voicing their support for Mandela. Jerry Dammers
Jerry Dammers
Jeremy David Hounsell "Jerry" Dammers is a British musician who is a founder and keyboard player of the Coventry, England based ska revival band The Specials, The Special A.K.A...
, the author of Nelson Mandela, was one of the organisers. Simple Minds
Simple Minds
Simple Minds are a Scottish rock band who achieved worldwide popularity from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. The band produced a handful of critically acclaimed albums in the early 1980s and best known for their #1 US, Canada and Netherlands hit single "Don't You ", from the soundtrack of the...
recorded the song "Mandela Day" for the concert, Santana
Santana (band)
Santana is a rock band based around guitarist Carlos Santana and founded in the late 1960s. It first came to public attention after their performing the song "Soul Sacrifice" at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, when their Latin rock provided a contrast to other acts on the bill...
recorded the instrumental "Mandela", Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her singles "Fast Car", "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution", "Baby Can I Hold You", "Give Me One Reason" and "Telling Stories". She is a multi-platinum and four-time Grammy Award-winning artist.-Biography:Tracy Chapman was born in Cleveland,...
performed "Freedom Now", dedicated to Mandela and released on her album Crossroads, Salif Keita
Salif Keita
Salif Keïta is an internationally recognized afro-pop singer-songwriter from Mali. He is unique not only because of his reputation as the Golden Voice of Africa, but because he has albinism and is a direct descendant of the founder of the Mali Empire, Sundiata Keita...
from Mali
Mali
Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...
, who played at the concert, later visited South Africa and in 1995 recorded the song "Mandela" on his album Folon
Folon
Folon is the fourth studio album from Malian artist Salif Keita. It was released in 1995 by Mango and produced by Wally Badarou, except for tracks 5, 7 and 9 by Jean-Philippe Rykiel.-Track listing:*All Songs Written By Salif Keita....
. and Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston
Whitney Elizabeth Houston is an American singer, actress, producer and a former model. Houston is the most awarded female act of all time, according to Guinness World Records, and her list of awards include 1 Emmy Award, 6 Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, 22 American Music Awards, among...
performed and dedicated the gospel song "He I Believe".
In South Africa, "Asimbonanga (Mandela)" ("We Have Not Seen Him") became one of Johnny Clegg's most famous songs, appearing on his Third World Child
Third World Child
Third World Child is studio album by South African artist Johnny Clegg and his band Savuka, released in 1987 and produced by Hilton Rosenthal....
album in 1987. Hugh Masekela
Hugh Masekela
Hugh Ramopolo Masekela is a South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, composer, and singer.-Early life:Masekela was born in Kwa-Guqa Township, Witbank, South Africa. He began singing and playing piano as a child...
, in exile in the UK, sang "Bring Him Back Home (Nelson Mandela)" in 1987. Brenda Fassie
Brenda Fassie
Brenda Fassie , was a South African pop singer. She was known for her "outrageousness" and widely considered a voice for disenfranchised blacks during apartheid. She was affectionately known as the Queen of African Pop and her nickname amongst fans was Mabrr.-Biography:Brenda was born in Langa,...
's 1989 song "Black President", a tribute to Mandela, was hugely popular even though it was banned in South Africa. Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
n reggae musician Majek Fashek
Majek Fashek
Majekodumni Fasheke, popularly known as Majek Fashek, is a Nigerian reggae singer and guitarist. Various translations of his name include "high priest who does not lie", "powers of miracles" and "the high priest does not live".-Early life:...
released the single, "Free Mandela", in 1992, making him one of many Nigerian recording artists who had released songs related to the anti-apartheid movement and to Mandela himself.
In 1990, Hong Kong rock band Beyond
Beyond (band)
Beyond was a rock band formed in Hong Kong in 1983. The band became prominent in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia. They were also very popular in mainland China. The band was, and still is, widely considered as the most successful and influential Cantonese band from Hong Kong...
released a popular Cantonese song, "Days of Glory". The anti-apartheid song featured lyrics referring to Mandela's heroic struggle for racial equality. The group Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Ladysmith Black Mambazo is a male choral group from South Africa that sings in the vocal styles of isicathamiya and mbube. They rose to worldwide prominence as a result of singing with Paul Simon on his album, Graceland and have won multiple awards, including three Grammy Awards...
accompanied Mandela to the Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
ceremony in Oslo, Norway in 1993, and performed for his inauguration in 1994. In 2003, Mandela lent his weight to the 46664 campaign against AIDS, named after his prison number. Many prominent musicians performed in concerts as part of this campaign.
A summary of Mandela's life story is featured in the 2006 music video "If Everyone Cared
If Everyone Cared
"If Everyone Cared" is the title of a song recorded by Canadian rock group Nickelback. It was released in November 2006 as the sixth single from the album All the Right Reasons, and the single released in Australia and the US respectively...
" by Nickelback
Nickelback
Nickelback is a Canadian rock band from Hanna, Alberta. Since 1995 the band has included guitarist and lead vocalist Chad Kroeger, guitarist and back-up vocalist Ryan Peake and bassist Mike Kroeger.. The band's current drummer and percussionist is Daniel Adair who has been with the band since 2005....
. Raffi
Raffi (musician)
Raffi Cavoukian, CM, OBC , better known by his stage name Raffi, is a Canadian-Armenian singer-songwriter, author, essayist and lecturer...
's song "Turn This World Around" is based on a speech given by Mandela where he explained the world needs to be "turned around, for the children". A tribute concert for Mandela's 90th birthday took place in Hyde Park, London
Hyde Park, London
Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London, United Kingdom, and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.The park is divided in two by the Serpentine...
on 27 June 2008.
Musician Ampie du Preez
Ampie du Preez
Ampie Du Preez is a South African singer-songwriter. In 2010 he collaborated with South African cricketer AB de Villiers on their debut album, Maak Jou Drome Waar ....
and cricketer AB de Villiers wrote a song called "Madibaland" in honour of Mandela. It is featured as the 4th and 14th tracks on their album, "Maak Jou Drome Waar
Maak Jou Drome Waar
Maak Jou Drome Waar is a bilingual pop album by South African cricketer AB de Villiers and musician Ampie du Preez. The artists are signed to the Sony BMG label and the album was released in South Africa on August 2, 2010. The album contains 14 tracks, which consist mainly of power ballads with a...
".
Published biographies
Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to FreedomLong Walk to Freedom (book)
Long Walk to Freedom is an autobiographical work written by Nelson Mandela, and published in 1995 by Little Brown & Co. The book profiles his early life, coming of age, education and 27 years in prison. Mandela was once regarded as a terrorist but he is now regarded as uncontroversial...
, was published in 1994, an extended version of No Easy Walk to Freedom, published by Heinemann in 1965. Mandela had begun work on it secretly while in prison. In that book Mandela did not reveal anything about the alleged complicity of F. W. de Klerk in the violence of the eighties and nineties, or the role of his ex-wife Winnie Mandela in that bloodshed. However, he later co-operated with his friend, journalist Anthony Sampson
Anthony Sampson
Anthony Terrell Seward Sampson was a British writer and journalist. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford and served with the Royal Navy from 1944-47. During the 1950s he edited the magazine Drum in Johannesburg, South Africa...
who discussed those issues in Mandela: The Authorised Biography
Mandela: The Authorised Biography
Mandela: The Authorised Biography is a study of Nelson Mandela, the former President of South Africa, by the late journalist Anthony Sampson....
. Another detail that Mandela omitted was the allegedly fraudulent book, Goodbye Bafana
Goodbye Bafana
Goodbye Bafana, also released under the name The Color of Freedom, is a 2007 drama film, about the relationship between Nelson Mandela and James Gregory , his censor officer and prison guard, based on Gregory's book Goodbye Bafana: Nelson Mandela, My Prisoner, My Friend.Bafana means 'boys'...
. Its author, Robben Island warder James Gregory
James Gregory (writer)
James Gregory was the censor officer and prison guard of Nelson Mandela for many years of his captivity.Gregory wrote the book Goodbye Bafana: Nelson Mandela, My Prisoner, My Friend, on which the 2007 film Goodbye Bafana was based.In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela mentions...
, claimed to have been Mandela's confidant in prison and published details of the prisoner's family affairs. Sampson maintained that Mandela had not known Gregory well, but that Gregory censored the letters sent to the future president and thus discovered the details of Mandela's personal life. Sampson also averred that other warders suspected Gregory of spying for the government and that Mandela considered suing Gregory.
Cinema and television
The film Mandela and De Klerk told the story of Mandela's release from prison. Mandela was played by Sidney PoitierSidney Poitier
Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE is a Bahamian American actor, film director, author, and diplomat.In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field...
. Goodbye Bafana
Goodbye Bafana
Goodbye Bafana, also released under the name The Color of Freedom, is a 2007 drama film, about the relationship between Nelson Mandela and James Gregory , his censor officer and prison guard, based on Gregory's book Goodbye Bafana: Nelson Mandela, My Prisoner, My Friend.Bafana means 'boys'...
, a feature film that focuses on Mandela's life, had its world premiere at the Berlin film festival on 11 February 2007. The film starred Dennis Haysbert
Dennis Haysbert
Dennis Dexter Haysbert is an American film and television actor. He is known for portraying baseball player Pedro Cerrano in the Major League film trilogy, President David Palmer on the American television series 24, and Sergeant Major Jonas Blane on the drama series The Unit, as well as his work...
as Mandela and chronicled Mandela's relationship with prison guard James Gregory
James Gregory (writer)
James Gregory was the censor officer and prison guard of Nelson Mandela for many years of his captivity.Gregory wrote the book Goodbye Bafana: Nelson Mandela, My Prisoner, My Friend, on which the 2007 film Goodbye Bafana was based.In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela mentions...
.
On the American television series The Cosby Show
The Cosby Show
The Cosby Show is an American television situation comedy starring Bill Cosby, which aired for eight seasons on NBC from September 20, 1984 until April 30, 1992...
Cliff and Claire Huxtable's grandchildren were named Nelson and Winnie in honour of Mandela and his then wife Winnie.
In the final scene of the 1992 movie Malcolm X
Malcolm X (film)
Malcolm X is a 1992 biographical motion picture about the Muslim-American figure Malcolm X . It was co-written, co-produced, and directed by Spike Lee. It stars Denzel Washington as the titular character. It co-stars Angela Bassett, Albert Hall, Al Freeman, Jr., and Delroy Lindo...
, Mandela – recently released after 27 years of political imprisonment – appears as a schoolteacher in a Soweto
Soweto
Soweto is a lower-class-populated urban area of the city of Johannesburg in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for South Western Townships...
classroom. He recites a portion of one of Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
's most famous speeches, including the following sentence: "We declare our right on this earth to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence..."
The famous final phrase of that sentence is "by any means necessary
By any means necessary
By any means necessary is a translation of a phrase coined by the French intellectual Jean Paul Sartre in his play Dirty Hands. It entered the popular culture through a speech given by Malcolm X in the last year of his life...
." Mandela informed director Spike Lee
Spike Lee
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, has produced over 35 films since 1983....
that he could not utter the phrase on camera fearing that the apartheid government would use it against him if he did. Lee obliged, and the final seconds of the film feature black-and-white footage of Malcolm X himself delivering the phrase.
Mandela and Springboks captain, François Pienaar
Francois Pienaar
Jacobus Francois Pienaar is a South African former rugby union player. He played flanker for South Africa from 1993 until 1996, winning 29 international caps, all of them as captain. He is best known for leading South Africa to victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup...
, are the focus of a 2008 book by John Carlin, Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation, that spotlights the role of the 1995 Rugby World Cup
1995 Rugby World Cup
The 1995 Rugby World Cup was the third Rugby World Cup. It was hosted and won by South Africa, and was the first Rugby World Cup in which every match was held in one country....
win in post-apartheid South Africa. Carlin sold the film rights to Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman is an American actor, film director, aviator and narrator. He is noted for his reserved demeanor and authoritative speaking voice. Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won...
. The film, entitled Invictus
Invictus (film)
Invictus is a 2009 biographical sports drama film directed by Clint Eastwood starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon.The story is based on the John Carlin book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation about the events in South Africa before and during the 1995 Rugby World...
, was directed by Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
, and featured Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon
Matt Damon
Matthew Paige "Matt" Damon is an American actor, screenwriter, and philanthropist whose career was launched following the success of the film Good Will Hunting , from a screenplay he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck...
as Pienaar.
In the BBC television
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
one-off drama Mrs Mandela, Nelson Mandela was portrayed by David Harewood
David Harewood
David Harewood is a British actor.-Biography:David Harewood was born and grew up in the Small Heath area of Birmingham, England, where he attended St. Benedict's Junior School and Washwood Heath Comprehensive School. As a schoolboy, he excelled at all sports—from sprinting to basketball to rugby...
and Sophie Okonedo
Sophie Okonedo
Sophie Okonedo, OBE is a British actress, who has starred both in successful British and American productions. In 1991, she made her acting debut in the British critically acclaimed coming-of-age drama, Young Soul Rebels...
played his former wife Winnie Mandela.
Statues and civic tributes
On 30 April 2001, Nelson Mandela Gardens in Millennium Square, LeedsLeeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
was officially opened and Nelson Mandela was awarded the freedom of the city
Freedom of the City
Freedom of the City is an honour bestowed by some municipalities in Australia, Canada, Ireland, France, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom, Gibraltar and Rhodesia to esteemed members of its community and to organisations to be honoured, often for service to the community;...
and awarded a commemorative 'golden owl' (the heraldic symbol of Leeds). In a speech outside Leeds Civic Hall
Leeds Civic Hall
Leeds Civic Hall is a civic building housing Leeds City Council, located in Millennium Square, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. The design was the result of a competition held in 1926, which was won by Vincent Harris...
in front of 5000 people, mistakenly Mandela famously thanked 'the people of Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
for their generosity'.
On 31 March 2004, Sandton Square in Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
was renamed Nelson Mandela Square
Nelson Mandela Square
Nelson Mandela Square is a shopping centre in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa. Formerly known as Sandton Square, it was renamed Nelson Mandela Square on 31 March 2004 after a 6-metre statue of Nelson Mandela was installed on the square to honour the former South African president...
, after a 6-metre statue of Nelson Mandela was installed on the square to honour the famous South African statesman.
On 29 August 2007, a statue of Nelson Mandela was unveiled at Parliament Square
Parliament Square
Parliament Square is a square outside the northwest end of the Palace of Westminster in London. It features a large open green area in the middle, with a group of trees to its west. It contains statues of famous statesmen and is the scene of rallies and protests, as well as being a tourist...
in London by Richard Attenborough
Richard Attenborough
Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough , CBE is a British actor, director, producer and entrepreneur. As director and producer he won two Academy Awards for the 1982 film Gandhi...
, Ken Livingstone
Ken Livingstone
Kenneth Robert "Ken" Livingstone is an English politician who is currently a member of the centrist to centre-left Labour Party...
, Wendy Woods (widow of Donald Woods
Donald Woods
Donald James Woods, CBE was a white South African journalist and anti-apartheid activist.As editor of the Daily Dispatch from 1965 to 1977, he befriended Steve Biko, leader of the anti-apartheid Black Consciousness Movement, and was banned by the government soon after Biko's death, which had been...
), and Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...
. The campaign to erect the statue was started in 2000 by the late Donald Woods
Donald Woods
Donald James Woods, CBE was a white South African journalist and anti-apartheid activist.As editor of the Daily Dispatch from 1965 to 1977, he befriended Steve Biko, leader of the anti-apartheid Black Consciousness Movement, and was banned by the government soon after Biko's death, which had been...
, a South African journalist driven into exile because of his anti-apartheid activities. Mandela stated that it represented not just him, but all those who have resisted oppression, especially those in South Africa. He added: "The history of the struggle in South Africa is rich with the stories of heroes and heroines, some of them leaders, some of them followers. All of them deserve to be remembered." An earlier London statue resides on the South Bank
South Bank
South Bank is an area of London, England located immediately adjacent to the south side of the River Thames. It forms a long and narrow section of riverside development that is within the London Borough of Lambeth to the border with the London Borough of Southwark and was formerly simply known as...
of The Thames, dating from 1985.
On 27 August 2008, a statue of Nelson Mandela was unveiled at Groot Drakenstein Correctional Centre between Paarl and Franshhoek on the R301 road, near Cape Town. Formerly known as Victor Verster, this was where Mandela spent the last few years of his 27 years in jail in relative comfort, as he and other ANC stalwarts negotiated with the apartheid government on the terms of his release and the nature of the new South Africa.
It stands on the very spot where Mandela took his first steps as a free man. Just outside the prison gates – the culmination of the Long Walk to Freedom – the title of Mandela's autobiography.
After 1989's Loma Prieta earthquake
Loma Prieta earthquake
The Loma Prieta earthquake, also known as the Quake of '89 and the World Series Earthquake, was a major earthquake that struck the San Francisco Bay Area of California on October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. local time...
demolished the Cypress Street Viaduct
Cypress Street Viaduct
The Cypress Street Viaduct, often referred to as the Cypress Structure, was a 1.6 mile long, raised two-tier, multi-lane freeway constructed of reinforced concrete that was originally part of the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland, California.It replaced an earlier single-deck viaduct constructed in the...
portion of the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
, California, the city renamed the street-level boulevard that replaced it Mandela Parkway in his honour.
In Leicester
Leicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
, England there is a Nelson Mandela Park with the slogan "South Africa belongs to all those who live there, Black and White". It is opposite Leicester Tigers
Leicester Tigers
Leicester Tigers is an English rugby union club that plays in the Aviva Premiership.Leicester are the most successful English club since the introduction of league rugby in 1987, a record 9 times English champions - 3 more than either Bath or Wasps, the last of which was in 2010...
ground Welford Road
Welford Road Stadium
Welford Road is a rugby union stadium in Leicester, England and is the home ground for Leicester Tigers. It is located between Aylestone Road and Welford Road on the edge of the city centre...
.
Mandela Day
Mandela DayMandela Day
Nelson Mandela International Day is an annual international day in honour of Nelson Mandela, celebrated each 18 July . The day was officially declared by the United Nations in November 2009, with the first UN Mandela Day held on 18 July 2010...
on his birthday, 18 July, is an annual international day adopted by the United Nations. Individuals, communities and organisations are asked to donate 67 minutes to doing something for others, commemorating the 67 years that Nelson Mandela gave to the struggle for social justice.
Other
In 2004, zoologists Brent E. Hendrixson and Jason E. Bond named a South African species of trapdoor spider in the family Ctenizidae as Stasimopus mandelaiStasimopus mandelai
Stasimopus mandelai is a species of ctenizid trapdoor spider from the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. This species occurs syntopically with S. schoenlandi and a number of other mygalomorph spiders at the Great Fish River Nature Reserve...
, "honouring Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa and one of the great moral leaders of our time."
See also
- Free Nelson MandelaFree Nelson Mandela"Nelson Mandela" is a song written by Jerry Dammers and performed by his Coventry-based band The Special A.K.A. - with lead vocal by Stan Campbell - released on the single Nelson Mandela / Break Down The Door in 1984 as a protest against the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela...
- List of black Nobel Laureates
External links
- Nelson Mandela – Biography at Nobelprize.org
- Nelson Mandela Foundation
- Nelson Mandela Children's Fund
- Nelson Mandela Children's Fund (Canada)
- Time 100 profile
- Mandela: An Audio History
- Mandela: Son of Africa, Father of a Nation Documentary & Soundtrack
- The Elders
- The Art of Nelson Mandela
- CBC Digital Archives – Nelson Mandela: Prisoner, president, peacemaker
- Nelson Mandela: A Hero's Way – slideshow by Life magazine
- Martin Meredith: Nelson Mandela: A Biography – Interview May 2010
- Nelson Mandela Day
- Nelson Mandela Day – official site
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