“Great
nations are not great because of their natural resources but by the patriotism
and intellectual power of their leaders”. The
above statement cannot be more true in light of the great icon we all celebrate
today-Nelson Madiba Mandela.
BRIEF HISTORY
“No one is born hating another person because of the
colour of his skin or his background or his religion. People must learn to hate
and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more
naturally to the human heart than the opposite”
Nelson Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid
revolutionary, politician and Philanthropist who served as president of South
Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was born on 18th July, 1918. He was the first black south African to hold
the office and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election.
His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid through tackling
institutionalized racism, poverty and inequality and fostering racial
reconciliation. Politically an African nationalist and democratic socialist, he
served as president of the African National congress (ANC) from 1991 to 1997.
Internationally, Mandela was secretary General of the Non-aligned Movement from
1998 to 1999.
Mandela’s original name was Rolihlahla Mandela before
a teacher at the primary Methodist school he attended gave him an English name
Nelson in accoprdance with the custom to give all school children Christian
names. He was nine years old then. Rolihlahla
is not a common name in South Africa. It is Xhosa, one of the 11
official languages in the country, spoken by about 18% of the population. It
literally means “pulling the branch of a tree” but its colloquial meaning is
“trouble maker”. However in South Africa, Mr. Mandela was often called by his
clan name-madiba which South Africans used out of respect.
A xhosa born to the Thembu royal
family, Mandela attended the fort Hare University and the University of
Witwatersrand, where be studied law. Living in Johannesburg, he became involved
in anti-colonial politics, joining the ANC and becoming a founding member of
its Youth League. After the south African National party came to power in 1948,
he rose to prominence in the ANC’s 1952 Defiance Campaign, was appointed
superintendent of the organizations Transvaal chapter and presided over the
1955 congress of the people. Working as a lawyer, he was repeatedly arrested
for seditious activities and, with the ANC leadership was unsuccessfully
prosecuted in the Treason Trial from 1956 to 1961. Although initially committed
to non violent protest, he co-founded the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe (Mk) in
1961 in association with the South African Communist Party leading sabotage
campaign against the apartheid government. In 1962, he was arrested, convicted
of conspiracy to overthrow the state, and sentenced to life imprisonment in the
Rivonia trial.
Mandela served over 27 years in prison, initially on
Robben Island and later in Pollsmoor Prison and Victor verster Prison. An
international Campaign lobbied for his release. He was released on 11th
February, 1990 during a time of escalating civil strife. Mr. Mandela studied
law on and off for 50 years from 1939, failing half the courses he took. A
two-year diploma in law on top of his university degree allowed him to practice
and In August 1952, he and Oliver Tambo established South Africa’s first black
law firm, Mandela and Tambo in Johannesburg. He persevered to finally secure a
law degree while in prison in 1989. Mandela joined negotiations with president F.
W. De Clark to abolish apartheid and establish multiracial elections in 1994,
in which held the ANC to victory and became South Africa first black president.
He published his autobiography in 1995. During his tenure in the Government of
National Unity he invited several other political parties to join the cabinet.
As agreed to during the negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa, he
promulgated a new constitution. He also created the truth and reconciliation
commission to investigate past human rights abuses. While continuing the former
government’s liberal economic policy, his administration also introduced
measures to encourage land reform, combat poverty and expand health-care
services. Internationally, he acted as mediator between Libya and the United
Kingdom in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial and oversaw military
intervention in Lesotho. He declined to run for a second term, and was
succeeded by his deputy, Thabo Mbeki. Mandela became an elder statesman,
focusing on charitable work in combating poverty and HIV/AIDS through the
Nelson Mandela foundation.
Mandela was a controversial figure for much of his
life. Denounced as a Marxist terrorist by critics, he nevertheless gained
international acclaim for his activism, having received more than 250 honors
including the 1993 Nobel peace prize, the US presidential Medal of Freedom, the
soviet order of Lenin and Bharat Ratna. He is held in deep respect within South
Africa, where he is often referred to by his Xhosa clan name, Madiba or as Tata
(father) He is often described as the father of the nation
MANDELA –A STUDY IN HUMANITY
Nelson
Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa’s first black Chief executive on 10th
May 1994.
Moving into the presidential office
at Tuynhuys in Cape Town, Mandela allowed de Clerk to retain the presidential
residence in the Groote Schuur estate, instead settling into the nearby
Westbrook manor which he renamed “Genadendal” meaning “Valley of Mercy” in
Afrikaans.
` Despite his opulent surroundings,
Mandela lived simply, donating a third of his 552,000 rand annual income to the
Nelson Mandela children’s fund which he had founded in 1995. His lifestyle is
aptly captured in the following quote. “I am fundamentally an optimist whether
that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is
keeping one’s head pointed towards the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There
were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested but I would
not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death”
Presiding over
the Transition from apartheid minority rule to a multicultural democracy,
Mandela saw national reconciliation as the primary task of his presidency.
Having seen other post colonial African economies damaged by the departure of
white elites, Mandela worked to reassure South Africa’s white population that
they were protected and represented in the “the Rainbow Nation”.
Mandela attempted to create the broadest possible
coalition in his cabinet, with De Clerk as first Deputy President. Other
national party officials became ministers for Agriculture, Energy and Buthelezi
was named Minister for Home Affairs. The other cabinet positions were taken by
ANC members. All these he did in order to promote National peace and to instill
a sense of belonging even in the hearts of his opposition.
Mandela
personally met with senior figures of the apartheid regime including Hendrik
Verwoerds widow Betsie Schoombie and the lawyer percy Yutar; emphasizing
personal forgiveness and reconciliation. He announced that courageous people do
not fear forgiving for the sake of peace.
More controversially, Mandela oversaw the formation of
a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate crimes committed under
apartheid by both the government and the ANC, appointing Desmond Tutu as its
chair. To prevent the creation of Martyrs, the commission granted individual
amnesties in exchange for testimony of crimes committed during the apartheid
era. Dedicated in February 1996, it held two years of hearings detailing rapes,
torture, bombings and assassinations before issuing its final report in October
1998.
Mandela’s administration inherited a country with a
huge disparity in wealth and services between white and black communities. Of a
population of 40 million, around 23 million lacked electricity or adequate
sanitation, 12 million lacked electricity or adequate sanitation, 12 million
lacked clean water supplies with 2 million children not in school and a third
of the population illiterates. There was 33% unemployment and just under half
of the population lived below the poverty line. Government financial reserves
were nearly depleted with a fifth of the national budget being spent on debt
repayment, meaning that the extent of the promised Reconstruction and
Development programme (RDP) was scaled back, with none of the proposed
nationalization or job creation. Instead, the government adopted liberal
economic politics designed to promote foreign investment.
Under Mandela’s presidency, welfare spending increased
by 13% in 1996/97, 13% in 1997/98, and 7% in 1998/99. The government introduced
parity in grants for communities, 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. In 1994, free
healthcare was introduced for children under six and pregnant women, a
provision extended to all those using primary level public sector healthcare
services in 1996. By the 1999 election, the ANC could boast that due to their
policies, 3 million people were connected to telephone lines, 1.5 million
children were brought into the education system, 500 clinics were upgraded or
constructed, 2 million people were connected to electricity grid, water access
was extended to 3 million people and 750,000 houses were constructed, housing
nearly 3 million people.
The land Restitution Act of 1994 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 safeguarded the nights of labour tenants who live and
grown 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 skills Development Act of 1998 provided for the
establishment of mechanisms to finance and promote skills development at the
workplace. The Labour Relations Act of 1995 promoted workplace democracy,
orderly collective bargaining and the effective resolution of labour disputes.
The basic conditions of Employment Act of 1997 improved enforcement mechanisms
while extending a floor of rights to all workers. The Employment Equity Act of
1998 was passed to put an end to unfair discrimination and ensure the
implementation of affirmative action in the workplace.
Following the South African example, Mandela
encouraged other nations to resolve conflicts through diplomacy and
reconciliation. He took a soft diplomatic approach to removing Sani Abacha’s
Military Junta in Nigeria but later became a leading figure in calling for
sanctions when Abacha’s regime increased human rights violations. In 1996, he
was appointed chairman of the southern African Development community (SADC) and
initiated unsuccessful negotiations to end the first Congo war in Zaire. 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 after a disputed
election prompted opposition uprisings.
In September 1998, Mandela was appointed Secretary-General
of the Non aligned movement who held their annual conference in Durban. He used
the event to criticize the narrow, chauvinistic interest of the Israeli
government in stalling negotiations to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and
urged India and Pakistan to negotiate to end the Kashmir conflict, for which he
was criticized by both Israel and India. Inspired by the region’s economic
boom, Mandela sought greater economic relations with East Asia, in particular
Malaysia.
The 1996 constitution limited the president to two
consecutive five-year terms. Mandela did not attempt to amend the document to
remove the two-term limit; Indeed, he had never planned on standing for second
term In office. He gave his farewell speech on 29 March 1999 after which he
retired.
Mandela reverted to a busy public life with a daily
programme of tasks, meeting with world leaders and celebrities and when in
Johannesburg worked with the Nelson Mandela Foundation, founded in 1999 to
focus on combating HIV/AIDS, rural development and school construction.
Although he had been heavily criticized for failing to do enough to fight the
pandemic during his presidency, he devoted much of his time to the issue
following his retirement, describing it as “a war” that had killed more than
“all previous wars” and urged Mbeki’s government to ensure that HIV positive
south Africans had access to retrovirals.
In 2000, the Nelson Mandela Invitational charity golf
tournament was founded, hosted by Gary Player. Mandela was successfully treated
for prostrate cancer in July 2001.
In 2002, Mandela Inaugurated the Nelson Mandela annual
lecture and in 2003 the Mandela Rhodes foundation was created at Rhodes House,
university of Oxford to provide postgraduate scholarships to African students.
These projects were followed by the Nelson Mandela centre of Memory and the
46664 Campaign against HIV/AIDS. He gave the closing address at the XIII International
Aids Conference in Durban in 2000, and in 2004, spoke at the XV international
Ads conference in Bangkok, Thailand.
Publicly, Mandela became more vocal criticizing
Western powers. He 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 2003, he spoke out against the plans for the US and UK to launch the
war in Iraq describing it as a “tragedy”. Mandela also encouraged Zimbabwean
president Robert Mugabe to resign over growing human rights abuses in the country.
When this proved ineffective, he spoke out publicly against Mugabe in 2007
asking him to step down “with residual respect and a modicum of dignity.”
That year,
Mandela, Michael and Demand Tutu convened a group of World leaders in
Johnnesburg to contribute their wisdom and independent leadership to some of
the world’s toughest problems. Mandela announced the formation of this new
group, the “Elders” in a speech delivered on his 89th birthday. In a
speech marking his 90th birthday, Mandela called for the rich to
help the poor across the world.
In 2004, Mandela had successfully companied for south
Africa to host the 2010 FIFA World cup, declaring that there would be “few
better gifts for us in the year” marking a decade since the fall of apartheid.
Mandela emotionally raised the FIFA world cup trophy after South Africa was
awarded host status.
In describing his life, Mandela stated that “I was not
a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extra
ordinary circumstances”.
By the time of his death, Mandela had come to be
widely considered “the father of the nation” within South African, and “the
founding father of democracy”, being seen as “the national liberator, the
saviour, its Washington and Lincoln rolled into one”. Mandela’s biographer
Anthony Sampson commented that even during his life, a myth had developed
around him that turned him into “a secular saint” and which was “so powerful
that it blurs the realities”. Within a decade after the end of his presidency,
Mandela’s era was being widely thought of as “a golden age of hope and harmony”
Across the world, Mandela earned international acclaim for his activism in
overcoming apartheid and fostering racial reconciliation, coming to be viewed
as a “moral authority with a great concern for truth”.