Nelson Mandela Biography
He is South African activist and politician who led the movement against apartheid and, after 27 years in prison and very long struggle, presided over the first government in 1994 that ended the racist regime. The twentieth century left two world wars, the death camps and the atomic terror, but also great champions of the struggle against injustice, as Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King. The most charismatic of them was Nelson Mandela.
He is South African activist and politician who led the movement against apartheid and, after 27 years in prison and very long struggle, presided over the first government in 1994 that ended the racist regime. The twentieth century left two world wars, the death camps and the atomic terror, but also great champions of the struggle against injustice, as Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King. The most charismatic of them was Nelson Mandela.
Like any African child, Nelson Mandela's childhood was spent in games and in close contact with the traditions of his people. Son of the chief of a tribe, named him Rolihlahla, which means rebellious, but at seven, he could attend the Methodist school, was named Nelson in the church of Transkei; and famous, his countrymen would call Madiba, the clan name. Two years later, due to the death of his father, the small Nelson was in the care of a cousin, the big boss Jongintaba; with him took to listen to tribal chiefs and became aware of the sense of justice.
When he in sixteen, he became part of the tribal council; three years later, in 1937, he entered the boarding school for black Ford Hare to pursue higher education. But when in 1941 he learned that the chief Jongintaba had arranged a marriage for him, Mandela decided to leave his village and went to Johannesburg. Poorly established in the overcrowded suburb of Alexandra, shortly after arriving, he met Walter Sisulu, with whom he struck up a friendship that would be decisive in all areas: it influenced his political views, helped him get a job and finish her law studies and he presented his cousin Evelyn Mase, with whom he would marry in 1944.
A leader born
Both Walter Sisulu as the countless people who had contact with Mandela throughout his life agree that his extraordinary personality. The power of seduction, confidence, ability to work, courage and integrity are among the virtues which shone wherever he went. Sisulu immediately caught their innate leadership skills and introduced him to the African National Congress (ANC), a movement to fight oppression for decades had been suffering from black South Africans. Soon their qualities would put in prominent positions within the organization. In 1944, Mandela was one of the founding leaders of the Youth League Congress, who would be the dominant group of the ANC; its ideology was an African socialism nationalist, racist and anti-imperialist.
The triumph of the African National Party (white descendants of the Dutch Boers who colonized the country) came to confirm and expand what already exists without euphemisms: the government of Daniel Malan (1948-1954) put in place a comprehensive system of segregation and social, economic, cultural, political and territorial discrimination against the black majority; It was called apartheid or "separate development of each race in the geographical area that is allocated," according to the official definition. The following governments, presided over by Strijdom and Verwoerd, continued the same policy. A 1949 decree forbade intermarriage; other laws and regulations after apartheid ended configuring the system: official recognition of breeds segregation when use services (including space beaches) and separation in factories and on public transport.
Under the inspiration of Gandhi, the ANC advocated nonviolent methods of struggle: the Youth League Congress (chaired by Mandela in 1951 to 1952) organized civil disobedience campaigns against segregation laws. In 1952 Mandela became president of the federation of the African National Congress of the South African province of Transvaal, while heading to the volunteers who defied the regime; He had become the de facto leader of the movement.
Repression produced 8,000 arrests, including that of Mandela, who was confined to Johannesburg. There he established the first law of black lawyers in South Africa. Had gradually been abandoning its Africanist stance and adopted the ideology of internationalist humanism would hold throughout his life. In 1955, he completed their sentences, reappeared in public, promoting the adoption of a Charter of Freedom, in which the aspiration of a multiracial, egalitarian and democratic state, land reform and a policy of social justice in the distribution was shaped the wealth. At that time another woman erupted with force in his life: the social worker Nomzano Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, known as Winnie Mandela, whom he married in 1958.
Exacerbation of apartheid
The hardening of the racist regime reached its climax in 1956 with the government's plan to create seven reservations or Bantustans, supposedly independent marginal territories in which it was intended to confine the black majority, representing more than seventy percent of the population. Such a move entailed condemn blacks not only to marginalization, but also the misery that land could not provide a livelihood because they would be too populated to your agriculture's could feed, or for its industries should give work to all . Otherwise, the white power would never be interested in creating any major industry in such reserves by the danger that were competitive with those of the white areas of the Republic.
The ANC responded with demonstrations and boycotts that led to the arrest of most of its leaders; Mandela was charged with high treason, tried and released for lack of evidence in 1961. During the long trial took place the Sharpeville massacre, in which police opened fire on an unarmed crowd protesting against racist laws, killing 69 protesters (1960). The killing advised the government to declare a state of emergency, under which arrested the leaders of the black opposition Mandela was detained for several months without trial.
Those facts end to convince the leaders of the African National Congress's inability to continue fighting for nonviolent methods, not weakened the regime and provoked an equally bloody crackdown. In 1961 Mandela was elected honorary secretary of the Congress of National Action All Africa, a new underground sabotage adopted as a means of struggle against the regime of the newly proclaimed Republic of South Africa; He was also responsible for directing the armed wing of the African National Congress (the Spear of the Nation). Its strategy is focused on attacking facilities or economically important symbolic value, excluding threaten human lives.
In 1962 he travels several African countries raising funds, receiving military training and propagandizing the South African cause; on his return, Mandela was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. While still in prison, he was one of eight leaders of the Spear of the Nation convicted of sabotage, treason and violent conspiracy to overthrow the government in the Rivonia trial (1963-1964), after which he addressed the judges one famous final, full of strength and dramatic plea, which did not stop was sentenced to life imprisonment. Despite being in captivity, the same year he was named president of the African National Congress.
From prison to the presidency
Prisoner for 27 years (1963-1990) in harsh conditions, the South African government rejected all requests for it to be released. Nelson Mandela became a symbol of the struggle against apartheid within and outside the country, a legendary figure representing the suffering and lack of freedom of all black South Africans.
In 1984 the government tried to end so uncomfortable myth, offering freedom if he agreed to settle in one of the homelands to which the regime had granted a fiction of independence; Mandela refused the offer. During those years his wife Winnie symbolized the continuity of the struggle, reaching important positions in the ANC. Winnie the fervent activism was not without scandals; Years later, at 90, he would be involved in a controversial trial in which he was accused of murder, but acquitted left.
Finally, Frederik De Klerk, President of the National Party, had to yield to the evidence and open the way to dismantle apartheid. In February 1990 legalized the ANC and freed Mandela, who became his main interlocutor to negotiate the dismantling of apartheid and the transition to a multiracial democracy; despite the complexity of the process, both knew successfully complete negotiations. Mandela and de Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
The 1994 elections Mandela became the first black president of South Africa (1994-1999); from that office he launched a policy of national reconciliation, maintaining De Klerk as vice president and trying to attract to democratic participation on wayward Zulu Inkatha party majority. US film director Clint Eastwood, Invictus (2009), reflect quite accurately the Mandela of those years; support for a national team formed by white during the 1995 Rugby World Cup, held in South Africa, showing its commitment to integrate the white minority and the black majority making use of this sports event and its determination to build a nation for all South Africans, irrespective of race.
Mandela launched the Plan for Reconstruction and Development, which spent large amounts of money to improve the standard of living of black South Africans on issues such as education, housing, health and employment, and also behind the drafting of a new constitution for the country, which was finally approved by parliament in 1996. A year later handed over the African National Congress Thabo Mbeki, destined to become his successor in the presidency. In 1998, two years after divorcing Winnie, he married Graca Machel, widow of former Mozambican President Samora Machel.
Along with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who chaired the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation, Nelson Mandela presented the report with the findings of the Commission in June 1998. The size of the African leader was evident once again when, against the opinion of the African National Congress, endorsed the report's conclusions, pointing not only the abuses and crimes of the apartheid regime, but also those committed by the various groups of movements release, including the African National Congress. Three months before leaving office, Mandela announced that he was not going to run for reelection. He was succeeded as president Thabo Mbeki, won the elections of June 1999.
It departed from political life since received many awards, but his health problems became increasingly sporadic public appearances. Despite its withdrawal, the fervor that woke Mandela remained alive in his compatriots: in 2010 he was present at the ceremonies of the World Cup in South Africa and received the enthusiastic support of the crowd; in July 2013, being seriously ill leader, the South Africans took to the streets to celebrate its 95th anniversary. Elevated to the status of one of the most charismatic and influential figures of the twentieth century, his figure has entered history as the embodiment of the struggle for freedom and justice and as a symbol of a whole nation.
Extracted from biografiasyvidas
for educational
Extracted from biografiasyvidas
for educational
EmoticonEmoticon