Compiled & Written by Hilary Ojukwu
Nelson Mandela, a revolutionary freedom fighter, democrat, pan-Africanist, and a leader in the truest sense of it turns 90 today.
It must be recalled that he was very instrumental in the transformation of the African National Congress and infusing it with the necessary vision that would forever transform the African National Congress and ensure that it became the most formidable revolutionary movement in the struggle against apartheid. It was felt that a Youth League was necessary if the African National Congress would assume its rightful role in that struggle. In 1944, the Provisional Committee of the ANC Youth League issued its manifesto. Among other things, the manifesto read, “The formation of the African National Congress Youth League is an answer and assurance to the critics of the national movement that African Youth will not allow the struggles and sacrifices of their fathers to have been in vain. Our fathers fought so that we, better equipped when our time came, should start and continue from where they stopped.”
The manifesto continued, “The formation of this League is an attempt on the part of Youth to impart to Congress a truly national character. It is also a protest against the lack of discipline and the absence of a clearly-defined goal in the movement as a whole. The Congress Youth League must be the brains-trust and power-station of the spirit of African nationalism; the spirit of African self-determination; the spirit that is so discernible in the thinking of our Youth. It must be an organization where young African men and women will meet and exchange ideas in an atmosphere pervaded by a common hatred of oppression……..The Congress is the symbol of the African people's common hatred of all oppression and of their Will to fight it relentlessly as one compact group.”
On May 21, 1950 the National Executive Committee of the ANC decided to call a national day of protest after the “Unlawful Organisation Bill” was brought before the parliament of the apartheid regime. The statement partly read as follows, “Although the Unlawful Organisation Bill purports to be directed against Communism in general and the Communist Party of South Africa in particular, the ANC Executive is satisfied, from a study of the provisions of the Bill, that it is primarily directed against the Africans and other oppressed people, and is designed to frustrate all their attempts to work for the fulfillment of their legitimate demands and aspirations. The Bill is a further example of the determination of the white people of this country to keep the African in permanent subordination.”
“In June 1952, the African National Congress and the South African Indian Congress, bearing in mind their responsibility as the representatives of the downtrodden and oppressed people of South Africa, took the plunge and launched the Campaign for the Defiance of the Unjust Laws.” During this defiance campaign, Nelson Mandela was to serve as the Volunteer-In-Chief. The Defiance Campaign led, among other developments, to the formation of anti-racialist organizations and groups among the white population. The first of these was the Congress of Democrats (COD) which later took its place in the Congress Alliance in support of the ANC. Another was the Liberal Party, formed as a non-racial party in 1952. The Liberal Party began with a policy of qualified franchise, which was later changed to that of universal franchise. It dissolved itself in 1967 when non-racial political parties were prohibited by law.
In 1955, the ANC National Executive adopted the “Freedom Charter” at the Congress of the People in Kliptown, Johannesburg. The Charter adopted the following points:
- The People shall govern
- All national groups shall have equal rights
- The people shall share in the country's wealth
- The land shall be shared among those who work it
- All shall be equal before the law
- All shall enjoy equal human rights
- There shall be work and security
- The doors of learning and culture shall be opened
- There shall be houses, security and comfort
- There shall be peace and friendship
In response to the growing unity and strength of the Congress Movement as a united front following the adoption of the Freedom Charter, the government arrested 156 political leaders in a mass police swoop on 5 December 1956 and charged them with high treason, a grave charge carrying the death penalty. They were accused of participating in a treasonable conspiracy, inspired by international Communism, to overthrow the South African State by violent means. The trial dragged on for four years, with the last accused being acquitted in 1961.
The treason Trial was in its fourth year when the shootings at Sharpeville took place on 21 March 1960. 69 people were killed and 176 wounded when the police opened fire on an unarmed crowd. International attention was focused on South Africa. A State of Emergency was proclaimed by the government; over 20, 000 people were detained. The ANC was banned, and so was the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC).
On 16 December 1961 acts of sabotage marked the emergence of Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) which was later to become the armed wing of the ANC. Mandela was a founder member and the Commander-Chief of Umkhonto (MK). A leaflet issued by Umkhonto we Sizwe on 16 December 1961 partly read as follows:
“It is however, well known that the main national liberation organizations in this country have consistently followed a policy of non-violence. They have conducted themselves peaceably at all times, regardless of government attacks and persecutions upon them, despite all government-inspired attempts to provoke them to violence. They have done so because the people prefer peaceful methods of change to achieve their aspirations without suffering and bitterness of civil war. But the people's patience is not endless. The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices: submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa. We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit back by all means within our power in defense of our people, our future and our freedom.”
On 11 July police raided a farm at Rivonia, near Johannesburg, and arrested several members of the Congress Alliance. On 9 October 1963 ten men appeared in court on charges of sabotage, among them Mandela, who was brought from prison to stand trial as the first accused. The State alleged that the accused had embarked on a campaign to overthrow the government by violent revolution. There were four charges under security legislation: the Sabotage Act, the Suppression of Communism Act and the Criminal Law Amendment Act. The charge sheet listed 193 acts of sabotage committed between 27 June 1962 and the date of the Rivonia raid, allegedly carried out by persons recruited by the accused in their capacity as members of the High Command Umkhonto. On 11 June 1964, at the conclusion of the trial, Mandela and seven others – Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Elias Motsoaledi, Andrew Mlangeni, Ahmed Kathrada and Denis Goldberg were convicted. Mandela was found guilty on four charges of sabotage and like the others was sentenced to life imprisonment.
With Nelson Mandela in prison and all the liberation movements including the African National Congress banned, many activists and freedom fighters fled to exile. The ANC was led in exile by the late Oliver Reginald Tambo and they succeeded in mobilizing the world against apartheid in South Africa. The United Nations was to declare apartheid as “a crime against humanity”.
On 2 February 1990, State President 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:
“ 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.
Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, his switch to a policy of reconciliation and negotiation helped lead the transition to multi-racial democracy in South Africa. Since the end of apartheid, he has been widely praised, even by former opponents.
Mandela has received more than one hundred awards over four decades, most notably the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. He is currently a celebrated elder statesman who continues to voice his opinion on topical issues. In South Africa he is often known as Madiba, an honorary title adopted by elders of Mandela's clan. The title has come to be synonymous with Nelson Mandela.
Mandela has frequently credited Mahatma Gandhi for being a major source of inspiration in his life, both for the philosophy of non-violence and for facing adversity with dignity.
Mandela: Origin
Mandela belongs to a cadet branch of the Thembu dynasty which (nominally) reigns in the Transkeian Territories of the Union of South Africa's Cape Province. He was born in the small village of Mvezo in the district of Umtata, the Transkei capital. His great-grandfather was Ngubengcuka (died 1832), the Inkosi Enkhulu or King of the Thembu people, who were eventually subjected to British colonial rule. One of the king's sons, named Mandela, became Nelson's grandfather and the source of his surname. However, being 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. His father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa (1880–1928), was nonetheless designated chief of the town of Mvezo. Upon alienating the colonial authorities, however, he was deprived of his position, and moved his family to Qunu. Gadla remained, however, a member of the Inkosi's Privy Council, and was instrumental in the ascension to the Thembu throne of Jongintaba Dalindyebo, who would later return this favour by informally adopting Mandela upon Gadla's death. Mandela's father had four wives, with whom he fathered a total of thirteen children (four boys and nine girls). Mandela was born to Gadla's third wife ('third' by a complex royal ranking system), Nosekeni Fanny, 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".[
