"We want him to remain forever. But what more do we want from him?"
Archbishop
Desmond Tutu spoke these words in January 2011, when Nelson Mandela was
hospitalised with an acute respiratory infection.
At the time,
the condition of the former president of South Africa, and first black
man to lead his country, was unclear. Mandela had been treated for
tuberculosis during the 1980s, and later had an operation to repair
damage to his eyes. In 2001 he had received treatment for prostate
cancer.
This particular health scare, however, seemed more
serious. "Everyone was holding their hearts and saying not now," said a
woman who lived across the street from Mandela in the suburb of Houghton
in Johannesburg. "A person like Mr Mandela, we still need him."
On
this occasion such fears over Mandela's wellbeing proved groundless. He
was discharged from hospital within a few days and returned home.
But
now Mandela really has gone. And those same people in his home country
and across the globe are facing a future without a man whose life story
will forever remain one of the most remarkable of the 20th century.
Early years
Nelson
Mandela was born in 1918 into the Xhosa-speaking Thembu dynasty in the
village of Mvezo, which lies in the Eastern Cape Province of South
Africa.
He was initially given the name Rolihlahla. "The only
thing my father bestowed upon me at birth was a name," Mandela later
wrote. "In Xhosa, Rolihlahla literally means 'pulling the branch of a
tree', but its colloquial meaning more accurately would be
'troublemaker'."
His English name of Nelson came later, courtesy of a teacher at his school.
Mandela's
father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa, was a counsellor to the Thembu royal
family and a respected member of village society. But he died of
tuberculosis when his son was just nine years old, leading the young boy
to be placed in the care of the acting regent of the Thembu people,
chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo, whom his father had once advised.
Mandela's
status as the ward of an heir to the throne would shape the early years
of his life. He went to a mission school next to the royal palace, then
a boarding institute, and finally a college in Fort Beaufort that
counted much Thembu royalty among its former pupils. It was expected
that Mandela would inherit his father's position as a privy councillor,
and he began studying a Bachelor of Arts degree at Fort Hare University.
Youthful rebellion
It was at university that Mandela's career and also his behaviour began to deviate from that expected of him.
An
interest in student politics led him to meet Oliver Tambo, who would
become a lifelong friend and fellow activist. It also resulted in him
joining a boycott against the university's discriminatory policies,
which got him expelled at the end of his first year.
Next came
news that Jongintaba, still formally Mandela's guardian, had arranged a
marriage for him. Alarmed, Mandela moved to Johannesburg to effectively
begin a new life. After a short period working as a guard at a mine, he
took a junior role at the law firm Witkin, Sidelsky and Edelman. Mandela
wasn't entirely beyond exploiting old ties: he got the job partly
thanks to connections with his friend and mentor, the real estate
salesman Walter Sisulu.
The next significant event in Mandela's
life came in 1943, when he joined the African National Congress (ANC):
the organisation set up in 1912 to promote and increase the rights of
the black South African population.
By now he had began law
studies at the University of Witwatersrand. The fight for racial
equality was becoming a cause of increasing importance and urgency for
Mandela, but there were personal developments in his life as well as
political ones. The following year he married his first wife, Evelyn
Mase. They were divorced in 1957 after having three children.
Joining the fight
In
1948 the Afrikaner-dominated National Party won the South African
general election. It was a victory that meant racial segregation - known
as apartheid - was now official government policy across the country.
It also meant black people were not now allowed to vote, and would not
regain this right until 1994.
The ANC's struggle became loud and
aggressive, as did Mandela's participation. He set up and ran the ANC
Youth League, played a key role in the Defiance Campaign of 1952
intended to encourage non-cooperation with certain laws, and supported
the Freedom Charter of 1955: a statement of core principles of the ANC
and other anti-apartheid groups.
Police broke up a special congress designed to adopt the charter, with Mandela only escaping by disguising himself as a milkman.
AP Photo, Jurgen Schadeberg
Throughout
this period Mandela maintained an important day job. He was now a
qualified lawyer and in 1952 opened a law practice in Johannesburg with
his partner and old friend, Oliver Tambo. The pair provided free or
low-cost advice to many blacks who lacked legal representation.
Under arrest
Mandela's involvement with the law took a less agreeable but hugely significant turn in 1956.
He
was arrested in a raid on 5 December and, along with 155 others,
charged with high treason. An incredibly lengthy trial followed, during
which Mandela and many others were detained in communal cells in
Johannesburg Prison, known as the Fort.
But the case increased the
profile of many ANC members besides spreading awareness of its cause.
"We are not anti-white, we are against white supremacy," Mandela told
the court. "We have condemned racialism no matter by whom it is
professed."
Ultimately the case fell apart and all the accused
were found not guilty in 1961. Mandela was now a nationally-known
figure, but also an outlaw.
AP Photo
The
ANC had been banned in 1960. Mandela was its national vice-president,
but also leader of its military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, or Spear of the
Nation. His support for armed struggle was, he argued, a last resort.
But it rendered him in many eyes as terrorist: a perception that existed
long into the 1980s within, among others, the UK and US governments.
To
escape a repeat arrest he went on the run, together with his new wife
Winnie Madikizela. He avoided detection for 17 months, until a tip-off
from the CIA led to the security police capturing him on 5 August 1962.
He was charged with sabotage and sentenced to five years in prison.
While
in jail, more charges were brought against him, including one of
treason. "I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in
which all persons live together in harmony and with equal
opportunities," he told the court. "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." In 1964 he was found guilty again and sentenced to
life imprisonment.
Behind bars
"It is said
that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails,"
Mandela wrote later. "A nation should not be judged by how it treats its
highest citizens, but its lowest ones."
He would go on to spend
18 years in a cell on Robben Island. He was allowed one letter and one
visitor every six months. His only physical activity was splitting rocks
in a lime quarry.
Throughout this period, while many ANC leaders
were in jail or exile, the fight against apartheid continued, especially
in many of South Africa's black townships that saw regular scenes of
brutal and bloody oppression. From inside prison, Mandela could do
little to influence events. But his name began to become known around
the world, and in 1980 a campaign was launched by Oliver Tambo, then
living in exile, to secure Mandela's release.
In 1982 Mandela was
transferred to Pollsmoor Prison on the mainland. The South African
government was conscious of his growing global reputation, and the move
was intended to allow them to begin discreet contact with him and other
ANC leaders. This resulted in the president, PW Botha, offering Mandela
freedom in 1985 so long as he "unconditionally rejected violence as a
political weapon".
Mandela refused, 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."
Nonetheless, contact was
maintained and meetings began to take place between Mandela and members
of the ruling National Party. The first was in Volks Hospital in Cape
Town, where Mandela was recovering from prostate surgery.
Freedom
A
combination of events led to Mandela's ultimate release. In 1988 he was
moved to Victor Verster Prison where conditions were slightly more
relaxed and he could receive regular visitors. Trade sanctions on South
Africa imposed by various foreign countries were limiting economic
growth. Then, in 1989, PW Botha suffered a stroke and was replaced as
president by the less hardline FW De Klerk.
Within months De Klerk
had lifted the ban on the ANC and other anti-apartheid organisations.
On 2 February 1990 he announced that Nelson Mandela would be released
from prison, an event that took place nine days later.
AP Photo
Television
cameras beamed live pictures around the world of Mandela, grey, thin
but dignified, walking slowly to his freedom. It was a moment of
history. Mandela had been sent to jail branded a bandit and a thug. He
emerged a statesman.
Mandela went on to become president of the
ANC and led his party in the negotiations that culminated in South
Africa's first multi-racial elections in 1994. For his work, and that of
De Klerk, the pair were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
Those
elections took place on 27 April 1994. The ANC won 62% of the vote, and
Mandela duly became South Africa's first black president. He served for
five years, charting a slow but steady course away from the
apartheid-era of the past to a free, democratic future.
President Mandela
One
of the key themes of Mandela's term in office was reconciliation. For
example, he encouraged black South Africans to support to Springboks -
the national rugby team - when the country hosted by the 1995 Rugby
World Cup. A Truth and Reconciliation Committee was also set up to hear,
record and in some instances grant amnesty for human rights crimes
committed by all sides dating back decades.
Repairing the damage
caused by apartheid proved a task too large for Mandela to accomplish
during his time as president. But his government passed many of pieces
of legislation that began to improve the lives of South Africans, both
black and white, including free health care for all children under six,
disability grants and old age pensions, compulsory schooling to the age
of 16, 750,000 new houses, and extending electricity and water supplies
to millions more citizens.
More immediately successful were
Mandela's foreign trips, which he spent meeting leaders and promoting
his country as a place for investment and tourism.
His personal
life was just as eventful. Mandela divorced his second wife Winnie in
1992, after she was convicted on charges of kidnapping and accessory to
assault. Six years later, on his 80th birthday, he married Graca Machel,
the widow of the former president of Mozambique.
Retirement
Despite
the enormous affection and respect in which he was held, Mandela
decided not to stand for a second term as president and retired in 1999,
to be succeeded by Thabo Mbeki.
AP Photo, Luca Bruno
Initially
he maintained his hectic schedule of world travel, attending
conferences, collecting awards and delivering speeches. But in June
2004, just ahead of his 86th birthday he announced he was retiring from
public life, informing the world: "Don't call me; I'll call you."
He
spent much of his final years concentrating on his family. He faced the
tragedy of his son Makgatho dying of an Aids-related illness in 2005,
but continued to make occasional appearances, most notably at the
closing ceremony of the World Cup in 2010. Though physically frail, the
former president still commanded dignity.
In 2007 he established
The Elders: a group of former world leaders and veteran politicians,
intended to help broker solutions for global crises. The
organisation will be one of his key legacies - as will Mandela Day, 18
July, inaugurated by the United Nations General Assembly in 2009 to mark
his contribution to world freedom.
Three fundraising charities
associated with Mandela have also been established: the Nelson Mandela
Foundation, the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and the Mandela Rhodes
Foundation.
When he fell ill in January 2011, Eva Ntuli, a
churchgoer in Soweto, told the press: "We don't forget him. Even the
smallest children cry: Dada, you must live for us. They pray everyday."
Without him, the life of Ms Ntuli, and the lives of millions if not billions, are all somehow diminished.
Mandela
spoke on many things. Often his most inspirational statements were also
the most obvious. Yet they always sounded eternally compelling, coming
from a man who had lived, and suffered, to such an extent as he.
"No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion," he wrote.
"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 its
opposite."
