Reference
- Mandela, Nelson Rolihlahla(khōl-ēhlä'hlä mändā'lä), 1918–2013, South African statesman. He earned a degree (B.A., 1943) after being expelled from the University College of Fort Hare (for taking part in a student protest) and finishing his studies with the Univ. of South Africa, studied (1943–48) law at the Univ. of the Witwatersrand (but did not earn his LL.B. until 1989, from the Univ. of South Africa), and was prominent in Johannesburg's youth wing of the African National Congress (ANC). In 1952 he became ANC deputy national president, advocating nonviolent resistance to apartheid. After a group of peaceful demonstrators were massacred (1960) in Sharpeville, however, Mandela organized a paramilitary branch of the ANC to carry out guerrilla warfare against the white government. After being acquitted (1961) on charges of treason after a six-year trial, he was arrested (1962) and convicted first (1962) of inciting strikes and illegal travel and later (1964) of sabotage and conspiring to overthrow the government. At the latter trial he was sentenced to life in prison, where he subsequently became the leading symbol of South Africa's oppressed black majority but also began (late 1980s) secret negotiations with the government.
Released in 1990 as an expression of President de Klerk's commitment to change, Mandela was elected (July, 1991) ANC president after a triumphal global tour. He represented the ANC in the turbulent negotiations that led to establishment of majority rule. Mandela and de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. After South Africa's first multiracial elections (1994), in which the ANC won a majority, Mandela was elected president.
Mandela's presidency was marked by his efforts to reconcile many of the various opposing sides in the long antiapartheid struggle (which were sometimes criticized by more militant blacks) and his work to establish a multiracial democracy based on the rule of law. A new constitution was adopted (1996), and moderate progress made in improving the economic situation of South Africa's blacks. Mandela served a single term, stepping down in 1999; Thabo Mbeki succeeded him. In Dec., 1999, Mandela was appointed by a group of African nations to mediate the ethnic strife in Burundi; the Arusha accords, a Tutsi-Hutu power-sharing agreement, were finalized in 2001. He also campaigned to raise awareness concerning AIDS prevention and treatment, after stepping as president.
Mandela married his second wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, 1936?–2018, b. Nomzamo Winnifred Madikizela, in 1958. A social worker, she joined the ANC and was her husband's champion while he was in prison, being herself imprisoned and “banned” several times. In 1991 she was convicted in the 1988 kidnapping and beating of four young men, one of whom died, but on appeal her prison sentence was reduced to a fine. Her brief tenure (1994–95) as a deputy minister in her husband's cabinet was turbulent. The Mandelas separated in 1992 and were divorced in 1996. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela remained head of the ANC Women's League and a member of parliament, but she resigned those positions in 2003 when she was convicted on charges of theft and fraud relating to her involvement in a scheme to obtain loans for nonexistent Women's League employees. Her theft conviction was overturned and her prison sentence suspended on appeal in 2004. She returned to active participation in the ANC hierarchy in 2007, when she was elected to the party's national executive committee; she was again elected to parliament in 2009.
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Perspectives
Conversations with Myself
"[Nelson Mandela] has done so much to change his country, and the world, that it is hard to imagine the history of the last several decades without him." --from the foreword by President Barack Obama Foreword by President Barack Obama Nelson Mandela is one of the most inspiring and iconic figures of our age. Now, after a lifetime of recording thoughts and events, hardships and victories, he has opened his personal archive, which offers unprecedented insight into his remarkable autobiography. From letters written in the darkest hours of his twenty-seven years of imprisonment to the draft of an unfinished sequel to Long Walk to Freedom, Conversations with Myself gives readers access to the private man behind the public figure. Here he is making notes and even doodling during meetings, or transcribing troubled dreams on the desk calendar in his prison cell on Robben Island; writing journals while on the run during the anti-apartheid struggle in the early 1960s, and conversing with friends in almost seventy hours of recorded conversations. Here he is neither icon nor saint. An intimate journey from the first stirrings of political consciousness to his galvanizing role on the world stage, Conversations with Myself is a rare chance to spend time with Nelson Mandela the man, in his own voice: direct, clear, private.
Nelson Mandela Speaks
Mandela's speeches from 1990 through 1993 recount the course of struggle that put an end to apartheid and opened the fight for a deep-going political, economic, and social transformation in South Africa.
Long Walk to Freedom
A moving account of Mandela's life from his childhood to his inauguration as president of South Africa in May 1994. Awards: BL Editors' Choice.
The Rivonia (Nelson Mandela) Trial
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Why is the Rivonia Trial considered "the trial that changed South Africa"? Why did Nelson Mandela and his nine co-defendants seek to wage guerilla war against the South African government? How did the trial shape the future of South Africa, including Mandela's election as the country's first black president?
Free at Last
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowHave You Heard From Johannesburg is seven documentary stories chronicling the history of the global anti-apartheid movement that took on South Africa's entrenched apartheid regime and its international supporters who considered South Africa an ally in the Cold War.
Diving into the heart of the conflict, South Africans tell the story of the most important effort in the anti-apartheid campaign of the 80's: the alliance that brought together freedom fighters in South Africa as never before. A mass movement gains unprecedented momentum when three generations of resistance fighters band together as The United Democratic Front (UDF). Faced with growing international isolation, the apartheid government tries to win allies and convince the world of the merit of its piecemeal reforms even as it struggles to suppress open revolt, at times using savage secret tactics. The UDF protests climax in a fierce campaign of defiance, and internationally, Nelson Mandela becomes a household name as the campaign to free him ignites a worldwide crusade. Caught between an unstoppable internal mass movement and ongoing international pressure, the apartheid regime is finally forced to the negotiating table and at last lifts the decades-long bans on the ANC. After twenty-seven years in prison, Nelson Mandela is released, sparking a global celebration as he tours the world to thank all.
After 30 years in exile, Oliver Tambo is finally able to return to South Africa. But the struggle has taken a heavy toll on him and he will die one year before his comrade, Nelson Mandela, is elected the first black president of a democratic South Africa.
Nelson Mandela
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowThis is the story of the life of the pre-eminent figures of the twentieth century, Nelson Mandela, up until his release after 27 years of prison. It takes us from boyhood with roots firmly embedded in the soil of Africa, through his political training with the African National Congress into the years of repression. Deeply involved with all the great anti-apartheid activities - the Defiance Campaign, the Freedom Charter, the Treason Trial, boycotts and strikes - Mandela was finally betrayed and sentenced to life imprisonment.
But even in prison on Robben Island, seemingly completely isolated, he was able to win recognition in the outside world as a figure of supreme moral authority, until international mobilization against the apartheid regime forced his release in 1990.
Online Resources
- Nelson Mandela (1918–2013)Nelson Mandela’s death was followed by an outpouring of tributes in
his honor. South Africa’s Mail & Guardian published one entitled “We
Thank God for Madiba” by Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town who earned a Nobel Peace Prize for his work to
end apartheid. F.W. de Klerk, the president of South Africa (1989–94)
who helped to negotiate apartheid’s end and later became deputy president in the Mandela administration, issued a statement on the website of
his foundation. U.S. president Barack Obama, who considers Mandela
Nelson Mandela 33
a hero, delivered a speech at the memorial service for Mandela on December 10 in Johannesburg. Excerpts from their tributes appear below: - News from Robben Island: Journalists' Visits to Nelson Mandela during his ImprisonmentFrom 1952, when Nelson Mandela received his first banning order, the apartheid government attempted to remove the African National Congress leader from public life through issuing successive banning orders, censoring the publication of his words and image and finally sentencing him to life imprisonment in the maximum security prison, Robben Island. The notorious prison - a site of brutality, quarantine and resistance - was subject to the Prisons Act of 1959, which further shrouded it in secrecy. At the same time, the post-war growth of humanitarian and human rights law resulted in increasing global concern about conditions in prisons and, in turn, in the rise of activist organisations such as Southern Africa: The Imprisoned Society (SATIS), which advocated the release of apartheid's political prisoners. In order to prove that its prisons were humane, the state was pressured to allow human rights organisations and, increasingly, the media to have access. It was also pressured to permit access to Mandela, the country's most famous political prisoner. This article analyses four media visits to Mandela on the island (two in 1964, one in 1973 and one in 1977), when Mandela was interviewed and/or photographed, looking at the context that led to the authorisation of such visits, complex behind-the-scenes negotiations between journalists and the authorities, Mandela's attempted curation of his image, and the subsequent framing, publication, censorship and dissemination of information. The article argues that the state's attempts to control the discourse around Mandela and Robben Island grew increasingly less successful - particularly in overseas reports - and that Mandela's incarceration on the mysterious island contributed to his mythologisation. Even from a position of imprisonment, Mandela was careful to anticipate his reception abroad, establishing an irrefutable moral authority from the confines of his prison cell. His comments reveal his consistent appeal to western democratic sensibilities, his utilisation of human rights discourse and his careful negotiation of the issue of prison conditions.
Nelson Mandela
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowNelson Mandela is one of the most influential men in the world. Born into the Thembu royal family, he committed his life to the advancement of black people in South Africa. Mandela stood firmly as a public leader of the anti apartheid movement. In 1962, he was arrested and convicted of sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government and was sentenced to life in prison. AnInternational campaign ensued and in 1990 he was released after serving 27 years. In 1994 he was appointed as the first black president of South Africa. This is the riveting and controversial story of how Nelson Mandela defied adversity and inspired the world.