Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela , born the July 18th 1918 with Mvezo in old the Bantustan of the Transkei in the east of the the Cape Province (current Cape-Eastern), is a former president of the South Africa and was one of the leaders of the fight against the Apartheid.

In 1993, it receives with the South African president of the time, Frederik Willem de Klerk, the Nobel Prize of peace for their actions in favor of the end of apartheid and the establishment of the Démocratie in the country.

Following this combat and with that which it currently carries out against the Sida, it is a listened personality, particularly in Africa.

Biography

Family and studies

Wire of a royal family Thembu Xhosa, Rolihlahla Mandela was born the July 18th 1918 in the village from Qunu, at the edge of the Mbashe river with the Transkei (Cape-Eastern).

His/her father was Hendry Mphakanyiswa Gadla, chief of tribe Xhosa de Tembu. At the seven years age, Rolihlahla Mandela became the first family member to follow a schooling. It is a professor methodist who gives him the Western first name of Nelson.

His/her father dies of a Tuberculose whereas it is only nine years old, his mother accompanies it in Mqhekezweni so that it is made raise by a regent who will regard it as his own son.

According to the Xhosa habit, it is initiated at the sixteen years age and continues successfully its studies in Clarkebury Boarding Institute. It obtains its school certificate in two years (instead of three usually).

In 1934, Mandela is registered with the Wesleyan College of Fort Beaufort.

Graduate, it joined the Université of Strong Hare where it becomes acquainted with Oliver Tambo, which becomes his/her friend and colleague. At the end of his first year, member of the representative council of the students, it is implied in the boycott of the university payment. He is then returned university.

Following an arranged marriage not desired, he flees with Johannesburg where he passes his license by correspondence to the Université of South Africa (UNISA) then begins from the studies of Droit to the Université of Witwatersrand.

Political activity

It is in 1942 that Nelson Mandela joined the African National congress (ANC), member of the International Socialist, in order to fight against the political domination of the white minority. In 1944, with Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo, it founds the most dynamic league of youth of the ANC.

With the general elections of 1948, the victory of the national Parti Afrikaner involves the installation of its new policy which was called Apartheid.

In 1952, Mandela, in addition lawyer, assemble the distrust campaign against the government of Daniel Malan.

In 1955, whereas the National Party seems invited to last with the government, Mandela takes part in the drafting of the charter of the freedom whose fundamental program is the fight against the racial segregation and apartheid. At that time, Mandela and Tambo joined within their own cabinet and lavish free legal councils with the poorest blacks.

The December 5th 1956, Mandela and 150 other people are stopped and shown treason. They all are at the end of the day discharged, thanks to the pleadings of lawyers and with the fastidious legalism of the South-African courts in 1961.

After the Massacre of Sharpeville where it 79 died there and 178 wounded in 1960, the calls to the armed struggle are more pressing more especially as the ANC and the Panafrican Congrès are prohibited, its imprisoned or assigned leaders with residence. The non-violent strategy of the ANC is given up by Nelson Mandela which founds Umkhonto we Sizwe, network preaching the armed action.

Political prisoner

He was imprisoned in 1962 then condemned to five years of prison in 1963, and, after a lawsuit where he disputed the justice of Apartheid, condemned to detention with perpetuity in 1964 because of its clandestine political activities, becoming with the passing of years, most famous and one of oldest the political prisoner.

He was partly released on December 7th, 1988 and put in supervised Résidence. July 5th, 1989, it meets with the Cape the president Pieter Botha. It was definitively released on February 11th, 1990 on order of Frederik de Klerk which, for political reasons, put an end to the clandestinity of the ANC, and requested it to maintain civil peace in South Africa. The two men worked together to found the end of the Apartheid and a mode of transition.

Fights for peace and non-violence

He saw himself decreeing the Nobel Prize of peace with the president Frederik de Klerk in 1993. In 1979, it had received the Prix Nehru for Peace and in 1989, the Prix Kadhafi of the human rights.

President of South Africa

Following the first democratic elections of the April 27th 1994, gained largely by the ANC, Nelson Mandela is elected President of the Republic of South Africa and lends oath to Pretoria the May 10th 1994 in front of all the international political gotha, of Al Gore to Fidel Castro.

It governs the first nonracial government of the country, in fact a government of national union between the ANC, the National Party and the Zulu party Inkhata.

Its two vice-presidents are then Thabo Mbeki and Frederik de Klerk. In accordance with the negotiations of the transitional period, a commission “truth and reconciliation” is created to hear exactions and crimes committed under apartheid by the government, the security forces but also by the liberation movements. It is a question of confronting the past in order to turn the painful historical page and not of judging the crimes or noted exactions which, if necessary, in the absence of regrets of the protagonists, will be always spring of the penal courts.

President, Nelson Mandela is more a Head of State an head of government: he entrusts this role to Thabo Mbeki.

Preaching the national reconciliation, it goes even to Orania to meet Madam Hendrik Verwoerd and organizes a tea party in Pretoria bringing together the wives of the former Prime Ministers and presidents of the country with the wives of the former prisoners of Robben Island.

Internationally, it gives again a legitimacy in South Africa which it gives in example as regards national reconciliation.

Its autobiography a long way towards freedom is published in 1995 and tells its childhood, its political commitment, its long years of prison and its accession with the capacity.

In 1996, the National Party leaves the government shortly after the adoption of a new constitution.

It agrees to be mediator of several peace negotiations, in particular in the Africa of the big lakes.

In 1997, Mandela leaves the presidency of the ANC which falls to Thabo Mbeki.

At the end of its mandate, certain radicals criticize the absence of effectiveness of the policy of its government in the fight against the AIDS, in the fight against the racial inequalities or the slowness of the procedures of compensations for the blacks despoiled under apartheid.

In 1999, Thabo Mbeki succeeds to him the presidency of the republic. As it had engaged there at the time of its election, Nelson Mandela is not candidate for a second mandate and leaves the political life. To continue to fight for the values which are due to him in heart, it founds the Fondation Nelson Mandela.

After its presidency

After its divorce with Winnie Mandela, Nelson Mandela was remarié with Graça Machel, widow of the former president of the Mozambique, Samora Machel.

In January 2003, at the time of a speech to the International Women' S Forum , Mandela is firmly opposed to the attack the United States and the United Kingdom against the Iraq without the downstream of the the United Nations. He shows the president George W. Bush to want to plunge the world in the holocaust .

In September 2004, it was voted by plebiscite as a first South-African personality.

Fight against AIDS

Nelson Mandela is devoted today to the fight against the Sida.

The January 6th 2005, it publicly announces the death of his/her son, Makgatho Mandela 54 years old, continuations of the AIDS. By this gesture, he wants to show that it is time to break the Tabou which surrounds this disease in many countries. He declares on this subject: We should not dissimulate the cause of dead members of our families, which we respect, because it is the only means of being able to render comprehensible with the population which the AIDS is an ordinary disease. This is why we today made you come to announce that my son had died of the AIDS .

Many personalities and politicians saw members of their family dying of the AIDS, but they hid it, because this disease is regarded as a shame. Among the citizens lambda , it very often arrives that the people reached are rejected by their entourage, are condemned to die and are only isolated.

Inspiring Mandela musicians

• Johnny Clegg dedicated to him to its song Asimbonanga
• the group Simple Minds dedicated to him its song Mandela Day
• Juan Luis Guerra in its song Carta of amor exclaims (in Spanish) " Release Mandela"
• Several personalities of the music joined him for the " concerts 46664" (number of number of prisoner of Mandela) in order to sensitize the international community with the African problems.
• Michel Fugain evokes the captivity of Nelson Mandela in its song freedom require of it

References

Random links:

Capgemini | Fontanellato | Jean Houllet Baptist | White Mondeuse | Newspaper of the Africanists