Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (/mænˈdɛlə/ man-DEH-lə;[1] Xhosa: [xolíɬaɬa mandɛ̂ːla]; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid activist, politician, and statesman who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997.
A Xhosa, Mandela was born into the Thembu royal family in Mvezo, South Africa. He studied law at the University of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. There he became involved in anti-colonial and African nationalist politics, joining the ANC in 1943 and co-founding its Youth League in 1944. After the National Party's white-only government established apartheid, a system of racial segregation that privileged whites, Mandela and the ANC committed themselves to its overthrow. He was appointed president of the ANC's Transvaal branch, rising to prominence for his involvement in the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the 1955 Congress of the People. He was repeatedly arrested for seditious activities and was unsuccessfully prosecuted in the 1956 Treason Trial. Influenced by Marxism, he secretly joined the banned South African Communist Party (SACP). Although initially committed to non-violent protest, in association with the SACP he co-founded the militant uMkhonto we Sizwe in 1961 after the Sharpeville massacre and led a sabotage campaign against the apartheid government. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1962, and, following the Rivonia Trial, was sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiring to overthrow the state. Subsequently, the United States designated Mandela a terrorist until 2008.[2]
Mandela served 27 years in prison, split between Robben Island, Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison. Amid growing domestic and international pressure and fears of racial civil war, President F. W. de Klerk released him in 1990. Mandela and de Klerk led efforts to negotiate an end to apartheid, which resulted in the 1994 multiracial general election in which Mandela led the ANC to victory and became president. Leading a broad coalition government which promulgated a new constitution, Mandela emphasised reconciliation between the country's racial groups and created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses. Economically, his administration retained its predecessor's liberal framework despite his own socialist beliefs, also introducing measures to encourage land reform, combat poverty and expand healthcare services. Internationally, Mandela acted as mediator in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial and served as secretary-general of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1998 to 1999. He declined a second presidential term and was succeeded by his deputy, Thabo Mbeki. Mandela became an elder statesman and focused on combating poverty and HIV/AIDS through the charitable Nelson Mandela Foundation.
Mandela was a controversial figure for much of his life. Although critics on the right denounced him as a communist terrorist and those on the far left deemed him too eager to negotiate and reconcile with apartheid's supporters, he gained international acclaim for his activism. Globally regarded as an icon of democracy and social justice, he received more than 250 honours, including the Nobel Peace Prize. He is held in deep respect within South Africa, where he is often referred to by his Thembu clan name, Madiba, and described as the "Father of the Nation".
Early life
Childhood: 1918–1934
Main article: Mandela family
Mandela was born on 18 July 1918, in the village of Mvezo in Umtata, then part of South Africa's Cape Province.[3] Given the forename Rolihlahla,[a] a Xhosa term colloquially meaning "troublemaker",[6] in later years he became known by his clan name, Madiba.[7] His patrilineal great-grandfather, Ngubengcuka, was ruler of the Thembu Kingdom in the Transkeian Territories of South Africa's modern Eastern Cape province.[8] One of Ngubengcuka's sons, named Mandela, was Nelson's grandfather and the source of his surname.[9] Because Mandela was the king's child by a wife of the Ixhiba clan, a so-called "Left-Hand House", the descendants of his cadet branch of the royal family were morganatic, ineligible to inherit the throne but recognised as hereditary royal councillors.[10]
Nelson Mandela's father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa Mandela, was a local chief and councillor to the monarch; he was appointed to the position in 1915, after his predecessor was accused of corruption by a governing white magistrate.[11] In 1926, Gadla was also sacked for corruption, but Nelson was told that his father had lost his job for standing up to the magistrate's unreasonable demands.[12] A devotee of the god Qamata,[13] Gadla was a polygamist with four wives, four sons and nine daughters, who lived in different villages. Nelson's mother was Gadla's third wife, Nosekeni Fanny, daughter of Nkedama of the Right Hand House and a member of the amaMpemvu clan of the Xhosa.[14]
No one in my family had ever attended school ... On the first day of school my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name. This was the custom among Africans in those days and was undoubtedly due to the British bias of our education. That day, Miss Mdingane told me that my new name was Nelson. Why this particular name, I have no idea.
— Mandela, 1994[15]
Mandela later stated that his early life was dominated by traditional Xhosa custom and taboo.[16] He grew up with two sisters in his mother's kraal in the village of Qunu, where he tended herds as a cattle-boy and spent much time outside with other boys.[17] Both his parents were illiterate, but his mother, being a devout Christian, sent him to a local Methodist school when he was about seven. Baptised a Methodist, Mandela was given the English forename of "Nelson" by his teacher.[18] When Mandela was about nine, his father came to stay at Qunu, where he died of an undiagnosed ailment that Mandela believed to be lung disease.[19] Feeling "cut adrift", he later said that he inherited his father's "proud rebelliousness" and "stubborn sense of fairness".[20]
Mandela's mother took him to the "Great Place" palace at Mqhekezweni, where he was entrusted to the guardianship of the Thembu regent, Chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo. Although he did not see his mother again for many years, Mandela felt that Jongintaba and his wife Noengland treated him as their own child, raising him alongside their children.[21] As Mandela attended church services every Sunday with his guardians, Christianity became a significant part of his life.[22] He attended a Methodist mission school located next to the palace, where he studied English, Xhosa, history and geography.[23] He developed a love of African history, listening to the tales told by elderly visitors to the palace, and was influenced by the anti-imperialist rhetoric of a visiting chief, Joyi.[24] Nevertheless, at the time he considered the European colonizers not as oppressors but as benefactors who had brought education and other benefits to southern Africa.[25] Aged 16, he, Justice and several other boys travelled to Tyhalarha to undergo the ulwaluko circumcision ritual that symbolically marked their transition from boys to men; afterwards he was given the name Dalibunga.[26]
Clarkebury, Healdtown, and Fort Hare: 1934–1940
Photograph of Mandela, taken in Umtata, 1937
Intending to gain skills needed to become a privy councillor for the Thembu royal house, Mandela began his secondary education in 1933 at Clarkebury Methodist High School in Engcobo, a Western-style institution that was the largest school for black Africans in Thembuland.[27] Made to socialise with other students on an equal basis, he claimed that he lost his "stuck up" attitude, becoming best friends with a girl for the first time; he began playing sports and developed his lifelong love of gardening.[28] He completed his Junior Certificate in two years,[29] and in 1937 he moved to Healdtown, the Methodist college in Fort Beaufort attended by most Thembu royalty, including Justice.[30] The headmaster emphasised the superiority of European culture and government, but Mandela became increasingly interested in native African culture, making his first non-Xhosa friend, a speaker of Sotho, and coming under the influence of one of his favourite teachers, a Xhosa who broke taboo by marrying a Sotho.[31] Mandela spent much of his spare time at Healdtown as a long-distance runner and boxer, and in his second year he became a prefect.[32]
In 1939, with Jongintaba's backing, Mandela began work on a BA degree at the University of Fort Hare, an elite black institution of approximately 150 students in Alice, Eastern Cape. He studied English, anthropology, politics, "native administration", and Roman Dutch law in his first year, desiring to become an interpreter or clerk in the Native Affairs Department.[33] Mandela stayed in the Wesley House dormitory, befriending his own kinsman, K. D. Matanzima, as well as Oliver Tambo, who became a close friend and comrade for decades to come.[34] He took up ballroom dancing,[35] performed in a drama society play about Abraham Lincoln,[36] and gave Bible classes in the local community as part of the Student Christian Association.[37] Although he had friends who held connections to the African National Congress (ANC) who wanted South Africa to be independent of the British Empire, Mandela avoided any involvement with the nascent movement,[38] and became a vocal supporter of the British war effort when the Second World War broke out.[39] At the end of his first year he became involved in a students' representative council (SRC) boycott against the quality of food, for which he was suspended from the university; he never returned to complete his degree.[40]
Arriving in Johannesburg: 1941–1943
Returning to Mqhekezweni in December 1940, Mandela found that Jongintaba had arranged marriages for him and Justice; dismayed, they fled to Johannesburg via Queenstown, arriving in April 1941.[41] Mandela found work as a night watchman at Crown Mines, his "first sight of South African capitalism in action", but was fired when the induna (headman) discovered that he was a runaway.[42] He stayed with a cousin in George Goch Township, who introduced Mandela to realtor and ANC activist Walter Sisulu. The latter secured Mandela a job as an articled clerk at the law firm of Witkin, Sidelsky and Eidelman, a company run by Lazar Sidelsky, a liberal Jew sympathetic to the ANC's cause.[43] At the firm, Mandela befriended Gaur Radebe—a Hlubi member of the ANC and Communist Party—and Nat Bregman, a Jewish communist who became his first white friend.[44] Mandela attended Communist Party gatherings, where he was impressed that Europeans, Africans, Indians, and Coloureds mixed as equals. He later stated that he did not join the party because its atheism conflicted with his Christian faith, and because he saw the South African struggle as being racially based rather than as class warfare.[45] To continue his higher education, Mandela signed up to a University of South Africa correspondence course, working on his bachelor's degree at night.[46]
Earning a small wage, Mandela rented a room in the house of the Xhoma family in the Alexandra township; despite being rife with poverty, crime and pollution, Alexandra always remained a special place for him.[47] Although embarrassed by his poverty, he briefly dated a Swazi woman before unsuccessfully courting his landlord's daughter.[48] To save money and be closer to downtown Johannesburg, Mandela moved into the compound of the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association, living among miners of various tribes; as the compound was visited by various chiefs, he once met the Queen Regent of Basutoland.[49] In late 1941, Jongintaba visited Johannesburg—there forgiving Mandela for running away—before returning to Thembuland, where he died in the winter of 1942.[50] After he passed his BA exams in early 1943, Mandela returned to Johannesburg to follow a political path as a lawyer rather than become a privy councillor in Thembuland.[51]
Early revolutionary activity
Law studies and the ANC Youth League: 1943–1949
Mandela began studying law at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he was the only black African student and faced racism. There, he befriended liberal and communist European, Jewish and Indian students, among them Joe Slovo and Ruth First.[52] Becoming increasingly politicised, Mandela marched in August 1943 in support of a successful bus boycott to reverse fare rises.[53] Joining the ANC, he was increasingly influenced by Sisulu, spending time with other activists at Sisulu's Orlando house, including his old friend Oliver Tambo.[54] In 1943, Mandela met Anton Lembede, an ANC member affiliated with the "Africanist" branch of African nationalism, which was virulently opposed to a racially united front against colonialism and imperialism or to an alliance with the communists.[55] Despite his friendships with non-blacks and communists, Mandela embraced Lembede's views, believing that black Africans should be entirely independent in their struggle for political self-determination.[56] Deciding on the need for a youth wing to mass-mobilise Africans in opposition to their subjugation, Mandela was among a delegation that approached ANC president Alfred Bitini Xuma on the subject at his home in Sophiatown; the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) was founded on Easter Sunday 1944 in the Bantu Men's Social Centre, with Lembede as president and Mandela as a member of its executive committee.[57]
Mandela and Evelyn in July 1944 at Walter and Albertina Sisulu's wedding party in the Bantu Men's Social Centre[58]
At Sisulu's house, Mandela met Evelyn Mase, a trainee nurse and ANC activist from Engcobo, Transkei. Entering a relationship and marrying in October 1944, they initially lived with her relatives until moving into a rented house in the township of Orlando in early 1946.[59] Their first child, Madiba "Thembi" Thembekile, was born in February 1945; a daughter, Makaziwe, was born in 1947 but died of meningitis nine months later.[60] Mandela enjoyed home life, welcoming his mother and his sister, Leabie, to stay with him.[61] In early 1947, his three years of articles ended at Witkin, Sidelsky and Eidelman, and he decided to become a full-time student, subsisting on loans from the Bantu Welfare Trust.[62]
In July 1947, Mandela rushed Lembede, who was ill, to hospital, where he died; he was succeeded as ANCYL president by the more moderate Peter Mda, who agreed to co-operate with communists and non-blacks, appointing Mandela ANCYL secretary.[63] Mandela disagreed with Mda's approach, and in December 1947 supported an unsuccessful measure to expel communists from the ANCYL, considering their ideology un-African.[64] In 1947, Mandela was elected to the executive committee of the ANC's Transvaal Province branch, serving under regional president C. S. Ramohanoe. When Ramohanoe acted against the wishes of the committee by co-operating with Indians and communists, Mandela was one of those who forced his resignation.[65]
In the South African general election in 1948, in which only whites were permitted to vote, the Afrikaner-dominated Herenigde Nasionale Party under Daniel François Malan took power, soon uniting with the Afrikaner Party to form the National Party. Openly racialist, the party codified and expanded racial segregation with new apartheid legislation.[66] Gaining increasing influence in the ANC, Mandela and his party cadre allies began advocating direct action against apartheid, such as boycotts and strikes, influenced by the tactics already employed by South Africa's Indian community. Xuma did not support these measures and was removed from the presidency in a vote of no confidence, replaced by James Moroka and a more militant executive committee containing Sisulu, Mda, Tambo and Godfrey Pitje.[67] Mandela later related that he and his colleagues had "guided the ANC to a more radical and revolutionary path."[68] Having devoted his time to politics, Mandela failed his final year at Witwatersrand three times; he was ultimately denied his degree in December 1949.[69]
Defiance Campaign and Transvaal ANC Presidency: 1950–1954
The ANC's tricolour flag; black for the people, green for the land, and gold for the resources of Africa[70]
Mandela took Xuma's place on the ANC national executive in March 1950,[71] and that same year was elected national president of the ANCYL.[72] In March, the Defend Free Speech Convention was held in Johannesburg, bringing together African, Indian and communist activists to call a May Day general strike in protest against apartheid and white minority rule. Mandela opposed the strike because it was multi-racial and not ANC-led, but a majority of black workers took part, resulting in increased police repression and the introduction of the Suppression of Communism Act, 1950, affecting the actions of all protest groups.[73] At the ANC national conference of December 1951, he continued arguing against a racially united front, but was outvoted.[74]
Thereafter, Mandela rejected Lembede's Africanism and embraced the idea of a multi-racial front against apartheid.[75] Influenced by friends like Moses Kotane and by the Soviet Union's support for wars of national liberation, his mistrust of communism broke down and he began reading literature by Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Zedong, eventually embracing the Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism.[76] Commenting on communism, he later stated that he "found [himself] strongly drawn to the idea of a classless society which, to [his] mind, was similar to traditional African culture where life was shared and communal."[77] In April 1952, Mandela began work at the H.M. Basner law firm, which was owned by a communist,[78] although his increasing commitment to work and activism meant he spent less time with his family.[79]
In 1952, the ANC began preparation for a joint Defiance Campaign against apartheid with Indian and communist groups, founding a National Voluntary Board to recruit volunteers. The campaign was designed to follow the path of nonviolent resistance influenced by Mahatma Gandhi; some supported this for ethical reasons, but Mandela instead considered it pragmatic.[80] At a Durban rally on 22 June, Mandela addressed an assembled crowd of 10,000 people, initiating the campaign protests for which he was arrested and briefly interned in Marshall Square prison.[81] These events established Mandela as one of the best-known black political figures in South Africa.[82] With further protests, the ANC's membership grew from 20,000 to 100,000 members; the government responded with mass arrests and introduced the Public Safety Act, 1953 to permit martial law.[83] In May, authorities banned Transvaal ANC president J. B. Marks from making public appearances; unable to maintain his position, he recommended Mandela as his successor. Although Africanists opposed his candidacy, Mandela was elected to be regional president in October.[84]
Mandela's former home in the Johannesburg township of Soweto
In July 1952, Mandela was arrested under the Suppression of Communism Act and stood trial as one of the 21 accused—among them Moroka, Sisulu and Yusuf Dadoo—in Johannesburg. Found guilty of "statutory communism", a term that the government used to describe most opposition to apartheid, their sentence of nine months' hard labour was suspended for two years.[85] In December, Mandela was given a six-month ban fr
Personality and personal life
Mandela on a visit to Australia in 2009; he is wearing one of the brightly coloured garments that became known as "Madiba shirts".
Mandela was widely considered a charismatic leader,[398] described by biographer Mary Benson as "a born mass leader who could not help magnetizing people".[399] He was highly image conscious and throughout his life always sought out fine quality clothes, with many commentators believing that he carried himself in a regal manner.[400] His aristocratic heritage was repeatedly emphasised by supporters, thus contributing to his "charismatic power".[401] While living in Johannesburg in the 1950s, he cultivated the image of the "African gentleman", having "the pressed clothes, correct manners, and modulated public speech" associated with such a position.[402] In doing so, Lodge argued that Mandela became "one of the first media politicians ... embodying a glamour and a style that projected visually a brave new African world of modernity and freedom".[368] Mandela was known to change his clothes several times a day, and he became so associated with highly coloured Batik shirts after assuming the presidency that they came to be known as "Madiba shirts".[403][404]
For political scientists Betty Glad and Robert Blanton, Mandela was an "exceptionally intelligent, shrewd, and loyal leader".[405] His official biographer, Anthony Sampson, commented that he was a "master of imagery and performance", excelling at presenting himself well in press photographs and producing sound bites.[406] His public speeches were presented in a formal, stiff manner, and often consisted of clichéd set phrases.[407] He typically spoke slowly, and carefully chose his words.[408] Although he was not considered a great orator, his speeches conveyed "his personal commitment, charm and humour".[409]
Mandela was a private person who often concealed his emotions and confided in very few people.[410] Privately, he lived an austere life, refusing to drink alcohol or smoke, and even as president made his own bed.[411] Renowned for his mischievous sense of humour,[412] he was known for being both stubborn and loyal,[413] and at times exhibited a quick temper.[414] He was typically friendly and welcoming, and appeared relaxed in conversation with everyone, including his opponents.[415] A self-described Anglophile, he claimed to have lived by the "trappings of British style and manners".[416] Constantly polite and courteous, he was attentive to all, irrespective of their age or status, and often talked to children or servants.[417] He was known for his ability to find common ground with very different communities.[418] In later life, he always looked for the best in people, even defending political opponents to his allies, who sometimes thought him too trusting of others.[419] He was fond of Indian cuisine,[420] and had a lifelong interest in archaeology[421] and boxing.[422]
The significance of Mandela can be considered in two related ways. First, he has provided through his personal presence as a benign and honest conviction politician, skilled at exerting power but not obsessed with it to the point of view of excluding principles, a man who struggled to display respect to all ... Second, in so doing he was able to be a hero and a symbol to an array of otherwise unlikely mates through his ability, like all brilliant nationalist politicians, to speak to very different audiences effectively at once.
— Bill Freund, academic[423]
He was raised in the Methodist denomination of Christianity; the Methodist Church of Southern Africa claimed that he retained his allegiance to them throughout his life.[424] On analysing Mandela's writings, the theologian Dion Forster described him as a Christian humanist, although added that his thought relied to a greater extent on the Southern African concept of Ubuntu than on Christian theology.[425] According to Sampson, Mandela never had "a strong religious faith" however,[426] while Elleke Boehmer stated that Mandela's religious belief was "never robust".[427]
Mandela was very self-conscious about being a man and regularly made references to manhood.[428] He was heterosexual,[429] and biographer Fatima Meer said that he was "easily tempted" by women.[430] Another biographer, Martin Meredith, characterised him as being "by nature a romantic", highlighting that he had relationships with various women.[431] Mandela was married three times, fathered six children, and had seventeen grandchildren and at least seventeen great-grandchildren.[432] He could be stern and demanding of his children, although he was more affectionate with his grandchildren.[433] His first marriage was to Evelyn Ntoko Mase in October 1944;[434] they divorced in March 1958 under the multiple strains of his alleged adultery and constant absences, devotion to revolutionary agitation, and the fact that she was a Jehovah's Witness, a religion requiring political neutrality.[435] Mandela's second wife was the social worker Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, whom he married in June 1958.[436] They divorced in March 1996.[437] Mandela married his third wife, Graça Machel, on his 80th birthday in July 1998.[438]
Reception and legacy
Flowers left at the Mandela statue in London's Parliament Square following his death
By the time of his death, within South Africa Mandela was widely considered both "the father of the nation"[439] and "the founding father of democracy".[440] Outside of South Africa, he was a "global icon",[441] with the scholar of South African studies Rita Barnard describing him as "one of the most revered figures of our time".[442] One biographer considered him "a modern democratic hero".[443] Some have portrayed Mandela in messianic terms,[444] in contrast to his own statement that "I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances."[445] He is often cited alongside Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. as one of the 20th century's exemplary anti-racist and anti-colonial leaders.[446] Boehmer described him as "a totem of the totemic values of our age: toleration and liberal democracy"[447] and "a universal symbol of social justice".[448]
Mandela's international fame emerged during his incarceration in the 1980s, when he became the world's most famous political prisoner, a symbol of the anti-apartheid cause, and an icon for millions who embraced the ideal of human equality.[253][449][450][451] In 1986, Mandela's biographer characterised him as "the embodiment of the struggle for liberation" in South Africa.[452] Meredith stated that in becoming "a potent symbol of resistance" to apartheid during the 1980s, he had gained "mythical status" internationally.[453] Sampson commented that even during his life, this myth had become "so powerful that it blurs the realities", converting Mandela into "a secular saint".[454] Within a decade of the end of his presidency, Mandela's era was widely thought of as "a golden age of hope and harmony",[455] with much nostalgia being expressed for it.[456] His name was often invoked by those criticising his successors like Mbeki and Zuma.[457] Across the world, Mandela earned international acclaim for his activism in overcoming apartheid and fostering racial reconciliation,[411] coming to be viewed as "a moral authority" with a great "concern for truth".[458] Mandela's iconic status has been blamed for concealing the complexities of his life.[459]
Mandela generated controversy throughout his career as an activist and politician,[460] having detractors on both the right and the radical left.[461] During the 1980s, Mandela was widely labelled a terrorist by prominent political figures in the Western world for his embrace of political violence.[462] According to Thatcher, for instance, the ANC was "a typical terrorist organisation".[463] The US government's State and Defense departments officially designated the ANC as a terrorist organisation, resulting in Mandela remaining on their terrorism watch-list until 2008.[464] On the left, some voices in the ANC—among them Frank B. Wilderson III—accused him of selling out for agreeing to enter negotiations with the apartheid government and for not implementing the reforms of the Freedom Charter during his presidency.[465] According to Barnard, "there is also a sense in which his chiefly bearing and mode of conduct, the very respect and authority he accrued in representing his nation in his own person, went against the spirit of democracy",[460] and concerns were similarly expressed that he placed his own status and celebrity above the transformation of his country.[466] His government would be criticised for its failure to deal with both the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the high levels of poverty in South Africa.[460]
Orders, decorations, monuments, and honours
Main article: List of awards and honours received by Nelson Mandela
Over the course of his life, Mandela was given over 250 awards, accolades, prizes,