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In this June 15, 1990 file
photo, Pope John Paul II, right, shakes hands with Nelson Mandela, deputy
leader of African National Congress, during a private audience at the Vatican.
South Africa's president Jacob Zuma says, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2013, that Mandela
has died. He was 95. (AP Photo/Claudio Luffoli, File)
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JOHANNESBURG - Nelson Mandela, who
became one of the world's most beloved statesmen and a colossus of the 20th
century when he emerged from 27 years in prison to negotiate an end to white
minority rule in South Africa, has died. He was 95.
South African President Jacob Zuma made
the announcement at a news conference late Thursday, saying "we've lost
our greatest son."
His death closed the final chapter in
South Africa's struggle to cast off apartheid, leaving the world with indelible
memories of a man of astonishing grace and good humour. Rock concerts
celebrated his birthday. Hollywood stars glorified him on screen. And his regal
bearing, greying hair and raspy voice made him instantly recognizable across
the globe.
As South Africa's first black
president, the ex-boxer, lawyer and prisoner No. 46664 paved the way to racial
reconciliation with well-chosen gestures of forgiveness. He lunched with the
prosecutor who sent him to jail, sang the apartheid-era Afrikaans anthem at his
inauguration, and travelled hundreds of miles to have tea with the widow of
Hendrik Verwoerd, the prime minister at the time he was imprisoned.
His most memorable gesture came when he
strode onto the field before the 1995 Rugby World Cup final in Johannesburg.
When he came on the field in South African colours to congratulate the
victorious South African team, he brought the overwhelmingly white crowd of
63,000 to its feet, chanting "Nelson! Nelson! Nelson!"
For he had marched headlong into a
bastion of white Afrikanerdom — the temple of South African rugby — and made
its followers feel they belonged in the new South Africa.
At the same time, Mandela was himself
uneasy with the idea of being an icon and he did not escape criticism as an
individual and a politician, though much of it was muted by his status as a
unassailable symbol of decency and principle. As president, he failed to craft
a lasting formula for overcoming South Africa's biggest post-apartheid problems,
including one of the world's widest gaps between rich and poor. In his
writings, he pondered the heavy cost to his family of his decision to devote
himself to the struggle against apartheid.
He had been convicted of treason and
sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964 for leading a campaign of sabotage
against the government, and sent to the notorious Robben Island prison. It was
forbidden to quote him or publish his photo, yet he and other jailed members of
his banned African National Congress were able to smuggle out messages of
guidance to the anti-apartheid crusade.
As time passed — the "long,
lonely, wasted years," as he termed them — international awareness of
apartheid grew more acute. By the time Mandela turned 70 he was the world's
most famous political prisoner. Such were his mental reserves, though, that he
turned down conditional offers of freedom from his apartheid jailers and even
found a way to benefit from confinement.
"People tend to measure themselves
by external accomplishments, but jail allows a person to focus on internal
ones; such as honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, generosity and an
absence of variety," Mandela says in one of the many quotations displayed
at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. "You learn to look into yourself."
Thousands died, were tortured and were
imprisoned in the decades-long struggle against apartheid, so that when Mandela
emerged from prison in 1990, smiling and waving to the crowds, the image became
an international icon of freedom to rival the fall of the Berlin Wall.
South Africa's white rulers had
portrayed Mandela as the spearhead of a communist revolution and insisted that
black majority rule would usher in the chaos and bloodshed that had beset many
other African countries as they shook off colonial rule.
Yet since apartheid ended, South Africa
has held four parliamentary elections and elected three presidents, always
peacefully, setting an example on a continent where democracy is still new and
fragile. Its democracy has flaws, and the African National Congress has
struggled to deliver on promises. It is a front runner ahead of 2014 elections,
but corruption scandals and other missteps have undercut some of the promise of
earlier years.
"We have confounded the prophets
of doom and achieved a bloodless revolution. We have restored the dignity of
every South African," Mandela said shortly before stepping down as
president in 1999 at age 80.
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born July
18, 1918, the son of a tribal chief in Transkei, one of the future "Bantustans,"
independent republics set up by the apartheid regime to cement the separation
of whites and blacks.
Mandela's royal upbringing gave him a
dignified bearing that became his hallmark. Many South Africans of all races
would later call him by his clan name, Madiba, as a token of affection and
respect.
Growing up at a time when virtually all
of Africa was under European colonial rule, Mandela attended Methodist schools
before being admitted to the black University of Fort Hare in 1938. He was
expelled two years later for his role in a student strike.
He moved to Johannesburg and worked as
a policeman at a gold mine, boxed as an amateur heavyweight and studied law.
His first wife, nurse Evelyn Mase, bore
him four children. A daughter died in infancy, a son was killed in a car crash
in 1970 and another son died of AIDS in 2005. The couple divorced in 1957 and
Evelyn died in 2004.
Mandela began his rise through the
anti-apartheid movement in 1944, when he helped form the ANC Youth League.
He organized a campaign in 1952 to
encourage defiance of laws that segregated schools, marriage, housing and job
opportunities. The government retaliated by barring him from attending
gatherings and leaving Johannesburg, the first of many "banning"
orders he was to endure.
After a two-day nationwide strike was
crushed by police, he and a small group of ANC colleagues decided on military
action and Mandela pushed to form the movement's guerrilla wing, Umkhonto we
Sizwe, or Spear of the Nation.
He was arrested in 1962 and sentenced
to five years' hard labour for leaving the country illegally and inciting
blacks to strike.
A year later, police uncovered the
ANC's underground headquarters on a farm near Johannesburg and seized documents
outlining plans for a guerrilla campaign. At a time when African colonies were
one by one becoming independent states, Mandela and seven co-defendants were
sentenced to life in prison.
"I do not deny that I planned
sabotage," he told the court. "I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness,
nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and
sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after years of
tyranny, exploitation and oppression of my people by whites."
The ANC's armed wing was later involved
in a series of high-profile bombings that killed civilians, and many in the
white minority viewed the imprisoned Mandela as a terrorist. Up until 2008,
when President George W. Bush rescinded the order, he could not visit the U.S.
without a waiver from the secretary of state certifying he was not a terrorist.
From the late 1960s South Africa
gradually became an international pariah, expelled from the U.N., banned from
the Olympics. In 1973 Mandela refused a government offer of release on
condition he agree to confine himself to his native Transkei. In 1982 he and
other top ANC inmates were moved off Robben Island to a mainland prison. Three
years later Mandela was again offered freedom, and again he refused unless
segregation laws were scrapped and the government negotiated with the ANC.
In 1989, F.W. de Klerk became
president. This Afrikaner recognized the end was near for white-ruled South
Africa. Mandela, for his part, continued, even in his last weeks in prison, to
advocate nationalizing banks, mines and monopoly industries — a stance that
frightened the white business community.
But talks were already underway, with
Mandela being spirited out of prison to meet a white Cabinet minister.
On Feb. 11, 1990, inmate No. 46664, who
had once been refused permission to leave prison for his mother's funeral, went
free and walked hand-in-hand with Winnie, his wife. Blacks across the country
erupted in joy — as did many whites.
Mandela took charge of the ANC, shared
the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with de Klerk and was elected president by a
landslide in South Africa's first all-race election the following year.
At his inauguration, he stood hand on
heart, saluted by white generals as he sang along to two anthems: the
apartheid-era Afrikaans "Die Stem," ("The Voice") and the
African "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" ("Lord Bless Africa").
To black South Africans expecting a
speedy new deal, Mandela pleaded for patience. The millions denied proper
housing, schools and health care under apartheid had expected the revolution to
deliver quick fixes, but Mandela recognized he had to embrace free market
policies to keep white-dominated big business on his side and attract foreign
investment.
For all his saintly image, Mandela had
an autocratic streak. When black journalists mildly criticized his government,
he painted them as stooges of the whites who owned the media. Whites with
complaints were dismissed as pining for their old privileges.
He denounced Bush as a warmonger and
the U.S. having "committed unspeakable atrocities in the world." When
asked about his closeness to Fidel Castro and Moammar Gadhafi despite human
rights violations in the countries they ruled, Mandela explained that he
wouldn't forsake supporters of the anti-apartheid struggle.
With his fellow Nobelist, Archbishop
Desmond Tutu, he set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which allowed
human rights offenders of all races to admit their crimes publicly in return
for lenient treatment. It proved to be a kind of national therapy that would
become a model for other countries emerging from prolonged strife.
He increasingly left the governing to
Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, who took over when Mandela's term ended in June
1999 and he declined to seek another — a rarity among African presidents.
"I must step down while there are
one or two people who admire me," Mandela joked at the time. When he
retired, he said he was going to stand on a street with a sign that said:
"Unemployed, no job. New wife and large family to support."
His marriage to Winnie had fallen apart
after his release and he was now married to Graca Machel, the widowed former
first lady of neighbouring Mozambique.
He is survived by Machel; his daughter
Makaziwe by his first marriage, and daughters Zindzi and Zenani by his second.
Source: http://news.ca.msn.com
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