On an unusually sunny morning in the sky above the city of Ottawa, the capital of Canada, in early March, a black man dressed in elegant clothes took to a stage crowded with businessmen, to announce the opening of an auction to sell three gold-cast copies of the hand of a great historical figure. The auction ended with their sale for ten million dollars, with the condition that it be the focus of a traveling exhibition around the world, so that these relics would not be deprived of inspiring peoples.. That was the hand of the South African leader Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela… a politician and activist who spent 27 years of his life in the prison of the apartheid regime in South Africa. When he came out, he defended his jailers and was keen to overcome accumulated hatred for the sake of national harmony… before he was elected in 1994 as the first black president of South Africa… to die at the end of 2013, leaving behind him a great history of rejecting injustice, fighting racism, and consolidating forgiveness and peace.
Birth and upbringing:
Nelson Mandela was born on July 18, 1918 in the town of “Mvezo” in the Transkei region of South Africa. His father named him “Dolihlahla” (the troublemaker in Afrikaans), but he was called “Nelson” at the primary mission school after his white teachers were unable to pronounce his name. His father died when he was nine years old, so he moved to live with the ruler of the “Thambo” people, Gungintabadalindyebo, who sponsored him to repay his father’s favor, who had recommended him as chief of the “Thambo” tribe years earlier. Nelson was one of the few African children who were able to enter primary school. He completed his studies in mission schools, achieved remarkable success and excellence in his studies, and joined Fort Harry College. But he was expelled from it along with his companion Oliver Tambo in 1940 due to his participation in student protests against the policy of racial discrimination. He was unable to complete his studies regularly, so he completed them by correspondence in Johannesburg, and obtained a Bachelor of Laws. He did not occupy himself with administrative government jobs, and they were not available to black people like him who rejected racial discrimination, so he opened a law office in 1952 with his companion Oliver Tambo. It was the first law office for black people in South Africa.
Political experience
He began his journey into politics at the age of twenty. In 1942, he joined the African National Congress Party, which opposed the policy of racial discrimination, and became active in it. He worked to transform it into a mass movement that attracted various African groups. He was one of the founders of the party’s “Youth Union.” When the party began what was known as the “Campaign of Defiance,” Mandela moved within the country inciting resistance to racial discrimination laws. He was given a suspended prison sentence and was banned from leaving Johannesburg for six months, which he used to prepare a plan to transform the party’s branches into secret resistance cells. After the events of the “Shareville” massacre in 1960, in which police opened fire on demonstrators and hundreds of people were killed and wounded, the authorities banned all activities of the African National Congress, and Mandela was arrested. After his release in 1961, he led the underground resistance. He traveled to Algeria in 1962 to arrange training courses for members of the party’s military wing. After his return, he was arrested on charges of leaving the country illegally and inciting strikes and acts of violence. When his trial began, he took up his own defence. He described his condition in the trial by saying, “During my trial, I entered the courtroom wearing a Xhosa garment made of tiger skin. I chose this garment to highlight the symbolic meaning of my being an African man being tried in a white man’s court. I was carrying on my shoulders the history of my people and their cultures, and I was certain that my appearance in that garment would frighten the authority of Africa’s culture and civilization.” He was sentenced to five years in prison, and before completing it, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964. This was the beginning of a journey of struggle, determination, and patience that lasted more than a quarter of a century, during which Mandela turned into an icon of freedom, and a symbol of struggle and struggle. His resolve did not weaken despite the injustice and darkness of the prison, and he did not abandon or back down from what he believed in. He rejected an offer from his prison guards to release him in exchange for his return to his tribe and abandoning resistance, and he rejected another offer after that in exchange for declaring his rejection of violence. During his imprisonment, he became an international symbol of the struggle against racism, and the South African government yielded to internal and international pressure and released him in 1990, after more than 27 years in prison.
Peace leadership:
After his release, he announced the cessation of the armed struggle and led negotiations with the white President of South Africa, Frederick William Declerk, to end racial discrimination and achieve his ambition, which he expressed in his book My Long Journey on the Road to Freedom: “When I came out of prison, my mission was to liberate the oppressor and the oppressed together.” South Africa emerged from the apartheid system and adopted a new, pluralistic constitution. Mandela was elected as its president in 1994, making him the first black president to rule it. In 1999, he decided to retire and did not run for a second presidential term. He worked in charitable work through the Mandela AIDS Charitable Foundation and the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. As a result, he received many international awards, medals, and honorary certificates, most notably the Nobel Peace Prize, which he received in 1993, shared with the last president of the apartheid regime in South Africa, Frederick William Declerk. The United Nations chose him as a goodwill ambassador in 2005.
Death:
Nelson Mandela died on December 5, 2013 in South Africa after a long struggle with illness. His people bid him farewell with tears and flowers. A large number of world leaders attended his funeral, and many countries declared mourning for him.
