Birth of Rolihlahla
On July 18, 1918, a future legend was born in the small village of Mvezo, located east of Port Elizabeth. Rolihlahla Mandela was born. He belongs to the Xhosa ethnic group, a proud people, for whom heritage is transmitted by the father, a people attached to the law, politeness and education. Royal Thembu blood runs in his veins. His father was dispossessed and, faced with these difficulties, he and his mother moved to Qunu, further north. It was in this small village, through valleys, streams and green hills, that Rolihlahla Mandela spent his best childhood years. "The boys were practically on their own," he says. He was not yet ten years old when he lost his father, Galda Henry Mphakanyiswa, who was born a chief by custom. He suffered from a lung disease and died with his pipe still lit in his mouth, surrounded by Mandela's mother and his youngest wife. A man "proud and rebellious, with a stubborn sense of justice, which I find in myself," Mandela wrote in his biography.
A politicized adolescence
When his father, the regent of the Thembu people, died, Jongintaba Dalindyebo became his guardian. His mother would miss him, but she could not refuse such an offer, knowing that he would get a good education. Mandela felt like a fish in water in this new royal house and began his political education, observing the regent and his court, as well as large meetings where the people were invited to express themselves. "It was democracy in its purest form In the Xhosa tradition, Mandela did not become a man until 1934, the year of his circumcision, his passage from childhood to adulthood. As a schoolboy in Clarkebury, then as a high school student in Healdtown, Mandela was already a strong character. The young revolutionary at heart then began his studies at the University of Fort Hare. It was the only university in the country reserved for "non-whites". He studied anthropology, English, politics, administration and Dutch law. He regularly misses his country home, but here he discovers a whole new world. He played sports, and it was during a soccer game that he met Olivier Tambo. The young Mandela was a member of the theatre group, the Christian Student Association and had a passion for dance.
A turbulent academic career
Quickly involved in university life, he was appointed to serve on the Student Representative Council (SRC). The students of Fort Hare elected the six members of the SRC. At a general meeting, the students raised two issues: they were dissatisfied with the food and asked that the powers of the SRC be strengthened. Mandela agreed with both of these points. So when the majority of the students vote to boycott the elections if the administration does not accept these demands, so does he. However, the director, Kerr, tells him that if he resigns from the SSC, he will have to leave the university and eventually return in September by rejoining the SSC office. To respect his moral principle or not to ruin his studies? Life decided otherwise for him. Back in Mqhekezweni, Mandela's uncle arranged his wedding. Mandela cunningly told him that he would accept on the condition that he finish his studies and fled to Johannesburg where he discovered the big city and spent a few years there. After passing his UNISA exam, he returns to Fort Hare University for graduation wearing a new suit.
Birth of a freedom fighter
All these years forge in Nelson Mandela a future freedom fighter. He writes: "Being African in South Africa means that you are politicized from the moment you are born, whether you know it or not The man who dreamed of a career as a civil servant participated in 1944 in the founding of a Youth League in the ANC, the pacifist organization led by Dr. Xuma. "There was no particular day when I would have said: from now on I am going to dedicate myself to the liberation of my people; instead I simply found myself doing it without being able to stop myself," Nelson Mandela would later recount in his biography. Surrounded by Walter Sisulu, he had a deep respect and admiration for him. The ANC was inspired by Roosevelt and Churchill to draft its charter: "The Demands of Africans". In early 1946, Mandela moved to Orlando East with his partner, Evelyn, without electricity, a tin roof, a cement floor, a kitchenette and a bucket at the back of a room as a toilet. It is in this first house that their first child is born: Madiba Thembekile. He bears the clan name of his father, Madiba, an important Xhosa heritage. The following period is marked by the militancy of the black, mixed race and Indian populations.
Fighting for equality
The Youth League dreams of equality. A few years and events, strikes and other demonstrations later, in 1952, in parallel with all the struggles he was leading, Mandela opened the first black law firm in South Africa with his friend Olivier Tambo, the "Mandela and Tambo". "Africans were desperate for legal help: it was a crime to walk through a whites-only door, to get on a whites-only bus, to drink from a whites-only fountain, to walk on a whites-only beach, to be on a street after 11 o'clock at night, to not have a pass and not have the right signature on it, to not have a job and have one in the wrong neighborhood, to live in certain places and not have a place to live...," he relates.
The inevitable taking up of arms
Inspired by the struggle of Gandhi, who lived in Natal, South Africa, Mandela was deeply peaceful. In 1955, the ANC prevented the youth from rioting against the police, which the ANC believed would have led to a disastrous mass suicide without careful and prepared organization. But apartheid was driving a wedge ever deeper, violence was growing and peaceful negotiations were breaking down. Weapons were needed. The Sharpeville massacre in 1960 set the tone. The organization rallied to the armed struggle and Nelson Mandela created the MK, Umkhonto we Siswe. A real war of liberation followed. Sabotage, guerrilla warfare, terrorism... The revolution is open. Nelson Mandela goes as far as to train in Oujda, on the border between Morocco and Algeria, in North Africa. From there, the ANC observes the military evolution of the FLN troops.
A first arrest
In the early morning of December 5, 1956, the police knocked on Mandela's door. In front of his children, he was arrested for "high treason", as was practically the entire national leadership of the ANC, i.e. 156 people. The trial let them go free at first and resumed in January, on condition that they report to the police station every week and are forbidden to attend any public meeting. But once they were free, it was his wife Evelyn who left. Mandela kept a lot of respect for her, but simply said that he had missed his couple, who had "irreconcilable differences". By the most beautiful chance of things, he quickly meets Nomzamo Winnifred Madikizela, alias Winnie, with whom he falls in love at first sight. They got married on June 14, 1958. In 1960, when Mandela was released from prison after five months of detention, the state of emergency was lifted. Already he was thinking: "When you have been in prison, what you appreciate most are the little things: being able to go for a walk when you want, to enter a store, to buy a newspaper, to speak or to choose to remain silent. The simple fact of being in control of your actions."
The Sharpeville Massacre
For half a century, the ANC had advocated non-violence. But on March 21, 1960, the Sharpeville massacre changed all that. On that day, 69 black demonstrators died in the face of police repression and more than 150 were injured. Shortly after the events, after long and stormy discussions, the Congress authorized Mandela to form a military organization independent of the ANC, which remained non-violent. "I, who had never been a soldier, who had never fought, who had never fired a shot at an enemy, was given the task of organizing an army," he says. This new organization was called Umkhonto we Siswe or MK, which translates as "The Spear of the Nation," the weapon with which the African people had always resisted the whites. Mandela lives and fights in hiding. Winnie and the children came to visit him in Riviona, where he lived in a farmhouse.
Rising violence
On December 16, 1961, the symbolic day of Dingane, the liberation struggle begins: Umkhonto we Siswe organizes sabotage. Fifteen days later, on New Year's Day, another series of attacks took place. But the government's counter-offensive was not long in coming. Its goal: to capture all MK members. It is necessary to tell the story. We have to warn. It had to stop. On January 11, 1962, Mandela left South Africa clandestinely to participate in the congress of the Pan-African Liberation Movement of Eastern, Central and Southern Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Ambitious, he sought political and financial support and training facilities for fighters. He traveled across Africa to the Maghreb, then on to England. "I felt like a soldier and I started to think like a soldier," he says. But the fight is not just military, it is also political. Mandela went from soldier to lawyer, from lawyer to soldier. But a few months later, back from Johannesburg, Mandela and Cecil Williams have just passed Howick when they are arrested by the police. It was August 5, 1962, and Mandela had just enough time to slip his loaded pistol and notebook between the two seats. Fortunately for many people, the notebook will never be found. The sentence was passed. He was sentenced to five years in prison. A year later, on July 11, 1963, police raided Liliesleaf Farm, the MK headquarters. The high command was captured in its turn.
The trial of Rivonia
The trial of Rivonia then begins. Sentence? The death penalty. While the UN called for a resolution of "benevolence", the United States, England and France abstained. We were in the middle of the Cold War. On June 12, 1964, the verdict fell: they were sentenced to life. Mandela was sent to the coast of Cape Town. The prison of Robben Island will become the emblem of the prisoner and still today the "memorial" of a whole nation, if not of all. He stayed there for twenty-seven years. Here, the living conditions are very difficult. Mandela spent twenty-seven years writing letters to his family, his friends, and the director of the prison. These letters never reached their recipients; fortunately, he had copied them into his notebook. He also learns Afrikaans, just to know how the enemy thinks. From 1968 onwards, one crisis follows another, the collapse of the Soviet camp disrupts geopolitics and the American government demands changes in the policy of the South African government. Mandela was transferred to the Victor-Verster prison near Paarl. The signs "Free Mandela" cover the walls of the world. The world's oldest prisoner will soon be transformed into an icon of freedom.
February 11, 1990: freedom regained
February 11, 1990, is a date that will be remembered and remembered in history. At the age of 72, Mandela was released. Frederik de Klerk had been in power for less than a year and Mandela had only one thing in mind: to reconcile his country. Free the same day, he gave his famous speech to the crowd from the balcony of the town hall. Like an ellipsis, he began his speech with the last sentence pronounced at the Rivonia trial in 1964. In the aftermath, the Communist Party and the ANC were legalized. Mandela then became president of the ANC. His fight for freedom continued. In good agreement with President Frederik de Klerk, with whom he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. The following year, the first pluralist and multiracial elections took place. Nelson Mandela was elected President of South Africa in 1994 and published his autobiography, Long Walk for Freedom, which he dedicated to his six children, twenty-one grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, and his fellow South Africans. The pro-democracy man will only run for one term in office in line with his convictions. In 1999, despite his immense popularity, Mandela gave up his seat to Thabo Mbeki. This is also what democracy is all about. At the end of his mandate, Mandela celebrated his 80th birthday. A fighter, a prisoner, the first black president of the "rainbow" nation, the grandfather of an entire nation and even a great-grandfather, he began his third life. In 2005, the death of his son spurred him to one last struggle. "My son died of AIDS, a normal disease that needs to be talked about openly," he said, like a last bottle to the sea before withdrawing from politics. Mandela grew older and put down his "weapons" to enjoy his wife Graça Machel, with whom he got married on his 80th birthday. In July 2010, a big smile split his face in the stands of the stadium on the occasion of the final of the World Cup of soccer.
Then, in 2013, the glimmer of hope of newfound freedom faded with him. The ANC is less and less popular and managing South Africa without Mandela, one of the heroes of the 20th century, is not an easy task.
