Nelson Mandela
By Kene Oliobi

"I will go down on my knees to beg those who want to drag our country into bloodshed."

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, in the tiny village of Mwezo in the Umtata district, capital of the Transkei. After receiving a primary education at a local mission school, Nelson Mandela enrolled at Healdtown Methodist Boarding School. He later matriculated at University College of Fort Hare, the only residential higher education campus open to blacks in South Africa. At that time, the government was practicing a form of institutionalized racism known as apartheid. In 1940, Mandela was expelled from school for participating in a student strike. Mandela completed his Bachelor of Arts Degree by correspondence.

Mandela went on in 1944 to join the ANC and helped found the ANC Youth League (ANCYL). That same year, he met a nurse, Evelyn Ntoko Mase, and after a few months of courtship, they were married in Johannesburg. As a result of his disciplined work and consistent effort, Mandela was appointed Secretary of the ANCYL in 1948. In 1950, he became the ANCYL President. In 1952 Mandela became the ANC Transvaal President and Deputy National President. He was appointed National Volunteer-in-Chief of the Defiance of Unjust Laws Campaign in 1952 and traveled the country organizing resistance to discriminatory legislation.

For his part in the campaign, he was convicted of contravening the Suppression of Communism Act and given a suspended prison sentence. Shortly after, he was also "banned," which meant he was prohibited from leaving Johannesburg, talking with more than two people at one time, publishing, teaching, or entertaining visitors at home.

In spite of the restrictions, Mandela wrote the attorney admission examination and was admitted to the legal profession. Within the same year, he also opened the first black legal firm in the country. In December 1956, Mandela and his wife separated, and in 1958, Mandela married his second wife, Nomzamo Winifred Madikileza, better known as Winnie Mandela. Throughout most of the fifties, apart from being banned a number of times, Mandela was the victim of numerous occasions of arrest and imprisonment for his significant part in the anti-apartheid movement.

In 1961, Mandela went underground, leading a campaign to create a new national convention. He helped organize the military wing of the ANC, Umkonto we Sizwe (the Spear of the Nation), later simply abbreviated to MK. In 1962, Mandela left the country to receive military training in Algeria and to arrange training for other members of the MK. On his return, he was arrested for incitement to strike and leaving the country illegally. After acting as his own defense in court, he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison in November 1962. In 1964, while still in jail, he was charged with sabotage and sentenced to life imprisonment at Robben Island, 7 kilometers off the coast near Cape Town.

February 11, 1990, marked the beginning of a new era in the country when Nelson Mandela was released from prison. He had been imprisoned for 27 years. In 1991, Nelson Mandela was elected ANC President. In 1992, Mandela and his wife were separated.

On his casual side, Mandela finds music very uplifting, especially African choral music and European classical music. He is also a fitness fanatic, waking up for his daily hour-long workouts that begin at 5:00 a.m., reminiscent of his youthful days as a boxer. Mandela has three daughters and a son. He is currently married to his longtime sweetheart, Graca Machel. He has honorary degrees from more than 50 universities worldwide and is chancellor of the University of the North. In September 1998, Mandela was awarded the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal, as a result of his life-long dedication to the promotion of reconciliation among the people of South Africa. Mandela's tenure as President of South Africa ended on June 16, 1999.

The price of a meaningful and lasting peace in South Africa was justice. Mandela devoted his life to achieving that kind of peace for his country. Apartheid was an unjust system, and so there would never have been any peace in South Africa as long as that social, economic, legal, and political system was in place. Mandela spent most of his life before jail as the most potent and vocal advocate for justice, which would subsequently have led to peace, opposing the apartheid regime. As a result of Mandela's huge peace initiative, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace jointly with then President of South Africa, F. W. De Klerk in 1993. In 1994, there were the first multi-racial elections, and Mandela was inaugurated as President of South Africa on 10 May.

Mandela laid the foundation for true peace, not just before he was released from jail, but even afterwards, especially when he was President. Nelson Mandela kept his attitude and decision-making objective, making sure that no element of revenge or resentment affected his judgement. He exhibited the kind of tough-mindedness that was necessary for keeping the differently-opinioned groups in check and, as best as was humanly possible at that point in time, satisfied. The grave injustice that was inflicted on the non-White peoples during the apartheid era resulted, for the most part, in a desire for vindication. If the judgement on the Afrikaners was perceived as too harsh, the established freedoms in the country could have been compromised. There was insecurity and fear amongst a lot of the Afrikaners with the passing away of apartheid, which most of them did benefit from, regardless of whether or not they agreed with it.

For the sake of peace, Mandela did a marvelous job in successfully juggling black hopes and white fears, seeking reconciliation as opposed to retaliation. Paul Bell clearly portrayed the unselfish reconciliatory attitude of Mandela in his Africa Today article, "Africa's greatest son bids farewell," when he wrote about Mandela: "In his politics of nation-building presidential symbolism he will be remembered most vividly for . . . his gracious courting of Afrikanerdom -- consider, for example, his extraordinary taking of tea with the nonagenarian widow of apartheid's Great Architect, Hendrik Verwoerd, on the whites-only farm to which she and her family have retreated with a small group of Afrikaner separatists. There have been several great architects, and many bricklayers of this hard-built house we call the new South Africa, but Mandela, the Great Reconciler, became the mortar in its construction." Truly exhibiting that he was indeed the Great Reconciler of South Africa, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela said: "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite" . South Africa was a bomb waiting to go off, both during and after the apartheid regime. When one realizes all the factors that had the potential to set it off, we can fully appreciate the resolution for peace of which Mandela has always been the spearhead.

Kene Oliobi is a student at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois.