At his inauguration as President of South Africa in May 1994, Nelson
Mandela said ‘Out of the experience of an extraordinary human disaster
must be born a society of which all humanity will be proud … ’. After
50 years of one of the most inhumane societies the world has ever
known, a new South Africa was born.

Apartheid was overthrown by a united struggle that brought together the
youth of the townships, trade unionists, civic activists, church
people, and men and women from all South Africa’s ethnic communities,
most of them Africans but including some dissident whites.

The struggle was headed by the African20National Congress, made up of
thousands of remarkable men and women, from the members of its
Revolutionary Council to activists in its underground cells.

In 1950 Nelson Mandela became a member of the ANC’s National Executive
and in 1952 its First Deputy President. He grew up in the rural
Transkei, a member of the Tembu royal family. In 1941 he moved to
Johannesburg and was soon drawn into politics.

At key moments in the development of ANC strategy Mandela played a
special role.

As a young man, with Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu and others, he helped
transform the African National Congress from a lobbying group into a
movement of radical protest. In 1952 he was ‘volunteer-in-chief’ in the
Defiance Campaign, when thousands openly defied apartheid laws.

In 1961 he became commander-in-chief of Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the
Nation), after the congress movement took the momentous decision to
take up armed struggle.

He was captured a year later – charged first with inciting workers to
strike and leaving the country without a passport.

After a raid on Umkhonto’s headquarters at Rivonia in 1963, he was
brought from Robben Island to Pretoria to stand trial on charges of
sabotage. On trial for their lives, Mandela and his comrades attracted
admiration for their dignity and courage. Mandela’s words rever
berated
around the world: ‘I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free
society in which all persons live in harmony and with equal
opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve.
But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.’

In the years after the trial, the struggle within South Africa seemed
crushed. As the ANC reorganised, and as new movements of students and
trade unionists emerged inside South Africa, Mandela and his fellow
prisoners were a beacon of hope. Internationally, Mandela became a
symbol of South Africa’s freedom struggle.

After 23 years in prison in 1985, he made the difficult judgement that
it was time to open exploratory talks with the apartheid regime.

Throughout he remained a disciplined member of the ANC, conscious above
all of the need to work within a united and organised movement. On his
release from prison in February 1990, one of his first acts was to
travel to Zambia to consult with the ANC’s exiled leadership.

He paid tribute to his oldest and closest comrade, Oliver Tambo, who
rebuilt the ANC and held it together during the long years of exile.

As South Africa’s first democratically elected President from 1994 to
1999, Mandela made reconciliation and an end to violence, both among
Africans and between black and white South Afr
icans, one of his main
concerns.

Today, Mandela is a world statesman, celebrated for his integrity and
charisma, an inspiration to all those fighting for human dignity in an
ever more divided and unequal world.

But he has never said that there are easy answers. In his autobiography
he writes: ‘… I have discovered that after climbing a great hill, one
only finds that there are many more hills to climb.’ And from the
first, he stressed that the effects of apartheid would take many years
to overcome.

South Africa today still faces big challenges – creating jobs, coping
with HIV/AIDS and overcoming a legacy of inequality and violence.

The world salutes Nelson Mandela on his ninetieth birthday. His best
birthday present is for people the world over to join the struggle for
freedom from poverty and conflict throughout Southern Africa and in the
wider world.

Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) was founded in 1994 as the successor
organisation to the Anti-Apartheid Movement. It campaigns for peace,
democracy and development throughout southern Africa.

ACTSA are celebrating Mandela the man and the movement he represents
this Black History Month:

Make a birthday pledge for Mandela at www.actsa.org/mandela

Find out more about ACTSAs Mandela at 90 campaign at
www.actsa.org/mandela90

Other resources

Probably the best biography of Madiba is the one on the Nelson Mandela
Foundation website:
http://www.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/memory/views/biography/

There is also a great one on the SA history site

http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/special%20projects/mandela/bio_1.htm