Mandela & Apartheid

This week would have seen Nelson Mandela reach his 100th Birthday. The man famed for his imprisonment whilst fighting to end the South African apartheid, only to eventually be released and become president of the country’s first multi-ethnic government. But who was Nelson Mandela and what did he do?

Apartheid

First, we need to understand what Apartheid was to be able to get a perspective of what drove Mandela to fight his fight. Before the apartheid began in 1948, South Africa already had segregation of black & coloured people within society.

When the National Party came to power in 1948 they began to implement apartheid. Despite segregation already occurring, apartheid called for the separate development of the different racial groups in South Africa. On paper it appeared to call for equal development and freedom of cultural expression, but the way it was implemented made this impossible. Apartheid made laws forced the different racial groups to live separately and develop separately, and grossly unequally too.

The main difference between segregation and apartheid is that apartheid made segregation part of the law, it forcibly separated people with fierce repercussions for those that did not obey.

Various acts were introduced over the next few years including the Population Registration Act, the Group Areas Act and the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act which meant that people were recorded by the ethnic groups and many were forced to live outside of towns and cities.

They could not own property here, only rent it, as the land could only be white owned. This Act caused much hardship and resentment. People lost their homes, were moved off land they had owned for many years and were moved to undeveloped areas far away from their place of work.

Nelson Mandela

Born on July 18th, 1918, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, he was the son of Chief Henry Mandela of the Madiba Clan of the Xhosa-speaking Tembu people. After his father’s death, young Nelson was raised by Jongintaba, the regent of the Tembu. Nelson renounced his claim to the chieftainship to become a lawyer.

Mandela established South Africa’s first black law practice, specializing in cases resulting from the post-1948 apartheid legislation. In the same year, Mandela began campaigning against South Africa’s pass laws, which required non-whites to carry documents authorising their presence in areas that the government deemed “restricted”. In 1955 he was involved in drafting the Freedom Charter, a document calling for non-racial social democracy in South Africa.

Due to his activism he was frequently targeted by the authorities. His travel was often restricted, as was his ability to talk to and liaise with other anti-apartheid activists. The government also tried to charge him with treason in 1956 but was acquitted in 1961.

Mandela abandoned his non-violent approach after the massacre of unarmed black South Africans by police forces at Sharpeville in 1960. He began advocating acts of sabotage against the regime and went underground. During this time he founded the Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), the military wing of the ANC. In 1962 he went to Algeria for training in guerrilla warfare and sabotage. Shortly after his return he was arrested and sentenced to 5 years imprisonment.

During his time in prison, Mandela was tried for sabotage, treason, and violent conspiracy in the now infamous Rivonia Trial. A police raid at the groups headquarters had recovered a cache of arms and equipment. Whilst Mandela admitted some of the charges against him, he made a speech from the dock that was a classic defence of liberty and defiance of tyranny. The speech resonated around the world and gain international attention. On June 12, 1964, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, narrowly escaping the death penalty.

During his 26 years in prison, Mandela was moved around a lot and was offered several opportunities to be freed which he refused. Some offers involved him residing in Transkei Bantustan, an area set aside for the Xhosa-speaking peoples who had lost their South African citizenship under the apartheid system of racial separation. An offer made in 1985 required that he renounce the use of violence. Mandela refused both offers, the second on the premise that only free men were able to engage in such negotiations and, as a prisoner, he was not a free man.

During his imprisonment, Mandela received widespread support from the South African black community as well as international communities that opposed apartheid. After 1983, South Africa’s political situation deteriorated and in 1988 he engaged with the government in exploratory negotiations. In 1989 he met with the new president, Frederik Willem de Klerk and on February 11th 1990 Mandela was released.

Shortly after, Mandela was chosen as deputy president of the ANC (The political group he began his activist program with). In 1991 he became the President of the party and led the ANC in negotiations with de Klerk to end apartheid and bring about a peaceful transition to a non-racial democracy in South Africa.

In 1994, Mandela won South Africa’s first elections by universal suffrage and was sworn in as president of the country’s first multi-ethnic government. During his 5-year reign, Mandela worked hard to improve the living standards of the country’s black populace and investigated human rights violations under apartheid. In 1996 he oversaw the enactment of a new democratic constitution.

Mandela only served one term as president before retiring from politics but remained an advocate for peace, reconciliation, and social justice.