Nelson Mandela: who was it, apartheid, prison, death

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela he was the main political leader in South African history and one of the world's greats in the fight against racial oppression. Also known as Madiba, he he fought for most of his life against the racist and segregationist regime of apartheid in South Africa. As a result of this fight, he was arrested and held in prison for 27 years.

Born in a family of aristocracy A native of South Africa in 1918, Mandela had an intellectual background influenced by both European and African cultural heritage. From the 1940s onwards, he joined the African National Congress (CNA), a South African political party that fought for the rights of blacks in the country and against the segregationist policy of apartheid.

Read too: Racism - prejudice that led South Africa to apartheid

The fight against apartheid

O apartheid it was the institutional consolidation, through legislation, of a practice of separation between whites of European origin and blacks from the African continent that had been taking place since the colonization process of the region, mainly by the Protestant settlers of Dutch origin, the Boers or Afrikaners. Apartheid was consolidated after the

Second World War, when the Afrikaans National Party came to power. A series of laws were enacted, denying blacks, who constituted the overwhelming majority of the population, basic social and political rights.

The goal was to carry out a total segregation between whites and blacks, preventing the latter from attending the same public spaces as whites, denying them access to most of the country's arable land and natural resources. In the cities, ghettos that looked more like concentration camps were created to isolate blacks, and they were also required to carry credentials that guaranteed or not their displacement through urban space. If a black person was not in possession of one of these credentials or was caught by police forces in prohibited places, he was subject to imprisonment.

Portrait of Nelson Mandela taken in 2006 in the city of London. [1]

Mandela initially acted in the youth of the CNA and during part of his political activism defended a peaceful resistance and civil disobedience against the apartheid regime, how to circumvent the laws that separated blacks and whites in public spaces. However, the resurgence of repression against blacks, its various arrests, its banishment from the ANC in 1961 and the Shaperville massacre in 1960, when about 69 people died in manifesting against the obligation to carry identification cards that limited their movement, made Mandela and his companions change their tactics in the political struggle. That same year, an armed group was created within the CNA.

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Nelson Mandela prison

The armed struggle resulted in several attacks on public facilities, such as hydroelectric plants, but it also caused a violent reaction of government forces. Several CNA activists were arrested, including Nelson Mandela, who was sentenced at the Rivonia Trial to life imprisonment in 1964.

South Africa has become a police state and the CNA operated underground. Mandela, in prison, began recording his thoughts in notebooks and calendars, despite the rigid censorship in force in the penitentiaries he passed through, among them one located in the Islands Robben. During the period in which Mandela was imprisoned, the communityInternational for several moments sought to apply sanctions to the South African government as measures to end apartheid, whether in the economic aspect or in the prohibition of participation in sporting events, such as the soccer World Cup or the Olympic Games.

Black South Africans during this period also carried out numerous actions against the racist government, despite the repression. O Soweto uprising, in 1976, initiated by students who opposed the teaching of the Afrikaans language, led to a series of protests against the regime and more repressive actions.

From the 1980s onwards, international pressures became more intense and the economic and political scenario was getting worse and worse. The Afrikaner National Party initiated reforms at the end of the decade, abolishing the ban on interracial marriages and the obligation to carry travel credentials. But it was only after the 1990s that the measures would lead to the end of apartheid, mainly in the government of Frederik de Klerk. The ANC was taken out of hiding and Nelson Mandela was released from prison.

See too: Human Rights – category of rights that fights regimes like apartheid

Government in South Africa and Nobel Peace Prize

At the same time, a wave of violence, marked mainly by massacres in black neighborhoods, increased the difficulty of carrying out a less troubled transition. It was in this scenario that Nelson Mandela was elected president of the country in 1994, after an expressive victory at the polls, which led him to govern South Africa until 1999. In 1993, won the PNobel Prize of peace for political action in the process of transition and struggle for the rights of the black South African majority.

South African stamp in honor of Mandiba's 90th birthday, one of Mandela's nicknames.[2]

His government was characterized by the effort to end the historic legacy of apartheid for the black South African population. Housing, education and economic development programs were created for the population living in the ghettos. A new constitution was approved, guaranteeing the country's political stability.

After his departure from government in 1999, as a promise that he would only assist in the transition to a representative democratic regime, he continued his work in other instances. He created a foundation named after him, working in various social areas, such as helping people with HIV and helping children.

Also access:Social movements - collective actions that aim to fight for some social cause

African leader's death

His last public appearance took place at the end of the Football World Cup, held in South Africa in 2010. Greatly debilitated by his advanced age, he was hospitalized several times, always causing great apprehension in the South African and international population. However, in December 5, 2013, as a result of a infectionpulmonary, Nelson Mandela died at his home in the city of Johannesburg.

Image credits

[1]Alessia Pierdomenico/Shutterstock

[2]catwalker/Shutterstock

By Rainer Gonçalves
History teacher