Black
South African political leader, whose long imprisonment made him an
international symbol of the struggle against apartheid. He became president of
South Africa (1994–1999) following the country's first multiracial elections.
In 1993 he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with F. W. de Klerk.
Rolihlahla
Dalibhunga Mandela is born the son of a tribal chief, a member of the Madiba
clan in Mvezo, a rural village near Mthatha in the Transkei.
After
attending university in Johannesburg he practised as a lawyer, setting up the
country's first black legal practice. An activist in the African National
Congress (ANC) from his twenties, he responded to the banning of the
organization in 1960 by inciting a wave of strikes; when nonviolent means made
little impact, he formed the Spear of the Nation movement to undertake a
campaign of sabotage and guerrilla activity. Mandela evaded arrest until 1962,
when he received a five-year sentence for incitement; in 1964 this became a
life sentence, following a second trial at which he was found guilty of sabotage
and treason.
Mandela
spent the first part of his sentence on Robben Island, a notorious
high-security prison. A campaign for his release was spearheaded by his second
wife, Winnie Mandela (1934– ), whom he had married in 1958; she became a political
figure in her own right, suffering imprisonment (1969–70) and harassment at the
hands of the authorities. By the late 1970s he had become an internationally
famous figure, showered with honours and tributes from sympathizers worldwide.
His refusal to gain his own freedom by making a political deal with his captors
had by this time invested him with an almost mythical status in the eyes of
many black South Africans. In 1988 his seventieth birthday was marked by
renewed calls for his release and much international publicity; later that year
he was moved to more comfortable quarters.
Mandela
was finally released in 1990, on the intervention of the new state president,
F. W. de Klerk. He immediately engaged in talks about the country's future with
de Klerk and other government figures and travelled widely to argue the case
for continued international pressure on South Africa. In 1993 a transitional
constitution extending the vote to all racial groups was adopted and the
following year Mandela was overwhelmingly elected as his country's president,
at the age of seventy-six. In this role he has fostered a mood of national
reconciliation at home while also playing a prominent part on the world stage
as a respected elder statesman. Since December 1997, when he handed over the
presidency of the ANC to Thabo Mbeki (1942– ), his role has been chiefly a
ceremonial one.
The
triumphs of Mandela's old age have, however, been marred by the persistent
controversy surrounding Winnie Mandela. In 1991, not long after his release
from prison, she was found guilty of the kidnapping of a teenage boy who was
then murdered by her bodyguards. Following further scandals, including an
alleged adulterous affair, she separated from Nelson Mandela in 1992 and was
divorced by him in 1996. Subsequent allegations have linked her to a series of
murders and violent crimes during the last years of apartheid. In 1998, on his
eightieth birthday, Nelson Mandela married his fifty-two-year-old companion
Graca Machel, the widow of the former president of Mozambique, Samura Machel
(1933–86).
http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192800916.001.0001
