Mandela planned the May 29, 1961, stay-at-home demonstration by going underground. “My most frequent disguise was as a chauffeur, a chef, or a ‘garden boy,'” he said, but authorities were unable to find him, so he was dubbed the Black Pimpernal. I used to wear the field worker’s blue overalls and round, rimless glasses.
He was successful in forming the ANC’s armed wing while he remained underground. Umkhonto we Sizwe (The Spear of the Nation) or MK was its moniker. “I am informed that a warrant for my arrest has been issued,” he said in a June 1961 press release. Neither will I give up nor will I leave South Africa. Freedom can only be attained by suffering, selflessness, and militant action. The battle is my life. (276 pages)
Tour and support in Africa
In February 1962, the ANC received an invitation to attend a pan-African meeting in Addis Ababa. Oliver had connections in various European nations and created ANC offices in Ghana, England, Egypt, and Tanganyika. Before Emperor Haile Selassie’s summit, Mandela told the story of his people’s persecution. From the 1921 Bulhoek Massacre, “when army and police killed 183 unarmed peasants, to Sharpeville 40 years later, when 69 unarmed African demonstrators were killed by the police and about 400 wounded.” Ghana, Nigeria, and Tanganyika, “who spearheaded the successful drive to oust South Africa from British Commonwealth,” were specifically recognized by him.
Trial for Treason on Robben Island I
After briefing Chief Luthuli about his journey abroad and the necessity for the ANC “to take the lead among the Congress Alliance and make statements on its own concerning affairs that affected Africans,” he departed Durban and was stopped on route to Johannesburg. He was accused of encouraging African workers to go on strike and of traveling without proper documentation. “The state obviously lacked sufficient evidence to connect me to Umkhonto we Sizwe,” which would have resulted in a treason charge. He received a sentence of two years for leaving the country without a passport and three years for encouraging strikes.
Trial in Rivonia: Robben Island II
On July 11, 1963, the police stormed Liliesleaf Farm, where the ANC conducted covert operations, and discovered a document titled “Operation Mayibuye, a plan for guerrilla warfare in South Africa.” The police had taken control of Umkhonto we Sizwe’s whole High Command in one swift move. Under the new Ninety-Day Detention Law, everyone was imprisoned. They accused us all of sabotage. Just nine months of his original five-year sentence had been completed.
He made his well-known statement on Monday, April 20, 1964, during the Rivonia Trial: “During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people.” I have battled both black and white dominance. The idea of a democratic, free society where everyone coexists peacefully and has equal opportunity has always been one that I have held dear. It’s an ideal that I aspire to live up to. However, I’m willing to die for this goal if necessary.
Mark a question.
Do South Africa’s present leaders value “the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities”?
Proposals to Mandela
Mandela was still receiving “feelers” from the authorities, but he refused to give up. In a parliamentary debate on January 1, 1985, President P.W. Botha offered Mandela and his allies freedom if they “unconditionally rejected violence as a political instrument… It is therefore not the South African government which now stands in the way of Mr. Mandela’s freedom,” in response to pressure both domestically and internationally. It is actually him. In a letter to Foreign Minister Pik Botha, he rejected the terms of his release. At a UDF rally in Soweto’s Jabulani Stadium on February 10, 1985, Mandela’s daughter Zindzi read his public response, which he had given to Winnie and his attorney Ismail Ayob while incarcerated: “…I cannot sell my birthright, nor am I prepared to sell the birthright of the people to be free.” Only free men are able to bargain. When neither I nor you, the people, are free, I cannot and will not offer any undertaking. I cannot separate my freedom from yours. I’m going back.
Sadness
In April 1990, Mandela went to his mother’s tomb, which was like any other in Qunu. (On February 11, 1990, Mandela left Victor Veteran after serving 27 years in prison.) This reviewer was emotionally stimulated and experienced some regrets. wrote on page 580 of The Freedom Warrior. “It’s hard to put into words how I felt: I felt regret that I couldn’t be with her when she passed away, regret that I couldn’t properly care for her while she was alive, and a longing for what might have been if I had chosen to live my life differently.” At this point in the novel, I could image Mandela’s mother dying a miserable lady after years of hopelessness, and tears welled up in my eyes. However, I later realized that freedom warriors always have to pay a price, with their close family members or loved ones being the first victims of such decisions.
Mandela was the ANC’s president.
At the ANC’s annual conference in July 1991, Mandela was chosen president without opposition—the first time this had happened in South Africa in thirty years. The current president, Cyril Ramaphosa, was chosen as secretary-general. While the ANC started to change from “an illegal underground liberation movement to a legal mass political movement,” the National Party expanded its doors to non-white people.
In the months preceding the first non-racial elections in April 1994, Inkatha’s brutal attacks against the ANC persisted (blacks were now killing blacks in horrifying ways), but this time de Klerk and the ANC had made an irreversible decision regarding the historic election. The fact that Inkatha was aware that the ANC, its rival, was on its way to victory and would produce the president is striking. It sought to extract as much autonomy as possible for KwaZulu by violence and deception.
Winnie’s separation
On April 13, 1992, Mandela revealed at a news conference that he had separated from Comrade Nomzamo Winnie Mandela because of personal differences. Freedom warriors tend to have an unstable personal life as their fate. There is not much space left for the family. “That has always been my biggest regret and the most agonizing part of the decision I made,” Mandela wrote.
Chris Hani is killed, Oliver dies
Chris Hani, the secretary-general of the SACP, the former chief of staff of MK, and “one of the most popular figures in the ANC,” was shot at close range on April 10, 1993, by a white supremacist who favored a civil war over peaceful majority rule. Rather than the government, it was Mandela who spoke to the public on SABC to ease tensions. Two weeks after his death, Oliver Tambo was given a state funeral by the ANC. Mandela paid homage “to the man who kept the African National Congress alive during its years of exile.”
Award for Nobel Peace
Mandela and Mr. de Klerk shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize in the interim. In contrast to other Western nations, Norway and Sweden provided “scholarships and money for legal defense and humanitarian aid for political prisoners” to aid the ANC in its liberation struggle during the 1950s and 1960s. They provided assistance to Nigerian democracy fighters under the Abacha dictatorship. I’d like to investigate what drives these two nations.)
Mandela was chosen as president.
Following months of discussions at the World Trade Center, the first non-racial, one-person, one-vote election was scheduled for April 27, 1994, on June 3, 1993. In addition to acting as parliament, a constituent assembly would draft a new constitution. One aspect of the survey would be proportional representation. Parties receiving more than five percent of the vote would form the cabinet, and “national elections would not hold until 1999 so that the government of national unity would serve five (five) years.”
To win over voters, de Klerk and Mande‘la engaged in a heated television debate on April 17. On April 27, Mandela cast his first ballot of his life in Inanda, close to the tomb of John Dube, the first ANC president. The ANC qualified for 252 seats out of 400 with a 62.6% poll!
On May 10, 1994, he took office as president, followed by Mr. de Klerk as the second deputy president and Thabo Mbeki as the first.
*Finalized
