"The struggle is my life. I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days." - The immortal words of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela in 1961 as he vowed to continue the struggle against one of the most inimical governments the world has ever seen South Africa's Apartheid regime. Nelson Mandela, lawyer, freedom fighter and first democratically elected President of South Africa is a great son of Africa and is recognised as one of the world's great statesmen. His early days in South Africa were a far cry from today's well deserved reknown as this biography shows.
Mandela was born on 18 July 1918 in Qunu, a small village in the Transkei. Son of an advisor to the Thembu royal family, Mandela grew up in relative affluence. He left home first to attend the Healdtown Methodist Boarding and after successfully completing his studies there he moved on to Fort Hare University. There he met Oliver Tambo, a life-long friend and another great son of South Africa. From the very beginning Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela's friendship was a bond against injustice and they lead a student strike in 1940 against the conditions in the University. This event leads to his expulsion from the University, and was the beginning of his long and often lonely walk down the road of injustice.
As he would demonstrate many times in his later life Mandela showed the resolve that made him the man he is today, he left home and moved to Soweto, where he obtained a law degree from the University of South Africa and later with assistance from Walter Sisulu, Mandela and Oliver Tambo set up the first black law firm in South Africa in 1952. A move vigorously challenged by the white dominated Transvaal Law Society, but rejected by the Supreme Court.
In the grim urban township of Soweto, the inequalities of Apartheid were glaring and in common with hundreds of other disaffected black South Africans Mandela and Oliver Tambo both joined the African National Congress. Once part of the ANC they found the then leadership too passive and in 1944, together with Walter Sisulu formed the ANC Youth League as a means of pursuing a more vigorous anti-Apartheid movement. The policies of the Youth League soon became the core of the ANC's anti-Apartheid strategies.
1944 also saw Nelson Mandela's first marriage to Evelyn Ntoko Mase a nurse from his home province, a marriage that was blessed with three children. The marriage was to end in divorce in 1957.
1948 saw Apartheid enshrined in law by the National Party. This was followed swiftly by the implementation of a raft of discriminatory and oppressive laws, such as the Separate representation of Voters Act, Prohibition of Mixed Marriage act, Suppression of Communism Act, Population and Registration Act and the Group Areas Act. By 1958 the regime had begun the force resettlement of the black population into so-called 'homelands', which were nothing more than huge concentration camps.
After the Apartheid regime had refused to recognise that these laws stripped the black majority population of their human rights, the ANC decided to step up their campaigns. In 1952, Mandela was chosen by the ANC to lead the defiance campaign. He travelled around South Africa seeking support for a campaign of defiance against South Africa's Apartheid laws. His role in this campaign lead to the Apartheid regime placing a banning order on him, which confined him to Johannesburg. Undeterred during this period he began preparations for initiating a cell structure for the ANC allowing it to operate with a very flexible leadership structure.
The fifties saw Mandela vigorously campaigning against the Apartheid laws and as a consequence suffering multiple banning orders and arrests. By 1955 he was arrested and charged with treason, and spent the next few years fighting the charges in court.
In 1958, Mandela marries Winnie Madikizela, a social worker, who becomes a leading figure in the anti-Apartheid in later years. Winnie Mandela stood steadfastly behind her husband, despite constant harassment by the Apartheid authorities. Although in later years they were to drift apart culminating in divorce in 1996.
In 1961 Mandela wins his case against the charges of treason, but the regime sensing the growing power of the ANC acts by banning the organisation. The ANC responds by launching its armed struggle. The armed movement Umkhonto we Sizwe (The Spear of the Nation) was formed by Mandela and in the same year he gave his famous 'The struggle is my life' speech.
Mandela flees South Africa travelling throughout Africa raising support for the ANC. He returns to South Africa in 1962 and is promptly arrested and sentenced to five years imprisonment on Robben Island. By 1964 the Apartheid regime brought further charges against Mandela and his sentence was raised to life imprisonment. The white minority may have thought they had got rid of one of the thorns in their side, but little did they know that they were creating one of the enduring symbols of the anti-Apartheid movement.
In the years following Nelson Mandela's imprisonment the struggle against Apartheid rose to unprecedented levels, leaving large sections of the country ungovernable, however the reaction from the ruling regime was also brutal. Probably one of their most infamous acts was the massacre of hundreds of protesters, most schoolchildren, in Sharpville in 1976 following protests over the mandatory introduction of Afrikaans in schools.
As the chaos deepened the Apartheid government offered Mandela freedom on several occasions in exchange for his public renunciation of violence, each offer is met with unequivocal rejection of this compromise.
The pressure piles on and by the 1980s internationals sanctions on South Africa by most countries other than the notable exceptions of the US and UK begin to take their toll. The regimes position is further jeopardised by military defeats by Angolan and Cuban forces as South Africa failed in attempts to eradicate ANC camps in neighbouring countries.
Realising the writing was one the wall, the then Apartheid leader P W Botha began unconditional talks with Mandela through intermediaries, these talks continued under his replacement F W De Klerk.
By February 1990 FW De Klerk unbans the ANC and on February 11 Mandela walks out of imprisonment into Freedom. The unstoppable tide towards multi-party democracy had begun and culminated in South Africa's first universal multi-ethnic elections, which the ANC wins handsomely and in May 10, 1990 Mandela is sworn in as the President of the Republic of South Africa watched by millions across the world. He served as President from May 1994 to June 1999.
Today Mandela has retired from Public Life and lives back in Qunu, Transkei where the journey began.