To organize the stay-at-home demonstration on May 29, 1961, Mandela went underground. Despite his words being reported in the media, he was known as the Black Pimpernal because authorities were unable to locate him: “My most frequent disguise was as a chauffeur, a chef, or a ‘garden boy.'” I would often wear round, rimless spectacles and the blue overalls of a field laborer.
He was able to create an armed wing of the ANC while he was underground. It was known as MK, or Umkhonto we Sizwe, or “The Spear of the Nation.” His statement was published in the media in June 1961: “I am informed that a warrant for my arrest has been issued. I’m not going to abandon South Africa or give up. Freedom can only be achieved thru adversity, selflessness, and militant action. My life is the battle. On page 276
African support/tour
In February 1962, ANC received an invitation to a pan-African meeting in Addis Ababa. Oliver had contacts in various European countries as well as ANC offices in Ghana, England, Egypt, and Tanganyika. In front of Emperor Haile Selassie’s summit, Mandela described the mistreatment of his people. From the 1921 Bulhoek massacre, “where army and police killed 183 unarmed peasants, to Sharpeville 40 years later, when the police killed 69 unarmed African demonstrators and wounded about 400,” He expressed his gratitude to Ghana, Nigeria, and Tanganyika in particular, saying that they “led the successful drive to oust South Africa from British Commonwealth.”
Robben Island I: Treason Trial
He left Durban and was stopped en route to Johannesburg after briefing Chief Luthuli on his journey outside 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 was accused of traveling without proper documentation and instigating African workers to go on strike. “The state obviously lacked sufficient evidence to connect me to Umkhonto we Sizwe,” which may have resulted in a treason charge. He received a two-year term for leaving the country without a passport and a three-year sentence for inciting strikes.
Robben Island II in the Rivonia Trial
On July 11, 1963, the police stormed Liliesleaf Farm, the ANC’s underground operation site, and discovered a paper titled “Operation Mayibuye, a plan for guerrilla warfare in South Africa.” The whole Umkhonto we Sizwe High Command was taken over by the police in a single blow. The new Ninety-Day Detention Law put everyone under arrest. Each of us was accused of sabotage. Of his original five-year sentence, he had only completed nine months.
His well-known statement, “During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people,” was given on Monday, April 20, 1964, during the Rivonia Trial. Both black and white dominance have been challenges I have faced. I have always loved the idea of a free, democratic society where everyone may coexist peacefully and have equal access to opportunity. I aspire to live for and accomplish this objective. However, it is an ideal for which I am willing to die if necessary.
An inquiry mark
Is “the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities” something that South Africa’s current leadership values?
Greetings to Mandela
Mandela refused to back down despite receiving “feelers” from the authorities. 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” due to pressure at home and heat abroad. It’s him personally. He rejected the terms for his release in a letter to Foreign Minister Pik Botha. Even though Mandela responded to Winnie and his attorney Ismail Ayob while incarcerated, his daughter Zindzi read his public statement at a UDF rally in Soweto’s Jabulani Stadium on February 10, 1985: “…I cannot sell my birthright, nor am I prepared to sell the birthright of the people to be free…” Only men who are free can bargain. At a time when neither I nor you, the people, are free, I cannot and will not make any commitments. My freedom and yours are inextricably linked. I’ll come back.
Anxious
In April 1990, Mandela went to his mother’s tomb, which was just like everyone else’s in Qunu. (After serving 27 years in prison, Mandela had left Victor Vera on February 11, 1990.) This reviewer was emotionally stimulated, and it caused some regrets. The Freedom Warrior was written on page 580. “It’s hard for me 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 longing for what might have been if I had chosen to live my life differently.” At this point in the novel, tears welled up in my eyes as I imagined Mandela’s mother dying a sad woman after years of hopelessness. However, I later realized that freedom warriors always had to pay a price, with their close relatives or loved ones being the first casualties of such decisions.
Mandela was chosen to lead the ANC.
At the first ANC annual conference in South Africa in thirty years, in July 1991, Mandela was chosen president without opposition. The current president, Cyril Ramaphosa, was chosen to serve as secretary general. While the ANC started to change from “an illegal underground liberation movement to a legal mass political movement,” the National Party welcomed 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. It strikes one that Inkatha was aware that the ANC, its opponent, would win and deliver the president. It sought to extract as much autonomy for KwaZulu as possible by violence and deceit.
Being cut off from Winnie
Mandela announced his separation from Comrade Nomzamo Winnie Mandela on April 13, 1992, at a news conference, citing personal differences. Freedom fighters appear to be destined for an unstable personal life. The family has very little space left. Mandela wrote, “That has always been my greatest regret and the most agonizing aspect of the choice I made.”
Oliver perishes, Chris Hani is killed
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 transition to majority power. Rather than the government, it was Mandela who spoke to the country on SABC to ease tensions. Two weeks later, Oliver Tambo passed away, and the ANC gave him a state funeral. “To the man who kept the ANC alive during its years of exile,” Mandela paid homage.
Nobel Peace Award
Meanwhile, Mandela and Mr. de Klerk shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize. In contrast to other Western nations, Norway and Sweden provided “scholarships and money for legal defense and humanitarian aid for political prisoners” to support the ANC’s liberation struggle in the 1950s and 1960s. (During the Abacha dictatorship, they provided assistance to Nigerian democracy fighters. I’d like to research how these two nations function.)
Mandela won the presidency.
The first non-racial, one-person, one-vote election was scheduled for April 27, 1994, following months of discussions at the World Trade Center on June 3, 1993. A constituent assembly would function as parliament and draft a new constitution. The poll would have proportionate representation. Parties that received 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 discussion on April 17. On April 27, Mandela cast his first ballot of his life in Inanda, close to the grave of ANC’s founding president, John Dube. With a 62.6% poll, the ANC was eligible for 252 of the 400 seats!
On May 10, 1994, he was sworn in as president, followed by Mr. de Klerk as second deputy president and Thabo Mbeki as first deputy president.
