Exposé sur Nelson Mandela (document en anglais)

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born on July 18, 1918 in the village of Mvezo in Umtatu,South Africa. One of his primary school teacher gave him on his first day of school the first name , Nelson, according to the custom of giving all school children “ Christian names”.

Years later he became known by his clan name , Madiba. He was a South African anti-apartheid politician, who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the first black South African President and the first elected in a fully representative, multiracial election.

He got married three times , father of six children, 2 sons and 4 daughters , but three of them passed away , 21 grandchildren and numerous great-grandchildren.

I - We'll see in the first part , the beginning of the Apartheid and the reasons why Mandela stood up for his convictions and how he became involved politically.

II - Then in a second part we'll in a first time focus on his trial and time in jail and in a second time on the similarities between the Apartheid and the US Segregation.

III - Finally we will study how South Africa changed in the after apartheid and the consequences of it.

I - The Beginning of the Apartheid and the debut of Mandela's political engagement

The apartheid was a system of racial segregation enforced through legislation by the National Party government who were the ruling party in South Africa from 1948 to 1994, under which the rights of the majority black inhabitants of the country were curtailed and Afrikaner minority rule was maintained.

But who are the Afrikaners? An Afrikaner is a South African with German, Dutch, French or Scandinavian origins. In fact racial segregation in South Africa began in colonial times under the Dutch and British rule. However, apartheid as an official policy was introduced following the general election of 1948 with the success of the Afrikaner-dominated National Party (as I said before). In fact the first reasons why Afrikaner wanted the apartheid were because they were afraid of losing their identity and their specific culture due to their colonial experience in South Africa. They felt like their history and culture was not the same as the one of their country of origin but not the same as South African’s culture neither. After a few year even if the identity was safe in the eye of everybody, the apartheid continue because they wanted to keep their rights and advantages of white men.

New legislation classified inhabitant into 4 racial groups (black, white, coloured and Indian) and residential areas were segregated sometimes by means of forced removals. Non-white political representation was completely abolished in 1970, and starting in that year black people was deprived of their citizenship, legally becoming citizens of one of the ten tribally based self-governing called Bantustans. The government segregated education, medical care, beaches and other public services and provided black people with services inferior to those of with people.

Since its beginnings in the 50s, apartheid sparked significant internal resistance and violence, and a series of popular uprising and protest appeared with the banning of opposition and imprisoning of anti-apartheid leaders. State organisations decided to respond with repression and violence.

The debut of Mandela

Concerning Mandela, we could say that, very soon, he started to express his opinions. This can be due to the fact that education took a big part of his life and it permitted him to meet people from different area.

But first there is one thing you need to know. Mandela’s father was a member of the king’s private council and took part of the election of the new regent Jogintaba Dalindyebo. He died of the tuberculosis when Mandela was 9. It’s the reason why, after this bad event, the regent became Mandela’s legal guardian.

He has been to Clarkebury Boarding Institute which was one of the largest schools for black Africans. It was made to socialize with other students on an equal basis. He completed his Junior Certificate in two years instead of 3 and then, moved to Healdtown, the Methodist College in Fort Beaufort frequented by members of the royal family. At the time, the headmaster emphasized the superiority of English culture and government but Mandela became increasingly interested in native African culture.

After that Mandela began work on a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Fort Hare, an elite black institution and he studied English, anthropology, politics, native administration, desiring to become an interpreter or clerk in the Native Affairs Department. During that time he discovered the Afrikaner nationalism but wasn’t convinced by the Marxism spread by the communist South African Party. He subscribed to the non-violence doctrine of Gandhi who will be an inspiration for him and many other generations of anti-apartheid people who imagine it as a way to fight against the oppression and the colonialism.  Although having friends connected to the African National Congress (ANC) and the anti-imperialist movement, Mandela avoided any involvement. Nevertheless he became involved in a Students’ Representative Council boycott against the quality of food, for which he was temporarily suspended from the university.

A few years later he was introduced to members of the African National Congress and attending communist talks and parties, Mandela was impressed that Europeans, Africans, Indians and Colored were mixing as equals. During that period he lived among miners of various tribes.

All those experiences and others contributed to define Mandela’s opinion on society maters especially concerning the apartheid which was more and more present during that period.

II - Mandela’s imprisonment and the similarities between the apartheid and the segregation in the USA

There's something you need to know : he was first on trial for betrayal in 1956 along with 150 of his companions, but they were all found non guilty. In March 1961 occurred the massacre of Sharpeville, and after that, Mandela's and the ACN's fight against segregation was no longer a non violent one. They decided to create a military organization to pursue an armed fight against the government.

In January 1962, he went on a journey abroad to raise money and organize the training of the fighters. The police arrested him when he got back, on the 5th of August. In November, he is sentenced to 5 years in jail, 2 for leaving his country illegally. A few months later, in July 1963, the police found what we can call

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