"The Origin of the revolution"
It might be interesting, to have a closer look at Nelson Mandelas life, by going through his biography, in order to make the work easier for all of us.
Nelson Mandela has devoted his life to freedom, even if he stayed the longest part of his active life in jail.
He was born in 1918 in a small village from south Africa, graduated of right in 1942, and devoted his life to the freedom of the black people. Politically, he fought within the African National Congress (ANC), before a long imprisonment of more than twenty years, to have followed its convictions, and still he has not been discouraged, and continued the fight after being released.
In his combat for the freedom, Nelson Mandela opposed the government apartheid which then had course in South Africa. Apartheid is a racist policy based on the alleged superiority of the white. This policy is in the middle of the beliefs of the national Party, which represents the descendants of the Dutch colonists of the XVIIe century. It is Right after the election of national Party in 1948 that the apartheid started to divide black and white people through a legal way. At this time, Mandela was the leader of the league youth of the African National Congress. This league, founded in April 1944, preaches the mobilization of mass and takes model on the policy of non-violence developed by Gandhi in India. After several actions of fight against the life black people had been reduced to, Mandela is elected at the post of president of the league youth of the African National Congress.
Proving how “not democratic” South Africa was at this time, it is as a political leader that Mandela is stopped for the first time. In 1951-52, he is the chief of the “Challenge Campaign”, which is a protest against the racist laws. He will be imprisoned and will receive prohibition to attend public gatherings for a six months period. And the “Challenge Campaign” has other huge repercussions. In November 1952, a governmental proclamation prohibited the meetings of more than ten (10) Africans. After that there will be an introduction of Criminal Amendment Act makes it possible to condemn the demonstrators.
Mandela will be stopped again in 1956, at the same time as the leaders of the other movements that has been put into place, against the apartheid, but all of them will be discharged and released in 1961. Meanwhile, Mandela organizes a demonstration, which takes place on March 21, 1960. This demonstration is known in the world under the name of “Massacre of Sharpeville”, because of the police that shoots at a crowd of five thousand people. One week later the government voted a law, which made possible to prohibit the political party to which Mandela belongs.
Knowing that the legal way has been banished for him, Nelson Mandela enters clandestinity in 1961, and creates “Umkhonte we Sizwe”, which means the spread of the nation. It represents the branch armed with the ANC. In 1962 Mandella will be found and illegally condemned to five years of forced work, to have left the country and to have incited the population to strike. In 1963, the majority of the leaders of the ANC will be arrested.
Mandela said himself once;”During my life, I entirely devoted myself to the fight of the African people […]. My most expensive ideal was that of a free and democratic company in which all would live in harmony and with equal chances”. In 1964, Nelson Mandela will be condemned to a prison sentence to perpetuity. He will be released twenty six years later, in 1990.
Adolphe BÜTTNER