Mandela

Mandela

Early on, that Nelson Mandela’s political awareness began to take shape, and he steeled himself to resist such indoctrination while he immersed himself in the very real cultural practices of his own Xhosa people. He remembers the harsh rigors of his initiation, when he was prepared for the trials of manhood that lay ahead. He remembers emerging from his long seclusion, coated in red ochre, and receiving two cows and four sheep, which made him feel richer than he had ever felt before, and, as he put it, “walking……straighter and taller….and thinking that he might someday have wealth, property, and status.” He certainly was right about that, but a long road lay ahead.

The 1930’s were troubled times in South Africa, when forced removals, pass laws and other segregation bills were passed. With growing unease, Mandela went to Fort Hare University to do a Bachelors degree, but it wasn’t long before his strong will and indignation at injustice got in the way, and he was expelled in 1940 for leading a Student Representative Council strike with Oliver Tambo.

Already it was clear that nobody was going to tell this young man what to do, and when he discovered, on his return home, that his tribal chief and caretaker had decided it was time for him to marry a suitable girl, for whom labola (payment for marrying a girl of African decent) had already been paid, Nelson Mandela took the gap and ran away to Johannesburg.

Thus, at 22, he found himself working as a mine policeman, knopkiere and whistle in hand, at Johannesburg’s Crown Mines. Contrary to his expectations of grandeur, the Mine offices were rusted tin shanties in an ugly, barren area, filled with the harsh noise of lift-shafts, power drills, and the distant rumble of dynamite. Everywhere he looked he saw tired-looking black men in dusty overalls.

The contrast from his peaceful rural life must have been a rude shock, and he rapidly learned the reality of the grinding poverty and inhuman exploitation of his fellow workers. Now, politics began to play a very significant role in his life. Stirred up at the humiliation and suffering of his people, and outraged at the increasingly unjust and intolerable laws of the country, in 1944, he, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo amongst others formed the ANC Youth League, and within a few years, Mandela became its president.

Fired with ambition and determination, he completed his law degree through the University of the Witwatersrand, and with Tambo set up South Africa’s first black law firm. Thus began the dangerous and dedicated life of full time struggle against the evils of apartheid. Mandela involved himself wholeheartedly in leading a non-violent campaign of civil disobedience, helping to organize strikes, protest marches and demonstrations, encouraging people to defy discriminatory laws.

Inevitably, as the people’s rage increased and repression cracked down, Mandela was eventually arrested for the first time in 1952, and experienced the other side of the dock, no longer an attorney, but now the accused. He was acquitted, but further harassment, arrests and detention followed, culminating in the infamous Treason Trial in 1958. A full four years after