Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was blessed with long life dying at age 95, but a greater part of that life was sacrificed in a cause to liberate his countrymen from an obnoxious apartheid regime.
Mandela’s involvement in the political struggle for freedom, truncated his education, disengaged him from his wife and kids, made him a fugitive in foreign lands and caused his incarceration for almost three decades.
In his early 20s, Mandela began suffering the consequences of that torturous political struggle, as he led South Africans in a long walk from oppression to freedom.
The fight for freedom had begun long before Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, but when he stepped onto the battlefield, nothing (including his life) could be a stumbling block in his ruthless onslaught against and dismantling of the apartheid system in South Africa.
“Mandela was a fearless freedom fighter who refused to allow the brutality of the apartheid state to stand in the way of the struggle for the liberation of his people,” South African President Jacob Zuma, said at the national memorial service held for the late freedom fighter at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg.
Indeed, Mandela himself had demonstrated that fearless character even at the brink of death, when he made a profound statement during the Rivonia Trial in October 1963 while facing treason charges.
"I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die," he said in a fearless resolve that caught the immediate attention of the world.
Beginning of freedom fight
In the course of the freedom struggle, Madiba, as Mandela was popularly called in South Africa, had undergone military training in foreign lands, but the source of his fearless character might be a birthright more than any military enterprise.
His ancestors were men of valour who fought fearlessly in the war of resistance, and as a small boy from a royal family who was being groomed to become a chief, Madiba could not be less valorous, as he joined the freedom struggle of his generation at a tender age.
He was deeply involved in the anti-apartheid movement even while a student, and he began paying the price for liberty at that early stage, as he was expelled from the University College of Fort Hare for participating in a students’ protest against apartheid.
That punishment might have been a flip of the perils that awaited Mandela on a turbulent political terrain at the time, but it did not cow him in the least; rather, it strengthened his resolve to fight robustly, and with a good education background, particularly a training in law, he was clear about his mission.
“Being a lawyer, he understood the possible consequences of his actions but he also knew that no unjust system could last forever,” President Zuma said at Mandela’s funeral service.
African National Congress
In his quest to prosecute his mission against the apartheid regime, Nelson Mandela joined the African National Congress (ANC), and in 1948, at the age of 30, he had risen to become the national secretary of the ANC Youth League.
His rise on the political ladder was fast and swift, as he became the national president of the ANC Youth League in 1950, rising further to become one of four deputy presidents of the ANC in October 1952.
Having climbed that high, Mandela could now marshal strong forces to wage a relentless battle against the apartheid regime.
It was, therefore, not surprising that the apartheid regime, concerned about the growing turbulence on the political front, sought to clip the wings of Mandela and his cohorts by banning the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) in 1960.
All along, the ANC, unlike the PAC, had waged an armless struggle, but after the 1960 ban, it was compelled to change its modus operandi, as it formed Umkhonto we Sizwe, the ANC's armed wing, with Mandela playing a lead role as its first commander-in-chief to launch an underground struggle.
A renowned Ghanaian diplomat, Mr K. B. Asante, endorsed the armed struggle adopted by the ANC, saying it was the best approach to confront the apartheid system because unlike Ghana that had assurance of independence from Britain, the people of South Africa did not have any hope of freedom.
“That’s your only weapon; that’s the only way you’ll be free. In history, when you want something, you fight for it,” he told the Daily Graphic.
Training in foreign land
The launch of an armed struggle through Umkhonto we Sizwe, led to a series of underground operations by the ANC, but the commander-in-chief of the ANC armed wing needed to take full charge of his new role.
In spite of a travel ban on political activists, Mandela managed to outwit the security apparatus to travel outside the country to undergo military training in Algeria and some other African countries.
Mandela in Ghana
Ghana was an obvious destination for Mandela, given the huge stature of Dr Kwame Nkrumah in the African liberation struggle and the significant role Ghana played in providing shelter and logistical support to freedom fighters on the continent.
So when Mandela arrived in Accra in April 1962, his mission was to take pertinent lesson notes from the inspirational Ghanaian leader for a more decisive campaign against the apartheid regime.
But according to Mr Asante, the Ghanaian regime was more connected to the PAC than the ANC because of the former’s militancy approach against apartheid.
He said for that reason, Mandela might not have received the needed assistance, although Ghana played a key role in the fight against apartheid.
Arrests and charges
Nelson Mandela suffered the consequences of his political activism, as he was arrested and imprisoned on many occasions.
In December 1952, he and 19 other activists were arrested and charged under the Suppression of Communism Act for their participation in the Defiance Campaign, a national protest against laws curtailing the freedoms of blacks, Indians and coloured people in South Africa.
The price he paid for that charge was nine months' imprisonment with hard labour and later, a six-month ban from attending meetings or leaving Johannesburg.
Four years later, in December 1956, Mandela was among 156 political activists who were arrested and charged with high treason for pursuing a campaign leading to the adoption of The Freedom Charter in 1955.
The height of Mandela’s brush with the apartheid regime was when he and seven other accused persons faced charges of sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government in the Rivonia Trial in October 1963.
Imprisonment & presidency
That trial led to a life imprisonment sentence for Mandela in 1964, an incarceration that sent him to the Robben Island for 27 years.
But the apartheid regime bowed to national and international pressure to release him on Sunday, February 11, 1990, and the tireless freedom fighter emerged from the confines of the Robben Island to become South Africa’s first democratically-elected president in 1994.
Post-independence
The release of Mandela and his election as first president of a democratic South Africa brought a big sigh of relief to many South Africans and the freedom movement across the world.
But that was not the end of the journey to freedom, as Mandela was confronted with the challenges of liberating majority of the people from poverty and social seclusion.
He also worked tirelessly to deal with the scourge of HIV and AIDS that has unleashed grief to many homes in South Africa.
For all intents and purposes, Mandela had been successful in leading South Africans on its long journey to freedom, and as he embarks on a new journey to eternity, it is time for Madiba to take a good rest.
“Now, it is for South Africans to carry on the touch he lit,” Mr K. B. Asante summed up.
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