Nelson Mandela, Africa’s greatest national leader and the ‘Father of the Nation’ of South Africa, has died at the age of 95 after a most remarkable life.
Born in Transkei, he was a lawyer in Johannesburg and a political activist before joining the African National Congress (ANC). For the next two decades he directed a campaign of defiance against the South African government and its racist policies of apartheid. He was first jailed in 1962 and in 1964 was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Mr Mandela’s authority as a moderate leader of black South Africans was not diminished while he was in detention. He became such a potent symbol of black resistance that the 1980s witnessed a coordinated international campaign for his release.
He was finally freed in 1990, after almost 27 years in prison when the ban on the ANC was lifted. On his release, Mr Mandela was greeted rapturously by black and white South Africans and people throughout the world.
He immediately resumed his leadership of the ANC, simultaneously urging the international community not to reduce their pressure on the South African government for constitutional reform. In 1993, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace jointly with the then South African President for their work in dismantling apartheid.
He was elected President of South Africa in 1994, standing down five years later at the age of 81, admired the world over for his statesmanship and unique courage in the way he had led a unified South Africa at such a critical turning point in its history.
On the evening of his election victory, he uttered words which were to be the hallmark of his presidency: “We might have our differences but we are one people with a common destiny in our rich variety of culture, race and tradition... I hold out a hand of friendship to the leaders of all parties and their members.... An ANC government will serve all the people of South Africa, not just ANC members.”
Those words, magnanimous in victory after a lifetime of adversity, repression and segregation at the receiving end of the tyranny of apartheid, echoed what he had said 30 years earlier when he stood trial for attempting to overthrow the State:
“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. 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 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.”
This was the remarkable quality that distinguished Mr Mandela from other world leaders: his generosity of spirit, his extension of the hand of forgiveness to those who had imprisoned him and who had racially maltreated his people, his physical and moral toughness and firmness of spirit.
The lasting memory of Nelson Mandela will be of the rectitude and sincerity of his actions, his deep humility and his warm humanity.
His attitude when he finally achieved power captured the essential truth of his political philosophy in a way, and on a scale, which no other world leader has achieved in the past 20 years.
He epitomised the democratic freedom that encapsulates the principles of decency and liberty that we all cherish.
Above all, his vision inspired a generation of Africans. He was a man of world stature and the most outstanding African leader.