Workmen unfurl a giant banner with a photo of the late South African President Nelson Mandela to cover the facade of the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Paris. South African anti-apartheid hero Mandela died peacefully at home in Johannesburg at the age of 95 on Thursday after months fighting a lung infection, leaving his nation and the world in mourning for a man revered as a moral giant. Photo: Reuters/Charles Platiau

Nelson Mandela, who died on Thursday aged 95, will be remembered as the father of modern South Africa, a man who ended apartheid and delivered his country from the brink of civil war and who made reconciliation, forgiveness and social justice the central theme of his remarkable political career.

Frederick de Klerk, the last white President of South Africa, who ordered Mr Mandela’s release from jail in 1990, called him a “unifier” and said he had “a remarkable lack of bitterness”.

US President Barack Obama perhaps best summed up Mandela when he remarked shortly after the former South African President’s death was announced: “We have lost one of the most influential, courageous and profoundly good human beings that any of us will share time with on this Earth”.

Mr Mandela joined the African National Congress (ANC) in 1943 and soon formed part of the struggle against apartheid. He was charged with high treason in 1956 but the charges were dropped after a four-year trial.

In 1962, he was arrested, convicted of incitement and leaving the country without a passport and sentenced to five years in prison. Two years later he was charged with sabotage and sentenced to life imprisonment; he spent 27 years in jail.

At his trial in 1964, Mr Mandela had said: “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 need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die”.

Mandela was released from prison in 1990, the year after de Klerk became President; apartheid started to be dismantled and the ANC and other banned movements were legalised. Protracted negotiations then took place between Mandela and de Klerk which led to the acceptance of principle of ‘one man one vote’. In 1993, Mandela and de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In his acceptance speech, Mandela remarked: “The value of our shared reward will and must be measured by the joyful peace which will triumph, because the common humanity that bonds both black and white into one human race will have said to each one of us that we shall all live like the children of paradise”.

In April 1994, the first democratic elections were held in South Africa, with people of all races being able to vote. The African National Congress won 62.65 per cent of the vote and Mandela was elected President. A government of national unity was formed, and Mandela chose de Klerk and Thabo Mbeki as deputy presidents.

In his presidential inauguration speech, Mandela said: “We enter into a covenant that we shall build a society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall without any fear in their hearts, assured of the inalienable right to human dignity, a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.

Never, never, and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another- Nelson Mandela, 1994

“Never, never, and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another. The sun shall never set on so glorious a human achievement. Let freedom reign. God bless Africa.”

Mandela’s number one priority as President was unity and reconciliation. In a century plagued by civil wars, bloody revolutions and genocide, many of them in Africa, Mandela managed to preside over nothing less than a political miracle: a peaceful transfer of power and the acceptance by the black majority to put aside past injustices committed against them and work with the white minority to create a democratic, multiracial society. “We have confounded the prophets of doom,” Mandela once said, “and achieved a bloodless revolution”.

Mandela had a brilliant way of reaching out to the white minority. For example, the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa was used by Mandela to push forward his unifying agenda. Rugby was traditionally a sport for the white elite, yet Mandela wore the South African rugby cap and jersey when presenting the trophy to the victorious Springbok team.

That gesture unified the racially divided country in an unprecedented way and was the basis for the 2009 film Invictus directed by Clint Eastwood. Soon after Mandela’s death was announced, South Africa rugby tweeted: “Rest in Peace Nelson Mandela. We will never forget the role you played in our country, in our sport, and for that we are eternally grateful”.

Mandela’s transformation of his country into one based on forgiveness and understanding, and his belief in non-violence, made him an international icon comparable to world figures such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. He bore no bitterness after being jailed for 27 years and was able to bring out the best, rather than the worst, in people.

“I knew that people expected me to harbour anger towards whites,” Mandela once wrote, “but I had none. In prison, my anger towards whites decreased but my hatred for the system grew.”

Had there been no Mandela in South Africa, the country would likely have erupted into a cycle of hatred, violence and ethnic cleansing. Thanks to Mandela, this did not happen. On the other hand, just imagine how many other conflicts today could be avoided if there were other people like Mandela around.

Of course, Mandela was not perfect, and South Africa today has many problems such as poverty, economic inequality, crime and corruption. As President, Mandela neglected the fight against Aids, something he admitted in retirement (he stepped down as President in 1999).

But despite these problems, South Africa has made massive strides forward thanks to Mandela, who is without doubt Africa’s greatest ever statesman, a great moral leader and one of the world’s greatest political figures of all time.