From Poland to Turkey, from Russia to Brazil, ethnic nationalism is ascendant, and authoritarian leaders and autocratic regimes are undermining the ability of people to vote, eroding the independence of judiciaries, curtailing freedom of speech and of the press. According to the non-profit Freedom House , we are in the 14th straight year of a global decline in freedom.
In America, not only are we suffering from the pandemic, but there is a powerful national movement against racial and cultural inequities, while we have a president who is closer in spirit to the racist apartheid leaders whom we thought Mandela had consigned to the dustbin of history. What Would Nelson Mandela Do? Mandela never took the path of least resistance.
Nelson Mandela was by nature an optimist, but he was as hard-headed as they come. If the world was going to bend toward justice, he would have to do the bending himself. Mandela never saw America as a shining city on a hill.
In fact, the president who first used that phrase—Ronald Reagan—regarded Mandela as a terrorist and his government supported the South African apartheid regime during the Cold War. Mandela was only officially removed from U. He was well aware of reporting at the time that the CIA had tipped off South African police as to his whereabouts when he was underground. I remember when I was working with him in there was an evening event in Johannesburg celebrating the end of apartheid with then Vice President Al Gore as the guest of honor.
Mandela admired Dr. King and followed the American civil rights movement closely. One enormous difference, which Mandela understood better than anyone, was that in South Africa, Black people were a repressed and disenfranchised majority , not a minority. By his own admission he was a poor student and left the university in without graduating. He only started studying again through the University of London after his imprisonment in but also did not complete that degree. He graduated in absentia at a ceremony in Cape Town.
They had two sons, Madiba Thembekile "Thembi" and Makgatho, and two daughters both called Makaziwe, the first of whom died in infancy. He and his wife divorced in This campaign of civil disobedience against six unjust laws was a joint programme between the ANC and the South African Indian Congress. He and 19 others were charged under the Suppression of Communism Act for their part in the campaign and sentenced to nine months of hard labour, suspended for two years.
At the end of he was banned for the first time. As a restricted person he was only permitted to watch in secret as the Freedom Charter was adopted in Kliptown on 26 June Mandela was arrested in a countrywide police swoop on 5 December , which led to the Treason Trial.
Men and women of all races found themselves in the dock in the marathon trial that only ended when the last 28 accused, including Mandela, were acquitted on 29 March On 21 March police killed 69 unarmed people in a protest in Sharpeville against the pass laws.
Mandela and his colleagues in the Treason Trial were among thousands detained during the state of emergency. During the trial Mandela married a social worker, Winnie Madikizela, on 14 June They had two daughters, Zenani and Zindziswa. The couple divorced in This policy required Black South Africans to carry identification with them at all times, which they needed to enter areas designated for whites.
They were forced to live in all-Black zones and forbidden from entering into interracial relationships. Black people were even removed from the voter rolls and eventually fully disenfranchised. At first, Mandela and his fellow members of the ANC used nonviolent tactics like strikes and demonstrations to protest apartheid.
In , Mandela helped escalate the struggle as a leader of the Defiance Campaign, which encouraged Black participants to actively violate laws. More than 8, people —including Mandela—were jailed for violating curfews, refusing to carry identification passes, and other offenses.
See pictures from the life and times of Mandela. After serving his sentence, Mandela continued to lead protests against the government and, in , he, along with others, was tried for treason.
He was acquitted in and lived in hiding for 17 months after the trial. Over time, Mandela came to believe that armed resistance was the only way to end apartheid. In , he briefly left the country to receive military training and gain support for the cause but was arrested and convicted soon after his return for leaving the country without a permit.
They charged him and his allies with sabotage. Mandela and the other defendants in the ensuing Rivonia Trial knew they were sure to be convicted and executed. So they turned their show trial into a statement, publicizing their anti-apartheid struggle and challenging the legal system that oppressed Black South Africans. It is a struggle of the African people, inspired by our own suffering and our own experience. It is a struggle for the right to live. He was allowed only one minute visit with a single person every year, and could send and receive two letters a year.
Leaders in the African National Congress, the party Mandela led, voted to abolish the anthem. It was seen as a racist relic because it brazenly celebrated the White conquest and subjugation of Black people.
When Mandela heard about the decision, he was livid. I don't want to be rude," Mandela started. This song that you treat so easily holds the emotions of many people who you don't represent yet. With the stroke of a pen, you would take a decision to destroy the very -- the only -- basis that we are building upon: reconciliation.
Mandela proposed instead that South Africa should have two national anthems. The White and Black South Africans anthems would both be sung one after one another at official ceremonies and other public events. His proposal was passed unanimously by the chastened ANC leadership. The anthem was a difficult choice, but it helped, says the Rev. There is a legitimate debate about preserving racist monuments. Mandela, for example, never said that all relics from apartheid's past should be preserved.
What's important, though, is that he grasped that the cultural symbols of the Afrikaners -- their anthem, their love of rugby which many Black South Africans disdained because it was seen as the sport of their oppressors and their monuments -- weren't just issues to argue about. It offered opportunities to reach them. That's why Mandela often spoke a few words of Afrikaans at the beginning of his speeches.
It's why he publicly rallied behind South Africa's Rugby World Cup Final championship run, an enthralling sports story that was made into a Hollywood movie. And its why, Mandela later explained, he spent his years his prison learning Afrikaans, the language of his oppressor while studying their history and reading their favorite poets.
Mandela once said of persuading many Afrikaners to accept him as their leader:. That approach is how he disarmed Viljoen, the South African general who visited his home, Carlin the author says.
Viljoen was considered a racist and a criminal by many Black South Africans. Carlin called him the "ultimate enforcer" of apartheid because the system was built on the brute force of the South African military. Viljoen was Mandela's most dangerous adversary because he could have mobilzied a force of about 30, White South African soldiers who were ready to wage wa r for a White homeland.
But Mandela charmed Viljoen by speaking to him in Afrikaans, the general's native language, while spinning parables about Afrikaner farmers who were tough but fair to Black people.
Yet he also spoke bluntly to Viljoen about his own anger because he knew that directness was a trait that Afrikaners valued. Mandela knew what notes to hit because he had spent virtually 30 years addressing the hearts of Afrikaners who had imprisoned him. Constant Viljoen was one of Mandela's most formidable enemies. Mandela's ability to forge a relationship with Viljoen saves South Africa from a potential civil war.
Some may reduce Mandela's charm offensive had political manipulation, but Carlin and others says it went deeper. They say Mandela had a Lincolnesque ability to appeal to the better angels in his political opponent's nature. He treated them not as the globally reviled henchmen of a criminal regime built on racism, but also as leaders who could transcend their backgrounds.
He knew on some level that they wanted to be seen as more than monsters and dangled opportunities before them to do so.
If you cut through those and start finding the heart and appeal to their generosity, you're going to make them feel better about themselves. That's why Carlin and others observe a curious pattern when some of the toughest enforcers of apartheid talk about their relationship with Mandela. Many of them cry.
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