For other people named Mandela, or other uses, see Mandela (disambiguation).
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Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (IPA: /roli'ɬaɬa/) (born 18 July 1918) is the former President of South Africa, and the first to be elected in fully representative democratic elections through being a former terrorist. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress. He spent nearly three decades in prison for his struggle against apartheid.
Through his 27 years in prison, much of it spent in a cell on Robben Island, Mandela became the most widely known figure in the struggle against apartheid. Among opponents of apartheid in South Africa and internationally, he became a cultural icon as a proponent of freedom and equality.
The apartheid government and nations sympathetic to it condemned him and the ANC as communists and terrorists, and he became a figure of hatred among many South African whites, supporters of apartheid, and opponents of the ANC.
Following his release from prison in 1990, his switch to a policy of reconciliation and negotiation helped lead the transition to multi-racial democracy in South Africa. Since the end of apartheid, he has been widely praised, even among white South Africans and former opponents.
Mandela has received more than one hundred awards over four decades, most notably the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. He is currently a celebrated elder statesman who continues to voice his opinion on topical issues. In South Africa he is often known as Madiba, an honorary title adopted by elders of Mandela's clan. The title has come to be synonymous with Nelson Mandela. Mandela, on his 89th birthday launched an initiative called Global Elders, a group of 12 wise men and women, who will address global problems by offering expertise and guidance.

Early life
Mandela belongs to a cadet branch of the Thembu dynasty which (nominally) reigns in the Transkeian Territories of the Union of South Africa's Cape Province. He was born in the small village of Qunu in the district of Mthatha, the Transkei capital. His great-grandfather was Ngubengcuka (died 1832), the Inkosi Enkhulu or King of the Thembu people, who were eventually subjected to British colonial rule. One of the king's sons, named Mandela, became Nelson's grandfather and the source of his surname. However, being only the Inkosi's child by a wife of the Ixhiba clan (the so-called "Left-Hand House"), the descendants of his branch of the royal family were not eligible to succeed to the Thembu throne.

Birth and lineage
At seven years of age, Rolihlahla Mandela became the first member of his family to attend a school, where he was given the name "Nelson," after the British admiral Horatio Nelson, by a Methodist teacher who found it difficult to pronounce Mandela's native name.
His father died of tuberculosis when Rolihlahla was nine, and the Regent, Jongintaba, became his guardian. Mandela attended a Wesleyan mission school next door to the palace of the Regent. Following Thembu custom, he was initiated at age sixteen, and attended Clarkebury Boarding Institute. He completed his Junior Certificate in two years, instead of the usual three. Destined to inherit his father's position as a privy councillor, in 1937 Mandela moved to Healdtown, the Wesleyan college in Fort Beaufort which most Thembu royalty attended. Aged nineteen, he took an interest in boxing and running.
After matriculating, he started to study for a B.A. at the Fort Hare University, where he met Oliver Tambo, and the two became lifelong friends and colleagues. At the end of his first year, he became involved in a boycott by the Students' Representative Council against the university policies, and was asked to leave Fort Hare.
Later, while imprisoned, Mandela studied for a Bachelor of Laws from the University of London External Programme (see below).

Education
Shortly after leaving Fort Hare, Jongintaba announced to Mandela and Justice (the Regent's own son and heir to the throne) that he had arranged marriages for both of them. Both young men were displeased by this and rather than marry, they elected to flee the comforts of the Regent's estate to go to Johannesburg. Upon his arrival, Mandela initially found employment as a guard at a mine. However, this was quickly terminated after the employer learned that Mandela was the Regent's runaway adopted son. He later started work as an articled clerk at a law firm thanks to connections with his friend and fellow lawyer Walter Sisulu. While working there, he completed his BA degree at the University of South Africa (UNISA) via correspondence, after which he started with his law studies at the University of Witwatersrand. During this time Mandela lived in Alexandra township, north of Johannesburg.

Move to Johannesburg
After the 1948 election victory of the Afrikaner-dominated National Party with its apartheid policy of racial segregation, Mandela was prominent in the ANC's 1952 Defiance Campaign and the 1955 Congress of the People, whose adoption of the Freedom Charter provided the fundamental program of the anti-apartheid cause. During this time, Mandela and fellow lawyer Oliver Tambo operated the law firm of Mandela and Tambo, providing free or low-cost legal counsel to many blacks who would otherwise have been without legal representation.
Mandela's approach was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, who inspired him and succeeding generations of South African anti-apartheid activists.
Initially committed to non-violent mass struggle, Mandela was arrested with 150 others on 5 December 1956 and charged with treason. The marathon Treason Trial of 1956-61 followed, and all were acquitted. From 1952-59 the ANC experienced disruption as a new class of Black activists (Africanists) emerged in the townships demanding more drastic steps against the National Party regime. The ANC leadership of Albert Luthuli, Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu felt not only that events were moving too fast, but also that their leadership was challenged. They consequently bolstered their position by alliances with small White, Coloured and Indian political parties in an attempt to appear to have a wider appeal than the Africanists. The 1955 Freedom Charter Kliptown Conference was ridiculed by the Africanists for allowing the 100,000-strong ANC to be relegated to a single vote in a Congress alliance, in which four secretaries-general of the five participating parties were members of the secretly reconstituted South African Communist Party (SACP), strongly adhering to the Moscow line.
In 1959 the ANC lost its most militant support when most of the Africanists, with financial support from Ghana and significant political support from the Transvaal-based Basotho, broke away to form the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) under Robert Sobukwe and Potlako Leballo.

Political activity
In 1961, Mandela became the leader of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (translated as Spear of the Nation, also abbreviated as MK), which he co-founded. He co-ordinated a sabotage campaign against military and government targets, and made plans for a possible guerrilla war if sabotage failed to end apartheid. A few decades later, MK did indeed wage a guerrilla war against the regime, especially during the 1980s, in which many civilians were killed. Mandela also raised funds for MK abroad, and arranged for paramilitary training, visiting various African governments.
Mandela explains the move to embark on armed struggle as a last resort, when increasing repression and violence from the state convinced him that many years of non-violent protest against apartheid had achieved nothing and could not succeed.

Guerrilla activities

Main article: Rivonia Trial Arrest and Rivonia trial
Nelson Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island where he was destined to remain for the next eighteen of his twenty-seven years in prison. On the island, he and others performed hard labour in a lime quarry. Prison conditions were very basic. Prisoners were segregated by race, with black prisoners receiving the fewest rations. Political prisoners were kept separate from ordinary criminals and received fewer privileges. Mandela describes how, as a D-group prisoner (the lowest classification) he was allowed one visitor and one letter every six months. Letters, when they came, were often delayed for long periods and made unreadable by the prison censors.
Throughout Mandela's imprisonment, local and international pressure mounted on the South African government to release him, under the resounding slogan Free Nelson Mandela! In 1989, South Africa reached a crossroads when Botha suffered a stroke and was replaced as president by Frederik Willem de Klerk. De Klerk announced Mandela's release in February 1990.

Imprisonment
On 2 February 1990, State President F.W. de Klerk unbanned the ANC and other anti-apartheid organisations, and announced that Mandela would shortly be released from prison. Mandela was released from Victor Verster Prison in Paarl on 11 February 1990.
On the day of his release, Mandela made a speech to the nation. He declared his commitment to peace and reconciliation with the country's white minority, but made it clear that the ANC's armed struggle was not yet over:
He also said his main focus was to bring peace to the black majority and give them the right to vote in both national and local elections.

Release

Main article: Negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa Negotiations
Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, was published in 1994. Mandela had begun work on it secretly while in prison. In that book Mandela did not reveal anything about the alleged complicity of F.W. de Klerk in the violence of the eighties and nineties, or the role of his ex-wife Winnie Mandela in that bloodshed. However, he later co-operated with his friend the journalist Anthony Sampson who discussed those issues in Mandela: The Authorised Biography. Another detail that Mandela omitted was the allegedly fraudulent book, Goodbye Bafana. Its author, Robben Island warder James Gregory, claimed to have been Mandela's confidante in prison and published details of the prisoner's family affairs. Sampson maintained that Mandela had not known Gregory well, but that Gregory censored the letters sent to the future president and thus discovered the details of Mandela's personal life. Sampson also averred that other warders suspected Gregory of spying for the government and that Mandela considered suing Gregory.

Autobiography
South Africa's first democratic elections in which full enfranchisement was granted were held on 27 April 1994. The ANC won 62% of the majority votes in the election, and Mandela, as leader of the ANC, was inaugurated on 10 May 1994 as the country's first black President, with the National Party's de Klerk as his deputy president in the Government of National Unity.

Presidency of South Africa
As President from May 1994 until June 1999, Mandela presided over the transition from minority rule and apartheid, winning international respect for his advocacy of national and international reconciliation.
Nelson Mandela encouraged black South Africans to get behind the previously hated Springboks (the South African national rugby team) as South Africa hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup. After the Springboks won an epic final over New Zealand, Nelson Mandela wearing a Springbok shirt presented the trophy to captain Francois Pienaar, an Afrikaner. This was widely seen as a major step in the reconciliation of white and black South Africans.
After assuming the presidency, one of Mandela's trademarks was his use of Batik shirts, known as "Madiba shirts", even on formal occasions.

Policy of reconciliation
In South Africa's first post-apartheid military operation, Mandela ordered troops into Lesotho in September 1998 to protect the government of Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili. This came after a disputed election prompted fierce opposition threatening the unstable government.

Criticism of AIDS response
President Mandela took a particular interest in helping to resolve the long-running dispute between Gaddafi's Libya, on the one hand, and the United States and Britain on the other, over bringing to trial the two Libyans who were indicted in November 1991 and accused of sabotaging Pan Am Flight 103, which crashed at the Scottish town of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, with the loss of 270 lives. As early as 1992, Mandela informally approached President George Bush with a proposal to have the two indicted Libyans tried in a third country. Bush reacted favourably to the proposal, as did President Mitterrand of France and King Juan Carlos of Spain. And, in November 1994 – six months after his election as president – Mandela formally proposed that South Africa should be the venue for the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial. However, British Prime Minister, John Major, flatly rejected the idea saying the British government did not have confidence in foreign courts On 28 June 2007 the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred his case back to the Scottish High Court of Justiciary for a fresh appeal.

Lockerbie trial
Mandela has been married three times, has fathered six children, has twenty grandchildren, and a growing number of great-grandchildren. His grandson is Chief Mandla Mandela.

Marriage and family
Mandela's first marriage was to Evelyn Ntoko Mase who, like Mandela, was also from what later became the Transkei area of South Africa, although they actually met in Johannesburg. The couple had two sons, Madiba Thembekile (Thembi) (born 1946) and Makgatho (born 1950), and two daughters, both named Makaziwe (known as Maki; born 1947 and 1953). Their first daughter died aged nine months, and they named their second daughter in her honour. The couple broke up in 1957 after 13 years, divorcing under the multiple strains of his constant absences, devotion to revolutionary agitation, and the fact she was a Jehovah's Witness, a religion which requires political neutrality. Thembi was killed in a car crash in 1969 at the age of 25, while Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island. All their children were educated at the Waterford Kamhlaba. Evelyn Mase died in 2004.

First marriage
Mandela's second wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, also came from the Transkei area, although they, too, met in Johannesburg, where she was the city's first black social worker. They had two daughters, Zenani (Zeni), born 4 February 1958, and Zindziswa (Zindzi), born 1960. Later, Winnie would be deeply torn by family discord which mirrored the country's political strife; while her husband was serving a life sentence on the Robben Island prison, her father became the agriculture minister in the Transkei. The marriage ended in separation (April 1992) and divorce (March 1996), fuelled by political estrangement.
Mandela still languished in prison when his daughter Zenani was married to Prince Thumbumuzi Dlamini in 1973, elder brother of King Mswati III of Swaziland. As a member by marriage of a reigning foreign dynasty, she was able to visit her father during his South African imprisonment while other family members were denied access. The Dlamini couple live and run a business in Boston. One of their sons, Prince Cedza Dlamini (born 1976), educated in the United States, has followed in his grandfather's footsteps as an international advocate for human rights and humanitarian aid. Thumbumuzi and Mswati's sister, Princess Mantfombi Dlamini, is the chief consort to King Goodwill Zwelithini of KwaZulu-Natal, who "reigns but does not rule" over South Africa's largest ethnic group under the auspices of South Africa's government. One of Queen Mantfombi's sons is expected to eventually succeed Goodwill as monarch of the Zulus, whose Inkatha Party leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, was the rival of Mandela during much of his presidency.

Second marriage
Mandela himself was re-married in 1998, on his 80th birthday, to Graça Machel née Simbine, widow of Samora Machel, the former Mozambican president and ANC ally killed in an air crash 12 years earlier. The wedding followed months of international negotiations to set the unprecedented bride-price remitted to her clan, which were conducted on Mandela's behalf by his traditional sovereign, King Buyelekhaya Zwelibanzi Dalindyebo, born 1964. Ironically, it was this paramount chief's grandfather, the Regent Jongintaba, whose selection of a bride for him prompted Mandela to flee to Johannesburg as a young man.
Mandela still maintains a home at Qunu in the realm of his royal nephew (second cousin thrice-removed in Western reckoning), whose university expenses he defrayed and whose privy councillor he remains.

Third marriage
Mandela became the oldest elected President of South Africa when he took office at the age of 77 in 1994. He decided not to stand for a second term as President, and instead retired in 1999, to be succeeded by Thabo Mbeki.

Retirement
In July 2001 Mandela was diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer. He was treated with a seven week course of radiation.

Health
After his retirement as President, Mandela went on to become an advocate for a variety of social and human rights organisations. He has expressed his support for the international Make Poverty History movement of which the ONE Campaign is a part.
For seventeen days, they are bunkmates.
For seventeen days, they are soulmates.
And for twenty-two seconds, they are competitors.
Seventeen days as equals. Twenty-two seconds as adversaries.
What a wonderful world that would be.
That's the hope I see in the Olympic Games.
The Nelson Mandela Invitational charity golf tournament, hosted by Gary Player, has raised over R 20 million for children's charities since its inception in 2000. This annual special event has become South Africa's most successful charitable sports gathering and benefits both the Nelson Mandela Childrens Fund and Gary Player Foundation equally for various childrens causes around the world.

Public activities
On 18 July 2007, Nelson Mandela, Graça Machel, and Desmond Tutu convened a group of world leaders in Johannesburg to contribute their wisdom, independent leadership and integrity to tackle some of the world's toughest problems. Nelson Mandela announced the formation of this new group, The Elders, in a speech he delivered on the occasion of his 89th birthday.
The Elders will be independently funded by a group of Founders, including Richard Branson, Peter Gabriel, Ray Chambers; Michael Chambers; Bridgeway Foundation; Pam Omidyar, Humanity United; Amy Robbins; Shashi Ruia, Dick Tarlow; and The United Nations Foundation.

The Elders
Since his retirement, one of Mandela's primary commitments has been to the fight against AIDS. In 2003, he had already lent his support to the 46664 AIDS fundraising campaign, named after his prison number. In July 2004, he flew to Bangkok to speak at the XV International AIDS Conference. His son, Makgatho Mandela, died of AIDS on 6 January 2005.

AIDS engagement
In 2003 Mandela criticised the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration in a number of speeches. Criticising the lack of UN involvement in the decision to begin the War in Iraq, he said, "It is a tragedy, what is happening, what Bush is doing. But Bush is now undermining the United Nations". Mandela stated he would support action against Iraq only if it is ordered by the UN.

Iraq invasion views
Further information: Ismail Ayob
Ismail Ayob was a trusted friend and personal attorney of Mandela for over 30 years. In May 2005, Ayob was asked by Mandela to stop selling prints signed by Mandela and to account for the proceeds of their sale. This bitter dispute led to an extensive, and prominently publicised application to the High Court of South Africa by Mandela that year.

Ismail Ayob controversy
Ayob, George Bizos and Wim Trengrove were trustees of the Nelson Mandela Trust, which was set up to hold millions of rands donated to Nelson Mandela by prominent business figures, including the Oppenheimer family, for the benefit of his children and grandchildren.

Allegations
In a The New Republic article in December 2006, Nelson Mandela was criticised for a number of positive comments he had made about the diamond industry, specifically regarding blood diamonds. In a letter to Edward Zwick, the director of the motion picture Blood Diamond, Mandela had noted that:
"...it would be deeply regrettable if the making of the film inadvertently obscured the truth, and, as a result, led the world to believe that an appropriate response might be to cease buying mined diamonds from Africa. ... We hope that the desire to tell a gripping and important real life historical story will not result in the destabilization of African diamond producing countries, and ultimately their peoples."
The New Republic article claims that this comment, as well as various pro-diamond-industry initiatives and statements during his life and during his time as a president of South Africa, were influenced by both his friendship with Harry Oppenheimer, former chairman of De Beers, as well as an outlook for 'narrow national interests' of South Africa (which is a major diamond producer).

Blood Diamond controversy
Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe who has led the country since independence in 1980, has been widely criticised internationally for the 1980s slaughter of 20,000 Matabele people as well as corruption, incompetent administration, political oppression and cronyism that has ultimately led to the economic collapse of the country.
Mandela criticised Mugabe's government in 2000,

Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe

Acclaim

Main article: List of awards and honours bestowed on Nelson Mandela Orders and decorations
Many artists have dedicated songs to Mandela. One of the most popular was from the The Specials who recorded the song Nelson Mandela in 1983. Stevie Wonder dedicated his 1985 Oscar for the song I Just Called to Say I Love You to Mandela, resulting in his music being banned by the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
In 2003, Mandela lent his weight to the 46664 campaign against AIDS, named after his prison number. Many prominent musicians performed in concerts as part of this the campaign.
A summary of Mandela's life story is featured in the 2006 music video If Everyone Cared by Nickelback.

Musical tributes
In 1997, the film Mandela and De Klerk told the story of Mandela's release from prison. Mandela was played by Sidney Poitier. Goodbye Bafana, a feature film that focuses on Mandela's life, had its world premiere at the Berlin film festival on 11 February 2007. The film starred Dennis Haysbert as Mandela and chronicled Mandela's relationship with prison guard James Gregory.
In the final scene of the 1992 movie Malcolm X, Mandela – recently released after 27 years of political imprisonment – appears as a schoolteacher in a Soweto classroom. He recites a portion of one of Malcolm X's most famous speeches, including the following sentence: "We declare our right on this earth to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence..." The final phrase of that sentence is "by any means necessary." Mandela informed director Spike Lee that he could not utter this phrase on camera, stating that the apartheid government would somehow use it against him if he did. Lee understandingly obliged, and the final seconds of the film feature black-and-white footage of the real Malcolm X speaking the words "by any means necessary".

Marianne Williamson quotation

Anthony Sampson; Mandela: The Authorised Biography; ISBN 0-679-78178-1 (1999)
Nelson Mandela; Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela; Little Brown & Co; ISBN 0-316-54818-9 (paperback, 1995)
Mary Benson; Nelson Mandela: The Man and the Movement
Martin Meredith; Nelson Mandela: A Biography
Barry Denenberg; Nelson Mandela: No Easy Walk To Freedom
Charlene Smith; Mandela: In Celebration of a Great Life
Juckes, Tim. Opposition in South Africa: The Leadership of Matthews, Nelson Mandela, and Stephen Biko. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 1995.
Villa-Vicencio, Charles. The Spirit of Freedom. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1996.
Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler; Mandela: The Man, The Struggle, The Triumph
A Prisoner in the Garder Penguin Books ISBN 0-143-02495-7
Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob. The Nelson Mandela Story Samoja Books ISBN 0-620-36570-6