Nelson Mandela : An extraordinary story of leadership
Rolihlahla Mandela was born in 1918 in a thatched hut with no electricity or running water in the village of Mvezo in the black homeland of Transkei. Rolihlahla means ‘troublemaker’. A teacher tacked on the name Nelson, perhaps thinking it less menacing. When he was 12, Mandela’s father died, and he left the family to become ward of the Paramount chief of the Tembu tribe. He attended a missionary college but was expelled when he joined a protest against efforts to weaken the student council. He left for Johannesburg and worked as a guard at a gold mine, then as a clerk in a white lawyers’ office, and studied for a correspondence law degree. He was 24 when he joined the African National Congress, a mild mannered organisation of old leaders, who sought to improve the treatment of blacks via constitutional means.
But Mandela had other ideas, and his timing was right: A new, more impatient generation was waiting in the wings. Two years later, Mandela and a handful of friends created the Youth League of the ANC, intending to rejuvenate and reform the parent organisation and also to build a huge, grassroots protest movement. In his first major speech before the membership of the ANC, Mandela declared his extraordinary ambition – he promised he would become the first President of a democratic South Africa.
Like his counterpart in the United States, Martin Luther King Jr, Mandela chose passive resistance as his weapon, organising a series of protests over the next few years. The government responded in 1948 with apartheid, the official policy that aimed at the separation of the races by setting up self-governing enclaves for blacks. The bulk of the country, including its cities and infrastructure, was reserved for whites, who represented just 1/6th of the population. Blacks were required to carry identification passes when moving from town to town or entering white areas. They were barred from obtaining passports, and they were routinely harassed and jailed by the police.
For revolutionaries like Mandela, apartheid and the repression associated with it represented a rich new opportunity, a rallying point for opposition. In 1952, Mandela was named national volunteer-in-chief of the ANC’s Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws. He crisscrossed the country setting up marches and strikes.
The police massacre of peaceful demonstrators in Sharpeville in 1960 was the spark that ignited outright armed struggle. The government banned the ANC; the next year, Mandela went underground. He led the ANC in a new direction, organising a military wing and ordering bomb attacks on rail lines and power plants.
Eventually Mandela was captured. In June 1964, he was sentenced to life in prison. He spent the next 18 years in an island prison off Cape Town – toiling from early morning to sunset in a limestone quarry, exposed to the broiling heat of the African summer and the bitter cold of winter, forced to endure the random indignities and cruelties of the prison system.
It might’ve crushed a lesser person. Mandela recognised it as an opportunity to grow and to inspire a new audience with his political ideals. Early on the prisoners were prevented from even talking to each other during their work hours. Although he had minimal contact with his fellow inmates, Mandela was still able to inspire them through the dignity with which he conducted himself and the dignity he demanded from the prison guards. For instance, he refused to run to the work shift as the guards demanded, choosing instead to walk at a measured pace. Eventually the guards were forced to walk at the same pace. In these little ways, he kept the struggle going.
His years in prison turned Mandela into the undisputed leader and symbol of the struggle for black freedom in his country. As other nations increased economic pressure on South Africa to ease and then eliminate apartheid, the government was forced to negotiate. That meant negotiating with – and eventually freeing – Nelson Mandela.
But Mandela had other ideas, and his timing was right: A new, more impatient generation was waiting in the wings. Two years later, Mandela and a handful of friends created the Youth League of the ANC, intending to rejuvenate and reform the parent organisation and also to build a huge, grassroots protest movement. In his first major speech before the membership of the ANC, Mandela declared his extraordinary ambition – he promised he would become the first President of a democratic South Africa.
Like his counterpart in the United States, Martin Luther King Jr, Mandela chose passive resistance as his weapon, organising a series of protests over the next few years. The government responded in 1948 with apartheid, the official policy that aimed at the separation of the races by setting up self-governing enclaves for blacks. The bulk of the country, including its cities and infrastructure, was reserved for whites, who represented just 1/6th of the population. Blacks were required to carry identification passes when moving from town to town or entering white areas. They were barred from obtaining passports, and they were routinely harassed and jailed by the police.
For revolutionaries like Mandela, apartheid and the repression associated with it represented a rich new opportunity, a rallying point for opposition. In 1952, Mandela was named national volunteer-in-chief of the ANC’s Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws. He crisscrossed the country setting up marches and strikes.
The police massacre of peaceful demonstrators in Sharpeville in 1960 was the spark that ignited outright armed struggle. The government banned the ANC; the next year, Mandela went underground. He led the ANC in a new direction, organising a military wing and ordering bomb attacks on rail lines and power plants.
Eventually Mandela was captured. In June 1964, he was sentenced to life in prison. He spent the next 18 years in an island prison off Cape Town – toiling from early morning to sunset in a limestone quarry, exposed to the broiling heat of the African summer and the bitter cold of winter, forced to endure the random indignities and cruelties of the prison system.
It might’ve crushed a lesser person. Mandela recognised it as an opportunity to grow and to inspire a new audience with his political ideals. Early on the prisoners were prevented from even talking to each other during their work hours. Although he had minimal contact with his fellow inmates, Mandela was still able to inspire them through the dignity with which he conducted himself and the dignity he demanded from the prison guards. For instance, he refused to run to the work shift as the guards demanded, choosing instead to walk at a measured pace. Eventually the guards were forced to walk at the same pace. In these little ways, he kept the struggle going.
His years in prison turned Mandela into the undisputed leader and symbol of the struggle for black freedom in his country. As other nations increased economic pressure on South Africa to ease and then eliminate apartheid, the government was forced to negotiate. That meant negotiating with – and eventually freeing – Nelson Mandela.
Source : The Arc of ambition by James Champy and Nitin Nohria
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