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The revolutionary

Mandela's statement from the dock at the opening of his defence in the 1964 trial, ''An ideal for which I am prepared to die''.

During the 1950s Mandela was banned, arrested and imprisoned for challenging apartheid. He was one of the accused in the massive Treason Trial at the end of the decade and, following the 1960 banning of the ANC, he went underground, adopting a number of disguises--sometimes a laborer, other times a chauffeur. The press dubbed him "the Black Pimpernel" because of his ability to evade police. During this time, he and other ANC leaders formed its armed wing--Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). Mandela was secretly appointed its commander in chief.

In June 1964, Nelson Mandela was convicted of sabotage for his role as an ANC activist against the former apartheid regime of South Africa, in which only white people were allowed to vote. Mandela had been accused of inciting strikes by workers and leaving the country without permission of the government. Mandela declined to give evidence in his defence, but chose instead to make a statement from the dock, highlighting his grievances, outlining his politics and explaining his ideals. The statement took three hours to deliver. The speech is so titled because it ends with the words "it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die". The speech is considered one of the great speeches of the 20th century, and a key moment in the history of South African democracy.

“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 and 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''

The boy from the rural Transkei

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela was born in the tiny village of Mvezo, on the banks of the Mbashe River in Transkei. Some years later he moved to Qunu, an even smaller village. It was nestled in a narrow grassy valley, there were no roads. The family lived in huts and ate a local harvest of maize, sorghum, pumpkin and beans, which was all they could afford. Water came from springs and streams and cooking was done outdoors. Mandela played the games of young boys, he played with toys he made from the natural materials available, including tree branches and clay. The rolling green hills of the rural Transkei is the place Mandela thinks of as home; it is there he has built his retirement house.

"Some of the happiest years of my boyhood were spent in Qunu," Mandela wrote

The prisoner

The Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and Mandela's acceptance speech

Mandela's inaugural speech on 10th May 1994

In the winter of 1964, Nelson Mandela arrived on Robben Island where he would spend 18 of his 27 prison years. Confined to a small cell, the floor his bed, a bucket for a toilet, he was forced to do hard labor in a quarry. He was allowed one visitor a year for 30 minutes. He could write and receive one letter every six months. But Robben Island became the crucible which transformed him. Through his intelligence, charm and dignified defiance, Mandela eventually bent even the most brutal prison officials to his will, assumed leadership over his jailed comrades and became the master of his own prison. He emerged from it the mature leader who would fight and win the great political battles that would create a new democratic South Africa.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 1993 to Nelson R. Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa. Nelson Mandela shared the Peace Prize with the man who had released him, President Frederik Willem de Klerk, because they had agreed on a peaceful transition to majority rule.

On May 9, 1994, Nelson Mandela was officially inaugurated as the first democratically elected President of South Africa chosen by the majority of the nation's citizens. Mr Mandela's African National Congress (ANC) party won 252 of the 400 seats in the first democratic elections of South Africa's history. The inauguration ceremony took place in the Union Buildings amphitheatre in Pretoria today, attended by politicians and dignitaries from more than 140 countries around the world.

''Never, never again will this beautiful land experience the oppression of one by another''.

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