With Nelson Mandela, the world has lost one of the greatest fighters against the oppression of a century politician who for decades was sitting for his opposition to apartheid in South Africa in jail. And had to watch the end, as the successor endangered his work.

Nelson Mandela wanted to retire to the land of his fathers. The man who changed the history of Africa like no other, loved the age the view of the tranquil hills of the Eastern Cape Province. But instead of gently asleep in his home in the village allotted to Qunu, Mandela died after a long battle in his besieged by media house in Johannesburg.

“His life light gradually giving way ” , had told his wife Graça Machel grieved a year ago . What followed was a month- long struggle with death, an old lung ailment makes the hero to create . Time he was allowed to go home , sometimes he had with flashing lights to the hospital , a grueling round and forth on Thursday evening, it was South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma , who brought the news of the death of Mandela : ” Our nation has lost her greatest son . ”

95 years old , Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, the last all South Africans regardless of their skin color just called affectionately ” Madiba ” . Madiba was a saint even during his lifetime , loved by the whole world , a ” Mahatma Gandhi of Africa” ​​(Bill Clinton) , not until the last few years there went out some interview requests and invitations at his office a . The South African government has put on the back edge of the banknotes with the “Big Five ” , lion, elephant, rhino, buffalo and leopard , Mandela’s friendly face .

When he five years before his 90th Celebrated birthday, came 46 664 enthusiastic well-wishers at a charity concert in London. 466/64 was also the number of the most famous prisoner in the world, the man who without rancor left prison after 27 years, which at the negotiating table wrested the end of apartheid, his opponents, which prevented the peaceful revolution of blacks and coloreds against the dictatorship of the whites still resulted in a bloodbath.

Tribute To Nelson Mandela:”An ordinary man”

But it is not only the political merits, the reasons for the global “Mandela Mania”, but his charisma, his gentleness and at the same time his perseverance. Mandela was seen as a cipher for goodness and wisdom. His sincerity gave him authority. Those who met him once, report a disarming ability to engage in the opposite of an unshakable self-confidence.

Even his colorful tie-dyed shirts justified at least in Africa across a fashion trend. Worship he was granted as natural and comprehensive that he had repeatedly emphasize that he was “not a Messiah,” but “an ordinary person”.

But the hero Madiba also has a tragic side: it consists in the fact that his party, the African National Congress (ANC), is well on the way to gamble Mandela’s political legacy. In August 2012, shot before the Marikana Mine in the northwest of the country predominantly black police officers protesting black miners together – a beacon, the nightmarish memories awaken to the massacre of the apartheid regime, for example, at Sharpeville in 1960 as 69 blacks died in the hail of white police .

Virtually unchallenged rules of the ANC since 1994 over South Africa, and the reputation of the old fighting organization is great damage . It is not the ANC managed to close the enormous gap between rich and poor. The party is struggling with democracy , is regarded as highly corrupt. ANC officials dominate the state apparatus , and many sectors of the economy . They also supply their families, friends and cliques with lucrative post . The new image of the ANC gradually overshadowed the aura of the historic victory over the racist apartheid regime.

Mandela’s successor as President of the rainbow nation – how the new South Africa likes to call it – is Jacob Zuma , a Zulu traditionalist , with at least four women. He publicly known once to keep a hot shower after sex for a probaten protection against AIDS. In appearances before supporters he did not hesitate , battle cries such as ” Bring me my machine gun ” to sing . One of his top aide was deeply involved in a corruption scandal involving the purchase of military equipment . A case against Zuma himself was knocked down shortly before his election in 2009 .

This Zuma belongs to the old ranks of the freedom fighters. As he sat Mandela on Robben Iceland, the island prison off Cape Town, a. Zuma, a young hothead, will then have learned to read by the older prisoners in the first place really. It was the time when it was not foreseeable that the iron regime of the whites would ever collapse on South Africa.

Tribute to Nelson Mandela:The rise of the troublemaker

Mandela, born in 1918, grew up in a system in which a small white minority oppressed the black majority. The total separation of people by skin color permeated all areas of life. The whites had risen to gentlemen who banished the blacks in certain quarters, she kept in poverty and ignorance and denied them any opportunity for advancement. Mandela, son of a Tembu-chief in the Transkei, was in the tribal language Rolihlahla, which colloquially “troublemaker” means – a name which he should meet.

As one of the few with his skin color, he landed a higher education, studied at the single blacks allowed in University of Fort Hare. Mandela goes to Johannesburg, an intern is in a law firm, studied law and later founded with his friend Oliver Tambo, the first black law firm.

And it costs from city life : “He was a township hero, a man of the women, a dancer and a boxer ,” writes his biographer Anthony Sampson . Politics interested him only gradually , thanks to the influence of his long-time friend Walter Sisulu . But Mandela is a life long grateful : “From the origin , I was born to be a ruler , but Sisulu helped me to realize that my true calling was to serve the people. ”

1944 establish Mandela, Tambo and Sisulu , the Youth League of the ANC . Its aim is to create a South Africa in which the skin color does not matter , not a multi- racial , but a non- racist state – the ANC will explicitly not drive the whites into the sea.

The black movement radicalized after the Sharpeville massacre . Mandela is commander of the newly formed organization of struggle of the ANC , ” Umkhonto we Sizwe ” ( Spear of the Nation ) . He was never a pacifist, in addition to the strategy of civil disobedience against the regime , were attacks , not against people , but against symbolic building on the infrastructure of the whites.

Tribute to Nelson Mandela:Self-treat the worst enemy with dignity

In the late summer of 1962, Mandela was arrested and sentenced to five years, partly because of protests . A year later, he stands with other co-defendants back to court , in the famous Rivonia Trial . As Hauptangeklagtem him responsible for numerous acts of sabotage are accused . The prosecutor is asking for the death penalty. More than 30 years later, as president, Mandela invited him to dinner. It is this effort to want to treat themselves the worst enemy with dignity and understanding , which accounts for Mandela’s credibility.

The judge does not follow the prosecutor , but imposed a life sentence : The defendant cheer as after an acquittal , for they had agreed among themselves not to appeal against a death sentence , but to deliver him to the executioner . “We would disappear in a cloud of glory . This is the service that we can prove our organization and our people,” Mandela said at the time to a friend.

For 27 years, Mandela should disappear in prison on Robben Iceland it is exposed to harassment by the guards. He suffers most, not be with his wife Winnie and his five children to be able to. He toils in the quarry on the island, as one of his sons dies in a car accident. Systematically trying the camp leadership to break the black prisoners. At the beginning they are not even allowed to wear long pants, shorts should also make it clear to the outside: Black and certainly black prisoners are not full human beings, rather naughty schoolboy.

Mandela protested until a guard throws him an old khakis. Mandela Madiba would never have become if he had been content with it. He did not put on the gift will to all his fellow long trousers allowed.

Tribute to Nelson Mandela:The time of change

Against the sadness he keeps up with sports exercises fit, in prison he pulls garden vegetables – sometimes it’s even the guards somewhat. Mandela persistently organized passive resistance against the arbitrary. But personally, he brings no hatred against the henchmen of the racist regime. One of the guards is not even his friend.

From the early eighties is change in the air. Mandela leaves the island, is detained at the Victor Verster prison in Pollsmoor and in 1988. He enjoys privileges, inhabited a small private bungalow with swimming pool.

The regime curries favor of the public enemy number one. And Mandela recognizes its weakness: the Soviet bloc staggers, faded the communist threat, which he always used to justify the apartheid regime have to serve. Those in power are insulated, International Economic Sanctions drive them further into a corner.

Mandela may now sometimes make excursions. His captors let him even unguarded. But he does not flee , he knows time is on him and the black thing .

It is one of his greatest political achievements , not to have knocked off the advances of the regime. On their own , without being able to consult with the faithful from the ANC , he leads gently ” talks about talks ” . Finally, President Pieter Willem Botha makes the offer in 1985 , Mandela release on condition that he would renounce violence . However, the prisoner is not corruptible . “I can not sell my birthright . Only free men can negotiate ,” replies Mandela.

1990 , the regime admits his defeat a : The new president , FW de Klerk , ringing the second February, the end of apartheid and lifts the ban on the ANC. 150 million people watched the screens as Mandela few days later, leaving the prison , the fist stretched combative in the air. Mandela negotiated achieve the smooth transition of power. De Klerk and he received for the Nobel Peace Prize .

Tribute to Nelson Mandela:The massacre remains from

1993 , before the first free elections , the country is facing a civil war. Armed white right-wing extremists , separatists and Zulu ANC fighters to deliver shootings . There are dead every day. Since shoots a white fanatic charismatic Communists Chris Hani . Madiba puts his whole moral weight and charisma in a radio speech that is intended to prevent an explosion of violence : ” This evening, I address myself deeply moved at every single South African , black or white with a white man full of prejudice and hatred committed a heinous act . that our whole nation dahinschwankt on the brink of disaster , “he says, but also praises a” white woman Afrikaner descent , “which has helped to find the murderer. The massacre remains off.

1994 provides a Mandela de Klerk a government of national unity. The Blacks take on an inefficient , bureaucratic state , economically ruined , with vast social differences between the skin colors.

After five years, Mandela steps down as president voluntarily – even in this he is an unparalleled model for many African leaders .
He has separated from the power-hungry , involved in scandals Winnie Mandela Private, Graça Machel , he married the widow of former President of Mozambique. His public appearances are increasingly rare. Madiba who likes reveled in the cheers of the quantities would not even let applaud the opening ceremony of the FIFA World Cup 2010, .

The fact that the games take place at the Cape , is also a merit of the football-crazy old man. But shortly before his great-granddaughter comes on the way back from the opening concert in Johannesburg in a traffic accident.

Throughout his life, his family had to do without him . His children have really only met him after his release from prison . The Mandela had hurt more than imprisonment and humiliation. Now he wants a bit of catch up. By the end he is never alone. So even in his last hours , when his family gathered in the house in Johannesburg – and bids farewell .

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