A person,who spent 27 years as a prisoner in South Africa for opposing apartheid, then emerged to become his country’s first black president, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and an enduring symbol of integrity, principle and resilience is no more.From his years as a revolutionary and being imprisoned on Robben Island to the walk to freedom and the presidency,Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela became the nation’s conscience as it healed from the scars of racial discrimination and was considered as a ‘Living legend’

His defiance of white minority rule and long incarceration for fighting against segregation focused the world’s attention on apartheid, the legalized racial segregation enforced by the South African government until 1994.In his lifetime, he was a man of complexities. He went from a militant freedom fighter, to a prisoner, to a unifying figure, to an elder statesman.Years after his 1999 retirement from the presidency, Mandela was considered the ideal head of state. He became a yardstick for African leaders, who consistently fell short when measured against him.Warm, lanky and charismatic in his silk, earth-toned dashikis, he was quick to admit to his shortcomings, endearing him further in a culture in which leaders rarely do.

Mandela, who once said, “the struggle is my life,” was a beloved hero of both South Africa and the world itself.The man who died an anti-apartheid hero, world statesman and symbol of the strength of the human spirit was born Rolihlahla Mandela in a village near Umtata in the Transkei on July 18, 1918. Rolihlahla literally means “pulling the branch of a tree” but more colloquially, “troublemaker.”

His father was primary councilor to the Acting Paramount Chief of Thembuland and after his father’s death, the 9-year-old Mandela became the chief’s ward. He received the English name Nelson from a primary school teacher at his mission school.He attended the University College of Fort Hare, a prestigious residential college for blacks in South Africa, where he was expelled over a student boycott, and then ran away from home to Johannesburg to avoid an arranged marriage.He eventually completed his bachelor’s degree via correspondence courses, studied law and joined the African National Congress in 1942.

After 20 years of leading a non-violent campaign against the South African government, his philosophy switched to armed struggle. In 1964 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for plotting to overthrow the government by violence.For 18 of his 27 years in prison, he was inmate #46664 on Robben Island, a notorious maximum security facility off Cape Town, where he became a worldwide symbol of resistance to racial oppression.In 1982, he was moved to Pollsmoor Prison, on the nearby mainland, where he spent much of his time in solitary confinement. In 1985, President P. W. Botha offered to release him if he would renounce armed struggle but he refused, saying “only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.”
Finally released from this third prison, Victor Verster – an event broadcast internationally – on February 11, 1990 , he was elected president of the ANC in 1991.

In 1993 he and President Frederik Willem De Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and in 1994, at the age of 75, he was inaugurated as the first black president of South Africa.

Mandela served as president until 1999, when he retired and became an advocate for a number of human rights organizations and also a spokesman for the fight against AIDS. In 2001 he was treated for prostate cancer.
His philosophy of learning to love instead of hate made him one of the moral leaders of his era.”No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion” he wrote in his autobiography.

The proud support and activities of The Association of Indian Communists (GB) and Indian Workers Association with the anti-apartheid movement and the freedom struggle for South Africa was acknowledged by Nelson Mandela and the ANC in inviting the IWA to a meeting on his very first visit to London following his release from prison.We pay our tribute to the Legend.

With him gone, South Africans and the world are left to embody his promise and idealism.