Nelson Mandela: Inaugural Address

About the Author

Nelson Rolihlahla (meaning “troublemaker” in the Xhosa language) Mandela was born in 1918 in the rural Transkei in what is now the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. He attended a leading missionary school in that region and then the University College of Fort Hare before he moved to Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa, where he became active in the ANC in the early 1940s. In the 1950s, based in Johannesburg, he was one of the leading figures in the ANC's resistance to the apartheid state. The ANC was banned in 1960, and the following year he and others formed MK to challenge the state by violent means, first sabotage and later guerrilla war.

As commander in chief of MK, Mandela left the country in 1962 to organize military training for guerrillas from South Africa in other African countries. On his return to South Africa, he was arrested and jailed. Then, on June 12, 1964, he and his colleagues were given a life sentence for their involvement with MK. Mandela's statement in court before he was sentenced was widely quoted as a classic explanation of why he and others had chosen to adopt the armed struggle in resisting apartheid. He ended by saying,

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. (Karis and Carter, p. 796)

In 1982 he was moved, in part because of his growing international fame as a political prisoner, from Robben Island to Pollsmoor Prison on the mainland. It was there, a few years later, that he began discussions with government ministers about the possibility of a negotiated end to the conflict in the country.

By the late 1980s Mandela was the world's most famous prisoner and an icon of resistance to apartheid. The apartheid government knew that there would be an outcry if he were to die in prison, and its officials came to see him as a man with whom they could arrange a negotiated settlement, for unlike most of his close colleagues in the ANC, he was not a member of the Communist Party. All who met him recognized him as a potential future leader of the country. He was therefore moved to a house on the grounds of another prison, Victor Verster, where he was able to receive guests and conduct business.

By the time he became president in late 1989, F. W. de Klerk, the head of the National Party, had realized that apartheid had to go and that the enormous pressure to release Mandela could be resisted no longer. No one knew what Mandela's release would lead to, but de Klerk was prepared to take the risk. Lacking bitterness, Mandela was able to engage with his former enemies and work for a successful transition to a new society. He traveled extensively after his release, was elected president of the ANC at the first congress after it was unbanned, and took a leading role in the subsequent negotiations. In December 1993 he and De Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, for their efforts to bring peace to South Africa. Mandela then campaigned for the ANC in the first democratic election, after which he was elected the first president of the democratic South Africa. Little more than four years had passed since he was Prisoner 466/64, the number he received on arrival on Robben Island and which he retained until his release from Victor Verster.

Mandela made it clear that he would serve only one term as president. He hoped his example would be followed by other leaders on a continent where most remained in power for very long periods of time. In retirement, Mandela remained active on both the local and the world stages. He set up three foundations bearing his name, to do mostly educational and charitable work: the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, and the Mandela-Rhodes Foundation. In the 2009 election campaign, a frail Mandela appeared in support of the new ANC leader, Jacob Zuma. Mandela died on December 5, 2013.

Two decades after Mandela had left office, little of the dream for a new South Africa contained in his inauguration address had been realized. South Africa remained a democracy, but there was little of the optimism and hope and idealism that Mandela had spoken of in his inaugural address fifteen years earlier.