Autobiography of nelson mandela audio book
Nelson Mandela
President of South Africa from to
"Mandela" redirects here. Not to be confused with Mandala. For other uses, see Mandela (disambiguation) and Nelson Mandela (disambiguation).
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (man-DEL-ə,[1]Xhosa:[xolíɬaɬamandɛ̂ːla]; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July &#;– 5 December ) was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa from to He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election.
His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) party from to
A Xhosa, Mandela was born into the Thembu royal family in Mvezo, South Africa. He studied law at the University of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg.
There he became involved in anti-colonial and African nationalist politics, joining the ANC in and co-founding its Youth League in After the National Party's white-only government established apartheid, a system of racial segregation that privileged whites, Mandela and the ANC committed themselves to its overthrow. He was appointed president of the ANC's Transvaal branch, rising to prominence for his involvement in the Defiance Campaign and the Congress of the People.
Autobiography of nelson mandela pdf By: Robert K. Please try again later. By: Trevor Noah. Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.He was repeatedly arrested for seditious activities and was unsuccessfully prosecuted in the Treason Trial. Influenced by Marxism, he secretly joined the banned South African Communist Party (SACP). Although initially committed to non-violent protest, in association with the SACP he co-founded the militant uMkhonto we Sizwe in that led a sabotage campaign against the apartheid government.
He was arrested and imprisoned in , and, following the Rivonia Trial, was sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiring to overthrow the state.
Mandela served 27 years in prison, split between Robben Island, Pollsmoor Prison, and Victor Verster Prison. Amid growing domestic and international pressure and fears of racial civil war, President F.
W. de Klerk released him in Mandela and de Klerk led efforts to negotiate an end to apartheid, which resulted in the multiracial general election in which Mandela led the ANC to victory and became president.
Leading a broad coalition government which promulgated a new constitution, Mandela emphasised reconciliation between the country's racial groups and created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses. Economically, his administration retained its predecessor's liberal framework despite his own socialist beliefs, also introducing measures to encourage land reform, combat poverty and expand healthcare services.
Internationally, Mandela acted as mediator in the Pan Am Flight bombing trial and served as secretary-general of the Non-Aligned Movement from to He declined a second presidential term and was succeeded by his deputy, Thabo Mbeki. Mandela became an elder statesman and focused on combating poverty and HIV/AIDS through the charitable Nelson Mandela Foundation.
Mandela was a controversial figure for much of his life. Although critics on the right denounced him as a communist terrorist and those on the far left deemed him too eager to negotiate and reconcile with apartheid's supporters, he gained international acclaim for his activism.
Sanctions by the U. At pages in paper binding this is no light read but Mandela's writing style is engaging and serves to carry one along Beautifully wrought with high poetic compassion, Cry, the Beloved Country is more than just a story, it is a profound experience of the human spirit. A gripping day-by-day account of the Camp David conference, when President Jimmy Carter persuaded Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to sign the first peace treaty in the modern Middle East, one which endures to this day.Globally regarded as an icon of democracy and social justice, he received more than honours, including the Nobel Peace Prize. He is held in deep respect within South Africa, where he is often referred to by his Thembu clan name, Madiba, and described as the "Father of the Nation".
Early life
Childhood: –
Main article: Mandela family
Mandela was born on 18 July , in the village of Mvezo in Umtata, then part of South Africa's Cape Province.[2] He was given the forename Rolihlahla,[a] a Xhosa term colloquially meaning "troublemaker",[5] and in later years became known by his clan name, Madiba.[6] His patrilineal great-grandfather, Ngubengcuka, was ruler of the Thembu Kingdom in the Transkeian Territories of South Africa's modern Eastern Cape province.
One of Ngubengcuka's sons, named Mandela, was Nelson's grandfather and the source of his surname. Because Mandela was the king's child by a wife of the Ixhiba clan, a so-called "Left-Hand House", the descendants of his cadet branch of the royal family were morganatic, ineligible to inherit the throne but recognised as hereditary royal councillors.
Nelson Mandela's father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa Mandela, was a local chief and councillor to the monarch; he was appointed to the position in , after his predecessor was accused of corruption by a governing white magistrate.
Autobiography of nelson mandela audio book What an incredible time and story. He was eventually caught and arrested in and sentenced to life in prison. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear". Next page.In , Gadla was also sacked for corruption, but Nelson was told that his father had lost his job for standing up to the magistrate's unreasonable demands.[11] A devotee of the god Qamata,[12] Gadla was a polygamist with four wives, four sons and nine daughters, who lived in different villages.
Nelson's mother was Gadla's third wife, Nosekeni Fanny, daughter of Nkedama of the Right Hand House and a member of the amaMpemvu clan of the Xhosa.[13]
No one in my family had ever attended school On the first day of school my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name. This was the custom among Africans in those days and was undoubtedly due to the British bias of our education.
That day, Miss Mdingane told me that my new name was Nelson. Why this particular name, I have no idea.
—&#;Mandela, [14]
Mandela later stated that his early life was dominated by traditional Xhosa custom and taboo.[15] He grew up with two sisters in his mother's kraal in the village of Qunu, where he tended herds as a cattle-boy and spent much time outside with other boys.[16] Both his parents were illiterate, but his mother, being a devout Christian, sent him to a local Methodist school when he was about seven.
Baptised a Methodist, Mandela was given the English forename of "Nelson" by his teacher.[17] When Mandela was about nine, his father came to stay at Qunu, where he died of an undiagnosed ailment that Mandela believed to be lung disease.[18] Feeling "cut adrift", he later said that he inherited his father's "proud rebelliousness" and "stubborn sense of fairness".[19]
Mandela's mother took him to the "Great Place" palace at Mqhekezweni, where he was entrusted to the guardianship of the Thembu regent, Chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo.
Although he did not see his mother again for many years, Mandela felt that Jongintaba and his wife Noengland treated him as their own child, raising him alongside their children.[20] As Mandela attended church services every Sunday with his guardians, Christianity became a significant part of his life.[21] He attended a Methodist mission school located next to the palace, where he studied English, Xhosa, history and geography.[22] He developed a love of African history, listening to the tales told by elderly visitors to the palace, and was influenced by the anti-imperialist rhetoric of a visiting chief, Joyi.[23] Nevertheless, at the time he considered the European colonizers not as oppressors but as benefactors who had brought education and other benefits to southern Africa.[24] Aged 16, he, his cousin Justice and several other boys travelled to Tyhalarha to undergo the ulwaluko circumcision ritual that symbolically marked their transition from boys to men; afterwards he was given the name Dalibunga.[25]
Clarkebury, Healdtown, and Fort Hare: –
Intending to gain skills needed to become a privy councillor for the Thembu royal house, Mandela began his secondary education in at Clarkebury Methodist High School in Engcobo, a Western-style institution that was the largest school for black Africans in Thembuland.[26] Made to socialise with other students on an equal basis, he claimed that he lost his "stuck up" attitude, becoming best friends with a girl for the first time; he began playing sports and developed his lifelong love of gardening.[27] He completed his Junior Certificate in two years, and in he moved to Healdtown, the Methodist college in Fort Beaufort attended by most Thembu royalty, including Justice.[29] The headmaster emphasised the superiority of European culture and government, but Mandela became increasingly interested in native African culture, making his first non-Xhosa friend, a speaker of Sotho, and coming under the influence of one of his favourite teachers, a Xhosa who broke taboo by marrying a Sotho.[30] Mandela spent much of his spare time at Healdtown as a long-distance runner and boxer, and in his second year he became a prefect.[31]
In , with Jongintaba's backing, Mandela began work on a BA degree at the University of Fort Hare, an elite black institution of approximately students in Alice, Eastern Cape.
Item 5 of 6: Customers enjoy the writing quality of the book. Could not put the book down. Customers have different views on the book's pacing. I felt myself more times than I can remember, but I hid it behind a mask of boldness.
He studied English, anthropology, politics, "native administration", and Roman Dutch law in his first year, desiring to become an interpreter or clerk in the Native Affairs Department.[32] Mandela stayed in the Wesley House dormitory, befriending his own kinsman, K. D. Matanzima, as well as Oliver Tambo, who became a close friend and comrade for decades to come.[33] He took up ballroom dancing,[34] performed in a drama society play about Abraham Lincoln,[35] and gave Bible classes in the local community as part of the Student Christian Association.[36] Although he had friends who held connections to the African National Congress (ANC) who wanted South Africa to be independent of the British Empire, Mandela avoided any involvement with the nascent movement, and became a vocal supporter of the British war effort when the Second World War broke out.[38] At the end of his first year he became involved in a students' representative council (SRC) boycott against the quality of food, for which he was suspended from the university; he never returned to complete his degree.[39]
Arriving in Johannesburg: –
Returning to Mqhekezweni in December , Mandela found that Jongintaba had arranged marriages for him and Justice; dismayed, they fled to Johannesburg via Queenstown, arriving in April [40] Mandela found work as a night watchman at Crown Mines, his "first sight of South African capitalism in action", but was fired when the induna (headman) discovered that he was a runaway.[41] He stayed with a cousin in George Goch Township, who introduced Mandela to realtor and ANC activist Walter Sisulu.
The latter secured Mandela a job as an articled clerk at the law firm of Witkin, Sidelsky and Eidelman, a company run by Lazar Sidelsky, a liberal Jew sympathetic to the ANC's cause.[42] At the firm, Mandela befriended Gaur Radebe—a Hlubi member of the ANC and Communist Party—and Nat Bregman, a Jewish communist who became his first white friend.[43] Mandela attended Communist Party gatherings, where he was impressed that Europeans, Africans, Indians, and Coloureds mixed as equals.
He later stated that he did not join the party because its atheism conflicted with his Christian faith, and because he saw the South African struggle as being racially based rather than as class warfare.[44] To continue his higher education, Mandela signed up to a University of South Africa correspondence course, working on his bachelor's degree at night.[45]
Earning a small wage, Mandela rented a room in the house of the Xhoma family in the Alexandra township; despite being rife with poverty, crime and pollution, Alexandra always remained a special place for him.[46] Although embarrassed by his poverty, he briefly dated a Swazi woman before unsuccessfully courting his landlord's daughter.[47] To save money and be closer to downtown Johannesburg, Mandela moved into the compound of the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association, living among miners of various tribes; as the compound was visited by various chiefs, he once met the Queen Regent of Basutoland.[48] In late , Jongintaba visited Johannesburg—there forgiving Mandela for running away—before returning to Thembuland, where he died in the winter of [49] After he passed his BA exams in early , Mandela returned to Johannesburg to follow a political path as a lawyer rather than become a privy councillor in Thembuland.[50]
Early revolutionary activity
Law studies and the ANC Youth League: –
Mandela began studying law at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he was the only black African student and faced racism.
There, he befriended liberal and communist European, Jewish and Indian students, among them Joe Slovo and Ruth First.[51] Becoming increasingly politicised, Mandela marched in August in support of a successful bus boycott to reverse fare rises.[52] Joining the ANC, he was increasingly influenced by Sisulu, spending time with other activists at Sisulu's Orlando house, including his old friend Oliver Tambo.[53] In , Mandela met Anton Lembede, an ANC member affiliated with the "Africanist" branch of African nationalism, which was virulently opposed to a racially united front against colonialism and imperialism or to an alliance with the communists.[54] Despite his friendships with non-blacks and communists, Mandela embraced Lembede's views, believing that black Africans should be entirely independent in their struggle for political self-determination.[55] Deciding on the need for a youth wing to mass-mobilise Africans in opposition to their subjugation, Mandela was among a delegation that approached ANC president Alfred Bitini Xuma on the subject at his home in Sophiatown; the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) was founded on Easter Sunday in the Bantu Men's Social Centre, with Lembede as president and Mandela as a member of its executive committee.[56]
At Sisulu's house, Mandela met Evelyn Mase, a trainee nurse and ANC activist from Engcobo, Transkei.
Entering a relationship and marrying in October , they initially lived with her relatives until moving into a rented house in the township of Orlando in early [58] Their first child, Madiba "Thembi" Thembekile, was born in February ; a daughter, Makaziwe, was born in but died of meningitis nine months later.[59] Mandela enjoyed home life, welcoming his mother and his sister, Leabie, to stay with him.[60] In early , his three years of articles ended at Witkin, Sidelsky and Eidelman, and he decided to become a full-time student, subsisting on loans from the Bantu Welfare Trust.[61]
In July , Mandela rushed Lembede, who was ill, to hospital, where he died; he was succeeded as ANCYL president by the more moderate Peter Mda, who agreed to co-operate with communists and non-blacks, appointing Mandela ANCYL secretary.[62] Mandela disagreed with Mda's approach, and in December supported an unsuccessful measure to expel communists from the ANCYL, considering their ideology un-African.[63] In , Mandela was elected to the executive committee of the ANC's Transvaal Province branch, serving under regional president C.
S. Ramohanoe. When Ramohanoe acted against the wishes of the committee by co-operating with Indians and communists, Mandela was one of those who forced his resignation.[64]
In the South African general election in , in which only whites were permitted to vote, the Afrikaner-dominated Herenigde Nasionale Party under Daniel François Malan took power, soon uniting with the Afrikaner Party to form the National Party.
The world mourned. July 13, Customers find the book engaging and enjoyable to read. There was a problem filtering reviews right now.Openly racialist, the party codified and expanded racial segregation with new apartheid legislation.[65] Gaining increasing influence in the ANC, Mandela and his party cadre allies began advocating direct action against apartheid, such as boycotts and strikes, influenced by the tactics already employed by South Africa's Indian community.
Xuma did not support these measures and was removed from the presidency in a vote of no confidence, replaced by James Moroka and a more militant executive committee containing Sisulu, Mda, Tambo and Godfrey Pitje.[66] Mandela later related that he and his colleagues had "guided the ANC to a more radical and revolutionary path."[67] Having devoted his time to politics, Mandela failed his final year at Witwatersrand three times; he was ultimately denied his degree in December
Defiance Campaign and Transvaal ANC Presidency: –
Mandela took Xuma's place on the ANC national executive in March ,[70] and that same year was elected national president of the ANCYL.[71] In March, the Defend Free Speech Convention was held in Johannesburg, bringing together African, Indian and communist activists to call a May Daygeneral strike in protest against apartheid and white minority rule.
Mandela opposed the strike because it was multi-racial and not ANC-led, but a majority of black workers took part, resulting in increased police repression and the introduction of the Suppression of Communism Act, , affecting the actions of all protest groups.[72] At the ANC national conference of December , he continued arguing against a racially united front, but was outvoted.[73]
Thereafter, Mandela rejected Lembede's Africanism and embraced the idea of a multi-racial front against apartheid.
Influenced by friends like Moses Kotane and by the Soviet Union's support for wars of national liberation, his mistrust of communism broke down and he began reading literature by Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Zedong, eventually embracing the Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism.[75] Commenting on communism, he later stated that he "found [himself] strongly drawn to the idea of a classless society which, to [his] mind, was similar to traditional African culture where life was shared and communal."[76] In April , Mandela began work at the H.M.
Basner law firm, which was owned by a communist,[77] although his increasing commitment to work and activism meant he spent less time with his family.[78]
In , the ANC began preparation for a joint Defiance Campaign against apartheid with Indian and communist groups, founding a National Voluntary Board to recruit volunteers.
The campaign was designed to follow the path of nonviolent resistance influenced by Mahatma Gandhi; some supported this for ethical reasons, but Mandela instead considered it pragmatic.[79] At a Durban rally on 22 June, Mandela addressed an assembled crowd of 10, people, initiating the campaign protests for which he was arrested and briefly interned in Marshall Square prison.[80] These events established Mandela as one of the best-known black political figures in South Africa.
With further protests, the ANC's membership grew from 20, to , members; the government responded with mass arrests and introduced the Public Safety Act, to permit martial law.[82] In May, authorities banned Transvaal ANC president J. B. Marks from making public appearances; unable to maintain his position, he recommended Mandela as his successor.
Although Africanists opposed his candidacy, Mandela was elected to be regional president in October.