Nelson Mandela

From Philosopedia

Nelson Mandela (Rolihlahla Dalibhunga Mandela) (18 July 1918 -

Mandela was born at Qunu near Umtata, Transkei, South Africa, the country of which he became the first elected State President on 10 May 1994.

His life has been one of struggle, for he led the fight against apartheid and spent nearly three decades of his life behind bars for having fought against the Establishment. During his 27 years of imprisonment, he said he had "the time to think" about religion.

Mandela's youngest sister, Lieby Piliso, was a Jehovah's Witness until her death 9 February 1997.

Mandela married Evelyn Ntoka in 1944, they had four children, three of whom survived. Their son, Madiba Thembekile, died in 1969 in an automobile accident. A Jehovah's Witness, Evelyn died 30 April 2004. During their marriage, Evelyn had complained about his political activities, saying they turned the marriage sour and sullen.

He then married Winnie Mandela (née Nomazmo) in 1958, and friends were happy about his marrying a beautiful woman sixteen years his junior, later claiming that she had turned violent. She held significant positions in government and headed the African National Congress Women's League. On 24 April 2003, she was found guilty on 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft. Her broker, Addy Moolman, was convicted on 58 counts of fraud and 25 of theft. Both had pleaded not guilty to the charges, which related to money taken from loan applicants' accounts for a funeral fund, but from which the applicants did not benefit. She then resigned from the presidency of the ANC Women's League. In July 2004, an appeal judge of the Pretoria High Court ruled that "the crimes were not committed for personal gain" and overturned the conviction for theft but upheld the one for fraud, handing her a three years and six months suspended sentence.

Mandela currently is married to Graca Machel (widow of former President of Mozambique Samora Machel).

Mandela is not documented as a member of any organized religion. His speeches mainly discuss ethics and include sentiments such as the following that he made to the 1999 Parliament of the World's Religions:

• In our country, my generation is the product of religious education. We grew up at a time when the government of this country owed its duty only to whites: a minority of less than 15 percent. They took no interest whatsoever in our education. It was religious institutions whether Christian, Moslem, Hindu or Jewish in the context of our country, they are the people who bought land, who built schools, who equipped them, who employed teachers, and paid them. Without the church, without religious institutions, I would never have been here today. It was for that reason, that when I was ready to go to the United States on the first of this month, an engagement which had been arranged for quite some time, when my comrade Ibrahim told me about this occasion I said I would change my whole itinerary so I would have the opportunity to appear here.
• But I must also add that I do appreciate the importance of religion. Apart from the background that I've given you, you'd have to have been in a South African jail under apartheid where you can see the cruelty of human beings to others in their naked form. But it was again religious institutions, Hindus, Moslems, leaders of the Jewish faith, Christians, it was them who gave us the hope that one day we would come out. We would return. And in prisons, the religious institutions raised funds for our children who were arrested in thousands and thrown into jail.
• And many when they left prison had a high level of education because of the support we got from religious institutions. And that is why we so respect religious institutions and we try as much as we can to read the literature which outlines the fundamental principals of human behavior like the Bhagavad Gita, Koran, the Bible and other important religious documents. And I say this so that you should understand that the propaganda that has been made, for example about the liberation movement in this country, it is completely untrue. Because religion was one of the motivating factors in everything that we did.
• In some respects, the turn of the century is an arbitrary happening in the cycle of human life where there is always change from one day to the other. In other respects, it provides us with the symbolic opportunity to take stock of the substance of our lives and of what lies ahead.

(Mandela is an honorary member of the Bertrand Russell Society.)