"A HERO FOR ALL TIMES"
The African National Congress along with millions of men, women and children across the globe, celebrates the Centenary since the birth of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. Six years after he left this earth, his legacy lives on and grows from strength to strength.
Shaped by the country of his birth, running wild as a child on the rolling hills of Transkei, yet conscious of his responsibilities to look after his family's cattle; every stage of his life has lessons for all of us.
Thus Rolihlahla Mandela, with Oliver Tambo, Albertina Sisulu, Anton Lembede, Ashley Mda, and Walter Sisulu showed us that every generation must and can define their mission when they formed the ANC Youth League at Fort Hare in 1943.
Mandela's generation organized and mobilised young people, students and workers across the country; they studied the problems of the South African people, learned from other countries and developed the 1949 Programme of Action, that transformed the ANC to pose a formidable challenge to the Nats programme of grand Apartheid.
Nelson Mandela led from the front, as volunteer in chief in the defiance campaign, leading our people to defy laws that continued to relegate them to second and third-class citizens in the land of their birth. He was part of the generation that gave us the Freedom Charter, with its pledge that South Africa belongs to all who live in it; that the wealth shall be shared amongst all, and that the land shall belong to those who work it.
When peaceful means of protest were no longer available to our people, Rolihlahla once again led from the front, mustering arguments for the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe. He was tasked by the ANC leadership, together with Joe Slovo, to form the first MK high command, and underwent training in Ethiopia and Algeria, before returning home.
When hundreds of ANC leadership were detained and accused of Treason, he was there. In the defense, Madiba spoke about the moral authority of the struggle for national liberation that him and his colleagues and thousands of South Africans stood for.
As he was sentenced to life imprisonment with fellow Rivonia trialists, he vowed that their sacrifice would not be in vain and became the symbol of the intensification of the struggle against apartheid - inspiring young generations and the mass movements of 1976 and the Young lions of the 1980s.
Mandela led the negotiations from the front, and ensured that all South Africans, black and white, have a foundation to build, on after the devastation of apartheid colonialism. He led this process of rebuilding as the first President of a democratic South Africa. As he said in his inauguration statement on 10 May 1994: "We have, at last, achieved our political emancipation. We pledge ourselves to liberate all our people from the continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation, suffering, gender and other discrimination. We succeeded to take our last steps to freedom in conditions of relative peace. We commit ourselves to the construction of a complete, just and lasting peace."
On his watch as President, he presided over the dismantling of apartheid institutions in government and introduced such programmes as free health care to pregnant women and children under the age of 6; the expanded public works programme; housing for the poor, in order to lay the foundation for a better life for all South Africans. It was also on his watch that we saw the adoption of our Constitution in 1996 as well as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process.
As he handed over the baton, Madiba said to his final Joint session of Parliament on 26th March 1999:
"I count myself fortunate that, amongst that generation, history permitted me to take part in South Africa's transition from that period into the new era whose foundation we have been laying together. I hope that decades from now, when history is written, the role of that generation will be appreciated, and that I will not be found wanting against the measure of their fortitude and vision"
As we today celebrate this 100 years of his birth, we can indeed confirm that Madiba's fortitude and vision, has not been found wanting.
ISSUED BY THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS
Enquiries:
Pule Mabe
National Spokesperson
071 623 4975
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