Davidson Njoku
3 September 2007
analysis
Lagos — Davidson Njoku takes an overview of the recent unveiling of the statue of a sparkling diamond, Nelson Mandela in London's parliament square and highlights the fact that the recognition is a great credit to the British nation for giving honour to whom it is perfectly due.
When the British welcome a foreign leader or statesman to the country's seat of power at No 10 Downing Street, the gesture is usually considered a great privilege to such visitor. But when Dr Nelson Mandela, the undisputable most revered statesman in the world visited Downing Street last Tuesday, the story changed. With heartfelt excitement and deep feeling of love the entire Britain rose up in jubilation over the visit, describing it as "a great privilege" to the nation.
"Let me welcome to Downing Street, on behalf of Sarah and myself, the most inspiring, the greatest and the most courageous leader of our generation. It is such a privilege to have Nelson Mandela and to have his wonderful wife, Grace Machel, with us here today" said an overwhelmed Prime Minister Gordon Brown excitedly as he welcomed Mandela to the British seat of power.
Mandela 89, who spearheaded the battle against apartheid was in Britain for the unveiling of his statue erected in London's parliament square as a symbol of his resistant against oppression.
The statue now joins those of Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill.
True to his nature as a pillar of truth and embodiment of forthrightness, the elder statesman though full of appreciation for the gesture, could not be flattered and remained focused and pan Africanist as ever.
His response: "The history of the struggle in South Africa is rich with the stories of heroes and heroines," some of the them leaders, some of them followers. All of them deserve to be remembered".
Speaking clearly and eloquently despite his trail physical frame, the great lion roared. "This sends around the world, the most powerful of messages,that no injustice can lost forever, that the suffering in the cause of freedom will never be in vain that no matter how long the night of oppression, the morning downs there is nothing that the people of the world working together cannot achieve."
The short acceptance speech was made to a tumultuous crowd including London Mayor Ken Kingstone, anti-apartheid campaigners, students and human rights activist.
Earlier, while responding to the encomium showered on him at Downing Street by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Mandela said calmly, "my wife and I are very happy and proud to be here because as you know, this was one of our rulers but we overthrew them and we are now on an equal basis. But nevertheless we have not forgotten the past and I am happy to be here. Thank you very much
Humble but thorough courageous human and highly intelligent, Mandela emerged to become his country's first black president and to play a leading role in the drive for peace in other spheres of conflict. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
Since stepping down as president in 1999, he has become South Africa's highest-profile ambassador, campaigning against HIV/Aids and securing his country's right to host the 2010 football World Cup.
Diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2001 Mandela has also been actively involved in peace negotiations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and other African countries.
He has also encouraged peace efforts in other areas of the world.
Mr Mandela was born in 1918 into the Madiba tribal clan - part of the Thembu people - in a small village in the eastern Cape of South Africa and was instrumental in the decision that South African.
Born Rolihlahla Dalibhunga, he was given his English name, Nelson, by a teacher at his school.
His father, a counsellor to the Thembu royal family, died when Nelson Mandela was nine, and he was placed in the care of the acting regent of the Thembu people, chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo.
He joined the African National congress in 1943, first as an activist, then as the founder and president of the ANC Youth League and married his first wife, Evelyn Mase, in 1944. They were divorced in 1957 after having three children.
Mr Mandela qualified as a lawyer and in 1952 opened a law practice in Johannesburg with his partner, Oliver Tambo.
Together, Mr Mandela and Mr Tambo campaigned against apartheid, the system devised by the all-white National Party which oppressed the black majority.
In 1956, Mr Mandela was charged with high treason, along with 155 other activists, but the charges against him were dropped after a four-year trial.
Resistance to apartheid grew, mainly against the new Pass laws, which dictated where blacks were allowed to live and work.
In 1958, Mr Mandela married Winnie Madikizela, who was later to take a very active role in the campaign to free her husband from prison.
The ANC was outlawed in 1960 and Mr Mandela went underground.
Mandela was kept on Robben Island for 18 years
Tension with the apartheid regime grew, and soared to new heights in 1960 when 69 black people were shot dead by police in the Sharpeville massacre.
It was the end of peaceful resistance and Mr Mandela, already national vice-president of the ANC, launched a campaign of sabotage against the country's economy.
He was eventually arrested and charged with sabotage and attempting to violently overthrow the government.
Conducting his own defence, Mr Mandela used the stand to convey his beliefs about democracy, freedom and equality.
"I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities," he said.
"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."
In the winter of 1964 he was sentenced to life in prison.
The former political foes shared the Nobel Peace Prize
In the space of 12 months between 1968 and 1969, Mr Mandela's mother died and his eldest son was killed in a car crash but he was not allowed to attend the funerals.
He remained in prison on Robben Island for 18 years before being transferred to Pollsmoor Prison on the mainland in 1982.
As Mr Mandela and other ANC leaders languished in prison or lived in exile, South Africa's black township children helped sustain the resistance.
Hundreds were killed and thousands were injured before the schoolchildren's uprising was crushed.
In 1980, Mr Tambo, who was in exile, launched an international campaign to release Mr Mandela.
The world community tightened the sanctions first imposed on South Africa in 1967 against the apartheid regime.
The pressure produced results, and in 1990, President FW de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC, and Mr Mandela was released from prison.
In December 1993, Mr Mandela and Mr de Klerk were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Five months later, for the first time in South Africa's history, all races voted in democratic elections and Mr Mandela was elected president. The ANC won 252 of the 400 seats in the national assembly.
As president, Dr Nelson Mandela resisted the pressure on him to run for a second term in office. He refused to involve himself in property grabbing and shunned the temptation to consign the country's viable public properties as scrap and sell them to himself and his cronies for peanut. In the end Mandela earned the honour of serving as global reference point in terms of purposefulness, humility, integrity, forthrightness and valour, challenging his generation and inspiring the younger generation admirable.
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