The realease of Nelson Manadela.
Today commemorates the release of Nelson Manadela who was released on the 11 of February 1990 from the Victor Verster Prison in Paarl. The event was broadcast live all over the world. Manadela spent 27 years in Prison at Robin Island,charges included involvement in planning armed action, in particular four charges of sabotage, which Mandela admitted to, and a conspiracy to help other countries invade South Africa, which Mandela denied.While in jail, his reputation grew and he became widely known as the most significant black leader in South Africa. On the island, he and others performed hard labour in a lime quarry. Prison conditions were very basic. Prisoners were segregated by race, with black prisoners receiving the fewest rations. Political prisoners were kept separate from ordinary criminals and received fewer privileges. Mandela describes how, as a D-group prisoner (the lowest classification) he was allowed one visitor and one letter every six months. Letters, when they came, were often delayed for long periods and made unreadable by the prison censors.
Throughout Mandela's imprisonment, local and international pressure mounted on the South African government to release him, under the resounding slogan Free Nelson Mandela! In 1989, South Africa reached a crossroads when the then President of South Africa P.W. Botha suffered a stroke and was replaced as president by Frederik Willem de Klerk. De Klerk announced Mandela's release in February 1990. Mandela went on to become the first democratic President of South Africa and was inaugurated on the 10 May 1994, and served until June 1999. Mandela presided over the transition from minority rule and apartheid, winning international respect for his advocacy of national and international reconciliation. Mandela encouraged black South Africans to get behind the previously hated Springboks (the South African national rugby team) as South Africa hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup. (This is the theme of the 2009 film Invictus.) After the Springboks won an epic final over New Zealand, Mandela presented the trophy to captain Francois Pienaar, an Afrikaner, wearing a Springbok shirt with Pienaar's own number 6 on the back. This was widely seen as a major step in the reconciliation of white and black South Africans. Today Manadela is widely seen by both black and white as the father of the nation, and a beacon of hope for the country to succeed. He is in frail health, and all South Africans are concerned with his well being. As for me growing up as a white boy in a middle class suburb, racism was taught to us from an early age, and indoctrinated into us at school and later in forced conscription in the South African Defence Force. It was while during my national service spending time in the township of Alexandra, and seeing for the first time the conditions black South Africans were living in, that I came to release that people cannot and should not live in those conditions, and was in fact in-human. Today I live side by side with my fellow black South Africans, and have many black friends, we are after all a rainbow nation of different cultures, and yes it works. Sure we have problems - lots of them, but I would not move to any other country. South Africa has some of the most friendliest people in the world, there's a vibe in this place that I haven't found anywhere else - I love it.
So today I say Thank-you Tata (father) Manadela for all you have done.
