What were some of nelson mandela's achievements? i would to know the acheivements of nelson

1 ANSWERS

1. Ali Abdullah
   

   Hi, For the first years of apartheid, from '48 certainly until the Defiance Campaign began in '52, and quite a lot after that, it wasn't taken all that seriously. There was an expectation that the whole thing was not going to work. It would crumble. That part of it, of course, was simply an extension of traditional segregation, and the world trend was against that. You have to remember that black South Africans knew a bit about what was happening in America, and America was very visibly going in the opposite direction. It was difficult to believe that apartheid could really set a totally different course from what was happening in the famous cases in America, which were declaring segregation illegal. So it's important to remember how fragile apartheid seemed and how obviously absurd it did. While at the same time it was part of a old colonial tradition, which was clearly fading as other imperial countries were pulling out of Africa. The Defiance Campaign was his first major protest organization, when he was the chief volunteer. That's when he really emerged for the first time as being a serious political leader. He was clearly a formidable one; but to me, anyway, he was quite distant. He was not easy to communicate with in the way that Sisulu absolutely was. Partly, as he says now, he was defensive, particularly amongst white people, when they were not directly part of the political scene. At the same time, he did have that aloofness to other people too. Even to people like Ruth First, who found him quite arrogant, even though she was a great loyal party member, who was very close to Mandela in many ways. He had this chiefly element. There is no doubt. He had a sense of the dignity of an aristocrat. He was very fine looking and knew it. He always had a great presence and was always tremendously well-dressed. He intimidated some of his black contemporaries to quite an extent. Even people like Dr. Matlane, for instance, who was a very effective friend and supporter, and his doctor. Even he felt he had to choose his words quite carefully with Mandela. There, obviously, was the political insecurity and this incredible shock of finding himself in a humiliating situation in a big city. But he was defensive with good reason. After all, he was a proud man, who had found himself in a pretty hostile setting. But I don't think he was basically insecure. No. He wasn't the most successful person. He wasn't the cleverest of his generation by any means. He wasn't an intellectual. He wasn't a great sportsman. He was a good boxer, but he wasn't a great sort of team sportsman. So it wasn't a glorious career, and he was never a great lawyer. But nevertheless, he was, quite obviously, it seemed to me, a formidable leader, and was regarded by other people as such. In the early '60s, again, there was an optimism throughout the whole of Africa about victories being quite soon and rapid, and also quite painless. In some parts of the British empire that was true ... Ghana, for instance, was a push over. Tanzania--there was never really fighting, there was never a revolution. There, the British just pulled out. And that affected a lot of people in South Africa. Both ways. A lot of black politicians were misled about that, including Mandela, into thinking it was going to be an easy walk to freedom. Whites certainly got scared that there was going to be a sudden change in South Africa, which would have corresponded with what was happening elsewhere on the continent. But, of course, it wasn't until the real challenge came from the blacks that the white reaction became more vicious, because there was a feeling amongst many of the white liberals, as well as the Afrikaners, that the blacks in South Africa were simply not going to get their act together. They were not going to fight or to mobilize anything very much. Therefore, South Africa could have a separate future from the rest of the continent. I think, myself, it is the classic achievement of the liberator, which you would associate with people like Washington or Lincoln or some of the great military leaders ... [he's] clearly, of course, not really a military leader. It wasn't a liberation by conquest. That's what makes the story more interesting. It's like a cross, if you like, between Gandhi and Washington. The idea being the unifying element itself was terribly important. He was influenced by both Gandhi and by Nehru into feeling that you could create that sense of national unity and self respect and idealism, without resorting to force to achieve it. Even though he wasn't, by no means, a pacifist, there was always that element of not wishing to be the military conqueror, which of course would have been a far bloodier path. But I think it is as a unifier, as a liberator, and above all as a multi-racial ... What is striking to me is that fact that he is both a realist and an achiever in the multi-racial element. He has never thought, like so many people on the left have thought, that you could have an ideal sort of raceless society. He has always been very conscious of people's need to have a community which tends to be their own race, and to belong to that. He has never thought that you would have this idealistic conversion where people don't notice race. At the same time, he's achieved more in terms of multi-racial cooperation than most people thought possible--in his own cabinet, in his own government. And his own lifestyle, where he sometimes doesn't seem to notice what color anybody is at all. His friendships show no apparent discrimination, whatsoever. So that's what appeals to the world so much at the moment, to people like Blair or to Clinton or to other world leaders is his ability to be above race, not to be a great sort of campaigner or battler, no great anti-racist crusader, which is much less effective. But to somehow appear to be above the whole scene. That's where his own life makes such good sense.

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