¿Who is Pacifist Nelson Mandela?

South African politician (Umtata, Transkei, 1918 -). Renouncing his hereditary right to be head of a tribal Xhosa, Nelson Mandela became a lawyer in 1942. In 1944 he joined the African National Congress (ANC), a movement of struggle against oppression of black South Africans. Mandela was one of the leaders of the Youth League Congress that is expected to be the dominant group in the ANC, its ideology was an African socialism: the nationalist, racist and imperialist. In 1948 he came to power in South Africa the National Party institutionalized racial segregation created by the apartheid regime. Under the inspiration of Gandhi, the ANC advocated nonviolent methods of struggle: the League of Youth (chaired by Mandela in 1951-52) organized civil disobedience campaigns against segregation laws.

In 1952 Mandela became president of the Transvaal ANC, while heading to the volunteers who defied the regime, had become the de facto leader of the movement. The repression was 8000 arrests, including that of Mandela, who was confined in Johannesburg. He established the first black law firm in South Africa. In 1955, fulfilled their sentences, he reappeared in public, promoting the adoption of a Charter of Liberty, which was embodied the aspiration of a multiracial, egalitarian and democratic reform Agricultural policy and social justice in the distribution of wealth.

The hardening of the racist regime culminated in 1956 with the government's plan to create seven reservations or Bantustans, supposedly independent marginal areas, which confine the black majority. The ANC responded with demonstrations and boycotts that led to the arrest of most of its leaders, Mandela was charged with high treason, tried and released for lack of evidence in 1961. During the trial took place during the Sharpeville massacre in The police opened fire on an unarmed crowd protesting against the racist laws, killing 69 protesters (1960). The killing advised the government to declare a state of emergency, under which arrested the black opposition leaders: Mandela was detained without trial several months. Those events ended to convince the leaders of the ANC's failure to continue fighting for methods not violent, not weakened the regime and that provoked an equally bloody repression. In 1961 Mandela was elected honorary secretary of the National Action Congress All Africa, a new underground movement adopted sabotage as a means of struggle against the regime of the newly declared Republic of South Africa, and he directed the armed wing of the ANC (the Spear of the Nation). His strategy focused on attacking economically important plants or symbolic value, excluding life threatening.