Nelson Mandela—one of the most iconic figures of the 20th century and a global symbol of the struggle against racial discrimination—died on 5 December 2013 at the age of 95. His passing marked the end of a life devoted entirely to fighting apartheid, the brutal system of racial segregation in South Africa.

The words of then-South African President Jacob Zuma, spoken only hours after Mandela’s death, captured the magnitude of the loss.
“The nation has lost its greatest son; our people have lost their father,” he declared, highlighting Mandela’s humility, humanity and compassion, virtues that accompanied his political battles.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, to whom we owe deep gratitude for the sacrifices they made so our people could be free,” Zuma continued, naming Mandela’s wife Graça Machel, his former wife Winnie Mandela, “his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.”

“We also think of his comrades and friends who fought alongside Madiba,” he added, using Mandela’s clan name, “and of the people who today mourn the man who embodied their hopes for peace and reconciliation.”

The Early Life of Nelson Mandela

Mandela was born on 18 July 1918 in Transkei, a rural region in South Africa.
An illuminating portrait of his early years appears in a 1994 Times article by Matthew Parris, republished in the Greek newspaper To Vima shortly after Mandela was elected president.

The article reveals that Mandela’s life was, in many ways, a series of escapes—each shaping the leader he would become.

His First Escape: Fleeing an Arranged Marriage

“The first escape was also the most important,” Parris writes.
Mandela fled his home to avoid an arranged marriage. His father, a chief of the small Thembu tribe, had died when Mandela was 12, but that loss did not alter the expectations set for a boy born into a noble lineage.

In Transkei, his future had been predetermined. Descriptions of his youth suggest he was raised to become the measured, dignified man the world came to know—someone who naturally commanded respect.

Self-Exile: A Break With Tradition

Entering his twenties, Mandela made a decision that would define his entire life: he effectively exiled himself from his tribe and from the path chosen for him.

“Once he turned 22, Mandela turned his back on his tribe completely,” Parris notes.
This break, he argues, was the key to Mandela’s later acceptance as a truly national—rather than tribal—leader.

A photograph shows Mandela at 19: serious, poised, and already carrying the quiet determination that would become his hallmark.

The Mentor Who Shaped Mandela

Parris credits Walter Sisulu as the man who “created” Mandela.
Without Sisulu, he writes, Mandela might not have begun his political career at all.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Sisulu and Mandela worked side by side within the African National Congress (ANC)—a political movement founded in 1912 to fight for the rights of all South Africans. Mandela helped establish the ANC Youth League, later becoming its president, while Sisulu rose to secretary-general.

At the time, Mandela believed Black South Africans should unite among themselves first; he was not yet convinced of the need for alliances across racial groups. Sisulu persuaded him otherwise.

Despite later claims from critics, particularly on the political right, Parris underscores that Mandela was never a communist. While he shared youthful interest in socialism—hardly unusual at the time—he showed little concern for economic ideology.

Sharpeville and the Turn Toward Armed Struggle

Until the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre—when police killed 69 unarmed Black protesters—Mandela’s activism, though revolutionary, was rooted in civil disobedience.

Strikes were the main weapon; state violence the standard response.

Mandela was imprisoned for nine months in 1952.
By 1953 he had gone underground.
In 1956 he was charged with treason.
The trial lasted until 1961, when he was acquitted.

But Sharpeville changed everything.

The massacre galvanized Black resistance, alarmed the white minority, and drew global attention. The ANC—and Mandela—concluded that armed struggle was now necessary. Upon returning from travels abroad, he was arrested for inciting rebellion and received a five-year sentence.

Life Imprisonment—and an Unexpected Kind of Salvation

In 1964, Mandela was tried again—this time for attempting to overthrow the state—and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was sent to the notorious Robben Island maximum-security prison.

Parris offers a surprising perspective:
Mandela’s 27 years behind bars may, in a tragic sense, have saved his life.

He could have been executed.
Or acquitted—and then assassinated, like so many of his ANC comrades.

Instead, he became a symbol.
A figure who transcended violence and faction.
Someone even parts of white South Africa began to view not as a “political charlatan,” but as a potential savior.

Refusing Freedom at the Price of His Principles

In 1985, South African President P.W. Botha offered Mandela freedom on one condition: he must renounce the armed struggle.

Mandela refused.

Dialogue with President F.W. de Klerk began in 1989.
In 1990 Mandela walked out of prison.
In 1991 he became president of the ANC.
In 1994 he became President of South Africa—the country’s first Black leader, elected in its first multiracial vote.

His path had been marked, from the beginning, by love for his people and a remarkable absence of bitterness.

“Almost from childhood,” Parris concludes,
“Mandela was a politician, a moral force and a peacemaker.”