Racial discrimination from South Africa in 1994
Introduction.
The objective of this historical research is to analyze the change made by Nelson Mandela during his presidency from 1994 to 1999 against racial discrimination, which led him to prison. For this topic I will use the following question, how Nelson Mandela made a change to equality in South Africa in 1994?
To fulfill this purpose I will help myself from two sources, the first is a letter written by lawyer Nelson Mandela in prison;While the second is a newspaper article describing Mandela as president. These sources are going to help me have a greater compression of what happened in South Africa, since they are original and reliable sources
Developing.
The origin has a great value because the letter written in December 1964 by the then African president Nelson Mandela while he was serving a sentence of 27 years for the crime of defending the rights of men and women of his country. , Since when writing it, the lawyer had the purpose of saying that he wanted his people free of discrimination, which the defendant since he was a law student at the University of Fort Hare.
The white political class created in 1948 the apartheid or racial disjunction in certain sectors only managed to own the whites and returned exclusive beaches, buses, hospitals, schools and even the parks banks. Blacks were forbidden to stay in some cities and were confined in reserves or bantustans.
The value is in its origin, when dealing with a primary source and in its intention when writing it which is how mandela concern for its people. Was written in another language that was Xhosa . And at the time of translating the message it will have another meaning, and it is also limited by the form that the letter was loaded with feelings for the impotence situation in which it was.
This is a secondary source an article from the newspaper of Spain called “20 minutes” written in 2013 by the journalist Araceli Guede, with the aim of showing the public what Mandela was during their struggle for the freedom of their people and during theirpresidency. The content of the article is of great value because the journalist has a purpose that is to public.
In 1918, the South Africa Society was totally incomparable to how it is currently. Only 8 years had previously established the South African Union, which gathered in a single administration the southern British colonies. From at that time, a strategic fight between the two primary parties of the time was generated: the National Party of South AfricThe Afrikáneres (descendants of the first European settlers, in their generality of Dutch origin) that they chose to become independent of the British empire.
In the midst of this dispute for power was the entire non -white population, that is, the black can, the "colared" or mestizos and the successors of Pakistani and Hindus who depopulated in times of English domain. These locations needed the most primary political rights such as the right to vote, meeting or strike. Much less managed to access commitments in the administration or both even enter the army. In 1939, the black area was delimited by law to 8%, which for that term presumed around 70% of the country’s population.
At the end of World War II, the South African Government decideddesignating the population in their great black totality certain areas to inhabit and develop their lives, reducing their possibilities of participation. Mandela’s political sphere was not easy. Leading a nation without having arrests was a dangerous and complicated task. In 1944, part of the African National Congress (ANC) was formed that pursued to fight against the dictatorship that South African blacks lived.
“In my youth in Transkei I heard the elders of my tribe tell stories of the old days. Among the stories were the wars of our ancestors who fought in defense of the homeland. I expected that life could offer the opportunity to serve my people and my humble contribution to their struggle for freedom ”.
Mandela, began his political career as a national secretary but apartheid not only made slaves, but also encouraged hatred between races. Mandela did not want to be part of the same group where there were several skin colors but their perception changed and created the ‘challenge campaign’. This movement made Mandela put in front of the laws that took away their status as persons to minimize them. He intended to change the political sphere to, in this way, to free his people. Get this to become great and prove that he could self-govern.
In 1948 Mandela reached the domain in South Africa to be a member of the National Party where collective segregation was exalted in South Africa at least 1911, date of a discriminatory skill that prevented blacks from dominating enough jobs. Numerous measures decreed in the consecutive decades had already led, to give a single example, to the exclusion of blacks and mestizos from the electoral census. In 1948, during the administration of the Afrikáner National Party.
The separate development with the name of Apartheid will be legally constituted, that is, the laws and codes will be established in the Constitution without any collaboration of the African, Asian or mestizo population exclusivism and discrimination. At that time the non -white town was approximately 80% of the total.
The African National Congress adopted systematic non-violent struggles: the Congress Youth League (chaired by Mandela in 1951-1952) constituted maneuvers of civil indiscipline against discriminatory laws. In 1952 Mandela went on to govern the Confederation of the National African Congress of the South African province of Transvaal, while heading to the deliberates fighting the regime;He had become the governor in fact of the movement.
Nelson Mandela became a badge of the dispute against apartheid inside and outside the country, in a traditional figure that represented the grief and lack of liberation of all South African blacks. December 5, 1956, 146 people. The betrayal process lasted four years;All the censored were released without charges;among them Nelson Mandela who was already a leader of the African National Congress (CNA) to which he had been integrated in 1944.
Increasingly assigned to the anti -racist struggle, in 1956 he was defamed of high treason for an alleged attempted coup d’etat. Although it was declared innocent, the process led to the illegalization of the CNA in 1960 Mandela’s participation in the ANC led him to be accused of betrayal in 1956, however, the worst came in the year 64, when he was decreed to life imprisonmentIn a second trial. Then the president, Frederick de Klerk, released him on February 11, 1990, where the lawyer Mandela gave light his letters which is expressed with much feeling, for the situation that was found.
While he spent long years deprived of liberty, his fame increased in the rest of the world and his face became a visible emblem against racial segregation. While residing in jail, his popularity grew and obtained being accredited as the most significant black leader in South Africa. In prison, he and others performed forced labor in a plaster mine. The circumstances of imprisonment were very unbalanced. Mandela attended by correspondence through the external event of the University of London, achieving the degree of law graduate. Mandela left prison with a mission of reconciliation and unity as the only way to reform South Africa.
‘I have fought against white domination and I have fought black domination. I have promoted the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all people can live in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live, but if necessary, it is an ideal for which I am willing to die ‘(Mandela, 1964)
The white rulers of South Africa reproached Mandela as a communist provocator and claimed that if blacks came to power the country would win in chaos and in a blood spill similar to other countries in Africa. However, after the demolition of apartheid, South Africa has possessed four legislative elections and has chosen three rulers peacefully.
Mandela was a leader who approached the enemy to conclude with the exclusion of the mixture of races, fighting without rest in the face of discrimination and in favor of the independence to which he led to his country. Madiba’s immortal mandate will always be a symbol of peace, not only in Africa, but around everyone.
On December 13, 2013, the lawyer Mandela died, where a journalist named Araceli Guede, makes an honor in describing the whole life of the lawyer and what I did during the presidency that he held.
In conclusion, the lawyer Mandela had to pass a great process in his life, such as being in prison, which gave him more strength and motivation to fight in favor of people people, especially for racial equality .making a great change in South Africa in 1994 by becoming president, his struggle to abolish the Apartheid Law, and place an outcome to racial exclusion in his country, which earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
Conclusions.
When doing this historical research work I could realize that sometimes as well as a historian becomes difficult to find varied and reliable information, we see the need to be persevering in his search for effective knowledge.
Investigating the rights of human beings is a matter of all time, but studyWhere I met many sources that explained me for what was happening South Africa in 1994 but at the same time it was difficult for me to find information that are reliable and objective
That my duty is to analyze and understand the character, it is important to select of so many opinions of historians, journalists and researchers on the subject, for a historian who wants to answer a question has to be patient, careful to get data from sources from the time of the timein which the events occurred and contrasting with the versions after the time of Mandela.
Secondly, despite the dispute Mandela, wanting to free his people from racial discrimination, I was facilitated by the analysis of sources, because when reading the lawyer of the lawyer I could appreciate his feelings, so a historian would use theHistorical method, to analyze, understand, use techniques and methods, which allow meMandela, for what he did during his presidency.
Finally, you can understand the variety of sources, that it was an event that marked the story not only in Africa but later in the world and that a researcher can support the diversity of opinions and sources to conduct an investigation.
The work led me to the conclusion, that although there is information about Mandela, it would never be written about this South African leader, a professional man who put his dream of fighting until the apartheid causing discrimination and policy of destruction of the rights of the rights of the rights ofBlack race. Mandela an example to follow that not even the pressure he suffered was stopped.
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