By Olukorede Yishau
A FEW days ago, we marked what would have been Nelson Mandela’s birthday. He was born on July 18, 1918, and although he has been gone for years, his shadow still stretches across continents and it will stretch for many, many decades to come.
His birthday left me with one troubling question: What would Mandela say if he could speak about the recurring waves of xenophobia in the South Africa he helped to build?
I have searched for an answer and found none. Perhaps none exists. Perhaps only Mandela himself could have answered that question. He was a man who embraced armed resistance when every peaceful path had been blocked. Yet he emerged from prison not consumed by vengeance but committed to reconciliation. A man once branded a terrorist became a global symbol of peace. That transformation remains one of history’s greatest miracles.
Rather than pretend to know what he would say, I choose instead to celebrate the remarkable life he lived and the enduring lessons he left behind.
When Mandela stepped down after a single presidential term, the years of sacrifice began to exact their full price. The 27 years he spent behind bars, most of them on Robben Island, had left deep scars on his body. His health steadily deteriorated.
In July 2001, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent seven weeks of radiation therapy. About a decade later, in January 2011, he was admitted to Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg, sparking widespread concern about his health before he was discharged a few days later to his home in Houghton.
Years earlier, at the age of 85, Mandela had announced his retirement from public life. Characteristically, he did so with humility.
“I don’t want to hide away completely,” he said. “I would rather be in a position where I can call you and ask whether I would be welcome than be constantly called upon to attend events.”
He kept that promise. Public appearances became increasingly rare, making every sighting of him a treasured moment.
The silence around him also gave birth to rumours. On several occasions, news of his death spread across the world long before his final breath. CNN once accidentally published his pre-written obituary because of a technical error. In 2007, hoax emails and text messages falsely claimed he had died and even predicted violent reprisals after his funeral. While rumours raced around the world, Mandela was quietly holidaying in Mozambique.
Perhaps the resilience that defined him was forged in childhood. His father, Nkosi Mphakanyiswa Gadla Mandela, died when Nelson was just nine years old. The boy thereafter became a ward of Chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo at the Great Place in Mqhekezweni. There, he listened to elders recount stories of African resistance against colonial rule. Those stories planted a seed. Long before he entered politics, he had begun dreaming of freedom.
At primary school in Qunu, his teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave him the English name Nelson, in keeping with the colonial custom of assigning Christian names to African pupils. His education took him through Clarkebury Boarding Institute, Healdtown Wesleyan College and eventually the University College of Fort Hare. Student activism interrupted his studies when he was expelled for participating in a protest. It was a setback, not a defeat.
He later completed his Bachelor of Arts degree through the University of South Africa and returned to Fort Hare to receive his qualification.
Johannesburg changed the course of his life. There he met Walter Sisulu, whose friendship proved pivotal. Mandela initially worked as a mine security officer before politics drew him fully into the struggle. In 1944, he joined the African National Congress and helped establish its Youth League, which pushed the movement towards a more assertive programme of mass action.
The years that followed became a cycle of arrests, court appearances, restrictions and renewed resistance. In 1952, Mandela became Volunteer-in-Chief of the Defiance Campaign, a nationwide campaign of civil disobedience against unjust apartheid laws. He and nineteen others were prosecuted under the Suppression of Communism Act and received suspended prison sentences.
The same year, together with Oliver Tambo, he established Mandela and Tambo, South Africa’s first Black law firm. It quickly became a refuge for Black South Africans who had nowhere else to seek justice. Unsurprisingly, the apartheid government intensified its surveillance of him and imposed severe restrictions on his movements.
The treason trial followed. In December 1956, Mandela was among 156 activists arrested in a nationwide police operation. The marathon trial dragged on for years before all the remaining accused were finally acquitted in March 1961. During the trial, Mandela married Winnie Madikizela, who would herself become one of apartheid’s most recognisable opponents.
Then came Sharpeville. The killing of 69 unarmed protesters by police in March 1960 transformed South Africa forever. The government declared a state of emergency, banned the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress, and detained Mandela along with thousands of others.
The acquittal in the treason trial did not slow him down. Instead, it convinced him that peaceful protest alone could no longer defeat apartheid. In 1961, he helped establish Umkhonto we Sizwe, the ANC’s armed wing, arguing that sabotage against state infrastructure had become a reluctant necessity.
Early the following year, travelling under the alias David Motsamayi, Mandela secretly left South Africa. He toured several African countries and Britain seeking political and military support. He also received military training in Morocco and Ethiopia before returning home.
His freedom lasted only a few weeks. On August 5, 1962, police arrested him outside Howick. He was convicted of leaving the country illegally and inciting workers to strike and sentenced to five years in prison. Before long, an even bigger trial awaited him.
The Rivonia Trial would define his place in history. Standing before the court on April 20, 1964, Mandela delivered what became one of the greatest political speeches ever made. In words that still echo across generations, he declared: “I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society… It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
Those words almost became prophecy. Less than two months later, Mandela and seven of his co-accused were sentenced to life imprisonment.
He was sent to Robben Island, where nearly three decades of captivity awaited him.
Prison did not spare him personal tragedy. His mother died in 1968. The following year, his eldest son, Thembi, died in a motor accident. Mandela was denied permission to attend either funeral. Apartheid sought not only to imprison his body but also to break his spirit. It failed. Even in prison, he kept studying. In 1989, only months before his release, he completed an LLB through the University of South Africa.
His freedom could have come much earlier. The apartheid government repeatedly offered conditional release if he renounced violence. Mandela rejected every offer. Through his daughter Zindzi, he sent a message that has become timeless: “Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts.”
On February 11, 1990, after 27 years behind bars, Mandela finally walked free. The world watched. He emerged without bitterness and immediately committed himself to negotiations aimed at ending white minority rule. In 1991, he became President of the ANC, succeeding his ailing friend Oliver Tambo. Two years later, he and President F. W. de Klerk jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize.
In April 1994, Mandela voted for the first time in his own country. Days later, on May 10, he was inaugurated as South Africa’s first democratically elected Black president.
He could easily have sought another term. He did not. Having helped deliver democracy, he stepped aside after one term, reinforcing the principle that no leader is bigger than the office he occupies. Which brings me back to the question that refuses to leave. What would Mandela say today when fellow Africans are attacked simply because they come from Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Mozambique, Ethiopia or elsewhere on the continent?
Would he remind South Africans that freedom was won with the support of many African nations? Would he ask whether the Rainbow Nation can truly call itself free while fear stalks fellow Africans within its borders? Would he insist, as he often did, that our common humanity is greater than our differences?
We cannot know. What we do know is that Mandela devoted his life to tearing down walls built by prejudice and replacing them with bridges of understanding. Every act of xenophobia chips away at that legacy. Every attack on an African by another African diminishes the dream for which he sacrificed his youth, his family and his freedom.
My final take: The best way to honour Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is not by laying wreaths or posting his photographs every July 18. It is by building the kind of Africa where no one is hated because of where they were born, where compassion triumphs over suspicion, and where Mandela’s long walk to freedom does not become our short walk away from it.
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