MILESTONES
lobbying peacefully for social and a modicum of political
Johannesburg, big and bold and unforgiving, was a challenge,
rights.
but it had its upside. It was where things happened. Mandela
Nelson Mandela was one of the new breed. At Fort
worked as a law clerk and devoted his leisure hours to boxing,
Hare he had met Oliver Tambo, who was to serve as colleague,
although he was the first to admit he’d never be a champion.
loyal friend and mentor in the long decades to come. Both
He lacked a killer punch. He also had a good look at working
were expelled after their involvement in a boycott against
conditions and was appalled by what he saw. There was
university policies, and they made their way to Johannesburg
nothing magical about a gold mine, he later wrote. The
and the law. Oliver was already a post-graduate; Nelson
black miners, relatively well paid though they were, ‘lived
had a further incentive to move – the threat of an arranged
on the grounds in bleak, single-sex barracks that contained
marriage.
hundreds of concrete bunks separated from each other by only a few inches....’.
In due course he gained his bachelor’s degree by
correspondence, a law degree from Witwatersrand University, joined the ANC and, with Tambo, set up a legal practice. He was on his way.
What were his political aspirations at this time?
Who and what inspired him? The injustice he saw all around, of course, but also the world at war, odd though that may seem. It was after all a war against tyranny and oppression, a gigantic struggle which the black man in Africa echoed in microcosm. The best ideals of the time were neatly encapsulated in the Atlantic Charter, a document setting out the democratic rights of societies and reaffirming the dignity of the individual. Its signatories were Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, leaders of the free world, and its principles UWC Robben Island Mayibuye Archives
were eventually (albeit cautiously) accepted by the South African government.
Mandela drew special inspiration from the
teachings of the brilliant ideologist Anton Lembede, whose philosophy anticipated Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement of the 60’s and was summed up
Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela
37 man_times03.indd 13
12/2/08 12:19:08 PM