Helena: BYE MANDELA

The day 5 of December 2013, the important South African politic Nelson Mandela passed away.
He died at 95 years old in his house in Johannesburg, because of a pulmonary infection.
But, why was him so important?

Nelson Mandela was born the year 1918 in a village of 300 habitants.
Hereditarily, he should have been the boss of the tribe where he was born, however, he decided to refuse it and go to study to the city.
In 1942 he graduated as a lawyer. Later, he founded the African National Congress Youth League (ANC), and became a national secretary.
In 1948 came to power in South Africa the National Party, creating the regime apartheid, that in Afrikaans means separation. The objective of this regime was to separate the different races that lived together in South Africa, in which the white one was the dominant.

In a beginning, under the inspiration of Gandhi, Mandela opposed to collaborate with radical groups and the violence, but finally in 1952 he participated in the Defiance Campaign against unjust laws, which inspired to challenge the apartheid laws.
That same year he founded with a friend the first law firm addressed by black men in South Africa.
In 1961 the ANC was prohibited, but they kept fighting.

When the police found them, they were sentenced to life imprisonment. Mandela was imprisoned during 27 years forced to do penal servitude, and when they proposed him a better treatment, he always refused it claiming; “I’m not different to any other prisoner in this jail, I deserve the same treatment as the rest.”
In 1990 he was liberated after the legalization of his political party and in 1993 he received the Nobel Prize for his fight for the justice and democracy.

In 1994, after the first elections in which every race could vote, Mandela became the first black president of the South African Republic. As a president, Mandela refused a third part of his salary and created the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund.
In 1999 he retired from politics, but assumed important responsibilities.
Finally, in 2001 was announced that Mandela suffered a prostate cancer, and died in 2013 after a long life of fighting.
Mandela was and still is admired for his constant and pacific fight, his big humility and for his work with the justice of his country. He thought that education was the most powerful weapon and that the poverty could be eradicated as it had been created.
He is considered the last hero of the 20th century.
Rest In Peace Madiba.