Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, the globally respected South African leader, was born on July 18, 1918. He fought against South African apartheid. He served 27 years in prison before he served as his country’s first black president. He once said jokingly, “in my country we go to prison first and then become president”! After becoming the ANC president, Mandela successfully led negotiations with the then white president, F.W. De Klerk to abolish apartheid and establish multiracial elections in 1994, which resulted in ANC’s victory.

During his struggle against the white rule, he declared “we the people of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black or white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of the people.” Mandela always stressed in his speeches that “a good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.” He vehemently detested racialism, because he regarded it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man.

This globally respected leader’s only wish is that “let there be work, bread, water and salt for all!” Will the world be ever blessed with another “Mandela” in the near future. — S.H. Moulana, Riyadh