Keeping Mandela in prison between 1964 and 1990 was a mistake(TM)

Authors Avatar

‘Keeping Mandela in prison between 1964 and 1990 was a mistake’

Do sources B-G prove that this interpretation was correct?

Nelson Mandela was born in 1918 and was the nephew of a chief. He later became the leader of the ANC and a lawyer. In 1961 he set up ‘Spear of the Nation’ which he later was given a life sentence because of this. In the 1960’s in South Africa, apartheid was separating the Whites and Blacks. Apartheid made sure that, the White South Africans were far superior to the Black South Africans. Nelson Mandela was a very big problem to the Whites as they wanted Apartheid to be maintained in South Africa. The Whites thought that putting Nelson Mandela in prison would be a great solution as they wanted to isolate him, silence him and were trying to end his leadership to the ANC. They also thought that making sure that he had no contact with society would mean he’d lose his faith, however this was not the case.

The Spear of the Nation was then formed by Nelson Mandela in 1961 which disrupted the government by acts of sabotage and violence. After been arrested and taken to court Nelson Mandela was then imprisoned and given the life sentence in 1964. However due to the tremendous support that the world showed towards Mandela the judge in the court didn’t want to give him capital punishment. Sources which support this are C, G and B. Another group that was like Spear of the Nation was The UDF (united Democratic Front). It was a non-violent organization which boycotted the elections.

I am currently analysing 6 sources to find out if the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela between 1964 and 1992 was a big mistake for the white government or not. Source B is an article found in The Observer from the 17th August 1988. This source is suggests that keeping Mandela in prison was only making him much more powerful within South Africa.

In 1960 Britain and its Commonwealth turned against the idea of apartheid, this was due to the events that occurred at Sharpeville. At Sharpeville hundreds and thousands of black South Africans gathered out side of a police station protesting against the pass laws. It was been watched by a few armed police to make sure it was civilized however in a moment of panic they opened fire killing 67 and injuring 186. The songs in source G are very bias and propaganda. This is because they were written by people who didn’t like apartheid and wanted Mandela to be free.

Join now!

At this time, Great Britain and its Commonwealth were campaigning against apartheid and for Nelson Mandela to be released. This source may have being written to add pressure for Nelson Mandela’s release. Source B is very relevant to suggesting reasons why the title statement maybe correct. Source C is saying that it is impossible to silence them, so it supports source B

Source C the poster by the UDF is against the Botha’s reforms of 1985 and says that the Blacks of South Africa will carry on protesting and that apartheid will not be ignored. It shows that ...

This is a preview of the whole essay