Nelson Mandela being a great world figure has won many honor as flashed on the f.b. on Feb.26,2011.

Bishwa Nath Singh


Let us have glimpse of the family history of Nelson Mandela who became the oldest elected President of South Africa when he took office at the age of seventy five in 1994. He decided not to stand for a second term and retired in 1999, to be succeeded by Thabo Mbeki.After his retirement as President, Mandela went on to become an advo...cate for a variety of social and human rights organisations. He has expressed his support for the international Make Poverty History movement of which the ONE Campaign is a part.The Nelson Mandela Invitational charity golf tournament, hosted by Gary Player, has raised over twenty million rand for children's charities since its inception in 2000.This annual special event has become South Africa's most successful charitable sports gathering and benefits both the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and Gary Player Foundation equally for various children's causes around the world.

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..(Photo of Nelson Mandela is seen meeting with the then US President Bill Clinton in 1993).
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Bishwa Nath Singh :
In this Photo,Nelson Mandela is seen meeting with the then US President Bill Clinton in 1993.Nelson Mandela belongs to a cadet branch of the Thembu dynasty, which reigns in the Transkeian Territories of South Africa's Cape Province. He was born July 18, 1918 in Mvezo, a small village located in the district of Umtata, the Transkei capital.He had honor to be the South Africa's eleventh president and its first democratically elected president He has Khoisan ancestry on his mother's side. His patrilineal great-grandfather Ngubengcuka who had passed away in 1832, ruled as the Inkosi Enkhulu, or king, of the Thembu people. One of the king's sons, named Mandela, became Nelson's grandfather and the source of his surname. However, because he was only the Inkosi's child by a wife of the Ixhiba clan -the so-called "Left-Hand House, the descendants of his branch of the royal family were not eligible to succeed to the Thembu throne.His father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa, served as chief of the town of Mvezo. However, upon alienating the colonial authorities, they deprived Mphakanyiswa of his position, and moved his family to Qunu. Despite this, Mphakanyiswa remained a member of the Inkosi's Privy Council, and served an instrumental role in Jongintaba Dalindyebo's ascension to the Thembu throne. Dalindyebo would later return the favour by informally adopting Mandela upon Mphakanyiswa's death His father had four wives, with whom he fathered thirteen children -four boys and nine girls.He was born to his third wife, Nosekeni Fanny. Fanny was a daughter of Nkedama of the Mpemvu Xhosa clan, the dynastic Right Hand House, in whose umzi or homestead Mandela spent much of his childhood. His given name Rolihlahla means to pull a branch of a tree or more trouble maker.Rolihlahla Mandela became the first member of his family to attend a school, where his teacher Miss Mdingane gave him the English name Nelson.When he was nine, his father had passed away of tuberculosis, and the regent, Jongintaba, became his GuardianBefore his election to the presidency, Nelson Mandela protested against apartheid by leading the African National Congress (ANC). He was jailed for twenty seven years on a charge of sabotage for his work with the ANC.The apartheid government deemed him a terrorist at the same time he was becoming a hero to anti-apartheid groups. Nelson Mandela was seen internationally as being responsible for helping to end apartheid. In 1993, three years after his freedom from the confines of jail, Nelson Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace PrizeSouth Africans call Nelson Mandela either "mkhulu" which means grandfather, or Madiba, the Mandela family name for a respected elder. Nelson Mandela was given his first name by a school teacher who had trouble saying his actual first name, Rolihlahla. She called him "Nelson" after Horatio Nelson, the British admiral. Mandela was seven years old when he started school and was the first one in his family to go to school.

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f.b.
Feb.26,2011.