Turning Point of Nelson Mandela

1:Select the most Important Turning points in Nelson Mandela’s Life.

I personally believe that there are only two main turning points in Nelson Mandela’s life; the first was being when was when he was eventually released from prison (Robben Island) in 1990.

Mandela was released 27 years after being imprisoned under the suppression of the communist act on 14th June 1964. When Frederik Willem de Klerk agreed to release Nelson Mandela he knew that he was releasing the African National Congress Leader, whose main aim was to abolish Apartheid and keep South Africa free from racial segregation and make it a united society.

With President F.W de Klerk aware of this he was releasing Nelson Mandela he would have known that Mandela was extremely passionate to achieve his aims, considering the lengthy time he was in prison for it(abolishing Apartheid), therefore F.W Klerk would have only released Mandela knowing that Apartheid would eventually going to come to a holt; which was soon to be the case.

F.W de Klerk was the leader of the National Party in Transvaal and then later ended up being the Head of the national party in 1989 after having a place in the governing party as the head of verligte, and then eventually became State President in September 1989 as he replaced then president P.W. Botha, so he was the head of the party who were the first to implement the entire idea of Apartheid(which passed specific laws to prevent coloured Individuals from having the same rights as White people) and State president. Apartheid was intended to maintain/extend political and economic control of South Africa via the White minority living in South Africa at this time. For instance there was a law called “The Separate Amenities Act” which was passed in 1953. This prevented White people and Black people from sharing the same grounds they could live on, so specific places had to be directed to a specific race, and the ground belonging to the Black people were only small. Yet he was the one who first called for a non-racist South Africa and wanted to make negotiations about the country's future, which is why he decided to up lift Nelson Mandela’s prison sentence as he wanted what Nelson Mandela wanted, South Africa to uplift the Apartheid law. This was definitely a key turning point for Mandela as it meant he would be released from prison and he could continue with his campaign and hopefully achieve what he wanted, to abolish Apartheid. This also meant he had added support, knowing that F.W de Klerk was on his side, giving him support.

During the Next couple of years various negotiations were made, for example the South African government and the ANC agreed on something called "Pretoria Minute" on the 6th August 1990 which meant that there would be a suspension of the armed struggle by the ANC and its military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe, so the ANC wouldn’t use violence or weapons anymore. Eventually in 1994 Both black people and white people were allowed to vote in the next elections which at one stage would have never been allowed and the national party had 20% of the vote and the ANC getting 62% of the vote, and then later a new government formed an organisation called the national unity indicating the country as one of whom the president was Nelson Mandela. So this was the bigger turning point as this is a date in history which you never forget because black people and white people were officially classed as equal in South Africa. This may have been classed as a special turning point for Mandela knowing he contributed to these actions happening. He knew in himself he was partially responsible for this equality happening, which was what he was trying to achieve for so long, so to still be alive and see it happen was definitely a positive turning point for him.