Mandela will be mourned as a freedom fighter and father of his nation

NELSON MANDELA will be remembered as the person who, more than any other, brought an end to apartheid, the heartless policy of “separate development” in which white, black, and South Asian South Africans were obliged to live apart.

It is part of his towering achievement that the very notion of racial segregation is anathema to democrats throughout the civilised world. He will be mourned as a freedom fighter and the father of his nation, whose wisdom, patience and courage tormented his oppressors and finally drove them to accept that racial discrimination should have no place in a system of government.

Along with eight other conspirators, in 1964 Mandela was accused of sabotage and armed insurrection against the apartheid state. (He admitted sabotage but denied conspiring to violently overthrow the government.) He spent the next 27 years in prison.