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8/09/2008

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela



Nelson Mandela's greatest pleasure, his most private moment, is watching the sun set with the music of Handel or Tchaikovsky playing.

Locked up in his cell during daylight hours, deprived of music, both these simple pleasures were denied him for decades. With his fellow prisoners, concerts were organised when possible, particularly at Christmas time, where they would sing. Nelson Mandela finds music very uplifting, and takes a keen interest not only in European classical music but also in African choral music and the many talents in South African music. But one voice stands out above all - that of Paul Robeson, whom he describes as our hero.

The years in jail reinforced habits that were already entrenched: the disciplined eating regime of an athlete began in the 1940s, as did the early morning exercise. Still today Nelson Mandela is up by 4.30am, irrespective of how late he has worked the previous evening. By 5am he has begun his exercise routine that lasts at least an hour. Breakfast is by 6.30, when the days newspapers are read. The day s work has begun.

With a standard working day of at least 12 hours, time management is critical and Nelson Mandela is extremely impatient with unpunctuality, regarding it as insulting to those you are dealing with.


When speaking of the extensive travelling he has undertaken since his release from prison, Nelson Mandela says: I was helped when preparing for my release by the biography of Pandit Nehru, who wrote of what happens when you leave jail. My daughter Zinzi says that she grew up without a father, who, when he returned, became a father of the nation. This has placed a great responsibility of my shoulders. And wherever I travel, I immediately begin to miss the familiar - the mine dumps, the colour and smell that is uniquely South African, and, above all, the people. I do not like to be away for any length of time. For me, there is no place like home.

Mandela accepted the Nobel Peace Prize as an accolade to all people who have worked for peace and stood against racism. It was as much an award to his person as it was to the ANC and all South Africa s people. In particular, he regards it as a tribute to the people of Norway who stood against apartheid while many in the world were silent.

We know it was Norway that provided resources for farming; thereby enabling us to grow food; resources for education and vocational training and the provision of accommodation over the years in exile. The reward for all this sacrifice will be the attainment of freedom and democracy in South Africa, in an open society which respects the rights of all individuals. That goal is now in sight, and we have to thank the people and governments of Norway and Sweden for the tremendous role they played.

Personal Tastes

* Breakfast of plain porridge, with fresh fruit and fresh milk.
* A favourite is the traditionally prepared meat of a freshly slaughtered sheep, and the delicacy Amarhewu (fermented corn-meal).

Biographical Details

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in a village near Umtata in the Transkei on the 18 July 1918. His father was the principal councillor to the Acting Paramount Chief of Thembuland. After his father s death, the young Rolihlahla became the Paramount Chief s ward to be groomed to assume high office. However, influenced by the cases that came before the Chief s court, he determined to become a lawyer. Hearing the elders stories of his ancestors valour during the wars of resistance in defence of their fatherland, he dreamed also of making his own contribution to the freedom struggle of his people.

After receiving a primary education at a local mission school, Nelson Mandela was sent to Healdtown, a Wesleyan secondary school of some repute where he matriculated. He then enrolled at the University College of Fort Hare for the Bachelor of Arts Degree where he was elected onto the Student's Representative Council. He was suspended from college for joining in a protest boycott. He went to Johannesburg where he completed his BA by correspondence, took articles of clerkship and commenced study for his LLB. He entered politics in earnest while studying in Johannesburg by joining the African National Congress in 1942.

At the height of the Second World War a small group of young Africans, members of the African National Congress, banded together under the leadership of Anton Lembede. Among them were William Nkomo, Walter Sisulu, Oliver R. Tambo, Ashby P. Mda and Nelson Mandela. Starting out with 60 members, all of whom were residing around the Witwatersrand, these young people set themselves the formidable task of transforming the ANC into a mass movement, deriving its strength and motivation from the unlettered millions of working people in the towns and countryside, the peasants in the rural areas and the professionals.

Their chief contention was that the political tactics of the old guard' leadership of the ANC, reared in the tradition of constitutionalism and polite petitioning of the government of the day, were proving inadequate to the tasks of national emancipation. In opposition to the old guard', Lembede and his colleagues espoused a radical African Nationalism grounded in the principle of national self-determination. In September 1944 they came together to found the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL).

Mandela soon impressed his peers by his disciplined work and consistent effort and was elected to the Secretaryship of the Youth League in 1947. By painstaking work, campaigning at the grassroots and through its mouthpiece Inyaniso' (Truth) the ANCYL was able to canvass support for its policies amongst the ANC membership. At the 1945 annual conference of the ANC, two of the League s leaders, Anton Lembede and Ashby Mda, were elected onto the National Executive Committee (NEC). Two years later another Youth League leader, Oliver R Tambo became a member of the NEC.

Spurred on by the victory of the National Party which won the 1948 all-White elections on the platform of Apartheid, at the 1949 annual conference, the Programme of Action, inspired by the Youth League, which advocated the weapons of boycott, strike, civil disobedience and non-co-operation was accepted as official ANC policy.

The Programme of Action had been drawn up by a sub-committee of the ANCYL composed of David Bopape, Ashby Mda, Nelson Mandela, James Njongwe, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo. To ensure its implementation the membership replaced older leaders with a number of younger men. Walter Sisulu, a founding member of the Youth League was elected Secretary-General. The conservative Dr A.B. Xuma lost the presidency to Dr J.S. Moroka, a man with a reputation for greater militancy. The following year, 1950, Mandela himself was elected to the NEC at national conference.

The ANCYL programme aimed at the attainment of full citizenship, direct parliamentary representation for all South Africans. In policy documents of which Mandela was an important co-author, the ANCYL paid special attention to the redistribution of the land, trade union rights, education and culture. The ANCYL aspired to free and compulsory education for all children, as well as mass education for adults.

When the ANC launched its Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws in 1952, Mandela was elected National Volunteer-in-Chief. The Defiance Campaign was conceived as a mass civil disobedience campaign that would snowball from a core of selected volunteers to involved more and more ordinary people, culminating in mass defiance. Fulfilling his responsibility as Volunteer-in-Chief, Mandela travelled the country organising resistance to discriminatory legislation. Charged and brought to trial for his role in the campaign, the court found that Mandela and his co-accused had consistently advised their followers to adopt a peaceful course of action and to avoid all violence.

For his part in the Defiance Campaign, Mandela was convicted of contravening the Suppression of Communism Act and given a suspended prison sentence. Shortly after the campaign ended, he was also prohibited from attending gatherings and confined to Johannesburg for six months.

During this period of restrictions, Mandela wrote the attorneys admission examination and was admitted to the profession. He opened a practice in Johannesburg, in partnership with Oliver Tambo. In recognition of his outstanding contribution during the Defiance Campaign Mandela had been elected to the presidency of both the Youth League and the Transvaal region of the ANC at the end of 1952, he thus became a deputy president of the ANC itself.

Of their law practice, Oliver Tambo, ANC National Chairman at the time of his death in April 1993, has written:

To reach our desks each morning Nelson and I ran the gauntlet of patient queues of people overflowing from the chairs in the waiting room into the corridors... To be landless (in South Africa) can be a crime, and weekly we interviewed the delegations of peasants who came to tell us how many generations their families had worked a little piece of land from which they were now being ejected... To live in the wrong area can be a crime... Our buff office files carried thousands of these stories and if, when we started our law partnership, we had not been rebels against apartheid, our experiences in our offices would have remedied the deficiency. We had risen to professional status in our community, but every case in court, every visit to the prisons to interview clients, reminded us of the humiliation and suffering burning into our people.

Nor did their professional status earn Mandela and Tambo any personal immunity from the brutal apartheid laws. They fell foul of the land segregation legislation, and the authorities demanded that they move their practice from the city to the back of beyond, as Mandela later put it, miles away from where clients could reach us during working hours. This was tantamount to asking us to abandon our legal practice, to give up the legal service of our people... No attorney worth his salt would easily agree to do that, said Mandela and the partnership resolved to defy the law.

Nor was the government alone in trying to frustrate Mandela s legal practice. On the grounds of his conviction under the Suppression of Communism Act, the Transvaal Law Society petitioned the Supreme Court to strike him off the roll of attorneys. The petition was refused with Mr Justice Ramsbottom finding that Mandela had been moved by a desire to serve his black fellow citizens and nothing he had done showed him to be unworthy to remain in the ranks of an honourable profession.

In 1952 Nelson Mandela was given the responsibility to prepare an organisational plan that would enable the leadership of the movement to maintain dynamic contact with its membership without recourse to public meetings. The objective was to prepare for the contingency of proscription by building up powerful local and regional branches to whom power could be devolved. This was the M-Plan, named after him.

During the early fifties Mandela played an important part in leading the resistance to the Western Areas removals and to the introduction of Bantu Education. He also played a significant role in popularising the Freedom Charter, adopted by the Congress of the People in 1955.

In the late fifties, Mandela s attention turned to the struggles against the exploitation of labour, the pass laws, the nascent Bantustan policy, and the segregation of the open universities. Mandela arrived at the conclusion very early on that the Bantustan policy was a political swindle and an economic absurdity. He predicted, with dismal prescience, that ahead there lay a grim programme of mass evictions, political persecutions, and police terror. On the segregation of the universities, Mandela observed that the friendship and inter-racial harmony that is forged through the admixture and association of various racial groups at the mixed universities constitute a direct threat to the policy of apartheid and baasskap, and that it was to remove that threat that the open universities were being closed to black students.

During the whole of the fifties, Mandela was the victim of various forms of repression. He was banned, arrested and imprisoned. For much of the latter half of the decade, he was one of the accused in the mammoth Treason Trial, at great cost to his legal practice and his political work. After the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, the ANC was outlawed, and Mandela, still on trial, was detained.

The Treason Trial collapsed in 1961 as South Africa was being steered towards the adoption of the republic constitution. With the ANC now illegal the leadership picked up the threads from its underground headquarters. Nelson Mandela emerged at this time as the leading figure in this new phase of struggle. Under the ANC's inspiration, 1,400 delegates came together at an All-in African Conference in Pietermaritzburg during March 1961. Mandela was the keynote speaker. In an electrifying address he challenged the apartheid regime to convene a national convention, representative of all South Africans to thrash out a new constitution based on democratic principles. Failure to comply, he warned, would compel the majority (Blacks) to observe the forthcoming inauguration of the Republic with a mass general strike. He immediately went underground to lead the campaign. Although fewer answered the call than Mandela had hoped, it attracted considerable support throughout the country. The government responded with the largest military mobilisation since the war, and the Republic was born in an atmosphere of fear and apprehension.

Forced to live apart from his family, moving from place to place to evade detection by the government s ubiquitous informers and police spies, Mandela had to adopt a number of disguises. Sometimes dressed as a common labourer, at other times as a chauffeur, his successful evasion of the police earned him the title of the Black Pimpernel. It was during this time that he, together with other leaders of the ANC constituted a new specialised section of the liberation movement, Umkhonto we Sizwe, as an armed nucleus with a view to preparing for armed struggle. At the Rivonia trial, Mandela explained : "At the beginning of June 1961, after long and anxious assessment of the South African situation, I and some colleagues came to the conclusion that as violence in this country was inevitable, it would be wrong and unrealistic for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the government met our peaceful demands with force.

It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle, and to form Umkhonto we Sizwe...the Government had left us no other choice."

In 1961 Umkhonto we Sizwe was formed, with Mandela as its commander-in-chief. In 1962 Mandela left the country unlawfully and travelled abroad for several months. In Ethiopia he addressed the Conference of the Pan African Freedom Movement of East and Central Africa, and was warmly received by senior political leaders in several countries. During this trip Mandela, anticipating an intensification of the armed struggle, began to arrange guerrilla training for members of Umkhonto we Sizwe.

Not long after his return to South Africa Mandela was arrested and charged with illegal exit from the country, and incitement to strike.

Since he considered the prosecution a trial of the aspirations of the African people, Mandela decided to conduct his own defence. He applied for the recusal of the magistrate, on the ground that in such a prosecution a judiciary controlled entirely by whites was an interested party and therefore could not be impartial, and on the ground that he owed no duty to obey the laws of a white parliament, in which he was not represented.

Mandela prefaced this challenge with the affirmation: I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man.

Mandela was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment. While serving his sentence he was charged, in the Rivonia Trial, with sabotage. Mandela s statements in court during these trials are classics in the history of the resistance to apartheid, and they have been an inspiration to all who have opposed it. His statement from the dock in the Rivonia Trial ends with these words:

I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment and started his prison years in the notorious Robben Island Prison, a maximum security prison on a small island 7Km off the coast near Cape Town. In April 1984 he was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town and in December 1988 he was moved the Victor Verster Prison near Paarl from where he was eventually released. While in prison, Mandela flatly rejected offers made by his jailers for remission of sentence in exchange for accepting the bantustan policy by recognising the independence of the Transkei and agreeing to settle there. Again in the 'eighties Mandela rejected an offer of release on condition that he renounce violence. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Only free men can negotiate, he said.

Released on 11 February 1990, Mandela plunged wholeheartedly into his life's work, striving to attain the goals he and others had set out almost four decades earlier. In 1991, at the first national conference of the ANC held inside South Africa after being banned for decades, Nelson Mandela was elected President of the ANC while his lifelong friend and colleague, Oliver Tambo, became the organisation's National Chairperson.

Nelson Mandela has never wavered in his devotion to democracy, equality and learning. Despite terrible provocation, he has never answered racism with racism. His life has been an inspiration, in South Africa and throughout the world, to all who are oppressed and deprived, to all who are opposed to oppression and deprivation.

In a life that symbolises the triumph of the human spirit over man s inhumanity to man, Nelson Mandela accepted the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of all South Africans who suffered and sacrificed so much to bring peace to our land.
A Brief Biography

Mandela's words, "The struggle is my life," are not to be taken lightly.

Nelson Mandela personifies struggle. He is still leading the fight against apartheid with extraordinary vigour and resilience after spending nearly three decades of his life behind bars. He has sacrificed his private life and his youth for his people, and remains South Africa's best known and loved hero.

Mandela has held numerous positions in the ANC: ANCYL secretary (1948); ANCYL president (1950); ANC Transvaal president (1952); deputy national president (1952) and ANC president (1991).

He was born at Qunu, near Umtata on 18 July 1918.

His father, Henry Mgadla Mandela, was chief councillor to Thembuland's acting paramount chief David Dalindyebo. When his father died, Mandela became the chief's ward and was groomed for the chieftainship.

Mandela matriculated at Healdtown Methodist Boarding School and then started a BA degree at Fort Hare. As an SRC member he participated in a student strike and was expelled, along with the late Oliver Tambo, in 1940. He completed his degree by correspondence from Johannesburg, did articles of clerkship and enrolled for an LLB at the University of the Witwatersrand.

In 1944 he helped found the ANC Youth League, whose Programme of Action was adopted by the ANC in 1949.

Mandela was elected national volunteer-in-chief of the 1952 Defiance Campaign. He travelled the country organising resistance to discriminatory legislation.

He was given a suspended sentence for his part in the campaign. Shortly afterwards a banning order confined him to Johannesburg for six months. During this period he formulated the "M Plan", in terms of which ANC branches were broken down into underground cells.

By 1952 Mandela and Tambo had opened the first black legal firm in the country, and Mandela was both Transvaal president of the ANC and deputy national president.

A petition by the Transvaal Law Society to strike Mandela off the roll of attorneys was refused by the Supreme Court.

In the 'fifties, after being forced through constant bannings to resign officially from the ANC, Mandela analysed the Bantustan policy as a political swindle. He predicted mass removals, political persecutions and police terror.

For the second half of the 'fifties, he was one of the accused in the Treason Trial. With Duma Nokwe, he conducted the defence.

When the ANC was banned after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, he was detained until 1961 when he went underground to lead a campaign for a new national convention.

Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the military wing of the ANC, was born the same year. Under his leadership it launched a campaign of sabotage against government and economic installations.

In 1962 Mandela left the country for military training in Algeria and to arrange training for other MK members.

On his return he was arrested for leaving the country illegally and for incitement to strike. He conducted his own defence. He was convicted and jailed for five years in November 1962. While serving his sentence, he was charged, in the Rivonia trial, with sabotage and sentenced to life imprisonment.

A decade before being imprisoned, Mandela had spoken out against the introduction of Bantu Education, recommending that community activists "make every home, every shack or rickety structure a centre of learning".

Robben Island, where he was imprisoned, became a centre for learning, and Mandela was a central figure in the organised political education classes.

In prison Mandela never compromised his political principles and was always a source of strength for the other prisoners.

During the 'seventies he refused the offer of a remission of sentence if he recognised Transkei and settled there.

In the 'eighties he again rejected PW Botha's offer of freedom if he renounced violence.

It is significant that shortly after his release on Sunday 11 February 1990, Mandela and his delegation agreed to the suspension of armed struggle.

Mandela has honorary degrees from more than 50 international universities and is chancellor of the University of the North.

He was inaugurated as the first democratically elected State President of South Africa on 10 May 1994 - June 1999

Nelson Mandela retired from Public life in June 1999. He currently resides in his birth place - Qunu, Transkei.
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Karl Marx



1. Contribution
Like Charles Darwin (1809-82), his contemporary, Karl Marx (1818-83) has had a profound impact on modern thought. This German philosopher, social scientist, and professional revolutionary formulated a theory of social change that influenced most modern forms of socialism and communism. Marx pioneered conflict theory. Motivated by a belief in human emancipation, he tried to discover a way to free people from the social, political, and economic constraints that prevent them from reaching their full potential. Marx used to say: Philosophers explain only; critical theorists translated theory into practice.

2. Early life

Marx grew up in Trier, Prussia, the son of Jewish lawyer who converted to Christianity in order to keep his job. During the period 1835-41, he studied (in 1835) law at the University of Bon and he studied (in 1837) philosophy at the University of Berlin, falling under the influence of the idealist philosopher G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831), who interpreted the whole of history as the process by which "Spirit" (and consequently humanity) progressed towards complete self-knowledge and a "rational" and "free" society. Marx looked to Hegel for help in uncovering the principle that would explain historical change; he wanted to know how slavery gave way to feudalism and how feudalism gave way to capitalism. About this time, he joined a group of leftist radical socialists who attacked the Prussian government. He graduated (in 1841) Ph.D. at the University of Jena, but could not obtain a university teaching job because of his subversive views.

During the period 1842-48,

Marx made his living as a free-lance journalist and political activist. For a while, he wrote for the Rhenish Gazette, becoming editor-in-chief. Under his direction, the paper gained much notoriety, thanks to his articles documenting the misery of the peasants living in the Moselle (a wine-making) region. Eventually, the government closed the paper. After getting married in 1843, he and his wife moved to Paris; when the revolution broke out, he co-edited a radical magazine. During this period he met Friedrich Engels (1820-95), the son of a textile manufacturer, who became his life-long friend, and the two formulated what we now call "Marxism." After the revolution failed, Marx went into exile, settling in London, where in extreme poverty he lived for the rest of his life.

During the period 1848-83, he earned his living writing newspaper articles. He never had a steady income--now and then Engels helped him out financially. In 1848, they published the Communist Manifesto, which proved to be one of the important events in human history. In 1864, he helped establish the International Working Men's Association, an organisation dedicated to improving the life of the working classes, and preparing for a socialist revolution. Over the years, many Russian and German radicals visited him, hoping to discuss the problem of establishing "communist" organisations.

3. Life work

As mentioned, Marx set out (a) to understand the human condition in capitalist society as he experienced it, i.e., during the 1840s; (b) to lay bare the dynamics of that society, to lift the veil on its inner working and impact on human relations, and (c) to develop a theoretical framework that would help him explain the mechanisms at work in the overall process of historical change of which capitalism was but a phase.

dialectical materialism

As we saw, Marx found his inspiration in Hegel, who argued that humanity advances because of the clash of ideas, as seen in religious struggles and political revolutions. Hegel explained human progress in terms of the principle called dialectic: that is, one concept (the thesis) evokes its opposite (the antithesis) and the two interact to form a new concept (the synthesis), which in turn becomes a new thesis. We can think of Socrates, especially the question-and-answer method he employed to get to the truth.

Consider the following example: (a): Thesis: marriage means a man and a woman living together and raising a family, and (b) Antithesis: Marriage means two people living together un mutual love and support. Producing a (c) Synthesis, governments across North America are trying to sanction same-sex marriages, arguing that the traditional definition of marriage discriminates against same-sex couples.

Marx's great insight was to invert Hegel's dialectic, i.e., he explained historical change not in terms of the operations of the human mind but in terms of conflict in the material world. He found the key to change not in people's minds but in the system of production of material life. He speaks of four modes of production, which form a development sequence: (i) slavery, (ii) feudalism, (iii) capitalism, and (iv) communism. Eventually, he argued, social conflicts would produce a synthesis, ending conflict altogether; we can think of this new, ideal society as socialism. Marx called this system dialectical materialism.

base and superstructure

Marx points out that people must produce the necessities of life before they philosophise, engage in politics, create art, and so on. He writes that the mode of production of material life/the economic system of society shapes our consciousness, determines the ideas people have. In other words, the economic relations of life constitute the base of society, upon which the superstructure of society is built--the political and legal institutions, religious organizations, philosophical systems, the arts, and so on. Thus, capitalism is not only an economic system; it is also a cultural force.

How the base affects the superstructure has been a subject of much debate. Economic relations are important, but as Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall (taking their cue from Louis Althusser) argue they are not the only influences. Analysts oversimplify when they say that the base automatically "shapes" the superstructure.

class conflict

Marx writes that classes form when the productive activity of a society yields a surplus above the subsistence needs of its members:

One group (the bourgeoisie) takes control of the means of production, thereby constituting itself as the ruling/dominant class. This class appropriates for its own use the surplus produced by the rest of society, and

Another group (the proletariat) is forced to put their labor at the disposal of the possessing group. Marx used the term exploitation to refer to the process of surplus extraction.

Marx regarded class conflict as the engine of change. The feudal relations of production (i.e., the lord-serf relationship) restrained the development of capitalism and in turn capitalists had to overthrow feudal relationships--with new relations between themselves as the dominant class and the propertyless proletariat as the subordinate class.

false consciousness

According to Marx, individual consciousness develops as a reflection of the material conditions of existence. He says that the ruling class is capable of obstructing the development of consciousness in the lower classes. He put it this way: The ruling ideas of any age are the ideas of the ruling class. The class that dominates the economic sphere also dominates such spheres as politics, religions, and so on.

The argument here is that the ruling class persuades the other classes that the status quo benefits us all. The ideas people have are the ideas the ruling class wants them to have. That is, the ruling class generates an ideology, which we call a false consciousness, one that blinds the subordinate classes to the true nature of their social relationship. The media are central to the spread of false consciousness. They distract people from the realities of life--poverty, racism, sexism, violence, and so on.

alienation

Under capitalism, Marx points out, the human condition is one of alienation, i.e., human beings are estranged from their world, in terms of work, social relations, and so on. His goal was to help workers re-connect with themselves and with the world around them. Once the working class became conscious of these facts--he predicted--it would act to overthrow capitalist society and establish a new form of classless society.

Marx published only a few works during his life time; some works were discovered (and published) many years after his death. These (some written with Engels) include The Germany Ideology (1845-47), Poverty of Philosophy 1847), Communist Manifesto (1848), Grundrisse, written 1857-58 (1939-41), and Das Kapital 3 vols. (1867-94).

5. Critique

Marx's social and economic ideas inspired generations of political activities. In the words of A.J.P. Taylor, the historian, every Labor and Social party in the world stems from the example Marx set, even though many repudiate the rest of his teaching. We should remember that Marx's system was rooted in the conditions of his time. He predicted the revolutions that came later, but he misread the proletariat altogether; peasants make revolutions, the proletariat do not. Marx's dialectical materialism, combined with semiotics, offers social scientists a powerful tool for studying the political signification of every facet of contemporary culture, including television, film, music, fashion, and sports. They show how people absorb capitalist values via political rhetoric, news reporting, advertising, and public relations.

6. Works Cited

Engels, Fr. "Karl Marx's Funeral." 1999. Available at: http://www.ex.ac.uk/Projects/meia/Archive/1883-Death/dersoz1.htm
Karl Marx: Timeline (the Marx/Engels Internet Archive). 1999. Available at http://tqd.advanced.org/3376/MARX2.htm
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. 1967. The Communist Manifesto (1848), introduced by A.J.P. Taylor. London: Penguin Books.
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Anwar Sadat


Born in the Delta village of Mit Abu el-Kom on December 25, 1918, and of peasant origin, Sadat had a military career that began with his entry in the Royal Military Academy in the 1930s. In 1938 he entered the army as a second lieutenant and was posted in the Sudan. There, he met with Gamal Abdel Nasser, and together, along with several other junior officers, they formed the secret, anti-British, anti-monarchy Free Officers revolutionary organization. During World War II the British imprisoned Sadat for treason, but he escaped. In 1952 the Free Officers succeeded in seizing power. Sadat worked closely with Nasser, who in 1954 emerged as the regime's strongman. In 1964, Sadat became Egypt's vice president. When Nasser died suddenly of a heart attack in 1970, Sadat succeeded him.

As president, Sadat inherited a relationship with the Soviet Union that was deteriorating. Moscow was not fulfilling Egypt's requests for economic and military aid, Egypt was refusing to become a Soviet foreign policy pawn, and the United States was working to disrupt the relationship. In July 1972 Sadat ordered the immediate withdrawal of the Soviet Union's 5,000 military advisers. They were followed by 15,000 air combat personnel. The relationship was partially restored later in the year. In October 1973, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel, aiming to reverse losses suffered during the 1967 Six Day War and destroy the Jewish state. Initially, the Arabs gained much ground. However, with U.S. help the Israelis turned the tide. The war ended after both the Soviet Union and the United States intervened to prevent a destruction of the balance of power in the region. When U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger brokered a truce, Sadat became convinced that good relations with Washington served Egypt's interests better than friendship with Moscow. Sadat abrogated the Soviet-Egyptian Treaty of Friendship in 1976.

Having achieved a somewhat improved negotiating position vis-a-vis Israel in 1973 and '74, and with the sympathy of the United States, Sadat next pursued peace. In November 1977, in order to overcome Israeli suspicions, he made a historic trip to Israel, also addressing the Israeli parliament (Knesset). This breakthrough led to the Camp David talks moderated by the new U.S. president, Jimmy Carter, and eventually the Camp David peace treaty. In 1978, Sadat and his Israeli counterpart, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize. But although welcomed in the West, the Camp David Accords were almost unanimously rejected by the Arab world, and to many Arabs Sadat was a traitor. Sadat was assassinated on October 6, 1981, in Cairo by Muslim fundamentalists while reviewing a military parade commemorating the 1973 Yom Kippur war. He was 62.
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Adolf Hitler




Adolf Hitler was born on 20th April 1889 in Austria. His father was a customs official. The family name was originally Schickelgruber. Adolf Hitler grew up with a poor record at school and left, before completing his tuition, with an ambition to become an artist. He went to Vienna to fulfil his dream.

He failed to win a scholarship at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. In 1909 he moved to Vienna hoping to find work but within a year he was living in homeless shelters and eating at charity soup-kitchens. He took occasional menial jobs and sold some of his paintings or advertising posters whenever he could. In Vienna he developed his hatred of foreigners and Jews.
In 1913 Hitler moved to Munich in southern Germany. When war broke out in 1914 he immediately volunteered to join the German army. He fought bravely and was promoted to corporal. He won the both the Iron Cross second class and first class. At the end of the war in 1918 Hitler was in hospital recovering from temporary gas-blindness. He had been wounded by a British gas attack in the Ypres Salient.

Hitler remained in the army after the war and one of his duties was to spy on local political groups. One such group was the German Workers Party. Hitler became interested and soon joined the party. Hitler's skills for publicity and as a speaker saw him transform it into the Nazi Party. In 1923 he led an attempt to overthrow the Bavarian government but this spectacularly failed. He was sentenced to nine months in prison where he dictated his book Mein Kampf (My Struggle).

After 1925 he rebuilt the Nazi Party, deciding he had to obtain power by democracy rather than by force. The Wall Street Crash in 1929 and the subsequent worldwide depression hit Germany hard. Hitler used to situation to blame Jews and Communists, using them as scapegoats to gain support for himself.

He became Chancellor in 1933 and President in 1934 and used the title Der Führer - leader. During the 1930s he 'Nazified' Germany, removing any potential opposition and establishing his ideas for a greater Germany.

He led Germany to war in 1939 and tried to exterminate the Jews and other groups in Germany. When Germany was defeated in 1945 Hitler married his mistress Eva Braun in his bomb proof bunker in Berlin. He shot himself on 30th April.
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