Introduction
Nelson Mandela was born in the year 1918 in a small village called Qumu Transkei in South Africa. He was born to Chief Henry Mandela whose origin was from a tribe called Tembu. Mandela in his childhood was a herdsman and was also involved in community works. When his farther died, he was then left under one of his relatives care. He was then taken to a missionary school where he used to mobilize his fellow students against the colonial rule. For this case, he was expelled from school for inciting the other students. He then proceeded to the university collage of Fort Hare and later joined Witwatersrand University where he qualified in law in the year 1942.
Main body
After completing his education, he then fully got involved in politics from the year 1944. He joined a party called the Africans National Congress whereby he was at the fore frond to stage rebellion against apartheid policies imposed by the then ruling National Party. He was later arrested and imprisoned for disloyalty from the year 1956 to 1961. After the African National Congress was disallowed in 1960, Mandela then suggested that there was need to form an army from the ANC. His suggestion was accepted by the ANC top leadership that would involve violent strategies to air their views. He was once again arrested in the year 1962 and sent to prison with hard work. He was again brought to trial in 1963 following the arrest of the fellow ANC members for planning a coup de tatagainst the government. While in prison Mandela became more famous and widely accepted as the only leader of the African origin who could save the people.
Actually, we will look deeply into Mandela’s humanistic nature as well as his traits. Mandela can be described as humanistic because when we consider all his decisions that he used to make whenever he did anything, they were very personal. In all his life from his childhood, we find that Mandela at no time acted under pressure. This strange personality that he had really helped a lot in his life because he never did anything that made him regret later.
For instance, when he was in school, he was expelled because he was accused of inciting fellow students against the ruling party. He did this alone without being influenced by anyone. Again we find that after he had completed his education, he was in the fore front leading his party fellows against the ruling party by advising them to use violent tactics to air their views. Surely, it was very difficult at that time to find someone opposing the powerful government because there was a lot of oppression and intimidation. But Mandela went against this mentality and did the contrary which landed him severally in jail.
In addition, after the African National Congress had been illegalized, he did not want to feel finished, neither did he want to be under the colonial government’s instructions, but instead, he wanted to feel free in their own nation where they could do things without interference, therefore he proposed to his party members to form an army that could continue fighting for their rights. This struggles that Mandela made can be correctly matched with the theory of Humanistic which was introduced to describe the situation of doing things under no influence whether environmental or physical. This applied to Mandela whereby he chose to go contrary to the colonial government by choosing to do what he felt was right.
On the other hand, Mandela had some traits that also helped him achieve his dreams. He had some unique traits that could be found in a few people. For example, we can say that he had a trait of involvement. He used to fully dedicate himself in whatever decisions he made and always defended them to the bitter end. When he started the road to liberation, he could not stop no matter the cruelty of the colonial government. He can also be described as empathetic because he would not like to see people suffer as a result of apartheid rule system and this made him fight for them. Since this theory can be said to be a tendency to satisfy the biological survival needs, it closely relates to Mandela’s traits because he could not just feel comfortable when he saw people suffering.
Conclusion
Comparing the two theories on how they relate to Mandela’s way of life, it is clear that the theory of humanistic outweighs that one of traits in that, the theory of traits needed that of humanistic to survive. Most of the characters that best describes Mandela that led to his achievements are closely related the theory of humanistic. For instance, there is no way he could fully involve himself in all that he did according to the theory of traits and succeed without having made the right decision by choosing to do as his heart directed him without influence. Another example is that he could be empathetic according to the traits theory but fail to act accordingly by fearing to make an independent decision of going contrary to the ruling National Party hence fighting for their rights regardless of the ruthlessness of the colonial government.
References
Mandela, Nelson. “Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela” Little Brown, 1994:34-88