september-2018

36 / PEOPLE / Nobel Laureates
PEOPLE / 37
Nelson
Mandela
Country
South Africa
Born
1918 (died in 2013)
Education
Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of The
Witwatersrand.
Highlight
Served as President of South Africa from May 1994
to June 1999
Nobel Peace Prize
Awarded in 1993 together with Frederik Willem de
Klerk, “For their work for the peaceful termination of
the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations
for a new democratic South Africa.”
Kofi
Annan
Country
Ghana
Born
1938
Education
Master’s degree from MIT
Highlight
Served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN
from January 1997 to December 2006
Nobel Peace Prize
Awarded in 2001 together with the UN, “For their work
for a better organised and more peaceful world.”
ANP
Getty Images
“It always seems impossible
until it’s done”
“Today’s real borders are not between nations,
but between powerful and powerless...”
IF AFRICA EVER had a burning torch that cast a shadow
across the world, it was Mandela. Known by his clan name,
Madiba, he was a saint to many. As a young man, Mandela
was expelled from the University of Fort Hare after joining a
student protest, only completing his Bachelor’s degree via the
University of South Africa. Together with Oliver Tambo, he
founded the first black law firm, Mandela and Tambo, taking
clients who were affected by unjust apartheid laws. His work
against apartheid was recognised globally in 1993, when he won
the Nobel Peace Prize.
Mandela had always been a fighter for social justice. In
1944, he joined the African National Congress (ANC) and then
helped to form the ANC Youth League, rising through its
ranks until he has banned in 1952. On trial for sabotage in
1964, facing the death sentence at the Rivonia Trial, he said
these famous words, “I have fought against white domination
and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished
the ideal of 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’m prepared to die.”
Mandela stayed in prison for 27 years before being released
in 1990 – a year after gaining his law degree from the University
of The Witwatersrand, a pursuit that took him 46 years – with
the remaining Rivonia comrades. This was after rejecting at
least three conditional offers of release. Even after leaving office
as the President of South Africa, he remained devoted to championing
peace in a fractured country, opting not to fight racism
with racism, but to fight for equality, establishing organisations,
including The Nelson Mandela Foundation.
KOFI ATTA ANNAN and his twin sister, Efua Atta, were
born into an aristocratic family. His grandfathers and his uncle
were tribal chiefs. He attended elite schools in Ghana, getting a
scholarship to further his studies in Minnesota, US, where he
read economics, before heading to Geneva, Switzerland to
further that degree.
Annan joined the UN in 1962, where he worked in various
roles before becoming the organisation’s seventh Secretary-
General, the chief administrator of a huge intergovernmental
organisation and the spokesman of the world’s people. The
first black African to head the UN, Annan is distinguished for
his soft-spoken diplomacy, a cautious style that his predecessors
were not known for.
But this style bore fruit before his big role, as his illustrative
career shows. In 1990, for instance, he negotiated the release of
hostages in Iraq following the invasion of Kuwait. Then, a few
years later, he oversaw the transition of the UN Protection
Force to the multinational Implementation Force, led by the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The Nobel Committee lauded Annan’s unique brand of
diplomacy when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in
2001. The team noted that he had been pivotal in bringing
new life to the UN, while mobilising the international
community in the battle against terrorism and AIDS.
During his Nobel Lecture, Annan said, “In this new
century, we must start from the understanding that peace
belongs not only to states or peoples, but to each and every
member of those communities. The sovereignty of states
must no longer be used as a shield for gross violations of
human rights.”