ABSTRACT
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (1918–2013) attained worldwide recognition through dedicating his life to the decolonial struggle for freedom and peace. Mandela's politics and philosophy of liberation manifested the desire for a world governed by what the Caribbean scholar Eduardo Mendieta depicted as "politics of life with others and for others." What distinguished Mandela from other leading African nationalists (such as Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, for instance), was his vehement opposition to the politics in formed by "the will to power" and the paradigm of war. True to his liberatory vision, Mandela's leadership during the transition from apartheid to democracy inaugurated a paradigm shift for scholars of peace. Before Mandela, the Nuremberg paradigm of justice predominated. The will to live was at the center of Mandela's paradigm of peace. He opposed the paradigm of war even though the intransigency and brutality of apartheid forced him to embrace violence and war to protect those who were victims of the apartheid system.
