Editing Thabo Mbeki (section)

==Early life and education==

=== 1942–60: Eastern Cape ===
Mbeki was born on 18 June 1942 in [[Mbewuleni]], a small village in the former [[Bantustan|homeland]] of [[Transkei]], now part of the [[Eastern Cape]]. The second of four siblings, he had one sister, Linda (born 1941, died 2003), and two brothers, [[Moeletsi Mbeki|Moeletsi]] (born 1945) and Jama (born 1948, died 1982).<ref name="Gevisser-2007a">{{Cite book|last=Gevisser|first=Mark|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/180845990|title=Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred|date=2007|publisher=Jonathan Ball|isbn=978-1-86842-301-9|location=Johannesburg|oclc=180845990}}</ref>'''{{Rp|page=54}}'''<ref name="Gevisser-2014">{{cite web|last=Gevisser|first=Mark|date=2014-06-07|title=The world of Epainette Mbeki: A mother and a comrade to the end|url=https://mg.co.za/article/2014-06-07-the-world-of-epainette-mbeki/|access-date=2022-02-05|website=The Mail & Guardian|language=en-ZA}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|date=2003-03-17|title=Mbeki's sister dies at 61|url=https://www.news24.com/news24/mbekis-sister-dies-at-61-20030317|access-date=2022-02-05|website=News24|language=en-US}}</ref> His parents were [[Epainette Mbeki|Epainette]] (died 2014), a trained teacher, and [[Govan Mbeki|Govan]] (died 2001), a shopkeeper, teacher, journalist, and senior activist in the [[African National Congress]] (ANC) and the [[South African Communist Party]] (SACP). Both Epainette and Govan came from educated, [[Christianity|Christian]], land-owning families, and Govan's father was Sikelewu Mbeki, a colonially appointed [[Head-man|headman]].<ref name="Gevisser-2007a" />'''{{Rp|page=4}}''' The couple had met in [[Durban]], where Epainette had become the second black woman to join the SACP (then still called the Communist Party of South Africa); however, while Mbeki was a child, his family was separated when Govan moved alone to [[Ladismith]] for a teaching job.<ref name="Gevisser-2014" /> Mbeki has said that he was "born into [[Internal resistance to apartheid|the struggle]]", and recalls that his childhood home was decorated with portraits of [[Karl Marx]] and [[Mahatma Gandhi]].<ref>{{Cite news|date=2008-09-19|title=Thabo Mbeki: Born into struggle|language=en-GB|work=BBC News|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3499695.stm|access-date=2022-02-05}}</ref><ref name="NPR-2007">{{Cite news|date=2007-12-07|title=ANC Leadership Battle Causes Crisis in Party|language=en|work=NPR|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16860087|access-date=2022-02-05}}</ref> Govan named him after senior South African communist [[Thabo Edwin Mofutsanyana|Thabo Mofutsanyana]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ejigiri|first=Damien|date=2014|title=Govan Mbeki, Colin Bundy|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/africatoday.60.4.89|journal=Africa Today|volume=60|issue=4|pages=89–91|doi=10.2979/africatoday.60.4.89|jstor=10.2979/africatoday.60.4.89|s2cid=140881911|issn=0001-9887}}</ref>
[[File:The_National_Archives_UK_-_CO_1069-214-41-Derivative-01.jpg|left|thumb|220x220px|[[Lovedale (South Africa)|Lovedale]], where Mbeki attended high school, in the 1900s.]]
Mbeki began attending school in 1948, the same year that the [[National Party (South Africa)|National Party]] was elected with a mandate to legislate [[apartheid]].<ref name="Gevisser-2007a" />'''{{Rp|pages=58–59}}''' The [[Bantu Education Act, 1953|Bantu Education Act]] was implemented towards the end of his school career, and in 1955 he arrived at the [[Lovedale (South Africa)|Lovedale Institute]], an eminent [[mission school]] outside [[Alice, South Africa|Alice]], as part of the last class which would be permitted to follow the same curriculum as white students. At Lovedale, he was a year behind [[Chris Hani]], his future colleague and rival in the ANC.<ref name="Gevisser-2007a" />'''{{Rp|page=95}}''' Mbeki joined the [[African National Congress Youth League|ANC Youth League]] at age fourteen<ref name="NPR-2007" /> and in 1958 became the secretary of its Lovedale branch. Shortly afterwards, at the start of his final year of high school, he was identified as one of the leaders of a March 1959 [[boycott]] of classes, and was summarily expelled from Lovedale.<ref name="Gevisser-2007a" />'''{{Rp|pages=101–2}}''' He nonetheless sat for [[Matriculation in South Africa|matric]] examinations and obtained a second-class pass.<ref name="Gevisser-2007a" />'''{{Rp|pages=113}}'''

=== 1960–62: Johannesburg ===
In June 1960, Mbeki moved to [[Johannesburg]], where he lived in the home of ANC secretary general [[Duma Nokwe]] and where he intended to sit for [[A-Level|A-level]] examinations. The ANC had recently been banned in the aftermath of the [[Sharpeville massacre]], but Mbeki remained highly politically active, becoming national secretary of the African Students' Association, a new (and short-lived) youth movement envisaged as replacing the now illegal ANC Youth League. It was also during this period that Nokwe recruited Mbeki into the SACP.<ref name="Gevisser-2007a" />'''{{Rp|pages=129–48}}'''

Thus the ANC instructed him to join the growing cohort of cadres who were leaving South Africa to evade police attention, receive training, and establish the overt ANC structures that were now illegal inside the country. Mbeki was detained twice by the police while attempting to leave the country, first in [[Rustenburg|Rustenberg]], when the group he was travelling with failed to pass themselves off as a touring football team, and then in [[Southern Rhodesia|Rhodesia]].<ref name="Gevisser-2007a" />'''{{Rp|pages=169–70}}''' He arrived at the ANC's new headquarters in [[Dar es Salaam]], Tanzania, in November 1962, and left shortly afterwards for England.<ref name="Gevisser-2007a" />'''{{Rp|pages=174–75}}'''