There is little favorable to be said about poverty, but it was often an incubator of true friendship……………..Yet, poverty often brings out the true generosity in others.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
I learned that to humiliate another person is to make him suffer an unnecessarily cruel fate. Even as a boy, I defeated my opponents without dishonoring them.
I learned that to humiliate another person is to make him suffer an unnecessarily cruel fate. Even as a boy, I defeated my opponents without dishonoring them.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
I also learned that to dishonor or neglect one’s ancestors would bring ill-fortune and failure in life. —Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
The answer, as far as the ANC [African National Congress] was concerned, was that we could not remain indifferent even when we were shut out of the process. We were excluded, but not unaffected: the defeat of the National Party [Pro Apartheid] would be in our interest and that of all Africans.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Everyone who wanted to speak did so. It was democracy in its purest form. There may have been a hierarchy of importance among the speakers, but everyone was heard, chief and subject, warrior and medicine man, shopkeeper and farmer, landowner and laborer. People spoke without interruption and the meetings lasted for many hours. The foundation of self-government was that all men were free to voice their opinions and equal in their value as citizens.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Only mass education, he used to say, would free my people, arguing that an educated man could not be oppressed because he could think for himself. He told me over and over again that becoming a successful attorney and thereby a model of achievement for my people was the most worthwhile path I could follow.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
I had unconsciously succumbed to the ethnic divisions fostered by the white government and I did not know how to speak with my own kith and kin. Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savor their songs. I again realized that we were not different people with separate languages; we were one people with different tongues.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
I have always believed that to be a freedom fighter one must suppress many of the personal feelings that make one feel like a separate individual rather than part of a mass movement. One is fighting for the liberation of millions of people, not the glory of one individual.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
In discussing the ANC’s [African National Congress] policy of nonviolence, he emphasized that there was a difference between nonviolence and pacifism. Pacifists refused to defend themselves even when violently attacked, but that was not necessarily the case with those who espoused nonviolence. Sometimes men and nations, even when nonviolent, had to defend themselves when they are attacked.
—Nelson Mandela, quoting Chief Luthuli (ANC chairman) and Wilson Conco, in Long Walk to Freedom
This would be a hazardous life, and I would be apart from my family, but when a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.
I also learned that to dishonor or neglect one’s ancestors would bring ill-fortune and failure in life. —Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
The answer, as far as the ANC [African National Congress] was concerned, was that we could not remain indifferent even when we were shut out of the process. We were excluded, but not unaffected: the defeat of the National Party [Pro Apartheid] would be in our interest and that of all Africans.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Everyone who wanted to speak did so. It was democracy in its purest form. There may have been a hierarchy of importance among the speakers, but everyone was heard, chief and subject, warrior and medicine man, shopkeeper and farmer, landowner and laborer. People spoke without interruption and the meetings lasted for many hours. The foundation of self-government was that all men were free to voice their opinions and equal in their value as citizens.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Only mass education, he used to say, would free my people, arguing that an educated man could not be oppressed because he could think for himself. He told me over and over again that becoming a successful attorney and thereby a model of achievement for my people was the most worthwhile path I could follow.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
I had unconsciously succumbed to the ethnic divisions fostered by the white government and I did not know how to speak with my own kith and kin. Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savor their songs. I again realized that we were not different people with separate languages; we were one people with different tongues.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
I have always believed that to be a freedom fighter one must suppress many of the personal feelings that make one feel like a separate individual rather than part of a mass movement. One is fighting for the liberation of millions of people, not the glory of one individual.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
In discussing the ANC’s [African National Congress] policy of nonviolence, he emphasized that there was a difference between nonviolence and pacifism. Pacifists refused to defend themselves even when violently attacked, but that was not necessarily the case with those who espoused nonviolence. Sometimes men and nations, even when nonviolent, had to defend themselves when they are attacked.
—Nelson Mandela, quoting Chief Luthuli (ANC chairman) and Wilson Conco, in Long Walk to Freedom
This would be a hazardous life, and I would be apart from my family, but when a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
Most of these [Prison] wardresses had no idea why we were in prison, and gradually began to discover what we were fighting for and why we were willing to risk jail in the first place.
This is precisely why the National Party [Pro Apartheid] was violently opposed to all forms of integration. Only a white electorate indoctrinated with the idea of the black threat, ignorant of African ideas and policies, could support the monstrous racist philosophy of the National Party. Familiarity, in this case, would not breed contempt, but understanding, and even, eventually, harmony.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
I still felt an inner conflict between my head and my heart. My heart told me that I was a Thembu, that I had been raised and sent to school so that I could play a special role in perpetuating the kingship. Had I no obligation to the dead? To my father, who had put me in the care of the regent? To the regent himself, who had cared for me like a father? But my head told me that it was the right of every man to plan his own future as he pleased and choose his role in life. Was I not permitted to make my own choices?
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
In the case of the Treason Trial, the three judges rose above their prejudices, their education, and their background. There is a streak of goodness in men that can be buried or hidden and they emerge unexpectedly.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
Change in the air in the 1940’s. The Atlantic Charter of 1941, signed by Roosevelt and Churchill, reaffirmed faith in the dignity of each human being and propagated a host of democratic principles. Some in the West saw the charter as empty promises, but not those of us in Africa. Inspired by the Atlantic Charter and fight of the Allies against tyranny and oppression, the ANC created its own charter, called African Claims, which called for full citizenship for all Africans, the right to buy land, and the repeal of all discriminatory legislation. We hoped that the government and ordinary South Africans would see that the principles they were fighting for in Europe were the same ones we were advocating at home.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
A freedom fighter must take every opportunity to make his case to the people.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
I nevertheless felt a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction: I had been engaged in a just cause and had the strength to fight for it and win. The campaign freed me from any lingering sense of doubt or inferiority I might still have felt; it liberated me from the feeling of being overwhelmed by the power and seeming invincibility of the white man and his institutions. But now the white man had felt the power of my punches and I could walk upright like a man, and look everyone in the eye with the dignity that comes from not having succumbed to oppression and fear. I had come of age as a freedom fighter.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Banning not only confines one physically, it imprisons one’s spirit. It induces a kind of psychological claustrophobia that makes one yearn not only for freedom of movement but spiritual escape. Banning was a dangerous game, for one was not shackled or chained behind bars; the bars were laws and regulations that could easily be violated and often were. One could slip away unseen for short periods of time and have the temporary illusion of freedom. The insidious effect of bans was that at a certain point one began to think that the oppressor was not without but within.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
The oppressed people and the oppressor are at loggerheads. The day of reckoning between the forces of freedom and those of reaction is not very far off. I have not the slightest doubt that when that day comes truth and justice will prevail……….The feelings of the oppressed people have never been more bitter. The grave plight of the people compels them to resist to the death the stinking policies of the gangsters that rule our country…… To overthrow oppression has been sanctioned by humanity and is the highest aspirations of every free man.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
It stands to reason that an immoral and unjust legal system would breed contempt for its laws and regulations.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
While I normally did not give to African beggars, I felt the urge to give this [white] woman money. In that moment I realized the tricks that apartheid plays on one, for the everyday travails that afflict Africans are accepted as a matter of course, while my heart immediately went out to this bedraggled white woman. In South Africa, to be poor and black was normal, to be poor and white was a tragedy.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
It is true that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones—and South Africa treated its imprisoned African citizens like animals.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
That night I addressed a meeting of African township ministers in Cape Town. I mention this because the opening prayer of one of the ministers has stayed with me over these many years and was a source of strength at a difficult time. He thanked the Lord for His bounty and goodness, for His mercy and His concern for all men. But then he took the liberty of reminding the Lord that some of His subjects were more downtrodden than others, and that it sometimes seemed as though He was not paying attention. The minister then said that if the Lord did not show a little more initiative in leading black man to salvation, the black man would have to take matters into his own two hands. Amen.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
Zenani [name for Mandela’s daughter] “what have you brought to the world?” –a poetic name that embodies a challenge, suggesting that one must contribute something to society. It is a name one does not simply possess, but has to live up to.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
When you question a man’s integrity, you can expect a fight.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
I went into South African past. I studied our history both before and after the white man. I probed the wars of African against African, of African against white, of white against white. I made a survey of the country’s chief industrial areas, the nation’s transport system, its communication network. I accumulated detailed maps and systematically analyzed the terrain of different regions of the country.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
In the case of the Treason Trial, the three judges rose above their prejudices, their education, and their background. There is a streak of goodness in men that can be buried or hidden and they emerge unexpectedly.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
Change in the air in the 1940’s. The Atlantic Charter of 1941, signed by Roosevelt and Churchill, reaffirmed faith in the dignity of each human being and propagated a host of democratic principles. Some in the West saw the charter as empty promises, but not those of us in Africa. Inspired by the Atlantic Charter and fight of the Allies against tyranny and oppression, the ANC created its own charter, called African Claims, which called for full citizenship for all Africans, the right to buy land, and the repeal of all discriminatory legislation. We hoped that the government and ordinary South Africans would see that the principles they were fighting for in Europe were the same ones we were advocating at home.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
A freedom fighter must take every opportunity to make his case to the people.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
I nevertheless felt a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction: I had been engaged in a just cause and had the strength to fight for it and win. The campaign freed me from any lingering sense of doubt or inferiority I might still have felt; it liberated me from the feeling of being overwhelmed by the power and seeming invincibility of the white man and his institutions. But now the white man had felt the power of my punches and I could walk upright like a man, and look everyone in the eye with the dignity that comes from not having succumbed to oppression and fear. I had come of age as a freedom fighter.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Banning not only confines one physically, it imprisons one’s spirit. It induces a kind of psychological claustrophobia that makes one yearn not only for freedom of movement but spiritual escape. Banning was a dangerous game, for one was not shackled or chained behind bars; the bars were laws and regulations that could easily be violated and often were. One could slip away unseen for short periods of time and have the temporary illusion of freedom. The insidious effect of bans was that at a certain point one began to think that the oppressor was not without but within.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
The oppressed people and the oppressor are at loggerheads. The day of reckoning between the forces of freedom and those of reaction is not very far off. I have not the slightest doubt that when that day comes truth and justice will prevail……….The feelings of the oppressed people have never been more bitter. The grave plight of the people compels them to resist to the death the stinking policies of the gangsters that rule our country…… To overthrow oppression has been sanctioned by humanity and is the highest aspirations of every free man.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
It stands to reason that an immoral and unjust legal system would breed contempt for its laws and regulations.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
While I normally did not give to African beggars, I felt the urge to give this [white] woman money. In that moment I realized the tricks that apartheid plays on one, for the everyday travails that afflict Africans are accepted as a matter of course, while my heart immediately went out to this bedraggled white woman. In South Africa, to be poor and black was normal, to be poor and white was a tragedy.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
It is true that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones—and South Africa treated its imprisoned African citizens like animals.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
That night I addressed a meeting of African township ministers in Cape Town. I mention this because the opening prayer of one of the ministers has stayed with me over these many years and was a source of strength at a difficult time. He thanked the Lord for His bounty and goodness, for His mercy and His concern for all men. But then he took the liberty of reminding the Lord that some of His subjects were more downtrodden than others, and that it sometimes seemed as though He was not paying attention. The minister then said that if the Lord did not show a little more initiative in leading black man to salvation, the black man would have to take matters into his own two hands. Amen.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
Zenani [name for Mandela’s daughter] “what have you brought to the world?” –a poetic name that embodies a challenge, suggesting that one must contribute something to society. It is a name one does not simply possess, but has to live up to.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
When you question a man’s integrity, you can expect a fight.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
I went into South African past. I studied our history both before and after the white man. I probed the wars of African against African, of African against white, of white against white. I made a survey of the country’s chief industrial areas, the nation’s transport system, its communication network. I accumulated detailed maps and systematically analyzed the terrain of different regions of the country.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
The workers were all Africans from Alexandra township and they called me “waiter” or “boy” (they never bothered to ask my name). I prepared breakfast for them and made them tea in the late morning and afternoon. They also sent me on errands about the farm, or ordered me to sweep the floor or pick up the trash.
One afternoon, I informed them that I had prepared tea in the kitchen. They came in and I passed around a tray with cups, tea, milk and sugar. Each man took a cup, and helped himself. As I was carrying the tray I came to one fellow who was in the middle of telling a story. He took a cup of tea, but he was concentrating more on his story than on me, and he simply held his teaspoon in the air while he was talking, using it to gesture and tell his tale rather than help himself to some sugar. I stood there for what seemed like several minutes and finally, in mild exasperation, I started to move away. At that point he noticed me, and said sharply, “Waiter, come back here, I didn’t say you could leave.”
Many people have painted an idealistic picture of the egalitarian nature of African society, and while in general I agree with this portrait, the fact is that Africans do not always treat each other as equals. Industrialization has played a large role in introducing the urban African to the perceptions of status common to white society. To those men, I was an inferior, a servant, a person without a trade, and therefore to be treated with disdain. I played the role so well that none of them suspected I was anything other than what I seemed.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices: submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa. We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit back by all means within our power in defense of our people, our future and our freedom……
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
Everywhere I went in Tanganyika my skin color was automatically accepted rather than instantly reviled. I was being judged for the first time not by the color of my skin but by the measure of my mind and character.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
As I was boarding the plane I saw that the pilot was black. I had never seen a black pilot before, and the instant I did I had to quell my panic. How could a black man fly an airplane? But a moment later I caught myself: I had fallen into the apartheid mind-set, thinking Africans were inferior and that flying was a white man’s job.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
[On Egypt]. This is not amateur archeological interest; it is important for African nationalists to be armed with evidence to dispute the fictitious claims of whites that Africans are without a civilized past that compares with that of the West. In a single morning, I discovered that Egyptians were creating great works of art and architecture when whites were still living in caves.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
The flight from Mali to Guinea was more like a local bus than an airplane. Chickens wandered the isles; women walked back and forth carrying packages on their heads and selling bags of peanuts and dried vegetables. It was flying democratic-style and I admired it very much.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
The gracefulness of the slender fishing boats that glided into the harbor in Dakar was equaled only by the elegance of the Senegalese women who sailed through the city in flowing robes and turbaned heads. I wandered through the nearby marketplace, intoxicated by the exotic spices and perfumes. The Senegalese are a handsome people and I enjoyed the brief time that Oliver and I spent in their country. Their society showed how disparate elements—French, Islamic, and African—can mingle to create a unique and distinctive culture.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
One afternoon, I informed them that I had prepared tea in the kitchen. They came in and I passed around a tray with cups, tea, milk and sugar. Each man took a cup, and helped himself. As I was carrying the tray I came to one fellow who was in the middle of telling a story. He took a cup of tea, but he was concentrating more on his story than on me, and he simply held his teaspoon in the air while he was talking, using it to gesture and tell his tale rather than help himself to some sugar. I stood there for what seemed like several minutes and finally, in mild exasperation, I started to move away. At that point he noticed me, and said sharply, “Waiter, come back here, I didn’t say you could leave.”
Many people have painted an idealistic picture of the egalitarian nature of African society, and while in general I agree with this portrait, the fact is that Africans do not always treat each other as equals. Industrialization has played a large role in introducing the urban African to the perceptions of status common to white society. To those men, I was an inferior, a servant, a person without a trade, and therefore to be treated with disdain. I played the role so well that none of them suspected I was anything other than what I seemed.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices: submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa. We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit back by all means within our power in defense of our people, our future and our freedom……
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
Everywhere I went in Tanganyika my skin color was automatically accepted rather than instantly reviled. I was being judged for the first time not by the color of my skin but by the measure of my mind and character.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
As I was boarding the plane I saw that the pilot was black. I had never seen a black pilot before, and the instant I did I had to quell my panic. How could a black man fly an airplane? But a moment later I caught myself: I had fallen into the apartheid mind-set, thinking Africans were inferior and that flying was a white man’s job.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
[On Egypt]. This is not amateur archeological interest; it is important for African nationalists to be armed with evidence to dispute the fictitious claims of whites that Africans are without a civilized past that compares with that of the West. In a single morning, I discovered that Egyptians were creating great works of art and architecture when whites were still living in caves.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
The flight from Mali to Guinea was more like a local bus than an airplane. Chickens wandered the isles; women walked back and forth carrying packages on their heads and selling bags of peanuts and dried vegetables. It was flying democratic-style and I admired it very much.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
The gracefulness of the slender fishing boats that glided into the harbor in Dakar was equaled only by the elegance of the Senegalese women who sailed through the city in flowing robes and turbaned heads. I wandered through the nearby marketplace, intoxicated by the exotic spices and perfumes. The Senegalese are a handsome people and I enjoyed the brief time that Oliver and I spent in their country. Their society showed how disparate elements—French, Islamic, and African—can mingle to create a unique and distinctive culture.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
In so many ways, the very model of the gentleman for me was an Englishman. Despite Britain being the home of parliamentary democracy, it was that democracy that had helped inflict pernicious system of iniquity on my people. While I abhorred the notion of British imperialism, I never rejected the trappings of British style and manners…………….
Oliver and I saw the sights of the city that had once commanded nearly two thirds of the globe: Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament. While I gloried in the beauty of these buildings, I was ambivalent about what they represented.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
“Now Mandela, you are creating a liberation army not a conventional capitalist army. A liberation army is an egalitarian army. You must treat your men entirely differently than you would in a capitalist army. When you are on duty, you must exercise your authority with assurance and control. That is no different from a capitalist command. But when you are off duty, you must conduct yourself on the basis of perfect equality, even with the lowliest soldier. You must eat what they eat; you must not take your food in your office, but eat with them, drink with them, not isolate yourself.”
—Colonel Tadesse [Ethiopia] advice to Nelson Mandela, quoted in Long Walk To Freedom
During the proceedings, the magistrate was diffident and uneasy, and would not look at me directly. The other attorneys also seemed embarrassed, and at that moment, I had something of a revelation. These men were not only uncomfortable because I was a colleague brought low, but because I was an ordinary man being punished for his beliefs. In a way I had never quite comprehended before, I realized the role I could play in court and the possibilities before me as a defendant. I was the symbol of justice in the court of the oppressor, the representative of the great ideals of freedom, fairness, and democracy in a society that dishonored those virtues. I realized then and there that I could carry on the fight even within the fortress of the enemy.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
Oliver and I saw the sights of the city that had once commanded nearly two thirds of the globe: Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament. While I gloried in the beauty of these buildings, I was ambivalent about what they represented.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
“Now Mandela, you are creating a liberation army not a conventional capitalist army. A liberation army is an egalitarian army. You must treat your men entirely differently than you would in a capitalist army. When you are on duty, you must exercise your authority with assurance and control. That is no different from a capitalist command. But when you are off duty, you must conduct yourself on the basis of perfect equality, even with the lowliest soldier. You must eat what they eat; you must not take your food in your office, but eat with them, drink with them, not isolate yourself.”
—Colonel Tadesse [Ethiopia] advice to Nelson Mandela, quoted in Long Walk To Freedom
During the proceedings, the magistrate was diffident and uneasy, and would not look at me directly. The other attorneys also seemed embarrassed, and at that moment, I had something of a revelation. These men were not only uncomfortable because I was a colleague brought low, but because I was an ordinary man being punished for his beliefs. In a way I had never quite comprehended before, I realized the role I could play in court and the possibilities before me as a defendant. I was the symbol of justice in the court of the oppressor, the representative of the great ideals of freedom, fairness, and democracy in a society that dishonored those virtues. I realized then and there that I could carry on the fight even within the fortress of the enemy.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
“……….History shows that penalties do not deter men when their conscience is aroused, nor will they deter my people or the colleagues with whom I have worked before……….
……….for to men, freedom in their own land is the pinnacle of their ambitions, from which nothing can turn men of conviction aside. More powerful than my fear of the dreadful conditions to which I might be subjected in prison is my hatred for the dreadful conditions to which my people are subjected to outside of prison throughout this country…………whatever sentence Your Worship sees fit to impose upon me for the crime for which I have been convicted before this court, may it rest assured that when my sentence has been completed I will still be moved, as men are always moved, by their conscience; I will still be moved by my dislike of the race discrimination against my people when I come out from serving my sentence, to take up again, as best I can, the struggle for the removal of those injustices until they are finally abolished once and for all………”
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
……….for to men, freedom in their own land is the pinnacle of their ambitions, from which nothing can turn men of conviction aside. More powerful than my fear of the dreadful conditions to which I might be subjected in prison is my hatred for the dreadful conditions to which my people are subjected to outside of prison throughout this country…………whatever sentence Your Worship sees fit to impose upon me for the crime for which I have been convicted before this court, may it rest assured that when my sentence has been completed I will still be moved, as men are always moved, by their conscience; I will still be moved by my dislike of the race discrimination against my people when I come out from serving my sentence, to take up again, as best I can, the struggle for the removal of those injustices until they are finally abolished once and for all………”
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
PRISON NOT ONLY robs you of your freedom, it attempts to take away your identity. …….. As a freedom fighter and as a man, one must fight against the prison’s attempt to rob one of these qualities.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
Nothing is more dehumanizing than the absence of human companionship.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
I responded that it was always unacceptable to live in degrading conditions and that political prisoners throughout history had considered it part of their duty to fight to improve prison conditions. [Sobukwe] responded that prison conditions would not change until the country changed. I completely agreed with this, but I did not see why that ought to prevent us from fighting in the only realm in which we now could fight.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
“My brother,” I said to Sobukwe, “there is nothing so dangerous as a leader making a demand that he knows cannot be achieved. It creates false hopes among the people.”
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
Winnie subsequently appealed to the minister of justice, who granted her permission to attend the trial on the condition that she did not wear traditional dress. Ironically, the same government that was telling us to embrace our culture in the homelands forbade Winnie from wearing a Xhosa gown into court.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
It was now plain that we would not attempt to use legal niceties to avoid accepting responsibility for actions we had taken with pride and premeditation.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
The challenge for every prisoner, particularly every political prisoner, is how to emerge from prison undiminished, how to conserve and even replenish one’s beliefs. The first task in accomplishing that is learning exactly what one must do to survive. To that end, one must know the enemy’s purpose before adopting a strategy to undermine it. Prison is designed to break one’s spirit and one’s resolve. To do this, the authorities attempt to exploit every weakness, demolish every initiative, negate all signs of individuality –all with the idea of stamping out that spark that make each of us human and each of us who we are.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
I was prepared for the death penalty. To be truly prepared for something, one must actually expect it. One cannot be prepared for something while secretly believing it will not happen. We were all prepared, not because we were brave but because we were realistic. I thought of the line from Shakespeare: “Be absolute for death; for either death or life shall be the sweeter.”
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
As a leader, one must sometimes take actions that are unpopular, or whose results will not be known for years to come. There are victories whose glory lies only in the fact that they are known to those who win them. This is particularly true of prison, where one must find consolation in being true to one’s ideals, even if no one else knows of it.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
Nothing is more dehumanizing than the absence of human companionship.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
I responded that it was always unacceptable to live in degrading conditions and that political prisoners throughout history had considered it part of their duty to fight to improve prison conditions. [Sobukwe] responded that prison conditions would not change until the country changed. I completely agreed with this, but I did not see why that ought to prevent us from fighting in the only realm in which we now could fight.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
“My brother,” I said to Sobukwe, “there is nothing so dangerous as a leader making a demand that he knows cannot be achieved. It creates false hopes among the people.”
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
Winnie subsequently appealed to the minister of justice, who granted her permission to attend the trial on the condition that she did not wear traditional dress. Ironically, the same government that was telling us to embrace our culture in the homelands forbade Winnie from wearing a Xhosa gown into court.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
It was now plain that we would not attempt to use legal niceties to avoid accepting responsibility for actions we had taken with pride and premeditation.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
The challenge for every prisoner, particularly every political prisoner, is how to emerge from prison undiminished, how to conserve and even replenish one’s beliefs. The first task in accomplishing that is learning exactly what one must do to survive. To that end, one must know the enemy’s purpose before adopting a strategy to undermine it. Prison is designed to break one’s spirit and one’s resolve. To do this, the authorities attempt to exploit every weakness, demolish every initiative, negate all signs of individuality –all with the idea of stamping out that spark that make each of us human and each of us who we are.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
I was prepared for the death penalty. To be truly prepared for something, one must actually expect it. One cannot be prepared for something while secretly believing it will not happen. We were all prepared, not because we were brave but because we were realistic. I thought of the line from Shakespeare: “Be absolute for death; for either death or life shall be the sweeter.”
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
As a leader, one must sometimes take actions that are unpopular, or whose results will not be known for years to come. There are victories whose glory lies only in the fact that they are known to those who win them. This is particularly true of prison, where one must find consolation in being true to one’s ideals, even if no one else knows of it.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
I was now on the sidelines, but I also knew that I would not give up the fight. I was in a different and smaller arena, an arena for whom the only audience was ourselves and our oppressors. We regarded the struggle in prison as a microcosm of the struggle as a whole. We would fight inside as we had fought outside. The racism and repression were the same; I would simply have to fight on different terms.
Prison and the authorities conspire to rob each man of his dignity. In and of itself, that assured me that I would survive, for nay man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose because I will not part with it at any price under any pressure…………
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
Prison and the authorities conspire to rob each man of his dignity. In and of itself, that assured me that I would survive, for nay man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose because I will not part with it at any price under any pressure…………
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being an optimist is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lay defeat and death.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
[In prison] while I desired the privileges that came with higher classifications, I refused to compromise my conduct.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
For us, such struggles—for sunglasses, long trousers, study privileges, equalized food—were corollaries to the struggle we waged outside the prison. The campaign to improve conditions outside the prison was part of the apartheid struggle. It was, in that sense, all the same; we fought injustice wherever we found it, no matter how large, or how small, and we fought injustice to preserve our own humanity.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
A people who do not preserve their memory are a people who have forfeited their history.
—Wole Soyinka, The Burden Of Memory The Muse Of Forgiveness
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
[In prison] while I desired the privileges that came with higher classifications, I refused to compromise my conduct.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
For us, such struggles—for sunglasses, long trousers, study privileges, equalized food—were corollaries to the struggle we waged outside the prison. The campaign to improve conditions outside the prison was part of the apartheid struggle. It was, in that sense, all the same; we fought injustice wherever we found it, no matter how large, or how small, and we fought injustice to preserve our own humanity.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
A people who do not preserve their memory are a people who have forfeited their history.
—Wole Soyinka, The Burden Of Memory The Muse Of Forgiveness
News was the intellectual raw materials of the struggle…………………………………..
One of the most reliable ways to acquire papers was through bribery, and this was the only area where I tolerated what were often unethical means of obtaining information.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
One of the most reliable ways to acquire papers was through bribery, and this was the only area where I tolerated what were often unethical means of obtaining information.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
As I have already mentioned, I found solitary confinement the most forbidding aspect of prison life. There is no end and no beginning; there is only one’s own mind, which can begin to play tricks. Was that a dream or did it really happen? One begins to question everything. Did I make the right decision, was my sacrifice worth it? In solitary, there is no distraction from these haunting questions.
But the human body has an enormous capacity for adjusting to trying circumstances. I have found that one can bear the unbearable if one can keep one’s spirit strong even when one’s body is being tested. Strong convictions are the secret of surviving deprivation; your spirit can be full even when your stomach is empty.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
I always tried to be decent with the warders in my section; hostility was self-defeating. There was no point in having a permanent enemy among the warders. It was ANC policy to try to educate all people, even our enemies: we believed that all men, even prison service warders were capable of change, and we did our utmost to try to sway them.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
But as we quietly explained to him our non-racialism, our desire for equal rights, and our plans for the redistribution of wealth, he scratched his head and said, “It makes more bloody sense than the Nats [The Nationalist Party that was in charge and maintained apartheid].
—Nelson Mandela, in conversation to a warder in Prison. Long Walk To Freedom
...the warders had gone on their own food boycott, refusing to go to their own cafeteria. They were not striking in support of us, but had decided that if we could do such a thing, why couldn’t they?
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
But the human body has an enormous capacity for adjusting to trying circumstances. I have found that one can bear the unbearable if one can keep one’s spirit strong even when one’s body is being tested. Strong convictions are the secret of surviving deprivation; your spirit can be full even when your stomach is empty.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
I always tried to be decent with the warders in my section; hostility was self-defeating. There was no point in having a permanent enemy among the warders. It was ANC policy to try to educate all people, even our enemies: we believed that all men, even prison service warders were capable of change, and we did our utmost to try to sway them.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
But as we quietly explained to him our non-racialism, our desire for equal rights, and our plans for the redistribution of wealth, he scratched his head and said, “It makes more bloody sense than the Nats [The Nationalist Party that was in charge and maintained apartheid].
—Nelson Mandela, in conversation to a warder in Prison. Long Walk To Freedom
...the warders had gone on their own food boycott, refusing to go to their own cafeteria. They were not striking in support of us, but had decided that if we could do such a thing, why couldn’t they?
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
Not all debates were political. One issue that provoked much discussion was circumcision. Some among us maintained that circumcision as practiced by the Xhosa and other tribes was not only an unnecessary mutilation of the body, but a reversion to the type of tribalism that ANC was seeking to overthrow. It was not an unreasonable argument, but the prevailing view, with which I agreed, was that circumcision was a cultural ritual that had not only a salutary health benefit, but an important psychological effect. It was a rite that strengthened group identification and inculcated positive values.
The debate continued for years, and a number of men voted in favor of circumcision in a very direct way. A prisoner working in the hospital who had formerly practiced as an ingcibi set up a secret circumcision school, and a number of the younger prisoners from our section were circumcised there. Afterward, we would organize a small party of tea and biscuits for the men, and they would spend a day or two walking around in blankets, as was the custom.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom.
Prison regulations stated that prisoners must stand in the presence of a senior officer. I advocated that we should remain seated, as it was demeaning to have to recognize the enemy when he did not recognize us as political prisoners.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
The debate continued for years, and a number of men voted in favor of circumcision in a very direct way. A prisoner working in the hospital who had formerly practiced as an ingcibi set up a secret circumcision school, and a number of the younger prisoners from our section were circumcised there. Afterward, we would organize a small party of tea and biscuits for the men, and they would spend a day or two walking around in blankets, as was the custom.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom.
Prison regulations stated that prisoners must stand in the presence of a senior officer. I advocated that we should remain seated, as it was demeaning to have to recognize the enemy when he did not recognize us as political prisoners.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
A mother’s death causes a man to look back on and evaluate his own life. Her difficulties, her poverty, made me question once again whether I had taken the right path. That was always the conundrum: Had I made the right choice in putting the people’s welfare even before that of my own family? For a long time, my mother had not understood my commitment to the struggle. My family had not asked for or even wanted to be involved in the struggle, but my involvement penalized them.
But I came back to the same answer. In South Africa, it is hard for a man to ignore the needs of the people, even at the expense of his own family. I had made my choice, and in the end, she had supported it. But that did not lessen the sadness I felt at not being able to make her life more comfortable, or the pain of not being able to lay her to rest.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
But I came back to the same answer. In South Africa, it is hard for a man to ignore the needs of the people, even at the expense of his own family. I had made my choice, and in the end, she had supported it. But that did not lessen the sadness I felt at not being able to make her life more comfortable, or the pain of not being able to lay her to rest.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
I thought about this moment for a long time afterward. Badenhorst had perhaps been the most callous and barbaric commanding officer we had had on Robben Island. But that day in the office, he had revealed that there was another side to his nature, a side that had been obscured but that still existed. It was a useful reminder that all men, even the most seemingly cold-blooded, have a core of decency, and that if their heart is touched, they are capable of changing. Ultimately, Badenhorst was not evil; his inhumanity had been foisted upon him by an inhuman system. He behaved like a brute because he was rewarded for brutish behavior.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
No matter what I suffered in my pursuit of freedom, I always took strength from the fact that I was fighting with and for my own people. Bram [Bram Fischer, an Afrikaan, and Mandela’s lawyer, friend, and colleague in the fight against apartheid—on his death] was a free man who fought against his own people to ensure the freedom of others.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
I could hardly believe what I had just heard. It was a revolutionary question: What for? The major [Afrikaan warder] also seemed taken aback, but managed a reply. “It is against regulations,” he said. The young [black] prisoner responded, “Why do you have this regulation? What is the purpose of it?” This questioning on the part of prisoner was too much for the major, and he stomped out of the room, saying, “Mandela, you talk to him.” But I would not intervene on his behalf, and simply bowed in the direction of the prisoner to let him know that I was on his side.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
This was our first exposure to the Black Consciousness Movement. With the banning of the ANC, PAC, and Communist Party, the Black Consciousness Movement helped filled a vacuum among young people. Black Consciousness was less a movement than a philosophy and grew out of the idea that blacks must first liberate themselves from the sense of psychological inferiority bred by three centuries of white rule. Only then could the people rise up in confidence and truly liberate themselves from repression. While the Black Consciousness Movement advocated a nonracial society, they excluded whites from playing a role in achieving that society.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
In some ways, I saw the garden as a metaphor for certain aspects of my life. A leader must also tend his garden; he, too, plants seeds, and then watches, cultivates, and harvests the result. Like the gardener, a leader must take responsibility for what he cultivates; he must mind his work, try to repel enemies, preserve what can be preserved, and eliminate what cannot succeed.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
It reminds me once again that to truly lead one’s people one must also truly know them.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom, reacting to the book War and Peace by Tolstoy.
The first stage of our election effort was what was known as People’s Forums. ANC candidates would travel all over the country and hold meetings in towns and villages in order to listen to the hopes and fears, the ideas and complaints, of our people. The People’s Forums were similar to the meetings that candidate Bill Clinton held in America on his way to the presidency. The Forums were parliaments of the people, not unlike the meetings of chiefs at the Great Place that I witnessed as a boy.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
After incorporating the suggestions of the Forums, we traveled the country delivering our message to the people. Some in the ANC wanted to make the campaign simply a liberation election, and tell the people: Vote for us because we set you free. We decided instead to offer them a vision of the South Africa we hoped to create. We wanted people to vote for the ANC not just because we had fought apartheid for eighty years, but because we were best qualified to bring about the kind of South Africa they hoped to live in. I felt that our campaign should be about the future not the past.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
Just as we told people what we could do, I felt that we must also tell them what we could not do. Many people felt life would change overnight after a free and democratic election, but that would be far from the case. Often, I said to crowds, “Do not expect to be driving a Mercedes the day after the election or swimming in your own backyard pool.” I told supporters, “Life will not change dramatically, except that you will have increased your self-esteem and become a citizen in your own land. You must have patience. You might have to wait five years for results to show.” I challenged them; I did not patronize them: “If you want to continue living in poverty without clothes and food,” I told them, “then go and drink in the shebeens. But if you want better things, you must work hard. We cannot do it all for you; you must do it for yourselves.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
No matter what I suffered in my pursuit of freedom, I always took strength from the fact that I was fighting with and for my own people. Bram [Bram Fischer, an Afrikaan, and Mandela’s lawyer, friend, and colleague in the fight against apartheid—on his death] was a free man who fought against his own people to ensure the freedom of others.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
I could hardly believe what I had just heard. It was a revolutionary question: What for? The major [Afrikaan warder] also seemed taken aback, but managed a reply. “It is against regulations,” he said. The young [black] prisoner responded, “Why do you have this regulation? What is the purpose of it?” This questioning on the part of prisoner was too much for the major, and he stomped out of the room, saying, “Mandela, you talk to him.” But I would not intervene on his behalf, and simply bowed in the direction of the prisoner to let him know that I was on his side.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
This was our first exposure to the Black Consciousness Movement. With the banning of the ANC, PAC, and Communist Party, the Black Consciousness Movement helped filled a vacuum among young people. Black Consciousness was less a movement than a philosophy and grew out of the idea that blacks must first liberate themselves from the sense of psychological inferiority bred by three centuries of white rule. Only then could the people rise up in confidence and truly liberate themselves from repression. While the Black Consciousness Movement advocated a nonracial society, they excluded whites from playing a role in achieving that society.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
In some ways, I saw the garden as a metaphor for certain aspects of my life. A leader must also tend his garden; he, too, plants seeds, and then watches, cultivates, and harvests the result. Like the gardener, a leader must take responsibility for what he cultivates; he must mind his work, try to repel enemies, preserve what can be preserved, and eliminate what cannot succeed.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
It reminds me once again that to truly lead one’s people one must also truly know them.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom, reacting to the book War and Peace by Tolstoy.
The first stage of our election effort was what was known as People’s Forums. ANC candidates would travel all over the country and hold meetings in towns and villages in order to listen to the hopes and fears, the ideas and complaints, of our people. The People’s Forums were similar to the meetings that candidate Bill Clinton held in America on his way to the presidency. The Forums were parliaments of the people, not unlike the meetings of chiefs at the Great Place that I witnessed as a boy.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
After incorporating the suggestions of the Forums, we traveled the country delivering our message to the people. Some in the ANC wanted to make the campaign simply a liberation election, and tell the people: Vote for us because we set you free. We decided instead to offer them a vision of the South Africa we hoped to create. We wanted people to vote for the ANC not just because we had fought apartheid for eighty years, but because we were best qualified to bring about the kind of South Africa they hoped to live in. I felt that our campaign should be about the future not the past.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
Just as we told people what we could do, I felt that we must also tell them what we could not do. Many people felt life would change overnight after a free and democratic election, but that would be far from the case. Often, I said to crowds, “Do not expect to be driving a Mercedes the day after the election or swimming in your own backyard pool.” I told supporters, “Life will not change dramatically, except that you will have increased your self-esteem and become a citizen in your own land. You must have patience. You might have to wait five years for results to show.” I challenged them; I did not patronize them: “If you want to continue living in poverty without clothes and food,” I told them, “then go and drink in the shebeens. But if you want better things, you must work hard. We cannot do it all for you; you must do it for yourselves.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
The policy of apartheid created a deep and lasting wound in my country and my people. All of us will spend many years, if not generations, recovering from that profound hurt. But the decades of oppression and brutality had another, unintended effect, and that was that it produced the Oliver Thambos, the Walter Sisulus, the Chief Luthulis, the Yusuf Dadoos, the Bram Fischers, the Robert Sobukwes, of our time—men of such extraordinary courage, wisdom, and generosity that their like may never be known again. Perhaps it requires such depth of oppression to create such heights of character. My country is rich in the minerals and gems that lie beneath the soil, but I have always known that its greatest wealth is its people, finer and truer than the purest diamond.
It is from these comrades in the struggle that I learned the meaning of courage. Time and again, I have seen men and women risk and give their lives for an idea. I have seen men stand up to attacks and torture without breaking, showing a strength and resiliency that defies imagination. I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. I felt fear myself more times than I can remember, but hid it behind a mask of boldness. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
It is from these comrades in the struggle that I learned the meaning of courage. Time and again, I have seen men and women risk and give their lives for an idea. I have seen men stand up to attacks and torture without breaking, showing a strength and resiliency that defies imagination. I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. I felt fear myself more times than I can remember, but hid it behind a mask of boldness. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
I never lost hope that this great transformation would occur. Not only because of the great heroes that I have already cited but because of the courage of the ordinary men and women of my country. I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or of his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. Even in the grimmest times in prison, when my comrade and I were pushed to our limits, I would see a glimmer of humanity in one of the guards, perhaps just for a second, but it was enough to reassure me and keep me going. Man’s goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
He [Bram Fischer, one of Mandela’s lawyers for his treason case that sent him to prison for almost thirty years] was stoic, a man who never burdened his friends with his own pain and troubles. As an Afrikaner whose conscience forced him to reject his own heritage and be ostracized by his own people, he showed a level of courage and sacrifice that was in a class by itself. I fought only against prejudice, not my own people.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
We took up the struggle with our eyes wide open, under no illusion that the path would be an easy one. As a young man, when I joined the African National Congress, I saw the price my comrade paid for their beliefs, and it was high. For myself, I have never regretted my commitment to the struggle, and I was always prepared to face the hardships that affected me personally. But my family paid a terrible price, perhaps too dear a price for my commitment.
In life, every man has twin obligations—obligations to his family, to his parents, to his wife and children; and he has an obligation to his people, his community, his country. In a civil and humane society, each man is able to fulfill those obligations according to his own inclinations and abilities. But in a country like South Africa, it was almost impossible for a man of my birth and color to fulfill both of those obligations. In South Africa, a man of color who attempted to live as a human being was punished and isolated. In South Africa, a man who tried to fulfill his duty to his people was inevitably ripped from his family and his home and was forced to live a life apart, a twilight existence of secrecy and rebellion. I did not in the beginning choose to place my people above my family, but in attempting to serve my people, I found that I was prevented from fulfilling my obligations as a son, a brother, a father, and a husband.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
He [Bram Fischer, one of Mandela’s lawyers for his treason case that sent him to prison for almost thirty years] was stoic, a man who never burdened his friends with his own pain and troubles. As an Afrikaner whose conscience forced him to reject his own heritage and be ostracized by his own people, he showed a level of courage and sacrifice that was in a class by itself. I fought only against prejudice, not my own people.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
We took up the struggle with our eyes wide open, under no illusion that the path would be an easy one. As a young man, when I joined the African National Congress, I saw the price my comrade paid for their beliefs, and it was high. For myself, I have never regretted my commitment to the struggle, and I was always prepared to face the hardships that affected me personally. But my family paid a terrible price, perhaps too dear a price for my commitment.
In life, every man has twin obligations—obligations to his family, to his parents, to his wife and children; and he has an obligation to his people, his community, his country. In a civil and humane society, each man is able to fulfill those obligations according to his own inclinations and abilities. But in a country like South Africa, it was almost impossible for a man of my birth and color to fulfill both of those obligations. In South Africa, a man of color who attempted to live as a human being was punished and isolated. In South Africa, a man who tried to fulfill his duty to his people was inevitably ripped from his family and his home and was forced to live a life apart, a twilight existence of secrecy and rebellion. I did not in the beginning choose to place my people above my family, but in attempting to serve my people, I found that I was prevented from fulfilling my obligations as a son, a brother, a father, and a husband.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else’s freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
When I walked out of prison that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that that is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.
I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made many missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
When I walked out of prison that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that that is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.
I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made many missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.
—Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
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