Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Apartheid

The South African political system that separated people by race and wrote white minority rule into law. Mandela calls it an extraordinary human disaster that lasted too long, and the basis of one of the harshest and most inhumane societies the world has known.

The Union Buildings amphitheatre, Pretoria

The sandstone venue of the inauguration on 10 May 1994. For decades it had been the seat of white supremacy; that day the same building held a rainbow gathering of different colours and nations, which is why Mandela dwells on the setting.

'We, who were outlaws not so long ago'

Mandela's description of his own people in the inaugural address. Because of apartheid many countries had broken off diplomatic relations with South Africa, so its people had been treated as international outcasts — and were now hosting those same nations.

Why does Mandela describe hosting the nations of the world as a 'rare privilege'?

A country that had been shunned for its racial policy was now welcoming on its own soil the very nations that had cut it off. That reversal made the occasion an extraordinary honour rather than a routine diplomatic duty.

Why does Mandela call the occasion a common victory for justice, peace and human dignity?

Apartheid had been opposed across the world, so its defeat belonged to everyone who resisted it and not to South Africans alone. He invites his guests to take possession of the victory together with his people rather than merely witness it.

What does Mandela mean by 'an extraordinary human disaster' and by the 'glorious human achievement'?

The disaster is the long era of apartheid; the achievement is its overthrow, and the founding of a South African government chosen democratically by every race. He places the two at opposite ends of one speech to measure the distance travelled.

Why did so many international leaders attend the inauguration, and what did their presence signify?

It was the largest gathering of world leaders ever held on South African soil, marking the end of a system the world had condemned. Their attendance signified the triumph of justice, peace and human dignity over racial oppression.

Why was the flypast of jets and helicopters more than a display of military force?

The same defence force that had upheld apartheid was now performing for a freely and fairly elected government. The precision of the display doubled as a public demonstration of the military's loyalty to democracy.

How had the attitude of the South African generals towards Mandela changed, and why?

They saluted him and pledged their loyalty, though not many years earlier they would have arrested him instead. The law itself had changed: he was no longer a banned rebel but the lawfully elected head of state, and he notes he was well aware of the difference.

Why were two national anthems sung at the inauguration, and who sang which?

Whites sang 'Nkosi Sikelel'-iAfrika' and blacks sang 'Die Stem', each taking up the anthem its own group had once despised. Neither yet knew the words, but the exchange enacted the reconciliation the day stood for.

What does Mandela mean by calling himself 'simply the sum of all those African patriots' who went before him?

He refuses personal credit for the victory and assigns it to the thousands whose suffering and courage can never be counted or repaid. His presidency continues a long and noble line rather than standing as an individual achievement, and it pained him that they could not see it.

How does Mandela argue that depths of oppression produce heights of character?

Apartheid's unintended effect was to produce men of extraordinary courage, wisdom and generosity — Tambo, Sisulu, Luthuli, Dadoo, Fischer, Sobukwe. He suggests that perhaps only such extremes of cruelty could forge character of that order.

'Finer and truer than the purest diamonds'

Mandela's estimate of South Africa's people. He sets them deliberately against the minerals and gems lying beneath the country's soil, to argue that its greatest wealth was never anything that could be mined.

Courage, as Mandela defines it

Not the absence of fear but the triumph over it. The brave man is not the one who feels no fear but the one who conquers it — a definition he says he learned from comrades who stood up to attacks and torture without breaking.

Does Mandela think hatred or love is more natural to human beings?

Love. Nobody is born hating another for the colour of his skin, his background or his religion; hatred has to be taught. What can be taught can be untaught, and love comes more readily to the human heart than its opposite.

'A glimmer of humanity'

The flicker of ordinary kindness Mandela caught in a prison guard, sometimes lasting only a second, during the grimmest times in prison. It was enough to reassure him and keep him going, and it is his evidence that goodness can be hidden but never put out.

Mandela's 'twin obligations'

The duty a man owes his family — parents, wife and children — and the duty he owes his people, community and country. In a civil and humane society he can meet both; the whole point of the phrase is that apartheid made that impossible.

'A twilight existence'

The half-hidden life of secrecy and rebellion forced on any South African who tried to serve his people. Such a man was inevitably torn from his family and home and made to live apart — neither openly free nor entirely in hiding.

Why does Mandela say the freedom of his boyhood was an illusion?

As a child he could run in the fields, swim the stream, roast mealies and ride the bulls, and felt entirely free. He later understood that this lasted only while he obeyed his father and his tribe's customs, and that his real freedom had already been taken from him.

How does Mandela distinguish 'transitory freedoms' from 'basic and honourable freedoms'?

The transitory ones are a student's: staying out at night, reading what he pleased, going where he chose. The basic and honourable ones shape a whole life — achieving his potential, earning his keep, marrying and raising a family without obstruction in a lawful life.

How did Mandela's hunger for freedom change as he grew older?

It widened outward from himself. He wanted freedom first for himself alone, then saw that everyone who looked like him was equally unfree. At that point his own hunger became the greater hunger for his people's freedom, and he joined the African National Congress.

How did the hunger for freedom transform Mandela's own life?

It made a frightened young man bold, turned a lawyer who had always kept within the law into a criminal, left a husband devoted to his family with no home, and reduced a man who loved life to the existence of a monk. He insists he was no more virtuous or self-sacrificing than anyone else.

'Freedom is indivisible'

Mandela's principle that no one's freedom can be separated from anyone else's. The chains on any one of his people were chains on all of them, and so chains on him — which is why he could not enjoy even the limited freedoms he was permitted.

Why does Mandela say the oppressor is no freer than the oppressed?

A man who takes away another's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, shut behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. Both are stripped of their humanity, so the one doing the oppressing needs freeing every bit as much as his victim.

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