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MADIBA
A man for all seasons 1918 - 2013
Mandela
In his own words
“I
have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a 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 am prepared to die.” (Conclusion of his three-hour defence speech at his 1964 trial for sabotage and treason) “In the name of the law, I found myself treated as a criminal... not because of what I had done, but because of what I stood for, because of my conscience. No-one in his right senses would choose such a life, but there comes a time when a man is denied the right to live a normal life, when he can only live the life of an outlaw because the government has so decreed to use the law. “The question being asked up and down the country is this: Is it politically correct to continue preaching peace and non-violence when dealing with a government whose barbaric practices have brought so much suffering and misery to Africans? I cannot and will not give any undertaking at a time when I, and you, the people, are not free. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated. I will return.” (Message read by his daughter Zinzi to a rally in Soweto in 1985) “A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness... The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.” On reconciliation (on acceptance of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, shared with then President FW de Klerk) “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
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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 spirits 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.” On his time imprisoned on Robben Island (from Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, The Long Walk to Freedom, 1994) “Perhaps I was blinded to certain things because of the pain I felt for not being able to fulfil my role as husband to my wife and father to my children. “It seems the destiny of freedom fighters to have unstable personal lives... to be the father of a nation is a great
honour, but to be the father of a family is a greater joy. But it was a job I had far too little of.” On fatherhood (The Long Walk to Freedom, 1994) “One issue that deeply worried me in prison was the false image I unwittingly projected to the outside world; of being regarded as a saint. “I never was one, even on the basis of an earthly definition of a saint as a sinner who keeps trying.”On his public image (from Mandela’s second autobiography, Conversations With Myself, 2010): “The value of our shared reward will and must be measured by the joyful peace which will triumph, because the common humanity that bonds both black and white into one human race will have said to each one of us that we shall all live like the children of paradise... “But there are still some within our country who wrongly believe they can make a contribution to the cause of justice and peace by clinging to the shibboleths [dogmas] that have been proved to spell nothing but disaster. “It remains our hope that these, too, will be blessed with sufficient reason to realise that history will not be denied and that the new society cannot be created by reproducing the repugnant past, however refined or enticingly repackaged.” (Presidential inauguration speech, May 10, 1994) “We enter into a covenant that we shall build a society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall without any fear in their hearts, assured of the inalienable right to human dignity, a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.” “Never, never, and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another... The sun shall never set on so glorious a human achievement. Let freedom reign. God bless Africa!” Address to international AIDS conference, Durban, July 2000