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Biography & Autobiography. History. Politics. Nonfiction. HTML: The autobiography of global human rights icon Nelson Mandela is "riveting . . . both a brilliant description of a diabolical system and a testament to the power of the spirit to transcend it" (Washington Post). Nelson Mandela was one of the great moral and political leaders of his time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. After his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela was at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's antiapartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is still revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality. Long Walk to Freedom is his moving and exhilarating autobiography, destined to take its place among the finest memoirs of history's greatest figures. Here for the first time, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela told the extraordinary story of his life �?? an epic of struggle, setback, renewed hope, and ultimate triumph. The book that inspired the major motion picture Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.… (more)
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Nelson Mandela's autobiography is simply a must read. Mandela's writing captures your attention and dares you
He wrote the first draft while in prison on Robben Island, and it eloquently and deftly tells his story: his noble birth and legal training, the rise of his political consciousness and activism, his struggles against the apartheid regime, his trials for treason and his decades of political imprisonment on Robben Island. No matter the challenge, Mandela's courage rises to meet it: going underground, representing fellow prisoners for grievances for color-blind food rations and clothing, and being separated from his wife and family with visitations separated by years.
Mandela recounts numerous anecdotes to point out lessons learned, disparities impossible to ignore, changing perceptions of the political and social world (both inside and outside prison), and what is required of a leader. “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.” His cognizance and candor about what his re/actions represent and symbolize to others amazes me. As a person who possesses the inner strength, self-control, and follow-through, Mandela fits the billing of a real-life superhero, on the scale of Gandhi and Moses.
I sped through it in under a week, thanks mainly to a couple of long train journeys. I’m left with a much more nuanced view of Mandela and what he stood for, and a much clearer idea of the man behind the symbol.
What I found particularly valuable were the insights into how deeply apartheid ingrained racism not just on to the white minority, but on to the attitudes and assumptions throughout the whole of South African society. Mandela at one point mentions being struck by the sight of a young beggar-girl by the side of the road in a township, and reacting completely differently because she was white:
While I did not normally give to African beggars, I felt the urge to give this 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.
A few years and several hundred pages later, he has the corollary experience while taking a clandestine flight in Ethiopia.
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 a plane? 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.
If the leaders of the resistance movement can react like this – How could a black man fly a plane? – the reactions of less committed or thoughtful South Africans can readily be imagined, and you begin to get a sense of the sheer scale of the problem which faced the ANC and other activsts. A problem which has not entirely gone away.
These are the well-chosen memories of someone interested in their own thoughts and responses, and who had the time – so much of it – to examine his life and sift out the experiences that counted. Everywhere in the book, there is this sense of a man who has thought long and hard about the choices he made, and can explain them simply and directly.
Not all of them are necessarily easy to sympathise with, or at least they perhaps shouldn’t be. Let’s be clear: Mandela is not Ghandi. We should remember (and he is admirably open about it) that Amnesty International always declined to work on Mandela’s behalf because he refused to renounce violence as a valid tool in the fight against apartheid. He was the first head of the ANC’s militant wing, the MK, and involved in paramilitary training; he drew up plans for action that ran from sabotage to guerrilla warfare. At one point, he describes his 1950s self as ‘a young man who attempted to make up for his ignorance with militancy’ – but actually, that militancy never goes away, it just becomes more grounded in political and moral justifications. Mandela’s ethical sensibility is always there; but ethics are not paramount.
For me, non-violence was not a moral principle but a strategy; there is no moral goodness in using an ineffective weapon.
Effective weapons were considered to include explosives, as demonstrated for example in the Church Street bombing of 1983 which killed 19 people and wounded over 200, including many civilians. Mandela mentions it in passing, and has the following to say.
The killing of civilians was a tragic accident, and I felt a profound horror at the death toll. But disturbed as I was by these casualties, I knew that such accidents were the inevitable consequence of the decision to embark on a military struggle. Human fallibility is always a part of war, and the price of it is always high. It was precisely because we knew that such incidents would occur that our decision to take up arms had been so grave and reluctant. But as Oliver said at the time of the bombing, the armed struggle was imposed upon us by the violence of the apartheid regime.
We are on dangerous ground here. Can we put a number on how many civilian deaths are considered a reasonable price to pay for ending apartheid? At the same time, though, who on earth am I to question his decisions and moral code – I who have never experienced a fraction of the abuse and discrimination which was his daily life, and who am never likely to have to make the impossible choices that were so common under apartheid?
All I can say is Mandela doesn’t shy away from it. I may not always be comfortable about it, but I felt a deep respect for his willingness to stand behind his actions and explain them as best he can.
Ultimately, Mandela was saved from being a truly ambiguous figure by the simple fact that he was arrested and imprisoned before he could be directly involved in any violence himself; for him, it’s all theoretical, and, locked away behind bars, he could be viewed more simply as an innocent martyr to a just cause. And indeed, it’s in his response to the years of incarceration that the greatness of Mandela’s character comes through. Twenty-seven years in jail would be enough to make any man bitter; but he is the opposite of bitter. Time and again he shows himself willing to listen to and work with those who might easily be called his enemies – from dissenting black activists, through ambivalent prison warders, up to the president of South Africa.
It’s his astonishing ability to do without bitterness – essentially, his capacity for forgiveness – which really makes Mandela an inspiration. Perhaps it’s my naïveté, but I can’t help concluding that, when international pressure got too much for South Africa’s government, it was Mandela’s openness in negotiations which forged the breakthrough and not the MK’s sporadic attempts to meet violence with violence. That’s certainly what I’ll take away from this excellent and fascinating memoir: that, and a delight in his unshakable belief that no matter how degrading the conditions, or how long the imprisonment, no one had the power to damage who he was on the inside:
Prison and the authorities conspire to rob each man of his dignity. In and of itself, that assured that I would survive, for any man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose because I will not part with it at any price or under any pressure.
I am not usually a fan of long biographies because they usually just end up doing a lot of name dropping and factoid listing. Not so, here. Every event, every person mentioned is there for a reason. A fascinating read.
After reading about 25% of the book, I became more involved in Mandela's personal story. One of the really interesting aspects of this book is that you learn how Mandela's thinking developed over more than 50 years of struggle against apartheid. He talked about his movement from pure pacifism to civil disobedience and his rationale for armed struggle after the government outlawed nonviolent protest. He also describes about how the government linked the ANC with the Communist Party, because the ANC reached out to many organizations with differing agendas, as long as they shared the goal of eradicating apartheid. Reading about Mandela's attempt to bring dignity to his 27-year incarceration was incredible. The strength and intelligence of this man is so humbling. All in all, a great book. And the ending? A dream come true.
I finished the book because I was determined to learn more about how a man becomes a legend. From his
This book is a good read to learn about one of the most important men of the 20th century. It is good to learn about survival and perseverance. In the end, I am glad to have read it.
Even knowing little detail about Mr. Mandela's life, I have admired him. After reading this book, he's become one of my heroes (and I don't have many of those). The way he managed to maintain such a balanced outlook, untainted by bitterness is truly inspirational. Also inspiring is his belief in true reconciliation, uniting the oppressed and the oppressors against a flawed system. Something we in Canada could learn from as we attempt to reconcile with our Aboriginal peoples.
Its about standing your ground no matter how difficult it is and what
This book,
My favourite story, is the tale of his eventual release when President de Klerk told Mandela that he was to be released with immediate effect and Nelson declines; he wants a week to make arrangements! Typical of the man, he accedes to de Klerk's request when he learns that the World press are expecting his release and anything else will start rumours of a breakdown in negotiations towards a free South Africa.
The 600 pages of this book fly by: an excellent read.
In the first half, I found his personal life more interesting than his work/political life. But the second half really picked up for me. I found his time as a prisoner the most interesting part of the book. He (and the other political prisoners) managed to continue to fight as much as they could from within the prison walls. He really was an amazing man, but sadly his family life suffered for everything he did for the people of South Africa.
This is a good book for activists. Lots of details,
I forget exactly how this book came on my reading list—I can go years between downloading a sample and making a purchase, and obviously many or most of the
Matthew (I have to mention someone’s name, even if it’s in my own way), said that he’s a radical Christian, a creation-y Christian, and not a new ager because new agers typically go so long on psychology and so short on sociology, politics. He did say that there’s an “old” (typical) new age and a “new” (atypical) new age, but I think those terms might not be helpful. There’s a weak new age/spiritual psychology, and a strong one. It’s not strong, or appropriate, to ignore the people on this planet who suffer the most. Even if they’re not trying to make more money to get into a nicer golf club or buy a horse or something—at least as an end in itself, which I’m sure it is, for some people, maybe even some ‘cool people’—sometimes with whatever form of psychology, healing the self, can get greedy: me and my healing, me and my time alone with my Creator—even me and my enlightenment, my transcendence, real or imagined.
One of the Course in Miracles teachers once said, When you think you’re in trouble, find a way to help others. THEN you’ll heal.
This unbearable whiteness of being is now over. For now…. Go to the light, the white light, lol. The white, light…. The white, light….
Anyway, in conclusion just, don’t call Mandela a terrorist unless you think that Churchill’s bombing of Dresden was a war crime, and if you think both of those things, well, I admire Gandhi, but pacifism seems like almost too hostile, too condemnatory, a thing for me.
And if bombing whole cities full of civilians is better than property damage, I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe get a little more abstract; don’t look history in the face, ha.
…. Of course, in one sense, Mandela was eventually freed because he had been in prison so long—a whole generation—that things had gone by and the world had changed; the same views that were radical in the early 60s (he wants Black rule! He wants to take our power away!) we’re starting to be more moderate by the late 80s (he doesn’t want to drive us into the sea! He won’t shoot us!). And, then also, in de Klerk, Mandiba says, South Africa got its Gorbachev.
And as for Mandela himself, he was Martin and Malcolm in one.
…. “I was asked as well about the fears of whites. I knew that people expected me to harbor anger towards whites. But I had none. In prison, my anger towards whites decreased, but my hatred for the system grew. I wanted South Africa to see that I loved even my enemies while I hated the system that turned us against one another.”
…. I guess if you wanted to make a case against de Klerk, you’d say that he tried to play Indian against Black and rural and urban Blacks against each other; certainly there were things that Black and especially African National Congress people went through then that I can’t imagine going through. But I guess as cynical as many Afrikaners were in their history, I really want to believe that there was a good Dutchman as well. So….
…. (I always end up writing about the white people in books like this.) On the one hand, de Klerk certainly wiggled and stalled and tried to slow-ball the transfer of power, I guess hoping that the sky would fall in on Mandiba. But, even today, many white Americans put in his place would say, you know—well the whites have always won the elections before; maybe we just need to build a wall, and keep all the money on our side of it…. And plenty of whites would claim to be Way to the left of de Klerk, as long as no one ever calls their bluff, right…. You mean I’m not the primary material beneficiary of this new change? But everything’s about me…. I’m enlightened; I’m white—I’m to the left of de Klerk, for God’s sake!
…. It’s a long walk to freedom.
That having been said, I have read “memoirs” from time to time, but like to follow up with a biography if I want to get a bigger picture or more objective presentation of the subject. In this case, while I have already ordered a work on the history of South Africa, this autobiography of Nelson Mandela should suffice to tell me what I need to know about his life and the struggles he faced.
The problem with many autobiographies, at least the ones not “ghostwritten” by others, is that the author is not a professional writer, and even a good editor can only do so much. This is clearly Mandela’s work, and while perhaps not pristinely polished, is certainly well written, and authenticity is important, especially in a case such as Mandela’s. I’m certain that others might paint certain aspects of his struggle differently, I doubt that there is any dishonesty, and even the barest amount of hyperbole contained in this presentation.
Most of what is contained in the work is very personal to Mandela, both with respect to the time frame involved, as well as the geography of the struggle, hence my desire to get a longer historical viewpoint and a “bigger picture” look at the fight against apartheid, but I certainly recommend this work for the view it gives into the mind of one of the seminal individuals of the 20th century.
The 1960’s saw ANC being forced underground as it grappled with the concept of armed struggle. In 1961 Mandela was convicted for inciting people to strike, and leaving the country without a passport. He was sentenced to five years imprisonment. Three years later in 1964 Mandela was arrested again and sentenced to life imprisonment for incitement of sabotage, treason, and an involvement in violent conspiracy. Mandela was to spend 27 years in prison on Robben Island. His experience in prison was harsh, a microcosm of South Africa’s apartheid world, and years in solitary confinement with hard labor. While in prison he was able to receive glimmerings of news about the apartheid struggles, received redacted letters from family members, and an occasional media report about the world.
It was in 1990 Mandela initiated, and was able to meet with South African president Frederik Willem de Klerk, who eventually freed him from prison. In 1993 he and de Klerk won the Nobel Peace Prize. Multi-racial elections that followed in April 1994 and the ANC under Mandela’s leadership came to power. Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first black president.
I was quite surprised to read that in the 1960s Mandela and the ANC were open to compromise. He relates that they told the apartheid regime