Chronicle of Pains: Mandela's Trial by Akinmade Abayomi Zeal

              

 CHRONICLE OF PAINS: MANDELA’S TRIALS

                          By Abayomi Zeal Akinmade 

                              Soyinkzeal@gmail.com

FOR MANDELA’S 100TH POSTHUMOUS BIRTHDAY, July 18,2018

It is an extremely difficult task to eulogise anyone, it’s even more herculean to grasp the right words to describe any man who had remained guileless and steadfast to a particular struggle, any man who had shown grit in trying times and came out shoulder high, soaring, let alone describe a liberator, a giant of history, a man who acted on the behalf of justice, a man who moved his nation towards unity when it threatened to break apart in those trying times. How can one describe a man who nearly earned himself a pedestal with God by moving his nation towards justice in the trying times in the history of South Africa? One cannot get it right. One can only fumble for words and at least describe facts and dates of history.

    It’s tempting to remember Nelson Mandela as a man who deservedly earned his place in history through persistence, shrewdnes, courage, selflessness and sacrifice.

Nelson Mandela was born on the eighteenth of July, 1918, the same year the Great War came to an end. He was a boy born “far from the corridors of power” as Obama, Barrack mentioned in 2013, and he himself mentioned that at birth the only thing his father bequeathed unto him was the name “Rolihlahla”, which literarily means “pulling the branch of a tree”, and collouquially means “a trouble maker”. He himself went further to inherit a “proud rebelliousness, a stubborn sense of fairness” from his father. As he later mentioned, even his name: “Nelson” was bequeathed unto him in his first day at school, as the white teachers in his opinion either found pronouncing African names agonizingly difficult or they employed that as another means to undermine their identity as Africans. Hence, they give them English names. 

       Born in Mvezo in the Capital of Transkei, Nelson’s father passed away while he was so young and he was raised by the elders of the Thembu Tribe in South Africa. He, as a young boy, paid rapt attention to the history of the African people, African warriors, and he was greatly influenced by them. He was proud to behave like all African children, happy in his complacency which had been wrought by his naiveness. He, in his Long Walk to Freedom stated that:

Like all Xhosa children, I acquired knowledge mainly through observation. We were meant to learn through imitation and emulation, not through questions. When I first visited the homes of whites, I was dumbfounded by the number and nature of questions that children asked their parents—and their parents' unfailing willingness to answer them. In my household, questions were considered a nuisance; adults imparted information as they considered necessary (pg. 11).

When Nelson lost his father at a tender age, his mom then took him to the Great Palace in Mqhekezweni, to Jogintaba Dalindyebo, the acting regent of the Thembu people , and there, he mingled with Justice, the son of the Regent and they became formidable partners. In the house of the regent, Mandela attested that he was being treated as equally as the other children of the Regent and it is there he was sent to school as a young boy. He mentioned that:

The Regent and his wife, No-England brought me up as if I were their own child. They worried about me, and punished me, all in a spirit of loving fairness . Jongintaba was stern, but I never doubted his love (pg. 18). 

At the Great Palace, Nelson began to get familiar with the African heroes, and not just the Thembu or Qunu heroes. His narrow mindedness began to thaw away. He began to see democracy in practice as the chiefs (even the ones in the lowest echelons) rebutted the Regent and disagreed with him, but he would be deadpan, showing no emotion at all, be it of dissent or anger. Everyone was allowed to speak. This democracy fascinates Nelson, and became the watchword of his life. 

    After some years, the Regent arranged for Nelson and his own son Justice to now get married and prepare to take their places at the heart of the Thembu’s culture. The marriage tryst seemed an omen for Nelson and Justice, as they both ran away from home to Johannesburg, where they then lived at the mercy of distance relatives. 

    Much later, Justice, being an heir to his father’s throne was needed back home to come take over the reigns of his father, and on the behest of Nelson, justice agreed and returned home. 

     In Johannesburg, as Nelson Mandela would later put it in his book, he felt he had reached where dreams lie and the place where attaining his dream would be a smooth ride. He said:

The possibilities (in South Africa)  seemed infinite. I had reached (in his own figment of imagination) the end of what seemed like a long journey, but was actually the very beginning of a much longer and more trying journey that would test me in ways that I could not then have imagined (pg. 59).

         

               JOHANNESBURG AND POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS 

Nelson arrived Johannesburg leeching on people. It was there he got to further his education as an attorney, it was in Johannesburg he got to see life other than  he had seen it at the Transkei, it was there he began to feel the venom of racism, it was there he first knew that the colour of his skin was black, and that it was criminal and innate crime to be black, and that being black carries a mental stigma which plagues every man in South Africa wherever he goes. It was in Johannesburg that he met Walter Sissulu, Oliver Tambo, the duo  whom will subsequently be his colleagues for the rest of his life. He said that in South Africa, despite his lack of sophistication, he:

Graudally adjusted to township life, and began to develop a sense of inner strength, a belief that [he] could do well outside the world in which [he] had grown up. I slowly discovered I did not have to depend on my royal connections or the support of family in order to advance, and I forged relationships with people who did not know or care about my link to the Thembu royal house. I had my own home, humble though it was, and I was developing the confidence and self-reliance necessary to stand on my own feet (pg. 81-82).

Life in Johannesburg offered Nelson the chance of primarily partaking in the thousands of slights, indifference, haughtiness, disdains, meted out to black South Africans, most of which were never mentioned to him while he was in school.

     While Mandela was in school, in Witwaterstand where he enrolled for his LL.B., he noticed that all the years of schooling had not been able to lift the lids on the real political situations of South Africa, that the educational system of South Africa undermined the racial subjugation which were meted out to the black people of South Africa. Hence, he owed his political ideologies to the company he keept. He said that:

The graduation at Fort Hare (Where he had his B. A.) offered a moment of introspection and reflection. I was struck most forcefully by the discrepancy between my old assumptions and my actual experience. I had discarded my presumptions that graduates automatically became leaders and that my connection to the Thembu royal house guaranteed me respect. Having a successful career and a comfortable salary were no longer my ultimate goals. I found myself drawn into the world of politics because I was not content with my old beliefs. (pg. 89)

Mandela mentioned that even his long academic forays could not educate him about the travails of back South Africans, but his real experience does. He said:

Even as I was receiving my degree, I realised that hardly anything I had learnt at the university seemed relevant in my new environment. At the university, teachers had shy away from topics like racial oppression, lack of opportunities for Africans, and the nest of laws and regulations that subjugate the black man. But in my life in Johannesburg, I confronted these things every day. No one had ever suggested to me how to go about removing the evils of racial prejudice, and I had to learn by trial and error (pg. 89).

It was in Johannesburg in his school that Nelson Mandela got to meet both whites, and Indians, who were prevlileged, who  were meant to be profiteers of the unjust system of South African government because the colour of their skins dictated so, but their same political ideologies, their same political beliefs shattered their racial bound and birthed in them a formidable comradeship and potent voice against the apartheid system for the next years to come. As Mandela himself mentioned, that :

Wits opened a new world to me, a world of ideas and political beliefs and debates, a world where people were passionate about politics. I was among white and Indian intellectuals of my own generation, young men who would form the vanguard of the most important political movements of the next few years. I discovered for the first time people of my own age firmly aligned with the liberation struggle, who were prepared, despite their relative privilege, to sacrifice themselves for the cause of the oppressed (pg. 92).

Nelson Mandela could not himself point out when his interest in politics actually began, but he mentioned  that the thousands of indignities meted out to blacks produced an anger and rebelliousness in him and triggered his contumacy. He said:

I cannot pinpoint a moment when I became politicised, when I knew that I would spend my life in the liberation struggle. To be an African in South Africa means that one is politicised from the moment of one’s birth, whether one acknowledges it or not. An African child is born in an Africans only hospital, taken home in an Africans Only bus, lives in an Africans Only area, one attends Africans Only schools, if he attends at all. 

    When he grows up, he can hold Africans Only jobs, rent a house in an Africans Only townships, ride Africans Only trains, and be stopped at any time of the day or night and be ordered to produce a pass, failing which he will be arrested and thrown in jail. His life is circumscribed by racist laws and regulations that crippled his growth, dim his potential, and stunts his life. This was the reality, and one could deal with it in myriad of ways. 

    I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments, produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people. There was no particular day on which I said, from henceforth I will devote myself to the liberation of my people; instead, I simply found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise (pg. 95). 

It was in Johannesburg that Mandela then became a full-fledged member of the ANC, an African political party, whose creed is to advance the course of the black people. But Mandela, as fate would have it, paid dearly for his political ideologies. His pains, sacrifices, though earned him the pedestal with god he enjoys today, His grave moment of fears, his sacrifices, his estrangement, torture, starvation, were all what culminated into the towering admiration he now enjoys today, even in death. 

Mandela became a member of the ANC and along the line, he became an accomplice of the Communist Party, which his friend: Moses Kotane was a member, and he soon formed and ally with him alongside other key members, bearing in mind that his earlier prejudice against the Communist Party cannot be justified by any reason whatsoever and that they both confront one enemy and so they cannot afford the recognition of The dichotomy of ideologies.

    Mandela became the beacon of justice in the country, he became the gadfly of the government. He became a devoted member of the ANC. He conducted his affairs alongside a close friend, Oliver Tambo, who himself was a lawyer, and they both set up their chamber in the heart of Johannesburg.

       Mandela and Tambo became the solace of the oppressed African people who could not afford to get a proper lawyer elsewhere. Even as lawyers, Oliver and Nelson would not be let alone by the brutish government. They were constantly hounded.

…Oliver and I discovered that under the Urban Area Acts we were not permitted to occupy business premises in the city without ministerial consent. Our request was denied, and we received instead temporary permit, under the Group Areas Act, which soon expired. The authorities refused to renew it, insisting that we move our offices to an African location many miles away and virtually unreachable for our clients. We interpreted this as an effort by the authorities to put us out of business, and occupied our premises illegally, with threats of eviction constantly hanging over our heads (pg. 151).

They stayed, fought tirelessly for the emancipation of the African people in court, but subsequent exigencies of their political thoughts dictated that Tambo remains the president of the ANC in exile for about thirty years, and Nelson Mandela would be in jail for twenty-seven years, because of what they believed in. But I’m still getting too ahead of myself. 

Mandela received bans upon bans, went in and out of court, went to jail in quick succession and intervals. He became an outlaw in his own country, going underground most times to avert impending arrests, and getting caught at times, thrown into jail for months without trial. He was the hero of the people, and the thorn in the flesh of the government and the government always do whatever it could afford to keep him sidelined by putting him behind bars. 

In the middle of the struggle, Nelson Mandela himself mentioned that he knows what he stood against far more than he knows what he stood for.

       What he stood against is in the slightness of his people by the Apartheid Regimes of South Africa. It was later in his life as he got more entrenched in the struggle that he knows that unity is the key, that he began to see that no man is ever born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his religion, or his tribe. That we were all born innocent, but our brutish acts had been foisted upon us by the brutish world we live in, and that if the hearts of men are touched, men who seem even the most cold blooded, they could change. As they have an obscure nature of them which may be altruistic, which may have been hidden, though, but yet still existed. It is this kindness that seems obscured in the Apartheid Government that Nelson Mandela sought to ferret, to exhume from its subterfuge and bring to bare, making sure that South Africa then becomes free for all those who lives in it. 

       To attain freedom, Nelson Mandela knew it comes with an heavy price. He knew he may someday need to pay the utmost sacrifice; death for what he believes in, but he took solace in the knowledge that his conscience justifies him, that he is acting on the behalf of justice, and that posterities will pronounce him non-guilty of the charges or punitive acts the repressive system of Apartheid may mete out at him. He understood the exigencies of his political beliefs, and he was ready to bear the brunt. He said:

I have chosen this course which is more difficult and which entails more risk and hardship than sitting in gaol. I have had to separate myself from my dear wife and children, from my mother and sisters to live as an outlaw in my own land. I have had to close my business, to abandon my profession, and live in poverty, as many of my people are doing. … I shall fight the Government side by side with you, inch by inch, and mile by mile, until victory is won (pg. 276) .

Nelson Mandela moved away from his ageing mother and continued the struggle to free the African people from the throes of apartheid, visiting his ageing mother as his career and schedule of his political involvement dictated. On one of those seldom visits to his ageing mother, he many times took a retrospective look at his life, the choice he has made, the role in the struggle and somehow found his consolation in the fact that he was doing the right thing. On one visit to his mother, He said:

I roused my mother, who at first looked as though she was seeing a ghost. But she was overjoyed… Although I was happy to be back, I felt a sense of guilt at the sight of my mother living all alone in such poor circumstances. I tried to persuade her to come live with me in Johannesburg, but she swore that she would not leave the countryside she loved. I wondered— not for the first time — whether one was ever justified in neglecting the welfare of one’s family in order to fight for the welfare of others. Can there be anything more important than looking after one’s ageing mother? Is politics merely a pretext for shirking one’s responsibilities, an excuse for not being able to provide in the way one wanted?...  But I did not doubt that I had chosen correctly. I do not mean to suggest that the freedom struggle is of higher order than taking care of one’s family. It is not; they are merely different (pg. 181).

As if the estrangement from his mother were not cruel enough, Nelson Mandela again had to separate himself from his wife (Evelyn) . 

     Then, Mandela had got married to Evelyn some years back and had had four children with her. But subsequently, Mandela became so moist in the political affairs, such that he never had enough time for Evelyn and the children. Evelyn acousted Nelson so many times and remonstrated that he choose between his family and his devotion to politics. Nelson will not budge. He gave up his marriage again to reaffirm his commitment to the struggle of the African people. He said in his Long Walk to Freedom that:

Evelyn and I had irreconcilable differences. I would not give up my life in the struggle, and she could not live with my devotion to something other than herself and the family. She was a very good woman, charming, strong and faithful, and a fine mother. I never lost my respect and admiration for her, but in the end, we could not make our marriage work (pg. 208). 

Everything became torn apart, his children felt the pangs of the separation. Thembi, his son who was the oldest as at then, who could decipher what was hapening was the scapegoat of the divorce, and he felt broken. Mandela himself attested that:

Thembi, who was ten at the time, was the most deeply affected. He stopped studying and became withdrawn. He had once been keen on English and Shakespeare, but after the separation he seemed to become apathetic about learning. The principal of his school spoke to me on one occasion, but there was little that I was able to do. I would take him to the gym whenever I could, and occasionally, he would brighten a bit. There were many times when I could not be there and later, when I was underground, Walter would take him to an event, and afterward Walter said to me,  “Man, that chap is quiet.” Following the breakup, Thembi would frequently wear my clothes, even though they were far too large for him; they gave him some kind of attachment to his too-often-distance father (pg. 209).

Having ward off “distractions” from his people; from his mother, wife and children, Nelson Mandela became ready for the struggles and the challenges that lay ahead. He felt all the stage is set and he needed to plunge himself into the struggle fully. 

      Nelson Mandela started a nascent army, which he designed to unleash sabotage on the government, and encumber their activities. He knew that the years of strikes, defiance and passive resistance had foundered. He knew that those were not budging the government, that he needed something more drastic, more virulent, needed to come to be so as to put the government on its toes. Mandela agreed to the behest of the ANC (although he initiated the idea of active resistance, he needed to wait for the approbation of the ANC to get it started) . This development flattered he himself, as he described the daunting task. He said:

I, who had never been a soldier, who had never fired a gun at an enemy, had been given the task of starting an army. It would be a daunting task for a veteran general much less a military novice. The name of this new organisation was Umkhonto we Sizwe ( The Spear of the Nation) — or MK for short …( pg. 274).

He announced the emergence of this military wing and then travelled out of South Africa “illegally” to generate funds to fund this Army. 

        Mandela took a tour of several African countries to garner more financial support and the mandate of other African countries. He journeyed to Accra, in Ghana, He went to Ethiopia, where he was privileged to meet Emperor Haile Selassie in Addis Ababa. He journeyed to Dakar, Senegal, where he was greeted by Leopold Sedar Senghor, and also, Cairo, Egypt, where he got fanscinated by the cradle of civilization.

       Mandela, in his own word, for the first time, was treated like a “human being”. He said he for the first time saw where people of mixed race and religion lived together in harmony and equal opportunity. He at least saw a world where nothing matters but humanity, where a faction of the people were not repressed because of the colour of their skin or their religions. This journey made more clear his ideal South Africa. He through this journey began to have a clear vision of what he was fighting for and against— in his mind. He began to understand what he was fighting, and the South Africa he wanted. 

         Mandela returned to his country after almost three months of reconnoitring and fund raising, and he was acousted and arrested again in what would then be the beginning of his almost three decades in prison. Even in prison, Nelson Mandela would not give in to despair, he would not give the enemy the satisfaction of seeing him down or despairing.

     He honed his arguments and launched it at the white officials in court, striking the heart and conscience of the judge. In the trial, Nelson Mandela admitted to the judge that he had been defiant to the government of South Africa, but that it was the government that dictated deviance. He mentioned to the judge that it was the government who set a law that incited contempt upon itself, that the law of South Africa had been ratified in a position that all South Africans of good faith and conscience will want to act according to the dictate of their conscience and defy the law.

     He argues that black men in South Africa do not enjoy the privileges that the whites enjoy, that the black men cannot vote or be voted for, in their own country. He said that the black men were only tethered to the hinterlands of the country where their conditions are very miserable, and they were not even allowed to go to school in the cities, except in villages where they were then taught as children, their purported inferiority to the whites. 

     He said the schools in South Africa were designed to position the minds of every black South African children to a position of mental servitude and inferiority, to make them believe that they were inferior to the whites. He then argued that it is these laws he seeks to alter, and create a South African society where there are harmony and equal opportunities for all those who live in it. 

     He never minced words to poke the conscience of the judge. He said (in court) during the trial that:

Many years ago, when I was a boy brought up in my village in the Transkei, I listened to the elders of the tribe telling stories about the good old days before the arrival of the white man. Then our people lived peacefully, under the democratic rule of their kings and their amapakati [literally “insiders,” but meaning those closest in rank to king], and moved freely and confidently up and down the country without let or hindrance. The country was our own, in the name and right.  …The elders would tell tales of the wars fought by our ancestors in defense of the Fatherland, as well as the acts of valor by generals and soldiers during these epic days … (pg. 329).

Mandela continued by affirming his admiration of those days and how those days happened to make him nostalgic, such that he longed for such societal demeanor again. He says: 

There were no classes, no rich or poor and no exploitation of man by man. All men were free and equal and this was the foundation of government. Recognition of this general principle found expression in the constitution of the council, variously called “Imbizo” or “Pitso” or “Kgotla,” which governs the affairs of the tribe (pg. 330),

     Mandela agreed that that past societal regime of South Africa comes short of the demands of the current epoch they were, but men were at least not held in captive or servitude by his fellow man because of the colour of their skin. He said:

There was much in  such a society that was primitive and insecure and it certainly could never measure up to the demands of the present epoch. But in such a society are contained the seeds of revolutionary democracy in which none will be held in slavery or servitude, and in which poverty, want and insecurity shall be no more. This is the history which even today, inspires me and my colleagues in our politcal struggle ( pg. 330).

Mandela then recounted to them how he joined the ANC, how he was moved by his conscience to ameliorate the conditions of his people. He said it was the government who dictated violence to them, and forced them as blacks to a quandary between obeying the law or doing the dictates of their consciences . He said in the court that:

I would say that the life of any thinking African in this country drives him continuously to a conflict between his conscience on the one hand and the law on the other hand. This is not a conflict peculiar to this country. The conflict arises for men of conscience, for men who think and feel deeply in every country. Recently in Britain, a peer of the realm, Earl [Bertrand] Russell, probably the most respected philosopher of the Western world, was sentenced and cinvicted for precisely the type of activities for which I stand before you today—for following his conscience in deviance of the law, as a protest against the nuclear weapons policy being pursued by his own government. He could do no other than to oppose the  law and to suffer the consequences for it. Nor can I. Nor can many Africans in this country.The law as it is applied, the law as it has been developed over a long period of history, and especially the law as it is written and designed by the National Government is a law which, in our views, is immoral, unjust, and intolerable. Our consciences dictate that we protest against it, that we must oppose it and that we must attempt to alter it. … Men, I think, are not capable of doing nothing, of saying nothing, of not reacting to injustice, of not protesting against oppression, of not striving for the good society and the good life in the ways they see it (pg. 330-331).

Mandela continued by enumeratimg the countless slights, the indignities, disdains, haughtiness, meted out at him by the South African Government. He said:

I was made, by the law, a criminal, not because of what I had done, but because of what I stood for, but cause of what I thought, because of my conscience. Can it be any wonder to anybody that such conditions make a man an outlaw of society? Can it be wondered that such a man, having been outlawed by the government, should be prepared to lead the life of an outlaw, as I have led for some months, according to the evidence before this court?  

     It has not been easy for me during the past period to separate myself from my wife and children, to say good-bye to the good old days when, at the end of a strenuous day at an office I could look forward to joining my family at the dinner table, and instead to take up the life of a man hunted continuously by the police, living separated from those who are closest to me, in my own country, facing continualy the hazards of detection and of arrest. This has been a life infinitely more difficult than serving a prison sentence. No man in his right senses would voluntarily choose such a life in preference to the one of normal, family, social life which exists in every civilized community. … I was driven to this situation, but I do not regret having taken the decisions that I did take (pg. 331). 

Mandela braced himself, ready to take full responsibility for his actions. Yet, he never minced words to tell the judge of the prejudice discernible in the court of law, that the illegitimate government had chosen to unleash its venom on his colleagues and him, because of their beliefs. Yet, Madiba will not budge. He said:

I do not belive, Your Worship, that this court, in inflicting penalties on me for the crimes for which I am cinvicted should be moved by the belief that penalties will deter men from the course they belief is right. 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. 

    I am prepared to pay the penalty even though I know how bitter and desperate is the situation of an African in the prisons of this country. I have been in these prisons and I know how gross is the discrimination, even behind the prison wall, against Africans. …

   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.  …

   I have done my duty to my people and to South Africa. I have no doubt that posterities will pronounce that I was innocent and that the criminals that should have been brought before this court are members of the government (pg. 332). 

For this particular trial in Rivona, Nelson Mandela was sentenced to fiver years in total. He was given three years for inciting defiance against the government, and two years for leaving the country illegally.

     Cell, as we know, is a terrible place. Mandela recounted that after being placed in solitary confinement, he “relished the company even of the insects” in his cell, and found himself “on the verge of initiating conversations with a cockroach” ( pg 334). 

                                                 END OF HIS TETHER 

The life of freedom fighters cannot be separated from constant assault, brutality by police and frequent term behind bars. Moreover, Nelson would not give in to despair. As he himself resorted, he “feared many times” than he could remember, but he religuously hid his fears behind the mask of a feigned boldness and acted with bravado, as if he weren’t human. Even behind bars, Nelson goes from bar to bar, goes from court to court, as a convicted prisoner, coming to court intermittently to answer to other litigation that features indictment of his contumacious activities while he was still a free man. 

   While serving the five years sentence alloted to him, in the ninth month, he was rousted out of his cell again, and hurled to court to answer to conspiracy and sabotage which had been calculated against the government through the activities of Umkhonto we Sizwe.

     He knew this was imminent. He had braced himself for the punitive acts that lays ahead of him. But no! He wasn’t in penitence, neither was he somber. He was sad, he was afraid like he later agreed, but he could not find himself doing otherwise than his conscience demanded. He sharpened his mind in cell as he prepared for the trial. He wanted to make a point in the court. 

     Mandela was very much aware that the offence that he gets convicted for carries the ultimate penalty: death by hanging, but he was not ready to give in to despair. 

    He told his defense team that he wasn’t ready to appeal the case even if he were given the death penalty. He surely do not want to look cowardly, like a man who would not brace himself to suffer the consequences of his beliefs. He doesn’t want to undermine the moral standard of his actions by showing any remorse, so he braced himself, vowing that if he were giving the death sentence, he would not appeal for a mitigation from the higher court. 

     He took solace in the knowledge that even his death cannot deter other men of conscience that followed him, that acted alongside him. He knew that even his death would trigger the course the more. But before his death, he owes the government a blatant truth, he owes them an indictment, a firm statement that shows he’s not in anyway sorry for his actions. That he cannot find himself doing otherwise than his conscience demands. 

Mandela appeared in court to attend the litigation process of the sabotage indictment which had been concorted by the Government. Before then, he had steeled himself against what seemed to him would be a death penalty, yet, he wanted to use the litigation to educate the Government on his political beliefs, his ploitical influence and actions, as dictated by his conscience, and the creed of the ANC which is often a subject of propaganda. He wanted to use the case to peel away the prejudice of the government— that is if they are ready to mend their ways. He said:

We believed it was important to open the defense with a statement of our politics and ideas, which would establish the context for all that followed (pg. 362).

In court, the first thing Nelson Mandela did was to plead not guilty, and instead retorted that it is the government that should on the contrary, plead guilty of the charges for which he stood in court. He then proceede by enunciating his motivating factors. He said:

In my youth in the Transkei, I listened to the elders of my tribe telling stories of the old days. Amongst the tales they related to me were those of wars fought by our ancestors in defense of the fatherland. The names of Dingane and Bambatha, Hintsa and Makanna  Squngthi and Dalasile, Mosheshoe and Sekhukhuni, were praised as the pride and glory of the entire African nation. I hoped then that life might offer me the opportunity to serve my people and make my own humble contribution to their freedom struggle. This is what has motivated me in all that I have done in relation to the charges made against me in this case (pg. 364).

Having mentioned his motivating factors, he wanted to impress upon the judge again the creed of the ANC, which had been a subject of propaganda bruited across the media. He wanted to demystify what the ANC stood for and counter the claims of the Government that they are a terrorist group and rabble-rousers. He wanted them to know that the ANC comprises sound minded intellectuals. He began his polemic by saying:

We of the ANC have always stood for a biracial democracy, and we shrank from any action which might drive the races further apart than they already were. But the hard facts were that fifty years of nonviolence had brought the African people nothing but more repressive legislation, and fewer and fewer rights. It may not be easy for this court to understand, but it is a fact that for a long time, the people had been talking of violence — of the day when they would fight the white man and win back their country, and we, the leaders of the ANC had nevertheless always prevailed upon them to avoid violence and to use peaceful methods (pg. 364),

     He remonstrated with the judge that it was the oppressor that dictated the tone of violence, that it was they who made peaceful change impossible and by so doing, made violent change inevitable. He mentioned that after series of peaceful protests, defiance and strikes, which had been calculated to encumber the government and make them turn a new leaf, the government has been pigheaded in their orthodox of apartheid, hence, the Africans were loosing faith in their leaders for hampering their proposed violent approach, hence, they cannot afford to loose the trust of their people.       

      Although they the leaders themselves have a premonition that the days of passive resistance and its efficacy are foundering away, they yet intended to stick with passive resistance, to see how far it carried them. But as the Government pushed them beyond their tethers— replying their nonviolent aproach with violent reprisals, pogrom, and decimation of the African people, they became convinced that it’s best to respond to terror with its own instrumentality, and resorted to violence. They then decided against peaceful means, as it was becoming true that to respond to terror with its own instrumentality is not blameworthy. Their mettle had foundered. 

    This was why Nelson Mandela helped formed 'Umkhonto we Sizwe' in November 1961. And I think the whole world agreed that when a peaceful man is pushed to the war, is tortured beyond his bound where he could not hold himself together but break, the humanity in him may founder, and he may become bestial. 

   This, in my surmise, justifies why Nelson Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, despite his role in the formation of the violent army.

     The world came to agree with Nelson Mandela as I surmise, that the intention for being violent is not criminal, that it is the government who made violence the only alternative to their freedom. And should we not be free and violence remains the sole condition for our freedom, we should embrace it. For “the man dies in all who keeps silence in the face of tyranny.” 

Nelson said to the judge in court, that:

Experience convinced us that rebellion would offer the government limitless opportunities for the indiscriminate slaughter of our people. But it was precisely because the soil of South Africa is already drenched with the blood of the innocent Africans that we felt our duty to make preparations as a long-term undertaking to use force in order to defend ourselves against force. If war were inevitable, we wanted the fight to be conducted on terms most favorable to our people. The fights which held our prospects best for us and the least risk of life to both sides was guerrilla warfare. We decided, therefore, in our preparations for the future, to make provisions for the possibility of guerrilla warfare (pg. 365). 

Mandela detailed the struggles and creed of the ANC to them. He remonstrated with them that the creed of the ANC is not to drive the white man to the sea, but to bring about the abolition of racism against the blacks of South Africa in their own land. He said:

The ideological creed of the ANC is, and always has been, the creed of African Nationalism. It is not the concept of African Nationalism expressed in the cry, “drive the white man into the sea.” The African Nationalism of the ANC stands for freedom fulfilment for the African people in their own land. The most important political document ever adopted by the ANC is the Freedom Charter. It is by no means a blueprint for a socialist state. …The ANC has never at any period of its history advocated a revolutionary change in the economic structure of the country, nor has it, to the best of my recollection, ever condemned capitalist society… (pg. 366) .

He then proceeded to detail the condition of blacks in South Africa. He mentioned that the racial subjugation of blacks breeds contempt and should be abolished. He said :

The lack of human dignity experienced by Africans is the direct result of the policy of white supremacy. White supremacy implies black inferiority. Legislation designed to preserve white supremacy entrenches this notion. Menial tasks in South Africa are invariably performed by Africans.When anything has to be carried or cleaned the white man looks around for an African to do it for him, whether the African is employed by him or not.  …

    Poverty and the breakdown of the family life have secondary effects. Children wander about the streets of the townships because they have no schools to go to, or no money to enable them to go to school, or no parents at home to see that they go to school, because both parents (if they are two)  have to work to keep the family alive. This leads to a growing violence which erupts, not only politically, but everywhere. ... 

   Africans want a just share in the whole of South Africa; they want security and a stake in society. Above all, we want equal political rights, because without them our disabilities will be permanent. I know this sounds revolutionary to the whites in this country, because the majority of voters will be Africans. This makes the white man fear democracy.  …

    This then is what the ANC is fighting for. Their struggle is a truly national one. It is a struggle for the African people, inspired by their own suffering and their own experience. it is a struggle for the right to life(pg. 367-368).

At the end of the polemic, Nelson Mandela gave an emotive peroration which in my surmise was why he alongside his colleagues was not given the death sentence. He had spoken in a manner that sent a message deep down the visceral of the judge. He had done enough to touch his heart, to educate him on the prejudice in the country, which was not opaque to him, but which his prejudice and the system has subdued in his thought and made him callous about. He made it known to the judge that he had done his duty to South Africa and his people, that posterities will pronounce him non-guilty even if he were condemned, and that he was prepared to die. He said:

During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the idea 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 (pg. 368.)

This peroration was, perhaps one of the reasons why the judge, instead of the death penalty, sentenced them to life imprisonment. There had been several protests against the trial around the world,  there had been pressures from international organisations on South African government, South African government leaders were becoming upstarts and pariarahs, and all these culminated in the “leniency” of the judge. He doesn’t want to be regarded as their killer if they were killed, and he doesn’t want to go against the South African brutish government that inspired him and raised him. Hence, he sentenced them to life by not killing them, but put them behind bars forever in fulfilling his duty to the government. 

ROBBEN ISLAND AND THE DARKEST DAYS 

As fate would have it, Robben Island, a remote quarantined prison in Cape Town, South Africa, was where Mandela was to spend almost the next three decades of his life. 

    Prison was meant to break his spirit and resolve by outlining his weaknesses and strengths and use them to crush his spirit. Nelson Mandela saw this coming. He knew all these, but as always, he knew he would not give in to despair. He knew he would not have to break or bend to what the South African brutish government wants. 

    In prisons, Nelson Mandela never lost hope. He found a way to replenish his inner man more and more, he took time to even fight oppression and the apartheid that still existed behind the prisons of South Africa. He would protest the paraphernalia, he would speak and fight on behalf of his comrades in prison, he would affront prison officials who looked down on his pedigree even in prison walls. He tried to even educate the few prison officials who had the humility to ask him what he was really fighting for and against,  bearing in mind that he had enough food to eat and had a roof to his head. He did well to educate them. He knew it was easier to educate a man when he intends to learn. He told them the kinds of freedom they talked about was not the freedom he wanted and aspired to.. He wanted a South Africa where everyone could live together peacefully and without any colour bars, but with equal opportunities. He told them he was fighting the oppression of the blacks by the white South Africans. He told them it was the ratified constitution of South Africa which subjected black South Africans to a position of servitudes and all forms of indignities that he was attempting to alter. He said he doesn’t detest the whites, but detested outrightly the policies of racial subjugation they had entrenched— and it was these anomalies he hungered to remedy.

   As he mentioned himself, there was never a day he lost hope in prison, there were never days he lost hope in humanity, there were never days he felt he was going to die behind bars and South Africa will not leave the throes of apartheid in his lifetime. He would, even if it were for a second, see a glints of good and humanity in the prison officials — even glints of goods and humanities which had been obscured—but yet existed— and those would keep him going—those would reaffirm him. He knew that all men, even the most seemingly cold blooded have a core of decency in them, and that if their hearts are touched, they were always capable of changing for the best.

    What kept Nelson Mandela going was the glints of humanity he kept seeing in every man, even the ones who were brutish towards him in prison. He knew that no one was born hating another person because of the colour of their skin or their religions or their tribes. He knew that the brutality of those prison wardens had been foisted upon them by the brutish government of South Africa. He knew that there are glints of goodness in every man. He knew that someday he would better convey to his oppressors a language of love, and win them over. He knew education was the enemy of prejudice and he could peel away their prejudice if he was able to get to educate them. 

    Like he said of one particular warder called Badenhorst, who had been brutish towards him in prison. On the day the warden was transferred away from the prison, he met Nelson in prison and wished him “good luck for the future.” Mandela, as he mentioned, was awestruck at the gesture. He said he thought about it for a while and knew Badenhorst was not evil. He said:

Badenhorst had perhaps been the most callous and barbaric commanding officer we 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 a brutish behavior ( pg. 462).  

Mandela would always see good in every man even for a seconds, and that to him was enough to reaffirm him that he had chosen correctly the life he had chosen, that he would win the war someday. He knew that someday, he would have the grass beneath his feet again — someday. 

       From the very first day Mandela arrived in prison, he had known he would continue the struggle in prison. He had known that even though sidelined, the prison as microscopic as it was, offered another battle ground and he would protest the indignities in prison too. He said: 

From the first day, I had protested about being forced to wear shorts.

I demanded to see the head of the prison and made a list of complaints. The warders ignored my protests, but by the end of the second week, I found a pair of old khaki trousers unceremoniously dumped on the floor of my cell. No pin-stripped three-piece suits has ever pleased me as much ( pg. 387),

And he would still in difficult times be selfless, fight on behalf of his comrades. He continued:

But before putting them on I checked if my comrades had been issued trousers as well. 

They had not, and I told the warder to take them back. I insisted that all African prisoners must have long trousers (pg. 387). 

For freedom fathers, it’s not only they who suffer for what they believe in, it’s their families inclusive. Nelson Mandela suffered many great losses when he was in jail. His wife was hounded, not because of what she had done, but because of what she belived in, because he was an indispensable pillar of strength and support to Nelson Mandela. 

    Mandela could not get to take good care of his ageing mother, and such mother who didn’t get the affection and attention of her only son would definitely grieve all her life.

     One fateful day, while Nelson Mandela was lying in his cell, he got a summon from the prison authorities. He was handed a telegram from the prison officials acquainting him of the death of his Mother. 

   At that point, what could be running through the mind of such a son?  Had he been right to place the welfare of his own immediate family below the countless of the people he had never met before? Was he right to have made the people who knew him best suffer at the expense of those countless of souls he had never met?  He was despaired. He said in his own words that:

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 understood my commitment to the struggle. My mother had not even asked for or even wanted to be involved in the struggle, but my involvement penalized them. 

   But I came to the 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 lay her to rest (pg. 445). 

He asked the prison officials to at least allow him go home and bury his mother. He gave them his words of honour that they may deploy all the military personnel in South Africa—just to assure them that he had no place to run—but the prison authorities would not have any of it. They feared the people of the Transkei stealing him away. In the end, as he later described, the pains he felt at not being able to bury his mother as the only son was enormous and one of those pains he felt during the darkest days in the Robben Island prison. His pains grew agonizingly. In quick succession, Winnie his wife was one of those persons who bore the brunt of his belief. Winnie had always been an indispensable pillar of support who had shown true mettle during those trying times. Winnie had accepted to marry Nelson in the darkest days of the struggle. As Nelson himself would mention, he owed Winnie a great deal. Winnie had defied the pessimism of her own father and the financial impediment that may  come with marrying Nelson. Mandela recounted that he:

Explained all this to Winnie. I told her it was more than likely that we would have to live on her small salary as a social worker. Winnie understood and said she was prepared to take the risk and throw in her lot with me. I never promised her gold and diamonds, and I was never able to give her them (pg. 215). 

He continued that the courage of Winne gave him courage to continue with the struggle in those trying times. He said:

The wife of a freedom fighter is often like a widow, even when her husband is not in prison. Though I was on trial for treason, Winnie gave me cause for hope. I felt as though I had a new and second chance at life. My love for her gave me added strength for the struggles that lay ahead (pg. 217). 

   As Nelson himself mentioned, the pains of Winnie would definitely be greater than the one he had  felt. Winnie had accepted the onerous burden of raising their their children alone even when he was not in prison and was absorbed in the ANC activities. Now that he had been in prison, Winnie braced herself to raise the children, continued her services to humanity and still found space to sacrifice for the cause against apartheid. Such were the pains of of Winnie. 

Winnie flew in and out of jails, served bans upon bans and such news will come to Nelson in jail again. He would begin to despair. As he remarked, he said:

There was nothing I found so agonizing in prison as the thought that Winnie was in prison too. I put a brave face on the situation, but inwardly I was deeply disturbed and worried. Nothing tested my inner equilibrium as much as the time that Winnie was in solitary confinement. Although I often urged others not to worry about what they could not control, I was unable to take my own advice. I had many sleepless nights. What were the authorities doing to my wife? How would she bear up? Who was looking after our daughters? Who would pay the bills? It is a form of mental torture to be constantly plagued by such questions and not have the means to answer them (pg. 446).

The losses of Nelson Mandela were more more than words could describe. While still grieving for the loss of his mother, he went through another round of loss again—one that wrought him to the marrow. His first child and eldest son had been killed in a car accident. He said:

I was already over-wrought about my wife, I was still grieving for my mother, and then to hear such news…  I do not have words to express the sorrow, or the loss I felt. It left a hole in my heart that can never be filled ( pg. 447).

The last significant loss he suffered was that of his attorney: Bram Fischer. Fischer bad been a purist and indispensable pillar of support to him during the entire trials, and the man whose conscience never ceased to indict him throught the entire period that Nelson and his comrades were in jail. 

     Bram,  although a white man, had fought tirelessly for the freedom of blacks in South Africa. This is why Nelson so much adored him and treated him with high deference. As Nelson described the pains he felt towards the bereavement and the pains Bram suffered in his life, he said:

In many ways, Bram Fischer, the grandson  of the Prime Minister of the Orange River Colony, had made the greatest sacrifice of all. 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 was a free man who fought against his own people to ensure the freedom of others (pg. 472). 

                             

      ROBBEN ISLAND: GLINTS OF HOPE

As I had said earlier, there was not a time Nelson Mandela ever lost hope in prison. He knew that someday, he would yet see his family again and go out to join a South Africa that is free and his own great-grandchildren would be ones for whom apartheid would be a distance memory. He knew that someday, apartheid would only exist in the history books of South Africa and not in practical terms. While he was behind bars, he still changed laws and managed to change lives. He displayed a largeness of heart and spirit that defied the imagination of men. He showed true mettle that perhaps would never be seen again in the world exept such brutality as apartheid comes to be in the world again. 

    While in prison, Nelson began to educate the warders on what they were fighting. He would take every chance to inform them of their struggles as people. He knew that when a man asked a question, he asked because he wants to be educated, and it’s best to educate a man when he desires. He would make the whites feel very much at home and make them understand he had not even a dough of inhibition towards them, but towards the unjust system they practiced. 

    He also saw to it that they change the clothing system of the prisons. To the whites, Africans were boys and not men. He fought against this indignity in prison and African prisoners were later permitted trousers. 

   He made bold to be the mouthpiece of his comrades in prison. As prison was designed, it’s to crush the spirit of people and make them do away with their resolve. One of the mistakes that came to haunt the apartheid government was keeping political prisoners in one place. Their unity gives them the privilege to replenish their beliefs. Their camaraderie was ignited and their beliefs are always greased in jail. He knew that not all of them could bear up equally as all men have capacities and limits to which they can bear things, but the stronger ones will raise the weaker ones and the weaker ones become stronger because of the courage of the stronger ones. Such were the vitality of staying together in prison. 

   Yet again in prison, he became the leader of the movement and mentored to younger prisoners—advising them on their conducts, peeling away their prejudice if needs be. Such were the largeness of heart and spirit that he carried. 

For around two decades Nelson Mandela had not been able to touch his wife— even his children —who came to visit at seldom intervals as the prison authorities allowed, but even at those intervals, he was not allowed a contact visit. Any visitor would sit in a different room barricaded by  translucent objects and they were passed amplifiers such that their voices were audible to one another and the warders, who then interrupted their conversation to quiz them about any unfamiliar name or topic they had broached—for security reasons — to make sure they are not having any subversive talks against the government. 

  But around the second decade in prison, the regulation of visits were beginning to relax. Contact visits were now permitted. It was indeed a glorious moment —emotions unspeakable when he finally held his wife for the first time in twenty-one years. As he described the emotion in his Long Walk to Freedom, he said:

Gregory escorted her[Winnie] around the door and before either of us knew it, we were in the same room in each other’s arms. I kissed and held my wife for the first time in all these many years. It was a moment I had dreamed about a thousand times... We were still silent except for sound of our hearts. I did not want to let go of her at all, but I broke free and embraced my daughter and then took her child into my lap. It had been twenty-one years since I had even touched my wife’s hand (517).

Even in the midst of difficulties, Mandela would still manage to see a glint of hope for himself and the future of South Africa. He had with his own experience began to feel the hostility that existed between black and whites in South Africa 

There was a time Nelson Mandela took ill in prison and had to be taken to the hospital. Presumably because of his status as a prisoner, he was afforded the luxury of a hospital meant for white. The connubial atmosphere between the white nurses and doctors he found there was another cue he got that apartheid was thawing away in South Africa. As he described, he was treated with magnanimity, as if that was the way whites and blacks had been relating all their lives in South Africa. 

     Through that encounter, he was beginning to feel there is great hope for the future of South Africa. His conviction of hope was again demonstrated when he received his daughter for the first time in prison. 

Zeni his daughter had got married to the member of a Szawi royal family and there was a great privilege in that marriage: she was granted diplomatic privileges and she could then visit his jailed father almost at will. Aside that, there would be no barricade of thick walls and glasses: parts of the diplomatic privileges. 

    One of the reasons why they had visited was that Nelson Mandela chose a name for their new born baby.  It was the custom for the grandfather to do so if he were alive. To this end, they visited Nelson Mandela in jail and contact visit was granted him. As he described it in his own terms, he said:

It was truly a wondrous moment when they came into the room. I stood up, and when Zeni saw me, she practically tossed her tiny daughter to her husband and ran across the room to embrace me. I had not held my now-grown daughter virtually since she was about her own daughter’s age. … I them embraced my new son and he handed me my tiny granddaughter whom I did not let go of for the entire visit. To hold a newborn baby, so vulnerable and soft in my rough hands, hands that for too long had held only picks and shovels, was a profound joy. I don’t think a man was ever happier to hold a baby than I was that day (pg. 495).

                 FREEDOM

Freedom, to Nelson Mandela, was not merely casting off one’s chains, but living in a way that enhances the freedom of others. He was granted his freedom by De Clerk with whom he shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with, but he knew that his life had just begun. He knew that he had just been given a new life and task to unite the People of South Africa—all races. He knew he had to make the whites in South Africa feel at home and at ease, he knew he had to free the jailers as well— of every sense of guilt. 

When Nelson Mandela emerged from prison, he had become father of the nation, rather than being the father of his children again. He had always known that for freedom fighters, especially in a country like South Africa, to be a father to one’s children and to one’s country simultaneously is impossible. He was first reabsorbed into the family he belonged to the most—he was welcomed by the countless of relatives he never really knew and he felt his life had just began anew. Describing his re-absorption into the society, he said: 

When I was among the crowd I raised my right fist and there was a roar. I had not been able to do that for twenty-seven years and it gave me a surge of strength and joy. … Although I was pleased to have such a reception, I was greatly vexed by the fact that I did not have a chance to say good-bye to the prison staff. As I finally walked through those gates to enter a car on the other side, I felt —even at the age of seventy-one—that my life was beginning anew. My ten thousand days of imprisonment were over (pg. 563) .

As Nelson Mandela himself remarked, the honour of being the father to his children and being an husband to his wife would have been such great joys, but it was a joy he had far too little of. As he said, that “it seems to be the destiny of freedom fighters to have unstable personal lives. When your life is the struggle, as mine was, there is little room left for family. That has always been my greatest regret, and the most painful aspect of the choice I made” (pg. 600) . And when he came out of prison, his children felt they had a father who was at least in prison, and someday he would come back for them. They felt dismayed that he came back and never had their time again, but became the father of the nation.  Mandela agreed himself that “to be the father of a nation is a great honour, but to be the father of a family is greater joy. But it was a joy I had far too little of” (pg. 600-601). 

      As brutal as the price for freedom had been, it was all worth the wait. Freedom did come for Nelson Mandela, apartheid was abolished and there was a reconciliation process which was chaired by both Nelson Mandela and De Clerk, the head of the apartheid government. The date of the presidential election had been slated for 27th April. 

   The sacrifices that the thousands of countless heroes—known and unknown—had wrought a price: freedom. And Nelson, being a part of the offerings and sacrifices of that struggle would live long enough to relish the divident of the struggle. He would emerge the first black president of South Africa, but he knew that it was not all his doing. He knew that all the countless known and unknown sacrifices by thousands of both the known and unknown patriots had been the key factor. He saw himself both a partaker and profiteer of their struggles. 

    He made bold to remember all those who had passed on. He remembered Chris Hani, Chief Albert Luthuli, Oliver Tambo, Bram Fischer—all of whom had paid the utmost sacrifice to see that South Africa was free that day. In his own words, he said as he walked to the polling station, he:

Dwelt on the heroes who had fallen so that [he]might be where [he] was that day, the men and women who had made the ultimate sacrifice for a cause that was now finally succeeding. I thought of Oliver Tambo, and Chris Hani, and Chief Luthuli, and Bram Fischer. I thought of our great African heroes, who had sacrificed so that millions of South Africans could be voting on that very day; I thought of Josiah Gumede, G. M. Naicker, Dr. Abdullah Abdurahman, Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Yusuf Dadoo, Moses Kotane. I did not go into that voting station alone on April 27th; I was casting my vote with all of them (pg. 618) .

Nelson Mandela obviously was altruistic, a realist, who could admit the contributions of his comrades to the struggle. He took pains to spell out their names and the sense of history that inundated him as he was to be inaugurated as the first black president of South Africa. He knew that that accomplishment had come via the contless pains of his comrades. Like he recounted, he said:

That day [of inauguration] had come about through the unimaginable sacrifices of thousands of my people, people whose suffering and courage can never be counted or repaid. I felt that day, as I have on so many other days,that I was simply the sum of all those African patriots who had gone before me. That long and noble line ended and now began with me. I was pained that I was not able to thank them and that they were not able to see what their sacrifices had wrought. 

    The policy of apartheid created a deep 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 Tambos, The Walter Sissulus, 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 likes may never be known again. Perhaps it requires such depth of oppression to create such heights of character. …

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 the imagination. I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. I felt myself more times than I can remember, but I hid it behind a mask of boldness. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear (pg. 621-622).

Nelson Mandela easily is one who had the courage to free both the prisoner and the jailers; the torturer and the tortured. In those trying times, he never despaired. He would at least see the good sides of one of the prison authorities, and that would keep him going, give him more courage and resilience to continue the struggle. He said:

[I] never lost hope that this great transformation (end of apartheid) would occur. Not only because of the great heroes I have already cited, but because of the courage of the ordinary men and women of my country. I have 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 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 the grimmest times in prison, when my comrades 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 (pg. 622). 

It also took a man like Nelson Mandela to exorcise the evil of racism from the minds of all the blacks in South Africa. He knew that gaining their freedom is not enough, that it’s one stage on its own, but maintaining the freedom and keeping South Africa truly free for all those who live in it is another onerous burden he must now shoulder. Hence, he spoke with language of love, invited even his jailers to his inauguration as special guest; sending a message to all South Africans that to be free also means to live in a way that respects and affirms the humanity of others, and that they must cauterize the wounds of division 

    Mandela was able to hold the country together even after freedom. He was a model to all and sundry he said:

I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just 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-mindeness. I am not truly free if I am taking away some 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. 

When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressors both. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know 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 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 (pg. 624-625) .

As a matter of fact, it’s tempting to say that we will never see the likes of Nelson Mandela again — his largeness of heart and spirit, his grit, his consistency, his mettle, his calculations, his mistargets, his fears, his courage. It may take such degree of indignities like the spree of apartheid to produce his likes again. 

   He was less than a god, but definitely more than a man. He was the human figure that may not thread this planet again. For one thing, as much as I respect Mandela as a political figure, that’s how much I loved him as a man, a father, a mentor, and a model. He was the standard of what  humanity should be. 

   Even though now, and forever, I will always come short of Mandela’s examples, he makes me a better man, he stirs something in me. He wakes me up to my responsibility as a man. He prompts in me, moments of solitude and self reflection, to assess how I deal with other men, to assess my strengths, weaknesses. He teaches that one speaks up, that one’s voices must be heard. He was a true African hero. Perhaps the honour Africans enjoy today, he brought to us. For he was somewhat Gandhi, Lincoln, Jefferson combined. He was that great. 

Whenever I visit South Africa, I will journey down to Qunu in the Transkei where he rests and pay my respect to him. I will thank him so much for living among us once, for being our saviour, our demiurge at the time when South Africa and Africa were at their darkest. I will thank him for being the man who made the world believe that greatness resides and teem Africa. He was, in the words of Maya Angelou, “our Gideon” who gave us such a potent voice and hope among the rest of the world. I will thank him for changing the world and still changing the world. There will never be his likes again!

© Akinmade Abayomi Zeal 2018

Meet the Essayist

Akinmade Abayomi Zeal holds a degree in English Language and Literary Studies from Kogi State University, Ayingba. He is a poet, short story writer, literary critic, essayist, and a passionate adherent of the Nigerian Nobel Laurete; Wole Soyinka. He can be reached at Soyinkzeal@gmail.com.