By Nelson Mandela Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela (Mti)

It's an exceptional book about an exceptional person.Am learning a great deal concerning how Mandela was able to change a racist country into a country built on democracy, with equality for all.

The seller has the 1st edition along with a picture advertised, but when the book arrived it was a completely different cover. My one star is not for the book but for the SELLER!!

i love autobiographical books .

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (1918-2013) was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary and political leader, who served as President of South Africa (1994-1999). He was the country's first head of state elected in a fully representative democratic election. He was imprisoned for 27 years for his opposition to apartheid and racism, until President F. W. de Klerk released him in 1990. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.He wrote in the ‘Acknowledgements’ of this 1994 book, “this book has a long history. I began writing it clandestinely in 1974 during my imprisonment on Robben Island. Without the tireless labor of my old comrades… for reviving my memories, it is doubtful the manuscript would have been completed. The copy of the manuscript which I kept with me was discovered by the authorities and confiscated. However… my co-prisoners … had ensured that the original manuscript safely reached its destination. I resumed work on it after my release from prison in 1990.”He recalls, “The education I received was a British education, in which British ideas, British culture, British institutions, were automatically assumed to be superior. There was no such thing as African culture.” (Pg. 12) He adds, “The two principles that governed my life … were chieftaincy and the Church. These two doctrines existed in uneasy harmony, although I did not then see them as antagonistic… the Church was a concerned with this work as the next: I saw that virtually all of the achievements of Africans seemed to have come about through the missionary work of the Church. The mission schools trained the clerks, the interpreters, and the policemen, who at the time represented the height of African aspirations.” (Pg. 17) He recounts, “The educated Englishman was our model; what we aspired to be were ‘black Englishmen’… we were taught---and believed---that the best ideas were English ideas, the best government was English government, and the best men were Englishmen.” (Pg. 32)He recalls, “At the end of 1942 I passed the final examination for my B.A. degree… I had become closer to Gaur [Radebe]… Gaur believed in finding solutions rather than in spouting theory. For Africans, he asserted, the engine of change was the African National Congress [ANC]; its policies were the best way to pursue power in South Africa… What made the deepest impression on my was Gaur’s total commitment to the freedom struggle… He seemed to think of nothing but revolution. I went along with Gaur to meetings of both the Township Advisory Board and the ANC… In August 1943, I marched with Gaur… in support of the Alexandra bus boycott… In a small way, I had departed from my role as an observer and become a participant. I found that to march with one’s people was exhilarating and inspiring. But I was also impressed by the boycott’s effectiveness…” (Pg. 74-75)He says, “at the beginning of 1943, I enrolled at the University of Witwatersrand for [a] … bachelor of laws degree… The English-speaking universities of South Africa were great incubators of liberal values. It was a tribute to these institutions that they allowed black students. For the Afrikaans universities, such a thing was unthinkable… I never felt entirely comfortable there. Always to be the only African, except for menial workers… is not a congenial experience.” (Pg. 78)He explains, “I cannot pinpoint a moment when I became politicized, when I knew that I would spend my life in the liberation struggle. To be an African in South Africa means that one is politicized from the moment one’s birth, whether one acknowledges it or not… I had no epiphany… but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities… produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people.” (Pg. 83)He recalls, “One night in 1943 I met Anton Lembede, who… said that Africa was a black man’s continent, and that it was up to Africans to reassert themselves and reclaim what was rightfully theirs. He hated… the black inferiority complex and castigated what he called the worship and idolization of the West and their ideas. The inferiority complex, he affirmed, was the greatest barrier to liberation.” (Pg. 84)He notes, “The Indian campaign became a model for the type of protest that we in the Youth League were calling for. It instilled a spirit of defiance and radicalism among the people, broke the fear of prison… They reminded us that the freedom struggle was not merely a question of making speeches… but of meticulous organization… and above all, the willingness to suffer and sacrifice.” (Pg. 91)He states, “I was sympathetic to the ultra-revolutionary stream of African nationalism. I was angry at the white man, not at racism. While I was not prepared to hurl the white man into the sea, I would have been perfectly happy if he climbed into his steamships and left the continent of his own volition.” (Pg. 98) Later, he adds, “A friend once asked me how I could reconcile my creed of African nationalism with a belief in dialectical materialism… I was prepared to use whatever means to speed up the erasure of human prejudice and the end of chauvinistic and violent nationalism. I did not need to become a Communist in order to work with them.” (Pg. 105)He acknowledges, “I began to suspect that both legal and extra-constitutional protests would soon be impossible. In India, Gandhi had been dealing with a foreign power that ultimately was more realistic and farsighted. That was not the case with the Afrikaners in South Africa. Nonviolent passive resistance is effective as long as your opposition adheres to the same rules as you do. But if peaceful protest is met with violence, its efficacy is at an end.” (Pg. 137)He observes, “my attitude toward my bans had changed radically. When I was first banned I abided by the rules and regulations of my persecutors. I had now developed contempt for these restrictions. I was not going to let my involvement in the struggle and the scope of my political activities be determined by the enemy I was fighting against. To allow my activities to be circumscribed by my opponent was a form of defeat, and I resolved not to become my own jailer.” (Pg. 167)In 1956, “Almost the entire executive leadership of the ANC, both banned and unbanned, had been arrested. The government, at long last, had made its move… It is said that no one truly know a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones---and South Africa treated its imprisoned African citizens like animals.” (Pg. 175) He adds, “Suddenly there were no Xhosas or Zulus, no Indians or Africans… we were all nationalists and patriots bound together by a love of our common history, our culture, our country, and our people.” (Pg. 176)He notes, “The debate on the use of violence had been going on among us since early 1960… I myself believed … that nonviolence was a tactic that should be abandoned when it no longer worked... I argued that the state had given us no alternative to violence.. Violence would begin whether we initiated it or not. Would it not be better to guide this violence ourselves, according to principles where we save lives by attacking symbols of oppression, and not people?” (Pg. 236-237) He continues, “nonviolence had failed us, for it had done nothing to stem the violence of the state nor change the heart of our oppressors… We were embarking on a new and more dangerous path… of organized violence, the results of which w did not and could not know.” (Pg. 238-239)Once when he appeared in court, “I realized the role I could play in court and the possibilities before me as a defendant. I was the symbol of justice in the court of the oppressor, the representative of the great ideals of freedom, fairness, and democracy in a society that dishonored those virtues. I realized … that I could carry on the fight even within the fortress of the enemy.” (Pg. 276) In his statement before sentencing, he said, “I have no doubt that posterity will pronounce that I was innocent and that the criminals that should have been brought before this court are the members of the government.” (Pg. 290)During his imprisonment, “I learned from Winnie that Bram Fischer had died of cancer shortly after being let out of prison. Bram’s death affected me deeply… In many ways… [he] had made the greatest sacrifice of all. No matter what I suffered… 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. 410-411)He recounts, “We had been in prison for more than fifteen years; I had been in prison for nearly eighteen. The world that we left was long gone. The danger was that our ideas had become frozen in time… During our years on the island we kept up a continuing dialogue about our beliefs and ideas… I did not think we had stayed in one place; I believe we had evolved.” (Pg. 437)When discussing his possible release with de Klerk, “[I] said that if he expected me to go out to pasture upon my release he was greatly mistaken. I reaffirmed that if I was released into the same conditions under which I had been arrested I would go back to doing precisely those things for which I had been imprisoned. I made the case to him that the best way to move forward was to unban the ANC and all other political organizations… to release political prisoners, and to allow the exiles to return. If the government did not unban the ANC, as soon as I was out of prison I would be working for an illegal organization. ‘Then,’ I said, ‘you must simply rearrest me after I walk through those gates.’” (Pg. 484)He reports, “I was scheduled to hold a press conference the afternoon after my release… I was asked … about the fears of whites. I knew that people expected me to harbor anger toward whites But I had none. In prison, my anger toward 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… ‘Whites are fellow South Africans,’ I said, ‘and we want them to feel safe and to know that we appreciate the contribution that they have made toward the development of this country.’” (Pg. 495)This book should be considered “absolute must reading” for anyone concerned with Africa, its past, and its future.

A fantastic read!!!

I bought and read this book a few years ago and found it absorbing, very well written and I enjoyed it immensely. I bought this copy for a friend.

Book was delivered very quickly and in good condition considering the low price. Great experience and would use you again. Thank you.