Long Road To Freedom - Nelson Mandela (Favorite Passages Part I)

Just recently a friend of mine reminded me that I have a blog also. It's been years since I last wrote something in this one. There's much to say; I'll start with some of my favorite passages from Rolihlahla's biography.

"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered."


What he read...
"I acquired the complete works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao-Tse Tung and others and probed into the philosophy of dialectical and historical materialism. I had little time to study these works properly. While I was stimulated by the Communist Manifesto, I was exhausted by Das Kapital. But I found myself strongly drawn to the idea of a classless society, which, to my mind, was similar to traditional African culture where life was shared and communal. I subscribed to Marx's basic diction, which has the simplicity and generosity of the golden rule:
'From each according to his ability;
      To each according to his needs.'"

"Marxism's call to revolutionary action was music to the ears of a freedom fighter. The idea that history progresses through struggle and change occures in revolutionary jumps was similarly appealing. In my reading of Marxist works, I found a great deal of information that bore on the type of problems that face a practical politician."

The absurdities of classification...
"The Population Registration Act authorised the government officially to classify all South Africans according to race. If it had not already been so, race became the sine qua non of South African society. The arbitrary and meaningless tests to decide black from colored and colored from white often resulted in tragic cases where members of the same family were classified differently, all depending on whether one child had a lighter or darker complexion. Where one was allowed to work and live could rest on such absurd distinctions as the curl of one's hair or the size of one's lips."

Mandela on Gandhi and Indian struggle...
"In India Gandhi had been dealing with a foreign power that ultimately was more realistic and far-sighted. That was not the case with the Afrikaners in South Africa. Non-violent passive resistence is effective as long as your opposition adheres to the same rule as you do. But if peaceful protest is met with violence, its efficacy is at end. For me non-violence was not a moral principle but a strategy; there is no moral goodness in using and ineffective weapon."

"A slogan is a vital link between the organization and the masses it seeks to lead. It should synthesize a particular grievance into a succint and pithy phase, while mobilizing the people to combat it."

"A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a certain point, one can only fight fire with fire."

Mandela's dilemma...The choice between family and nation.
"I wondered - not for the first time - whether one was ever justified in neglecting the welfare of one's own family in order to fight for the welfare of others. Can there be anything more important than looking after one's aging mother? Is politics merely a pretext for shriking one's responsibilities, an excuse for not being able to provide in the way one wanted?"

Mandela on Keeping yourself in touch with your roots...
"It is important for a freedom fighter to remain in touch with his own roots, and the hurly-burly of city life has a way of erasing the past."

"I have discovered that in discussions it never helps to take a morally superior tone to one's opponents."

"It is said that no one truly knows 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."