I was deeply enchanted after reading Nelson Mandela’s ‘Long walk to Freedom.’ What I found most interesting was the question the author poses to himself; Should an individual live for his family or the society; a question obviously confronted by many great freedom fighters. Mandela’s life belongs to the category of saints and apostles for he was no less than that. A man who suffered prison and incarceration for more than 21 years for the ideal he believed in; the end of apartheid and freedom for his people. He lived his life in single minded devotion towards this realization. Apart from being a political document, the work has great literary value. It describes Mandela’s childhood in a Transkei Xhosa village, his parents, the African village life, the customs and rituals, the simple pleasures, the familial bonds, growing up and education, love and occupation, the forging of friendships, the illusion of freedom, the unseen force controlling every aspect of the life of the Black people in South Africa.
Mandela’s description of the White and Afrikaner mindset, the subtle nuances or the blatant practices that outlined all aspects of life in apartheid ridden South Africa is chilling. Life in South Africa’s prisons and especially on Robbén Island is etched wonderfully and painstakingly. In the end what matters is freedom, the freedom to do things as one wishes, to go out to the street to buy a loaf of bread, to take a stroll or make a phone call, the freedom to tend plants, to talk and to sing or to look at the sky, the waves, the trees and the birds. When the dream draws nearer to fulfilling, what remains is contemplation about the loss of those precious years in prison, spent in despair and mindless labour. How your children are alien to you because of this forced exile; how life outside has changed when you were entombed in a prison with no access to news or information whatsoever; how the time warp has nearly crushed and killed the spirit of freedom in you.
I especially liked the description of Mandela embracing and not letting go of Winnie after nearly 21 years of separation or the declaration that he was ready to die for toast eggs and bacon which he was getting to have after so many years, on a rare visit to the hospital from prison. Long walk to freedom is a fascinating book panning nearly a century, stringing the events in a turmoil ridden South Africa through the personal vision and experience of a towering modern intellectual, thinker and liberator.