In the latter part of his imprisonment Nelson Mandela made overtures towards the apartheid regime when he thought the time was right. He was not negotiating, but he was talking to them about the conditions for actual talks between the ruling National Party and the African National Congress. Once he was released from prison on 11 February 1990 he and his colleagues began meeting with the regime. This paved the way for the full-blown multi-party talks at the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa) which began on 20 December 1991 and ended in 1993 when the date for South Africa’s first democratic elections was announced. Here he talks about the ending of the armed struggle in August 1990.
Many people are unaware that Nelson Mandela was sent to prison on Robben Island twice. The first time was a brief period in 1963, about six months after he had been sentenced to five years in prison for leaving the country illegally and inciting a strike. Initially held at Pretoria Local Prison, Mr Mandela was sent to Robben Island in May 1963 and then, on 13 June 1963, he was inexplicably returned to Pretoria. After he had been there for about a month, his colleagues were arrested and they stood trial together for sabotage in the Rivonia Trial. Mr Mandela and seven others were sentenced to life imprisonment on 12 June 1964. He remained on Robben Island until the end of March 1982 after which he was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison on the mainland. Then, after a few months in hospitals, he was sent to Victor Verster Prison in December 1988 from where he was freed on 11 February 1990.
Nelson Mandela is renowned for his love of children and young people and often speaks of how important they are to the future of any country and the world as a whole. Here he relates an incident that occurred soon after his release from prison as he was en route from Canada to Ireland. In Canada’s Goose Bay he had a few minutes at the airport between flights and decided to go and talk to a group of young people. It turned out that they were members of Canada’s Inuit community and Mr Mandela is unashamed about his ignorance of their culture.
Robben Island prison had a library for each section of the prison. The libraries were staffed by prisoners and a fair amount of interesting literature escaped the censors who tried to ensure that subversive material did not get into the hands of the prisoners. One of Nelson Mandela’s close comrades, Ahmed Kathrada, was at one stage a librarian in B Section where he, Mr Mandela, and about two dozen other prisoners were held. If books arrived in the library they could be read. Books that just mentioned the name ‘Mandela’ for example did not make it. Here Mr Mandela talks about some of the books he read on Robben Island.
While he was negotiating the end of apartheid and the beginning of democracy, Nelson Mandela addressed thousands of people. He travelled the world and South Africa both to gather continued support for the process and to listen to the views and concerns of his people. Here he talks about addressing a rally in 1993 and explains how he dealt with the militancy of the youth.
Photo of Jack Swart holding the Victor Verster house keys. The engraving on the key chain ("Mandela Huis") was only added subsequently to Mandela's release.
This story about Nelson Mandela’s first imprisonment on Robben Island strongly demonstrates his iron will and indelible sense of dignity that helped him to survive 27 years in prison. He shows, on the one hand, that from day one, the prison warders were determined to treat the prisoners as nothing more than cattle as they tried aggressively to bring them under their control. It was not to be. Mr Mandela immediately took charge and showed how one can turn the tables even in the more dire circumstances. It was this dignity and strength demonstrated by Mr Mandela and that of his colleagues later that marked their imprisonment and subsequent demeanour.
One of the books Nelson Mandela read in prison was the biography of one of apartheid’s leaders, Prime Minister John Vorster. This story about the book also reveals another of Mr Mandela’s characteristics – that he always tries to “take something out” of a situation or an experience. Things and people are usually neither all bad nor all good. He detested what Vorster stood for as Prime Minister of South Africa from 1966 to 1978, but in this conversation he shows that he found something upon which to compliment him.
When Nelson Mandela went to prison he studied the language of the oppressor, Afrikaans. He also studied the history of the Afrikaner as well as their struggle against the British. He read some of the Afrikaans writers in Afrikaans and enjoyed the books. One of the authors whose work he enjoyed was one of South Africa’s foremost writers, CJ Langenhoven, who also wrote the national anthem Die Stem for the apartheid state. Langenhoven was a member of parliament who worked to have Afrikaans recognised as an official language in South Africa. When Nelson Mandela was in prison only English and Afrikaans were official languages. When he became president of the country he included nine African languages.
