by Bert Williams
      Not long before his 46th birthday Nelson Mandela traveled to Robben Island, seven miles off the South African coastline near Cape Town. It was not a trip he had chosen. It was, in fact, the first day of 27 continuous years in prison. The date was April 20, 1964.

 

Though Mandela was highly educated, having earned a law degree from the University of South Africa, Robben Island was no white-collar prison. A rocky outcrop buffeted by high winds, it housed some of South Africa’s most notorious criminals. To add to the challenge, Mandela’s sentence included hard labor. 

 

The limestone quarry where Mandela and other prisoners often labored was a gaping stone pit in which the sun’s heat and glare radiated mercilessly. Prisoners toiled hour after hour, sometimes in burning heat, sometimes in cold, digging and cutting limestone with picks and shovels, then muscling the rock slabs onto lorries (trucks) that slowly labored up the steep grade out of the pit, spewing diesel fumes in their wake.

 

On one occasion, Mandela was ill and did not have the strength to lift the slabs of stone onto the waiting lorry. He was ordered to do so anyway, and when he simply could not, he was charged with laziness and failing to obey a command. He was sentenced to six days’ solitary confinement on a spare diet. The solitary cells had no heat, and nighttime temperatures could be bitterly cold. A “spare diet” consisted of the water that had been poured off boiled rice. For a very sick man it was a potential death sentence, but Mandela survived. Mandela seemed always to find a way to survive.

 

Standing for Principle

 

Why had Nelson Mandela and his associates been imprisoned? Essentially it was because they stood for principle. At his trial, Mandela had said this:

I consider myself neither legally nor morally bound to obey laws made by a parliament in which I have no representation. . . . The government set out . . . not to heed us, not to talk to us, but rather to present us as wild, dangerous revolutionaries, intent on disorder and riot. . . . The government behaved in a way no civilized government should dare behave when faced with peaceful, disciplined, sensible and democratic expression of the views of its own population.

 

During the years of the international Cold War, the leaders of the South African government convinced many world leaders, including those of the United States and European nations, to engage in favorable trade agreements and to carry on routine diplomatic relations with their blatantly racist regime. White South African leaders were successful in this effort because they presented themselves as an African bulwark against communism—and the black African dissidents as communists.

 

On March 21, 1960, panicking police fired into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators, killing at least 56 people—many of whom were shot in the back—and injuring more than 160. After the massacre, the South African government outlawed all black political movements and declared a state of emergency. None of this escaped the attention of world leaders, but they did little to force the white South African government to change its racist policies. In fact, conditions continued to worsen. For example:

► 400,000 black miners earned less than one fifth the pay of white miners doing the same work. This was typical of the working conditions of non-white Africans.

► The white population of South Africa, which numbered about three million, controlled 87 percent of the land. Eight million non-whites were, over a span of several years, confined to the remaining 13 percent of the land, the majority in 260 separate rural slums where they had been forcibly relocated.

► The non-white population was denied any role in the political process, including voting rights.

 

Submit or Fight?

 

For years, Mandela had held various posts in the African National Congress (ANC), the most prominent organization seeking equal rights for black South Africans. Repeatedly Mandela emphasized that the ANC was not anti-white. “We are against white supremacy,” Mandela insisted. “We have condemned racialism no matter by whom it is professed.”

 

From 1948 until 1961, the ANC had remained committed to non-violent resistance. On December 16, 1961, however, the ANC announced a change: “We hope that we will bring the government and its supporters to their senses before it is too late, so that both the government and its policies can be changed before matters reach the desperate stage of civil war. . . . The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices: submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa.”

 

The new strategy would permit acts of sabotage resulting in property damage, but the policy stated that under no circumstances were people to be killed or injured. In taking up this new strategy, ANC leaders understood that, in their effort to force the government’s hand, they were providing the government with evidence that could be used against them. Nevertheless, it was their conclusion that there was no other way forward.

 

By this time Mandela, being pursued by police, had gone underground. A far-flung police dragnet failed to capture him. Mandela did not spend all his time in seclusion, however, often venturing out in public disguised as an errand “boy,” a window cleaner, or a chauffer.

 

Though his passport had been confiscated, Mandela slipped out of the country in 1961 to go on an international speaking tour. During his travels he was amazed to see blacks and whites in London mixing freely in the streets, in shops, and cafes. He was also overwhelmed by the large crowds and the warm reception he received at his speaking engagements.

 

At the end of his tour, Mandela successfully crossed the border back into South Africa by night. However, an informant planted among his supporters had alerted police. They apprehended Mandela on August 5, 1962. He had been on the run for 17 months.

 

Charged with High Treason

 

Now incarcerated, Mandela and several associates awaited trial. Initially, there were two charges: inciting African workers to strike and, for Mandela, leaving the country without valid travel documents. Eventually, however, as the judicial system slowly ground forward, the government came up with other charges including the charge of high treason, a capital offence. Mandela and his associates were convicted, and the judge—noting the leniency of his ruling—sentenced them to life in prison.

 

Initial prison conditions were grim. When lawyers were granted a visit with Mandela and other prisoners a year after their incarceration, the visitors were shocked at Mandela’s appearance. He had lost nearly 40 pounds and his complexion was sallow. “Yet,” one of Mandela’s biographers later wrote, “his bearing was proud and as his laughter rang out they observed the same confident, easy-going man they had known.”

 

It took months for the political prisoners to gain even a few primitive rights: to be able to speak to each other, to have more blankets, to wear long pants, to have adequate food. Slowly, however, they gained the confidence of the guards, and conditions improved, if only incrementally.

 

For years, Mandela and his fellow political prisoners toiled in obscurity on Robben Island, but gradually the world turned an increasingly disapproving gaze toward South Africa. After 14 years in prison, Mandela was honored around the world on his 60^th birthday, in July 1978.

 

On June 13, 1980, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution calling on the South African government to release Mandela and other political prisoners. In April 1982, the prisoners were transferred from Robben Island to Pollsmoor Prison on the mainland, and conditions improved further.

 

In November 1984, a “Free South Africa” demonstration at the South African Embassy in Washington, D.C. gained the support of U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy and was publicized around the world.

 

Out of Jail Free—With a Catch

 

On January 31, 1985, under increasing international pressure, South African President P.W. Botha offered to release Mandela from prison “on condition that Mr. Mandela gives a commitment that he will not make himself guilty of planning, instigating or committing acts of violence for the furtherance of political objectives.”

 

At a press conference, Mandela’s daughter Zindzi shared her father’s response. In part, it read, “Let Botha renounce violence. Let him say that he will dismantle apartheid. Let him unban the people’s organization, the African National Congress. Let him free all who have been imprisoned, banished or exiled for their opposition to apartheid. Let him guarantee free political activity so that the people may decide who will govern them. I cherish my own freedom dearly but too many have died since I went to prison. Too many have suffered for the love of freedom. I owe it to their widows, to their orphans, to their mothers and to their fathers who have grieved and wept for them. I cannot sell my birthright nor am I prepared to sell the birthright of the people to be free.”

 

On Mandela’s 70^th birthday, in July 1988, “Free Mandela” was the cry heard around the world. He was honored at an all-star London concert where Stevie Wonder, reflecting the growing feeling of the world toward Mandela, sang “I Just Called to Say I Love You.”

 

On July 5, 1989, Botha agreed to meet with Mandela at the president’s official residence. Nothing of obvious significance came from the visit, but by this time international pressure had resulted in much-improved conditions for the prisoners, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that the status quo could not continue.

 

The Beginning of Marvels

 

On September 20, 1989, F.W. de Klerk was inaugurated South Africa’s new president. He immediately promised “a new South Africa, a totally changed South Africa,” and shortly thereafter allowed a demonstration of 20,000 marchers led by South African Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu. The march proceeded peacefully.

 

On February 2, 1990 the ANC, which had been banned by the government, was once again declared to be legal. Nine days later, on February 11, 1990, Mandela and his fellow political prisoners were released, and scenes of jubilation broke out around the world.

 

Having entered prison in early middle age, Mandela was now 73 years old. After years of hard labor in the limestone quarries, his eyesight was poor and his knee joints were worn out, but his jubilant spirit remained—his dignity fully intact, despite all he had suffered. The fact that Mandela had survived so many horrendous years in prison and still maintained a positive, generous spirit was the marvel of the world.

 

But it was just the beginning of marvels.

 

On December 10, 1993, Mandela and de Klerk were joint recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize. Only four months later, on April 27, 1994, all South Africans—those of every race—went to the polls to elect a president. The incumbent, President de Klerk, stood for reelection, challenged by Mandela. It took a few days, but on May 2, 1994, de Klerk conceded that the ANC and Mandela had won control of parliament and gained the presidency.

 

A lesser person would have gloated and strutted and threatened bad days ahead for the white minority, who now had every reason to live in fear. But with Mandela as leader of the nation, it was not to be so. As one foreign correspondent observed, “Mandela’s lack of bitterness, inner calm and certainty, were so unexpected, it was quite overpowering,”

 

The Embodiment of Forgiveness

 

Bishop Tutu, in his book No Future Without Forgiveness, described Mandela’s actions during the transition: “He invited his white jailer to attend his inauguration as an honored guest, the first of many gestures he would make in a spectacular way, showing his breathtaking magnanimity and willingness to forgive. . . . This man, who had been vilified and hunted down as a dangerous fugitive and incarcerated for nearly three decades, would soon be transformed into the embodiment of forgiveness and reconciliation.”

 

Few people thought that South Africa’s problems were now over, and they were not, but Mandela’s gracious and generous spirit opened the door for remarkable progress. The Dutch Reformed Church had supported apartheid, arguing, for example, that the Genesis story of the Tower of Babel proved that races should be separate and that the curse of Noah’s son Ham showed blacks to be inferior (Conveniently, Dutch Reformed theologians ignored the Christian stories of Pentecost in Acts 2 and Philip and the Ethiopian in Acts 8).

 

“But then,” wrote Tutu, “this church that had upheld apartheid theologically for so long abandoned this position. It invited those it had previously persecuted . . . to its General Synod and apologized handsomely and publicly for all it had made them suffer. . . . Very few churches have been as forthright in acknowledging the error of their ways.”

 

The nation still had to decide what to do about the violent and deadly legacy of apartheid. “We could very well have had justice, retributive justice, and had a South Africa lying in ashes,” Tutu wrote. How were South Africans who had participated in atrocities now to be treated? How would justice for the oppressed be achieved? The answer became something called the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). President Mandela tapped Bishop Tutu to lead the commission. The plan called for the granting of amnesty to individuals in exchange for full disclosure about the crime for which amnesty was being sought.

 

“We were blessed,” Tutu reflected later, “to have had outstanding leaders on both sides of the racial divide who were ready to take risks to put their political careers and their lives on the line to commend peace, forgiveness, and reconciliation.”

 

The ANC had already paved the way for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission by setting up commissions of inquiry of its own to deal with atrocities committed by its non-white members—and there were some. ANC leadership accepted responsibility for abuses and publicly apologized for them.

 

A Heavy Price

 

As the TRC got under way, it became apparent that, in many cases, amnesty would not come cheaply. The penalty of public exposure and humiliation was significant. “Many of those in the security forces who have come forward had previously been regarded as respectable members of their communities,” Tutu wrote. “It was often the very first time that their communities and even sometimes their families were hearing of the fact that these persons were actually . . . members of death squads or were regular torturers. . . . It has for some been so traumatic that marriages have broken up. . . .  Thus it is not entirely the case that the perpetrator is being allowed to get off scot-free.”

 

The commission consisted of sixteen members—ten blacks and six whites. It included Christians, a Muslim, a Hindu, and some who were lapsed believers or agnostic. They listened to thousands of confessions. The commission’s stated purpose was to “promote national unity and reconciliation.” Tutu emphasized that the purpose was to “promote” not to fully “achieve” those objectives.

 

“The debilitating legacy of apartheid is going to be with us for many a long day yet,” Tutu wrote. “No one possesses a magic wand which the architects of the new dispensation could wave and, ‘Hey presto!’ things will be transformed overnight into a promised land flowing with milk and honey. Apartheid, firmly entrenched for a long half century and carried out with ruthless efficiency, was too strong for that. It is going to take a long time for the pernicious effects of apartheid’s egregiousness to be eradicated.”

 

Anyone who knows something about the South African history of the past fifteen years knows that this has, indeed, been the case. It has not been easy, and the nation is still fraught with problems. Nevertheless, few doubt that forgiveness has played a critically important role in bringing healing to South Africa.

 

Recovering Lost Humanity

 

Tutu observed that the forgiveness in evidence during the TRC process often filled people with hope: “There is hope that a new situation could come about when enemies might become friends again, when the dehumanized perpetrator might be helped to recover his lost humanity. This is not a wild irresponsible dream. It has happened and it is happening and there is hope that nightmares will end, hope that seemingly intractable problems will find solutions and that God has some tremendous fellow-workers, some outstanding partners out there.”

 

February 11, 2010 marks the 20^th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison. Now 91 years of age, Mandela continues to be honored around the world as an elder statesman. In November 2009, the United Nations General Assembly announced that July 18, Mandela’s birthday, is to be honored as “Mandela Day,” marking his contribution to freedom and justice around the world. The day will also pay tribute to the spectacular power of forgiveness.

 

Two books served as the basis for this article: Nelson Mandela: The Man and the Movement by Mary Benson and No Future Without Forgiveness by Bishop Desmond Tutu.