"During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." (Nelson Mandela, pg 368).

I cannot articulate how much I enjoyed the autobiography of Nelson Mandela, so I won't even try. I will only suggest that this should be your next great read.

5-Stars. It was magnificent.

What a book! What a life! What a long walk to freedom, even tough in the words of Mandela himself this was just the beginning. He was right, yes south africans got free at the end but based on the present state of its politics and day-to-day life, it still got a lot to do to complete on what Mandela and other freedom fighters had began in the 90s.

80 years of struggle, from the undisturbed life of a boy in the coutryside to the active lawyer and ANC memeber life in the city to the boring prison life of Robben Island, to finally the hope-filled life of a new South Africa, Mandela's life is one of countinuous struggle and problems.

I started the book knowing nearly to nothing about South Africa, Apartheid and Mandela. I finished it with a deep understanding of the political and daily life of south africans and of Mandela himself.

I have great respect for Mr Mandela, his wife Winnie, and for everyone who sacrificed his or her life, effort, and family for this LONG WALK TO FREEDOM.

Read by Danny Glover, and with an introduction by Kofi Annan. Soundtrack Ladysmith Black Mambazo.





Momentous times with a focused man to deal with them made for an interesting listen.

From BBC radio 4 - Book of the Week:
Serialised reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography.

A movie was made based on this book.

Мастрід, переклалав талановитий Василь Старко (виписала кілька нових українських слів для себе), виявилося, ще й земляк, неможливо було не записати інтерв'ю. Хороша книжка - то завжди гіпертекст і магія знайомств із чудовими людьми. Мандела, до речі, не пропускав фільмів із Софі Лорен :).

I highly recommend listening to the audiobook. Not only does it give the opportunity to listen to the pronunciation of the local names of persons and places in the local dialect, which is beautiful, but it allows the continuation through passages that could prove a little more tedious to some readers, such as lists of names, or lots of legal jargon, or the mundane slog of legal proceedings. The book isn't overly full of these, but there are moments that might be a little heavy for the less interested reader.

The book was incredibly moving to me. It's astonishing how much of South Africa's struggle was beginning decades before the civil rights campaign began in earnest in the U.S. The political struggle of balancing the perspective of the minority and majority groups, other world powers, and trying to keep unity between all groups, even with one's enemies, is impressive at the least. I was pleased to see Mandela's humble willingness to admit to his own faults and flaws, the mistakes both he and his organization made over the years, the ways in which he (and it) matured and grew over the years to refine and better manage their goals and the incorporating of other groups and individuals into their goals. He constantly strove to stay in touch with the heartbeat of his country, even while locked away from most of it for nearly three decades. Even while in prison, he never stopped looking for ways to make improvements, if not to the outside world, then at least to the living conditions for prisoners of all colors and distinctions.

I know we have to take into account that this is one man's perspective, but it seems that he takes pains to show both the positives and negatives in his movement and in his own personal choices. The politicking and balance of pushing for goals, yet taking into account the perspectives of all sides, is amazing to comprehend. I can't imagine trying to keep my cool and speak my words so carefully all the time. We all should, of course, but how many of us really try to be so thoughtful about what we say and how we act?

I can't say that I agreed with him on every thought or every action along the way. For example, I don't know where to draw the distinction between doing what's right for the rights of others, and actually being able to be involved with one's family, and if one should choose to take on the responsibility of a family in the first place if it is already known the lifestyle about to be undertaken. It was heartbreaking to see the separation between Mandela and his wife of three decades, who had been his strongest supporter during all his time in prison. But I have to imagine that essentially living their lives as single people for all those years, that it must have been incredibly difficult to try to make a marriage work after that, living in the same home, trying to be a couple in some "normal" fashion. I can't imagine what kind of relationship he could really have had with his children. Then again, however, these are questions that he himself ponders, and he doesn't agree with all of his life decisions either, nor do all of his compatriots. But it is always worthwhile to "walk a mile in another man's shoes" even if one cannot fully understand all of the decisions made.

Some quotes that I found interesting and/or thought-provoking:

Part IV, Chapter 17: "Non-violent 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. For me, nonviolence was not a moral principle but a strategy; there is no moral goodness in using an ineffective weapon." Hm, that's something I have to ponder. I don't know if I agree with this statement or if I don't.

Part V, Chapter 27: "It is best to rely on the freely given support of the people; otherwise that support is weak and fleeting. The organization should be a haven, not a prison. However, if the majority of the organization or the people support a decision, coercion can be used in certain cases against the dissident minority in the interests of the majority. A minority, however vocal, should not be able to frustrate the will of the majority."
I'm not sure what I think of this statement. It seems to be arguing against what he is fighting for. Yes, in his case, the majority happens to be the oppressed Africans, but what about in other cases where a minority group is being repressed and the majority thinks that oppression is right? They get to overrule by the "virtue" of being the majority?

Part XI, Chapter 115: "...the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and open-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.
I think more or less summarizes what the final section, and really the whole book--and whole struggle--are about. Recognizing the ways in which your "enemy" is himself entrapped by his own prejudices, and trying to work with instead of against.... oh, how much different this world would be if we all lived that way!

The audio I listened to has an interview with his collaborator/editor at the end, and I love that this man, editor of Time Magazine, was so honored to be asked to be involved with the book. He sounded genuinely astounded that he was approached for it. I don't know how much of the book was influence by his edits, but regardless, it's an amazing narration not just of Mandela, but of South Africa itself. I found it incredibly moving and inspiring.

I don't even know how to begin writing a review of Long Walk to Freedom. It might be enough to say that this autobiography does justice to its subject, Nelson Mandela, who was probably one of the greatest leaders of my lifetime or anyone else's. His burial service was this past Saturday, and I stayed up until 6 o'clock in the morning watching it online (because of the time difference between my home and South Africa), the whole time with his words swimming in my head because I've been so immersed in this amazing book.

If someone unfamiliar with his life read this book, it would seem like a preposterous story: an obscure African boy growing up in a remote rural area escapes to the city, living hand to mouth, struggles to get an education and eventually earns a law degree, uses his education and his speaking and organizing skills to protest overwhelming social and racial injustice in his country, spearheads a mass movement of freedom fighters, starts up an army to defend his people, gets arrested and tried by a corrupt justice system dedicated to the very opposite of justice, spends 27 years in prison, and emerges to bring down the regime that took away three decades of his life and help found a new nation in place of the old one, and gets elected its first president--and then forgives the people who stole almost three decades of his life.

That's a pretty breathtaking life story, and his writing is exceptional. This is no ordinary political autobiography filled with self-congratulation and entertaining anecdotes. He deals unflinchingly with his own frailties--especially his guilt over the fact that his commitment to freedom fighting imposed a tremendous burden on his family. But he also presents some really nuanced and thoughtful discussions about history, law, and political philosophy, like the African National Congress's (and his own) evolving views on non-violence and peaceful protest versus armed resistance to apartheid.

As a lawyer, one of the elements of the book that I found incredibly difficult to read was the account of the trial that sent him to prison--the government used every unscrupulous means at its disposal to guarantee a conviction. They fabricated evidence, bribed witnesses for the prosecution to commit perjury, hand-picked a panel of politically-appointed judges with ties to the white supremacist party, changed the venue of the trial to make it as inconvenient as possible for him and his co-defendants and their counsel to attend the trial, dragged the proceedings on for years to impoverish all of the defendants, eavesdropped on what limited access to counsel they afforded the defendants, and conspired with the police to conduct broad, warrantless searches and seizures. If I ever teach criminal procedure or civil procedure, on the first day of class, I will assign my students the chapters of this book that deal with Mandela's trial because it is the most vivid and upsetting account I can imagine of what can go wrong when the state doesn't enforce a level playing field in legal cases.

For all of its shocking injustices, the trial didn't break Nelson Mandela. Neither did the 27 years he spent in prison, during which he continued to provide guidance to the ANC and exert pressure on the South African government. In part because of his work, other countries began to impose sanctions on SA and intervene diplomatically to convince the government to reform. When Mandela stepped out of prison, he immediately became a leader on a world scale, which helped him force F.W. de Klerk to the bargaining table. (I am still aghast that Mandela had to share his 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with de Klerk, who later proved that he wasn't nearly the reformer that the Nobel Committee must have understood him to be at the time).

The book ends after South Africa held its first democratic election, giving Mandela's party 63 percent of the vote and electing him President. His closing is one of the best book endings I've ever read:

"I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended."

Inspirational journey from a great man. One in a billion!

“I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.

It was July 17 2016 when I took the ferry to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela spent 28 years in prison.
We were greeted by our guide, a former prisoner of the island. The minute he mentioned that, I looked around me at the faces of my fellow visitors to find each one has teared up.

The guide showed us the 2x2 meter cell where Mandela spent 18 years before relocating, the small courtyard where prisoners were allowed to spend a few hours, and the salt quarries where they worked and where Nelson's eyes were affected.

All the while, I started questioning how? How did all this not break Mandela? How did he emerge to become one of the most influential leaders of the world? what was the secret?

well, as it turned out, it wasn't a secret at all.
In this book, which I read during my flight back home and reread a couple of days ago in Honor of Nelson Mandela Day July 18th, Nelson documents his life from childhood up until he became president
Since he was a child and then a teen, he witnessed the injustice and racism of black people by the AFRIKANS in South Africa, the segregation that forced treating people by their color, the apartheid that saw the original blacks of SOUTH AFRICA as less than even the animals.

Mandela tried to do the right and peaceful way to help his people by using his law profession. But this only led him to prison. However, inside the prison, he invested his time in strengthing his mind

“Prison is itself a tremendous education in the need for patience and perseverance. It is, above all, a test of one's commitment…”

The harshness of prison life was clear within our guide when he became emotional while talking about how the prisoners were treated
Nelson documented all that in his book so the generation would never forget that up until a few years ago, depriving a human of their rights because of their skin color was a thing. and unfortunately, it is still happening.

The book is a tribute to life
a tribute to comrades fought and lost their lives to the cause
a tribute to a nation
and a tribute to a great man

It is called LONG WALK TO FREEDOM
so of course the book is thick, but every page is laced with heartbreak, cultural stories, and wisdom

Honest Truth: I gave up. And I think I subconsciously left this not-on-purpose/on-purpose in a hotel room in South Africa. To be fair, it was getting better. It's just a VERY long walk to freedom and not super well-written. I wanted to love it. I wanted to just like it. I did learn about Mandela's childhood and how he got involved in the fight against apartheid and how apartheid came about before a lost the book. I went to Robben Island and was glad for what I read. But . . .oh my! Too long. I listened to Born a Crime by Trevor Noah on my journey and it was delightful and also gave some insight on apartheid and poverty in South Africa.

All time favourite autobiography, I do believe. An astonishing man, a gripping story. How anyone ever came to conceive a system such as Apartheid is beyond me. In my early teens it was mooted that my family would move to S.A. It didn't happen because - guess what? My mother and stepfather never asked themselves where my adopted multiracial sister would fit in. Guess they hadn't really understood that Apartheid meant more than cheap servants. Nuff said.

By the way - it looks like a long book and reads like a short one - it is so easy to read that I became lost and fascinated, even though this was my third reading of the book.

At over 700 pages, Nelson Mandela's autobiography might look like a serious commitment. Actually though, it doesn't feel like a heavy book at all. Like the thinking which informs it, the writing is clear, measured and straightforward, albeit scattered with bits of Harvard English that are presumably down to Mandela's (uncredited) American ghostwriter, Richard Stengel.

I sped through it in under a week, thanks mainly to a couple of long train journeys. I'm left with a much more nuanced view of Mandela and what he stood for, and a much clearer idea of the man behind the symbol.

What I found particularly valuable were the insights into how deeply apartheid ingrained racism not just on to the white minority, but on to the attitudes and assumptions throughout the whole of South African society. Mandela at one point mentions being struck by the sight of a young beggar-girl by the side of the road in a township, and reacting completely differently because she was white:

While I did not normally give to African beggars, I felt the urge to give this woman money. In that moment I realized the tricks that apartheid plays on one, for the everyday travails that afflict Africans are accepted as a matter of course, while my heart immediately went out to this bedraggled white woman. In South Africa, to be poor and black was normal, to be poor and white was a tragedy.

A few years and several hundred pages later, he has the corollary experience while taking a clandestine flight in Ethiopia.

As I was boarding the plane I saw that the pilot was black. I had never seen a black pilot before, and the instant I did I had to quell my panic. How could a black man fly a plane? But a moment later I caught myself: I had fallen into the apartheid mind-set, thinking Africans were inferior and that flying was a white man's job.

If the leaders of the resistance movement can react like this – How could a black man fly a plane? – the reactions of less committed or thoughtful South Africans can readily be imagined, and you begin to get a sense of the sheer scale of the problem which faced the ANC and other activists. A problem which has not entirely gone away.

These are the well-chosen memories of someone interested in their own thoughts and responses, and who had the time – so much of it – to examine his life and sift out the experiences that counted. Everywhere in the book, there is this sense of a man who has thought long and hard about the choices he made, and can explain them simply and directly.

Not all of them are necessarily easy to sympathise with, or at least they perhaps shouldn't be. Let's be clear: Mandela is not Ghandi. We should remember (and he is admirably open about it) that Amnesty International always declined to work on Mandela's behalf because he refused to renounce violence as a valid tool in the fight against apartheid. He was the first head of the ANC's militant wing, the MK, and involved in paramilitary training; he drew up plans for action that ran from sabotage to guerrilla warfare. At one point, he describes his 1950s self as ‘a young man who attempted to make up for his ignorance with militancy’ – but actually, that militancy never goes away, it just becomes more grounded in political and moral justifications. Mandela's ethical sensibility is always there; but ethics are not paramount.

For me, non-violence was not a moral principle but a strategy; there is no moral goodness in using an ineffective weapon.

Effective weapons were considered to include explosives, as demonstrated for example in the Church Street bombing of 1983 which killed 19 people and wounded over 200, including many civilians. Mandela mentions it in passing, and has the following to say.

The killing of civilians was a tragic accident, and I felt a profound horror at the death toll. But disturbed as I was by these casualties, I knew that such accidents were the inevitable consequence of the decision to embark on a military struggle. Human fallibility is always a part of war, and the price of it is always high. It was precisely because we knew that such incidents would occur that our decision to take up arms had been so grave and reluctant. But as Oliver said at the time of the bombing, the armed struggle was imposed upon us by the violence of the apartheid regime.

We are on dangerous ground here. Can we put a number on how many civilian deaths are considered a reasonable price to pay for ending apartheid? At the same time, though, who on earth am I to question his decisions and moral code – I who have never experienced a fraction of the abuse and discrimination which was his daily life, and who am never likely to have to make the impossible choices that were so common under apartheid?

All I can say is Mandela doesn't shy away from it. I may not always be comfortable about it, but I felt a deep respect for his willingness to stand behind his actions and explain them as best he can.

Ultimately, Mandela was saved from being a truly ambiguous figure by the simple fact that he was arrested and imprisoned before he could be directly involved in any violence himself; for him, it's all theoretical, and, locked away behind bars, he could be viewed more simply as an innocent martyr to a just cause. And indeed, it's in his response to the years of incarceration that the greatness of Mandela's character comes through. Twenty-seven years in jail would be enough to make any man bitter; but he is the opposite of bitter. Time and again he shows himself willing to listen to and work with those who might easily be called his enemies – from dissenting black activists, through ambivalent prison warders, up to the president of South Africa.

It's his astonishing ability to do without bitterness – essentially, his capacity for forgiveness – which really makes Mandela an inspiration. Perhaps it's my naïveté, but I can't help concluding that, when international pressure got too much for South Africa's government, it was Mandela's openness in negotiations which forged the breakthrough and not the MK's sporadic attempts to meet violence with violence. That's certainly what I'll take away from this excellent and fascinating memoir: that, and a delight in his unshakable belief that no matter how degrading the conditions, or how long the imprisonment, no one had the power to damage who he was on the inside:

Prison and the authorities conspire to rob each man of his dignity. In and of itself, that assured that I would survive, for any man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose because I will not part with it at any price or under any pressure.