Long Walk to Freedom

The end of 2017 helped me turn over the last page of and close up the book I was reading – Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela’s autobiography. The following are a few summary points I got about Nelson Mandela from this book.

Mandela lived a life for a belief He believed that black South Africans were the people of the land and must have no less right and freedom to live on the land than the whites who were from elsewhere. The belief was seeded and had been further formed and developed since he was 9 years old boy living as an adopted son to a tribe regent. The belief was as strong as it in his bone and soul. He lived his life for this belief - being jailed for 27 years (1962 to 1990) but neve stopped the struggle for the belief, as a leader and an actual doer. As a hero and one of the greatest historic figures of black people and people of all nations, for the belief and for the people of his country, he sacrificed his immediate families and his own personal life.

Mandela had the foremost visions Mandela was always the one that enlightened the most foreseeing visions. This included forming the Youth League, the necessity of the armed struggles, and the approach of the famous negotiation for the majority party government, etc. These visions were significantly important in that history. Any of them may have shorten the history or saved the people’s life by a large scale. These visions made Mandela a leader and key player in the ANC party. Without realizing the negotiation as an opportunity was the history had offered and taking it to make progress, the history of South Africa may have diverted to something very different.

Right visions and right directions have been significantly important in any revolutionary times in human being history. Who has the right visions who has the light leading to the victory. This can be easily proved by the China history of the last 100 years.

Strategies Made him a winner at the end There are quite a lot paragraphs in the book recorded how those significant strategies developed and how they worked. Such as: 1) the strategies when the struggles had to go underground; 2) the strategies of running the operations of the struggles in prison; 3) the strategies of explicitly confronting the violence of the authority; and 4) the strategies employed in the famous negotiations for the majority party government.

Implementation and action Mandela not just had visions and principles, he put things in action, including actioning himself. When the armed struggle was needed at the time, he took the lead and actioned. Took the courage or even the risk to action gained him respect and helped him build solid leadership in ANC party. When he was in jail, he wrote political articles that were needed for the struggles outside. In his early years, he actively involved the formation of the ANC Youth League. That should be considered a very bold move. And I believe the drive was he wanted to effectively action and did not believe that the ANC at that time was effectively functioning.  

Mandela still lived a life by some effort when he was in jail

• The life in jail was boring. He made it more interesting and more even memorable. He made himself a popular person. He had respect from everyone. One time a nurse working in the jail had a birthday party and even came to Mandela inviting him in person. That was really a rear thing in that time in South Africa. Mandela politely told her he would like to go but by the rules of jail she has to ask the warden for approval. Obviously he would not be allowed to attend. Then, interesting enough, the nurse actually held the birthday party in jail area to make Mandela to be part of it.
• The life in jail was boring and the food was poor as well. Mandela requested to plant vegetables some area available. He planted and grew the vegetables using his own time. The vegetables were so good at the end that even the wardens some times came to get vegetables for their home.
• He wrote his autobiography in jail.
• He registered and completed a law study degree from a university in UK when he was in jail in South Africa. That was really a distance study.