I’ve recently finished reading Nelson Mandela’s 750-page autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom – and it truly was a long walk… and a long read for me. But a passionate one. One that offers powerful insights and parallels with the human mind and today’s world, and if you’re passionate about geopolitics and psychology just like me, you’ll probably enjoy it.
What follows is not an essay in the strict sense – although I concede it turned out quite long, it is still very short compared to Mandela’s 750 pages and even shorter compared to the flood of thoughts it sparked in me. Honestly, I could have written a book myself… but instead, let’s call this a reflection and commentary. It begins with a summary of Mandela’s life as he presents it in his autobiography, showing how he gradually evolved into a freedom fighter and a statesman. At the same time, it moves back and forth between past and present, because the injustices he faced and the dilemmas he wrestled with still echo today.
By retracing Mandela’s path – from his childhood in the Thembu royal household, through his years of political awakening, resistance, imprisonment, and eventual leadership – I explore not only his moral and political evolution but also the troubling parallels with our world. Leaders who promote liberty abroad while suppressing it at home, activists dismissed as “radicals,” and societies struggling with discrimination and exclusion: these patterns have not disappeared. Mandela’s story teaches us that history is not only a record of the past but also a guide and a warning for the present.
From Childhood to Fort Hare: Mandela’s Political Awakening
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The Nelson Mandela we know today was not always the committed anti-apartheid leader we remember. In his childhood and even into his student years, politics barely crossed his mind. He was focused more on education and preparing to join the African elite than on questioning the system around him. His father – a chief – had been removed from office by a white magistrate, a blow to the family, yet Mandela was at the time unaware of its political meaning.
Growing up, he rarely encountered white people. But when he did, he understood they were to be treated with a mix of respect and fear.
As his education advanced – first at Healdtown College, a mission school, and later at Fort Hare University – his political awareness slowly began to take shape. His sense of identity expanded beyond his own tribe to the wider South African nation, and a shared African struggle gradually replaced his tribal loyalties. The deference he once showed toward whites gave way to a growing conviction that he was their equal.
At Fort Hare, political debates were common. Many students came from across Africa and were already engaged in nationalist and anti-colonial movements. These exchanges exposed Mandela to new ideas and planted the first seeds of political awareness. But for the moment, he was still somewhat shielded from the harsh realities of apartheid – not yet the radical leader he would later become. That transformation only began later when he moved to Johannesburg, where he confronted the injustices of apartheid directly.
A Parallel with the Present: The Paradox of Jan Smuts and Macron
At the end of Mandela’s first year at Fort Hare, Jan Smuts – the former South African Prime Minister – spoke at the graduation ceremony. Smuts was widely admired abroad for helping to found the League of Nations and, later, for his role in drafting the UN Charter. Mandela was curious to see such a figure and found him sympathetic. Smuts was then campaigning for South Africa to declare war on Germany.
Reflecting later, Mandela wrote:
“I cared more that he had helped to found the League of Nations, promoting freedom around the world, than the fact that he repressed freedom at home.”
This reminded me how leaders can project progress abroad while sustaining injustice at home. For example, Emmanuel Macron – the current French president -presents a liberal image internationally, yet in France his policies have been criticised by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for disproportionately targeting Muslims. Former Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin dissolved Muslim associations and mosques without court rulings, while the current Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau has called for bans on the hijab in universities and even declared: “Long live sport, and down with the veil,” implying that Muslim women should be excluded from public life.
These policies echo France’s colonial past and mirror the rise of the far right. They are a populist tool to attract voters, but at the cost of fuelling stigma, division, and discrimination – which in turn lead to real-world aggressions against Muslims and other visible minorities, such as the recent killing of a Muslim man stabbed while praying in a mosque by an attacker shouting anti-Muslim slurs.
But to return to Mandela’s story: this contrast between a leader’s international image and domestic actions is not new. Smuts, too, was admired abroad while enforcing unjust laws at home, supported by many whites and even by some non-whites whose privilege shielded them from daily oppression. Macron shows a similar pattern: although his popularity is low, some still support him as a source of “stability”. This view is easier to hold when one is not directly affected by discriminatory policies – including some Muslims who, thanks to social position or privilege, have been partly shielded from them. However, without justice, stability is a utopia. Perhaps justice itself is also a utopia, but the more we strive for it, the closer we come to real stability, even if imperfect.
Challenging the Label of “Radical”
Smuts’s visit sparked heated debate. Nyathi Khongisa, a respected student, condemned Smuts as a racist: “We might consider ourselves ‘black Englishmen,’ but the English oppressed us even as they tried to ‘civilise’ us.” He warned that Boer (white South Africans of Dutch descent) and British would ultimately unite against what they saw as the Black threat. Many students – Mandela included – dismissed his words as dangerously radical.
Mandela’s reaction feels very contemporary. Khongisa’s words were grounded in truth, yet labelled extreme. It reminded me of how activists today are often branded as “radicals” or “extremists” simply because they challenge injustice.
Take climate justice: groups like Extinction Rebellion use nonviolent protest to demand urgent action. Yet politicians call them dangerous radicals because their demands -ending fossil fuel subsidies, phasing out oil and gas, transforming the economy – clash with powerful interests. By framing them as extreme, governments justify repression.
(Image credit: Guy Smallman / Getty Images)
The same happens with press freedom. Journalists who expose corruption or war crimes are accused of being “anti-national” or “destabilising.” In the UK and US, Julian Assange – founder of WikiLeaks, who published leaked documents exposing war crimes and government misconduct – has faced years of prosecution not because of the leaks themselves, but because of the truths they revealed. While claiming to defend democracy, these states were killing civilians, manipulating conflicts, and waging wars for power and profit.
In a just system, such truths would be faced, acknowledged, and corrected. Instead, the response is often repression – silencing Assange and others who dare to speak out. And because politicians and governments frame them as dangerous, much of the public ends up believing it. The pattern is clear: those who challenge injustice are often branded as threats until history proves them right.
This was exactly Mandela’s situation. At Fort Hare, he still dismissed voices like Khongisa’s as too radical, because he had not yet lived the daily brutality of apartheid. Only after moving to Johannesburg did he experience its injustices firsthand – a turning point that radically changed his outlook. There, as a Black man, he directly confronted the daily humiliations of segregation, and this experience gradually transformed him into one of the very radicals he had once criticised. Later, he too would face the same kind of dismissal – branded an extremist and prosecuted for demanding what was, in truth, justice and equality.
Exile to Johannesburg: A Turning Point
During his second year at Fort Hare (1940), Mandela was elected to the Student Representative Council (SRC). Later that year, students protested against the poor quality of food and the limited role of the SRC. Mandela supported their grievances and resigned in solidarity.
The principal, Dr. Kerr, ordered him to return to his post or face expulsion. After careful thought, Mandela refused to compromise his duty to the students and his principles – and was expelled. This was his first open clash with authority, and it taught him the moral weight of standing by one’s convictions.
After his expulsion, Mandela moved to Johannesburg. This was a decisive turning point in his political awakening. In the city, he saw the harsh reality of segregation: “whites only” facilities and the pass laws that forced Black South Africans to carry documents showing where they lived and worked.
In Johannesburg, Mandela met a circle of radical young thinkers who rejected gradual reform and embraced African nationalism – i.e. the belief that Black Africans alone should govern their country, since whites were foreign oppressors. One of them, Anton Lembede, impressed Mandela with his confidence and unapologetic nationalism. Under his influence, Mandela moved away from his earlier deference to whites and embraced the belief that Africans had the right to govern themselves.
At the same time, his night classes at the University of the Witwatersrand planted the seeds of a more nuanced view. There, as one of the few Black students, Mandela met liberal and communist white classmates who opposed segregation. These encounters did not erase his belief in African self-rule, but they showed him that allies could exist across racial lines. This realisation would later broaden his political thinking and help him balance nationalism with inclusivity.
Mandela Joins the Resistance
In 1943, after joining the Alexandra Bus Boycott (a large protest against bus fare increases), Mandela entered the African National Congress (ANC). In the following years, he became more active, helping to create the ANC Youth League in 1944 and becoming an important figure in the struggle. Mandela and his peers gave the ANC new energy, pushing it to move beyond petitions and polite appeals toward organised protests and civil disobedience.
In 1948, the National Party came to power and formalised apartheid: what had been widespread racism and segregation now became full state policy, with laws controlling every aspect of life. One example was the Group Areas Act (1950), which legalised the forced removal of non-white communities and created racially segregated residential zones.
As Mandela recalled:
“Under its regulations, each racial group could own land, occupy premises, and trade only in its own separate area… If whites wanted the land or houses of another group, they could simply declare the land a white area and take it.”
Whites no longer needed brute force to seize land – they could now displace non-whites under the protection of the law.
A similar reality exists today in Palestine. In East Jerusalem and across the West Bank, Palestinians face systematic evictions and demolitions on the grounds that they lack building permits – permits that are almost never granted, since zoning laws and planning rules are deliberately designed to exclude them. Entire villages are declared ‘state land’ or ‘military zones,’ forcing Palestinians out while allowing Israeli settlers to move in. Just as apartheid South Africa used law to legitimise dispossession, Israel uses planning regulations and property laws to dress it up as legal.
In South Africa, years of peaceful petitions and appeals were ignored, and instead of reform the state only tightened apartheid. Frustration grew, and In 1949, the ANC Youth League – led by Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and Oliver Tambo – persuaded the ANC to adopt a Programme of Action. Inspired by Gandhi’s movement in India, it promoted mass mobilisation, strikes, and civil disobedience. This led to the Defiance Campaign of 1952, the largest act of nonviolent resistance against apartheid to that date.
Mandela explained that the campaign would have two stages: in the first, small groups of trained volunteers would break apartheid laws on purpose – by entering ‘Whites Only’ areas, using restricted facilities, or staying out after curfew – and then accept being arrested. The second stage was planned as mass defiance, with strikes and industrial action across the country.
After the campaign, Mandela was arrested but avoided prison with a suspended sentence. The following year, in 1953, the government banned him under the Suppression of Communism Act, forcing him to resign from the ANC and preventing him from attending meetings. From then on, he had to continue the struggle underground.
That same year, repression deepened with the Bantu Education Act (1953), which created a deliberately inferior system for Black children. Minister Hendrik Verwoerd explained that education “must train and teach people in accordance with their opportunities in life.” By this he meant that Africans would only be trained for menial labour. As he declared: “There is no place for the Bantu in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour.”
In 1956, Mandela and 155 other activists were arrested and charged with High Treason. He was released on bail a few days later, but his commitment to the liberation struggle only deepened. As so often happens, repression did not silence resistance – it only strengthened it.
From Peaceful Protest to Armed Struggle
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In 1960, the Sharpeville Massacre marked a turning point: 69 unarmed protesters against the pass laws were killed by police. This convinced Mandela that the state would never be moved by nonviolent protest alone. The only option left was carefully planned sabotage against government infrastructure – actions designed to avoid loss of life but send a strong political message.
As history shows, when peaceful protest is silenced and oppression only tightens, resistance eventually shifts toward violence. Think of the French Revolution against absolute monarchy and inequality, or the Algerian War against French colonial rule – stark reminders that those who once fought for liberty can themselves become oppressors. The same pattern is visible today in Palestine and beyond. It is a reminder that we must remain vigilant, not only toward the injustices of others, but also toward the risk of reproducing oppression ourselves.
Mandela later explained:
“We had used all the nonviolent weapons in our arsenal… all to no avail. A freedom fighter learns that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle. At a certain point, one can only fight fire with fire.”
In 1961, Mandela and other leaders secretly founded Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the ANC, with Mandela as its first commander-in-chief. MK’s first mission was sabotage – targeting power stations, communications lines, and government buildings – while avoiding civilian deaths. Guerrilla warfare would be considered only if sabotage failed.
Later, Mandela was arrested for his role in MK in what became known as the Rivonia Trial. He faced the death penalty, but instead of defending himself, he gave his now-famous “I Am Prepared to Die” speech, arguing that armed struggle had become a necessity, forced on them by the white racist government, and reaffirming his vision of a democratic, nonracial South Africa. In the end, he and seven others were sentenced not to death but to life imprisonment.
From Prison to Freedom
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For 27 years, Mandela lived behind bars – and even there, apartheid’s racial discrimination continued. Prisoners were given food according to race. Africans received less than Coloured and Indian prisoners, who in turn received less than whites. As Mandela explained, even the type of sugar and bread was different: whites got white sugar and white bread, while Coloured and Indian prisoners were given brown sugar and brown bread. A reminder of the capacity for cruel meticulousness that humans can show – cruelty often justified with apparent logic and reason.
Even in prison, Mandela and his colleagues continued to study, organise, and protest against these conditions. They refused to let the authorities crush their hope or their will to fight. They stayed informed about the outside world and prepared for the day they could return to the struggle. Though condemned to life imprisonment, they never lost faith that freedom – for themselves and for their people – would one day come.
By the late 1980s, the apartheid regime was under growing pressure. Inside South Africa, uprisings, strikes, and protests had become unmanageable. Abroad, sanctions, boycotts, and diplomatic isolation made the system costly to maintain. Although Western powers like the US and UK resisted for years – protecting South Africa as a Cold War ally – global pressure eventually forced them to support wide-ranging sanctions, from arms embargoes to economic and cultural boycotts. This international isolation, combined with internal resistance, pushed the government into negotiations for reform.
Photograph: PA
This is a little reminder to whoever believes sanctions against Israel – which is currently committing a genocide, while colonising and depriving Palestinians of their rights and of a state – would do nothing. South Africa proves the opposite: coordinated international pressure can dismantle even entrenched systems of oppression. And Israel is even more vulnerable to such measures, because it is highly integrated into Western trade, tech, and military systems. If the EU and US truly coordinated full sanctions, boycotts, arms embargoes, and diplomatic isolation, Israel would be under enormous pressure. The reason it is not happening, despite Israel’s colonisation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocidal policies, is that Israel was created by the West in the Mddle East as an indirect continuation of their colonial policies, it acts as their representative in the Middle East and serves as their strategic partner, ensuring that countries like Iran, which have a policy opposed to the interests of the West, do not take a dominant position in the region, as this would weaken US/Western influence in the region, and threaten their access to oil, trade routes, and military dominance.
South Africa shows us that even entrenched systems of oppression can be dismantled under enough internal and external pressure. And it was in this context that Mandela’s release became a symbol of change not only for South Africa, but for the whole world. On 11 February 1990, after 27 years in prison, Nelson Mandela walked out of Victor Verster Prison holding his wife Winnie’s hand as the world watched. It was a powerful moment: a man silenced for nearly three decades was free again. Many expected him to call for revenge, but instead Mandela spoke of reconciliation and unity. He made it clear that his goal was not to replace one system of oppression with another, but to build a democratic, nonracial South Africa through peaceful talks.
What Mandela Teaches Me – and Us
Mandela’s story is one of hope, evolution, and moral strength. He did not begin as the anti-apartheid leader we know today. At first, he was insulated from politics, preparing to join the Black elite and showing deference to white authority – much like many people today who remain distant from injustice until it touches them directly. But once he faced apartheid’s brutality, he grew more aware, became an activist, and was soon branded radical, persecuted, and sentenced to life in prison. Yet prison did not break him – it strengthened him. Decades later, when freed, he emerged not broken but stronger, ready to become the leader we remember today: just, idealistic, and determined, yet also pragmatic enough to choose reconciliation over revenge, and to build an inclusive vision for South Africa.
As he took on this role, his goal was not to replace one system of oppression with another, but to build a democratic, nonracial South Africa. His main tool was strategic dialogue – a deliberate way of negotiating that relied on mutual recognition, listening, and compromise. He worked to humanise even his opponents, to understand their fears, and to use his moral authority to push for reconciliation.
This is something many who admire him today still find hard to understand. It’s natural to want revenge after years of injustice – and Mandela had suffered greatly: losing much of his youth, being separated from his family, and enduring discrimination even in prison. Yet he came out with the same determination and hope he had when he first began his struggle: to end racism and apartheid and to create an inclusive country, one that also included those who had oppressed him and his people.
Did he succeed? To a large extent, yes. Apartheid was dismantled, Black South Africans gained full political rights, and the country avoided large-scale civil war. But deep economic inequality, racial tensions, and political challenges remain. This is a reminder that dismantling an unjust system is only the first step in building true equality – a step our world, even today, still struggles to take.
Another reminder is this: what is branded “radical” today may be recognised as necessary tomorrow – but only once injustice is seen and felt. Those who dismiss struggles for justice often do so not because they are more reasonable, but because they are more shielded. Privilege hides injustice from view, and it is such a comfortable blindness that many don’t even realise they are blind. Mandela’s story reminds us of our responsibility: to open our eyes before experience forces them open, to question the comfort that keeps us passive, and to stand with those who suffer – before history proves them right.
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