Reviewed by the Rev. Shelton A. de Silva, Methodist Church
The autobiography of Nelson Mandela is a thrilling book to read. It does not, as some books do, give an intimate account of the sex life of its author, or dramatise his spiritual gifts and graces. (What a good boy am I!). These one discovers by reading between the lines, and what one sees is an honest picture of a very noble man.

Early beginnings
Mandela does not try to bask in false glory. He does not fall into the temptation of depicting himself as one who climbed "from log cabin to White House." He does not hide that his childhood was spent in poverty, but he mentions that much of his good fortune came his way because he was the son of an African chief of royal blood, whose father played an important role in appointing one of the claimants to the throne as king. This man in gratitude for what Mandela's father had done, saw that Nelson was given the best education available for an African boy.

Nelson's father believed in and worshipped his tribal gods, but Nelson's mother became a Christian and a Methodist. Although Nelson's father was an uneducated man he was quick to realise that Nelson was unusually precocious and would benefit by being sent to school. At this school the family name was dropped as it was rather cumbersome (as are our Sinhala ge names) and he was called Nelson. Whether Mandela was influenced by the leadership qualities of the British Sea Lord, we do not know; but he seems to have inherited the capacity of Nelson to turn a blind eye to the faults and failings of his colleagues, and to appreciate their good qualities.

Chieftaincy and church
The two chief influences that governed Nelson's life as a schoolboy were the chieftaincy and the Church. There was the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa which taught that the subservience of the black to the white was inherent in biblical theology. Mandela belonged to the Methodist Church, and had good friends in the Anglican Church which came out boldly against apartheid. For Nelson the Church stood for social justice. God was wise and omnipotent and would let no bad deed go unpunished.

Again, the chief-taincy too influenced Nelson very strongly. He noted that from time to time there would be meetings of the whole tribe in which every male member (the women had yet no recognition), was allowed to speak without let or hindrance, and the regent listened to all patiently without interrupting anyone.

"Democracy meant that all men were to be heard, and a decision taken as a people. Majority rule was a foreign notion. A minority was not crushed by a majority." Nelson says that as a political leader he learnt a great deal from his tribe.

Early education
When Nelson was nineteen he was sent to the Wesleyan College (High School) in Fort Beaufort. Here he heard a few words from a black poet who had been invited to speak, who insisted that the blacks should put away the false Gods of the white man. As a result of this speech, Nelson saw that tribalism was a good thing as it gave place to the cultural values of the people. Many tribes had many and different virtues. Uniting the insights of all the tribes into a dream of a united South Africa was even better.

Looking beyond
Mandela had the rare gift of looking beyond tribal and communal goals. He was of the tribe of the xhosas, and could easily raised to be the tribal chief with all the comforts and emoluments that went with the regency.

The British, for reasons of their own, encouraged the local tribal regions to fight and defend their local interests. This was a policy of dividing and ruling which had long been a Western political device to keep the 'natives' in subjection.

Mandela saw limitations of a local scrambling for power, and dreamt of an United South Africa, composed of all the African tribes, the Indians and the Africans. When he began his long walk to freedom, he could not have foreseen that one day he would be the instrument of laying low the most oppressive system of racial division the world had hitherto known.

The Americans had fought wars for the liberation of the blacks from the dominance of the whites. They were helped by many in their highest seats of learning who supported the liberation of the blacks. In South Africa it seemed a mad dream to expect the victors of the Boer War to accept democracy in terms of "one man - one vote"; but Mandela had this dream and educated his black and the Indians and the white Communists to see its possibilities.

Mandela was greatly attracted to the Communist ideology but he regarded the Communist support of the blacks just as a step towards a classless society. In this sense Communism was a white man's philosophy which used the oppression of the blacks for their own ends. Mandela saw through the Communist interests in his fight, but whereas "Communism" was a bad word to the capitalist societies of the U.S. and the U.K., Mandela refused to ignore the possibilities of Communist help. He went ahead and enlisted the help of Communist China and Communist Russia in military training for his fellows.

These two powers were playing their own game in using Mandela and his cause in their favour. But Mandela saw that if he allowed them to use him, he could use their influence in the United Nations and other International fora.

Even the Russians and the Chinese, with the evidence of Gandhi's non-violence behind them, never dreamed that Mandela was fighting like David against the Goliath of Apartheid.

As I mentioned before, the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, the British Government business-men, the followers of non-violence as a political idealogy, were against him, but he did not quail in confronting their might. He was greatly helped by the Methodist Church's plea for social justice and the outright opposition of the Anglican Church in refusing to approve of separate education for whites and blacks.

Trevor Huddlestone inspired him, and he had to tell his own followers and the non-violent sympathisers that non-violence was no absolute philosophy but a political strategy for the Africans. Mandela was strong enough to point out that the British in India in 1947, and the Americans in 1962, were a different kind of fore for the type of rabid racist that his people had to fight. He therefore prepared his young people for military action if necessary, but he hoped it would never be necessary. He was a political realist in seeing through the problem.

One step at a time
The secret of Mandela's success was that he took one step at a time. He never expected in 1962 that he would be incarcerated in Robben Island for 27 years. However as he lived from day to day, his advanced education as a lawyer and his refusal to be petty earned him the respect of the white jailors. The jailors tried to humiliate him by giving him short trousers to wear (the sign of menial), and cutting down his already inadequate food, but Mandela had enough self-confidence to refuse to be diminished by the pinpricks of his jailors.

Despite his confinement he got up at 5 a.m. and did an hour of physical jerks and running in one place. He believed in keeping himself in physical trim. Further he saw that if his jailors treated him and his fellow blacks as if they were animals and sub-human, it was because for centuries both Church and State had conditioned them to think in those terms. If only people could be educated and they would behave differently.

Mandela's own life was an example of the fruits of that educational process. When rabid Commissioners of Prison were sent to tame him he agitated for their removal but he held no personal feelings of bitterness against them. This made at least one rabid commissioner shake Mandela's hand in farewell and wish him and his cause good luck! Christian love was superior to piety and devotion and earned the respect of his foes.

Reconciliation
In his fight for freedom Mandela refused to be judgemental about others. When he came into power his younger colleagues wanted to treat the whites as harshly as they had treated him. The boot was now on the other foot. Mandela pleaded for forgiveness and reconciliation. "If after 27 years of incarceration I can forgive the whites why can't your?". This was an unanswerable argument, but even forgiveness had to give way to love and social justice.

When his wife, Winnie, was accused of misbehaviour and even of murder, Mandela refused to use his influence as President to hinder the path of justice. He himself did not believe that Winnie had been guilty of murder, but if the Supreme Court held that she had committed murder, it was not for him to interfere. He divorced his wife Winne and wrote her a very apologetic letter and blamed himself for that had happened to her.

Despite her loyalty to him, his incarceration had not made it possible for him to fulfil his role as husband, father or grandfather. He was married to the cause for which he was fighting and owed it to the people to live by the rules he believed in, and his loved ones had to pay the price of his single-mindedness.

Mandela's daughter said, "When my father was released from jail we were hoping that he would now be free to be a father to us. But we discovered that he could not fulfil that role because he had become by then the Father of the whole nation."

To those with eyes to read between the lines, the book speaks volumes of a man who regarded his role as an accident of history and not a matter of his own virtue. Nelson himself says the same kind of thing Nehru said of his role in India's struggle. But Mandela avoided the temptation of seeking advantages for his own tribe, and was humble enough to live a day at a time, and never, never gave up the hope that vision that he had for his country and all Africa, was something he had to cherish for the sake of the ages to come. He was, in many senses, the child of his times, but he had the vision to see beyond 2000 and become a legend of the future.

(Long walk to freedom - The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela - Little, Brown and Company; Boston, New York, Toronto, London.)