📚 Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

'Apartheid' is a political system that separates people according to their race. South Africa had such a political system until the 1990s.

Nelson Mandela, and his African National Congress, spent a lifetime fighting against apartheid. Mandela had to spend thirty years in prison. Finally, democratic elections were held in South Africa in 1994, and Mandela became the first black President of a new nation.

In pairs, discuss what you know about Nelson Mandela and the apartheid system in South Africa. What challenges might a country face after overcoming such a system of segregation?

Read this news item (from the BBC) of 10 May 1994:

Mandela Becomes South Africa's First Black President

Nelson Mandela has become South Africa's first Black President after more than three centuries of White rule. Mr Mandela's African National Congress (ANC) party won 252 of the 400 seats in the first democratic elections of South Africa's history.

The inauguration ceremony took place in the Union Buildings amphitheatre in Pretoria today, attended by politicians and dignitaries from more than 140 countries around the world. "Never, never again will this beautiful land experience the oppression of one by another," said Nelson Mandela in his address.

… Jubilant scenes on the streets of Pretoria followed the ceremony with blacks, whites and coloureds celebrating together... More than 100,000 South African men, women and children of all races sang and danced with joy.

Nelson Mandela's writing is marked by balance: many sentences have two parts in balance.

Do you think there is colour prejudice in our own country? Consider what Mandela says: "No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin; people must learn to hate."