As I type this I’m listening to the BBC’s coverage of the memorial service for Nelson Mandela that is being held at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg. Leaders from the U.S., China, Brazil, the U.K., India, Afghanistan, Liberia, France, Cuba and scores of other countries are arriving to join more than 90,000 mourners who are gathering to show their respects to Mandela.
While awaiting the start of the proceedings, I’ve been listening to the sounds of the stadium and leafing through “Long Walk to Freedom,” Mandela’s autobiography. I’ve been re-reading Mandela’s speech at the Rivonia trial, at which Mandela and fellow members of the African National Congress were convicted of conspiring to overthrow South Africa’s apartheid government.
The trial took place over roughly 20 months beginning in October 1962. As Mandela describes, the defense case began in April 1964 with a statement from the dock by Mandela. In his address, Mandela detailed the disparities between the lives of blacks and whites in South Africa and described the aims and objects of the ANC, which included the following:
Africans want a just share in the whole of South Africa; they want security and a stake in society. Above all, we want equal political rights, because without them our disabilities will be permanent. I know this sounds revolutionary to the whites in this country, because the majority of voters will be Africans. This makes the white man fear democracy. This then is what the ANC is fighting for. Their struggle is a truly national one. It is a struggle of the African people, inspired by their own suffering and their own experience. It is a struggle for the right to live.
After reading for four hours, Mandela turned to face the judge and delivered from memory the final words:
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.