NELSON MANDELA

Rip It Up, Issue 85, 1 August 1984, Page 18

NELSON MANDELA

‘Are you so blind that you cannot see?'

Normally it's only accorded to the Prime Minister... but a couple of Saturday nights back on TV prime-time, the same man was featuring on both channels at once. On TVI Special AKA’s hit monopolised Ready To Roll while on TV2 Foreign Correspondent was carrying a documentary on Nelson Mandela. Pure coincidence

or the will of fate? Mandela is a remarkable man and despite the fact that only his jailers have seen him for the last 22 years a great many people throughout the world still regard him as the future leader of South Africa. This is particularly true for black South Africans who are not under law even allowed to quote from Mandela's speeches or discuss his views in public. By the early 1960 s Mandela had become head of the African National Congress which attracted vast support among the black South African masses. In 1961 the white Government banned the A.N.C. and soon Mandela came to be dubbed ‘the Black Pimpernel’ for his skill in evading arrest. He was finally caught in August of the following year to be tried for a range of crimes, from leaving the country without a passport (he had been to Britain) to, in his

second trial, sabotage. In both trials Mandela conducted his own defence and skilfully used the courtroom as a platform to publicize the plight of South Africa’s blacks. (Space prevents quotation from these famous speeches but they are readily accessible in NZ. Consult your local library or try, for example, Donald Wood’s book Biko in Penguin paperback.) Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment. He has been on South Africa's Robben Island ever since and according to the white government's policy on political prisoners will not be allowed any remission of his sentence of life-plus-five-years. Or parole. Or amnesty. Ever. PT - . j : ■ - ■ ‘Are you so dumb that you cannot speak? I’m begging you Free Nelson Mandela