Today the world mourns the death of Nelson Mandela, the icon for freedom and justice not only in South Africa but also around the world. There is no doubt that his speeches and statements are recognized exemplars of what we mean by ethical public argument. Perhaps his most eloquent statement on freedom and justice is represented by the opening statement he made in his defense at the Rivonia trial in Pretoria, South Africa, on April 20, 1964. As the speech by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King at the “March on Washington” delivered a year earlier is remember by a single, ringing phrase—“I Have a Dream”—so is the speech by Nelson Mandela remembered for its final phrase: “I Am Prepared to Die.”
The white Nationalist Government of the Republic of South Africa had charged Mandela and seven others with sabotage and planning to overthrow the government. The defendants’ conviction led to the 27 years of imprisonment for Mandela and the others on Robben Island off Cape Town. The context for the trial was the formation of the organization, Umkontho we Sizwe (the “Spear of the Nation”), or MK for short, to initiate a campaign of sabotage against the infrastructure maintaining the Nationalist Party’s control of South Africa. Of course, the underlying context was that government’s policy known as Apartheid, begun in 1948 when the extremist white Nationalist party came to power (although official oppression of the African majority goes back to 1912 after the Afrikaners, or Boers, achieved power in the newly created Union of South Africa). The word means “separateness” in Afrikaans and its pronunciation, appropriately, is close to “Apart-hate.” After the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, Mandela and other leaders of the African National Congress, or ANC, the major nationalist organization for majority democratic rule in South Africa, determined that nonviolence was not working, as the white government met any nonviolent protest or demonstration with violent repression.
The speech is lengthy and much of the first two-thirds is characterized by a carefully crafted rebuttal of the prosecution’s case: Mandela was, after all, an attorney. The arguments are noteworthy for their clarity and cogency. A major theme is that the African National Congress, founded in 1912, aims at the creation of a non-racial state, to be based on racial harmony. In addition, the ANC remains committed to non-violence, recalling the policy of the other famous lawyer who fought for justice in South Africa, Mohandas Gandhi. The new organization, MK, was to remain separate from the ANC, although there would be overlap between memberships. The sabotage to be carried out by MK had to avoid causing loss of life—MK members performing operations were forbidden to carry weapons. The objective of MK was to make South Africa less attractive to foreign investors in order to bring economic pressure on the government.
Mandela also deals with two specific claims by the government that the conspirators aimed at fomenting guerilla warfare and the ANC and MK were essentially communist movements. Mandela does admit that the leadership of MK discussed the possibility of guerilla war down the road should all other efforts at influencing the current government of South Africa be ineffectual. Regarding the organizations’ cooperation with the Communist Party of South Africa, Mandela maintains that such cooperation was due to the fact that these organizations aimed at the first goal of ending Apartheid and bringing about a democratic government with an empowered African majority. He points out that in the recent World War II, the US and Great Britain allied with and cooperated with the Communist regime of the Soviet Union, yet no one suggested that Churchill and Roosevelt were therefore Communists.
This section of the speech leads into the concluding portion, which contains the most eloquent passages in defending the fight for justice and rights for the non-white population. Here Mandela contends,
“Our fight is against real and not imaginary hardships or, to use the language of the State Prosecutor, ‘so-called hardships’. Basically, My Lord, we fight against two features which are the hallmarks of African life in South Africa and which are entrenched by legislation which we seek to have repealed. These features are poverty and lack of human dignity, and we do not need communists or so-called ‘agitators’ to teach us about these things.”
The problem is not that whites are rich and Africans are poor, but that the current government intends by legislation to make that situation permanent. It was official government policy to keep education for African people elementary and to keep Africans from obtaining skills for any occupation other than menial. He quotes the Afrikaner Minister for Education in 1954, who stated, “When I have control of Native Education I will reform it so that Natives will be taught from childhood to realise [sic] that equality with Europeans is not for them.” [“Natives” was the standard word used by the government for African people; “Bantu” being an alternative.]
Mandela recognizes that the whites in South Africa may well fear true democracy reasoning that they would be dominated by Africans, as they have dominated the non-whites. But, claims Mandela, “Political division, based on colour [sic] is entirely artificial and, when it disappears, so will the domination of one colour group by another.”
Mandela concludes his statement with a stirring call for freedom and justice:
“During my lifetime I have dedicated my life 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 will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realised. But, My Lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
Speech text: http://db.nelsonmandela.org/speeches/pub_view.asp?pg=item&ItemID=NMS010&txtstr=prepared%20to%20die
Sharpeville Massacre: http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/sharpeville-massacre-21-march-1960
Rivonia Trial: http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/rivonia-trial-1963-1964
See Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, 1994, especially Part Seven, “Rivonia.”
Bill Neher
Bill Neher is professor emeritus of communication studies at Butler University, where he taught for 42 years. Over those years he has served as Dean of the University College, Director of the Honors Program, Head of the Department of Communication Studies, the Chair of the faculty governance, and most recently as the first Dean (Interim) for the new College of Communication begun in June 2010. He is the author of several books dealing with organizational and professional communication, ethics, and African studies, plus several public speaking and communication text books.
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