The Extract — Inauguration Day and Reflections on Freedom

The tenth of May arrived bathed in bright sunshine and clear skies. In the days before, Mandela had been surrounded by a steady stream of world leaders and international dignitaries arriving to pay their respects ahead of the ceremony — it was already set to become the largest gathering of international leaders ever assembled on South African soil. The setting was the graceful amphitheatre formed by the Union Buildings in Pretoria, constructed of warm sandstone. For many decades, that building had been a symbol of white supremacy — and now it would host a rainbow gathering Metaphor of different peoples and nations, marking the birth of South Africa's first truly democratic government.

Mandela's daughter Zenani accompanied him on that day. From the podium, he watched as Mr de Klerk was first sworn in as second deputy president, and then Thabo Mbeki as first deputy president. When his own moment arrived, Mandela solemnly pledged to honour and uphold the Constitution and to give himself entirely to the welfare of the Republic and its people. Then, in his address to the assembled dignitaries and the watching world, he said:

"Today, all of us do, by our presence here... confer glory and hope to newborn liberty. Out of the experience of an extraordinary human disaster that lasted too long, must be born a society of which all humanity will be proud... Never, never, and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another. The sun shall never set on so glorious a human achievement. Let freedom reign." — Nelson Mandela, Inauguration Address, 10 May 1994

A few moments after the speech, a magnificent aerial display unfolded overhead — South African jets, helicopters, and troop carriers in perfect formation roaring over the Union Buildings. It was a demonstration not just of military precision but of something far more significant: the military's pledge of loyalty to democracy and to a government elected freely and fairly by the people. Symbolism Just before this, the highest-ranking generals of the defence force and police — their chests bearing ribbons and medals from the old order — had snapped to attention and saluted Mandela. He was acutely conscious of what that meant: not so many years before, those same men would not have saluted him — they would have placed him under arrest. Irony

The day was symbolised, above all else, by something quiet and moving: the playing of two national anthems. White South Africans sang "Nkosi Sikelel–iAfrika" — the African anthem they had once despised — and black South Africans sang "Die Stem", the old anthem of the apartheid republic. Neither group knew the other's anthem well yet, but both sang. And both would, before long, know the words by heart. Symbolism

On that day, Mandela was overwhelmed with a profound awareness of history. He thought back to the early twentieth century — just after the bitter Anglo-Boer war — when the white-skinned peoples of South Africa had set aside their own differences and constructed a system of racial domination against the dark-skinned people of their own land. That structure had formed the foundation of one of the harshest, most dehumanising societies in human history. Imagery Now, in the last decade of that same century, in his own eighth decade of life, the system had been dismantled entirely and replaced by one that recognised the rights and freedoms of all people, regardless of the colour of their skin.

That historic day had been made possible by the unimaginable sacrifices of thousands. Mandela reflected that he felt, on that day as he had often felt before, that he was "simply the sum of all those African patriots who had gone before him." Metaphor He grieved that he could not thank them, and that they could not witness what their sacrifices had made possible.

Apartheid, Mandela wrote, had inflicted a deep and lasting wound upon his country and its people — one that would take years, perhaps generations, to fully heal. Yet the decades of oppression and brutality had also produced, as an unintended consequence, remarkable human beings: the Oliver Tambos, the Walter Sisulus, the Chief Luthulis — men of such extraordinary courage, wisdom, and generosity that their like might never be seen again. Hyperbole He reflected: "Perhaps it requires such depths of oppression to create such heights of character." Metaphor And he noted that while his country was rich in minerals and diamonds, its greatest wealth lay in its people — "finer and truer than the purest diamonds." Simile

It was from these comrades that Mandela had learned the true meaning of courage. He had seen people stand up under attack and torture without breaking — showing a resilience that defied imagination. He had come to understand that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. A brave person is not someone who feels no fear — a brave person is someone who conquers that fear. Metaphor

No person is born hating another because of the colour of their skin, their background, or their faith, Mandela wrote. Hatred is learned — it is taught. And if hatred can be taught, then love, too, can be taught. For love, he believed, comes far more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. Even in the darkest hours of imprisonment, when he and his fellow prisoners had been pushed to their absolute limits, he would occasionally see a glimmer of humanity in the face of one of the guards — just for a moment — but it was enough to restore his faith and keep him going. "Man's goodness," he wrote, "is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished." Metaphor

Every person, Mandela wrote, carries two kinds of obligations: one to family — to parents, spouse, and children; and another to the wider community, the people, and the country. In a free and just society, each person can fulfil both. But in a country like apartheid South Africa, it had been virtually impossible for a man of his colour to honour both simultaneously. Any black South African who tried to live fully as a human being faced punishment and isolation. Anyone who tried to serve their people was inevitably torn from family and home, forced into a twilight existence of secrecy and resistance. It was in this context that Mandela had been unable to be the son, brother, father, and husband he had wished to be.

Mandela had not been born, he wrote, with a hunger to be free. He had been born free — free to run in the fields near his mother's hut, to swim in the stream through his village, to roast corn under the stars. It was only as a young man — when he discovered that his boyhood freedom had been an illusion — that he began to hunger for true freedom. At first he wanted freedom only for himself. Then, as he matured, he saw that his brothers and sisters were equally enslaved — and his personal hunger became a greater hunger for the freedom of his entire people. It was this desire for his people's freedom and dignity that transformed him: it turned a frightened young man into a bold one, a law-abiding attorney into a criminal, a family-loving husband into a man without a home.

Freedom, Mandela wrote, is indivisible. The chains on any one person in his community were, in effect, chains on all. And what he had also come to understand was this: not only the oppressed lose their humanity — the oppressor does too. A person who takes away another's freedom becomes a prisoner of their own hatred. Metaphor They are locked behind bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness — as surely as any prisoner locked in a physical cell. True freedom, therefore, requires the liberation of both the oppressed and the oppressor.