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Long Walk to Freedom in South Africa, Apartheid

Introduction

Essentially the book Long Walk to Freedom portrays Nelson Mandela’s life, beginning from his early days through to his rise as the president of South Africa.  It is fundamentally a broad look into a freedom fighter’s life. Like most prominent figures, it is a wonderful narrative about the success of the human spirit. According to the story, it is evident that Mandela is the most unlikely person to rise to be the president of South Africa. Having been born into an disadvantaged family, he fights against all odds all through his entire life. In 1952, Mandela started the original non-Anglo Saxon law firm in the country at the pinnacle of Apartheid.  According to the book, Mandela committed his life to confront the injustices in hi country. In the narrative it is clear that through Mandela’s determination, in addition the fortitude of other persons, that the aspirations of millions of his countrymen are realized. Although it is practically a long walk to freedom, the reader learns that the journey was worthwhile in order to realize the aspirations of a cohesive South Africa.

APARTHEID

According to Mandela, apartheid is the epithet of the racialism, inhumanity and repression of all preceding white supremacist establishments. In order to see the factual face of apartheid one ought to look underneath the shroud of constitutional formulas, illusory phrases as well as playing with terminology. The distinctiveness of apartheid was its postulation that society is a entirely synthetic structure, that the economic base is as compliant as the political super-structure. Apartheid has isolated South Africans in a social context with numerous Whites only warnings. Apartheid denied the black South Africans freehold occupancy in the metropolitan areas and devised obscure laws to accentuate their status as transitory sojourners. However, this permitted the White economy greedily exploit them as it needed. These inconsistencies within apartheid lead at some period to conflict, and probably to the collapse of the regime by consent. The upshot of the inconsistencies as well as conflicts within the apartheid constitution was a discursive protracted lamentation discourse exhibited through extraordinary control of the tyrant’s language. Consequently, authorities of Mandela and like minded individuals, institutions and organizations, anti-apartheid jeremiads were fundamentally affected by an assortment of intellectual and social revolutions in the country.

There are numerous facets of Mandela’s personality that the reader gradually learns concerning Mandela. These include his passion for knowledge, commitment, and conviction to what he believed in. Mandela was apathetic to enroll in the armed wing which comprised of African National Congress (ANC) Youth wing. Once he was convinced to join in the struggle Mandela was passionate to his new vocation. It is noteworthy that his meeting with Walter Sisulu, another icon in 1940s prompted a companionship that lased 60 years through trials, jail and freedom. It is evident that Mandela’s believed that guerilla combat is at times necessary, in order to convey the message across to the populace. This is in spite of the fact that a lot of people relate him to an icon of peace. Mandela recognized that it was the prerogative of the ‘non-European liberation movement,’ that sought the absolute abandonment of White supremacy, to influence the unwavering and firm mass struggle to overcome fascism as well as the founding of democratic structures of government. His anti-apartheid jeremiads demonstrate his confidence that blacks South Africans must unite for the sake of national reconciliation in order to build a fresh South Africa. His jeremiads lamented the lack of togetherness and humanity.

Fall of Apartheid. According to the book, apartheid was denounced by black South Africans, as well as several black political factions that were usually supported by a number of compassionate whites South Africans. In the late 1980’s, negotiations for the release of Mandela began to shape. The early 1990’s, marked the commencement of the closing stages for apartheid. The then president Frederik de Klerk effectively started to dismantle apartheid. This is seen when Frederik de Klerk lifted the 30-year proscription on the principal anti-apartheid faction, the African National Congress (ANC), the smaller South African Communist Party, and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). In 1990 the National Party government devoted itself to streamlining South Africa and the previously proscribed black congresses, as well as the releasing of jailed black political leaders. In 1994, the South Africa’s constitution was revised and free general elections held for the first instance in South Africa’s history.

On assuming the post as the first elected black president, he assumed a courageous innovative step. In his opening address, Mandela noted that the people of South Africa should work together, in order to attain national reconciliation, greater nation building, as well as for the dawn of a new world. This exposed an anti-apartheid jeremiad discourse in the black community in South Africa. This was traditionally typified by a steadfast rejection to adjust to apartheid’s perspectives, designated a complex letdown of the conventional order.