“He luchado contra la dominación blanca y he luchado contra la dominación negra. He abrigado el ideal de una sociedad libre y democrática en que todas las personas vivan unidas en armonía y con las mismas oportunidades. Es un ideal por el que espero vivir y que espero conseguir. Pero es un ideal por el que estoy preparado para morir, si es necesario"
[00:00:00] I was not born with a hunger for freedom. I was born free in all the aspects that I had given myself to know. Free to run through the fields near my mother's hut, free to swim in the transparent stream that crossed my albedo.
[00:00:12] Only when I began to understand that my childhood freedom was an illusion, when I discovered, being young, that my freedom had already been defeated, it was when I began to cry. What's up, guys? Welcome to the first episode of the podcast of Men of Character.
[00:00:37] Today we're going to talk about our first character in question, and it's nothing more than Nelson Mandela. Many of you probably have ever seen Nelson Mandela's figure before. He's very popular, he's very well-referenced,
[00:00:53] and he was one of the most important political and ideological figures of the 20th century. A few years ago, he made the movie Invictus with Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, where he tells how Nelson Mandela's relationship with the rugby team was.
[00:01:06] Personally, I hadn't had much exposure to Nelson Mandela's life beyond the movie Invictus, but about a year and a half ago I was in the city of Brasília and I found an exhibition of Nelson Mandela, where he gave himself a lot of detail about his life,
[00:01:19] from his childhood to his death. After seeing that exhibition and now, for this episode, I'm going to investigate a little more about his life. I can assure you that Nelson Mandela is a man who we can definitely learn at least two or three virtues.
[00:01:31] So without further ado, let's get into it. Nelson Mandela was born with the name of Raholi Glamandela, in 1918 in the scene of an African rural tribe in South Africa. Nelson was the son of one of the chiefs of the tribe, and when he entered a Methodist school,
[00:01:54] the teacher was convinced that they had to change that name and give him a Christian name. And that's how he gave Nelson the name, in honor of a kind of explorer, something called Lord Nelson. And the quote I read at the beginning of this episode
[00:02:07] narrates very well how this first childhood of Nelson was, a pretty exposed childhood to a traditional African rural environment. In which the tribe presented certain values, certain traditions and beliefs that he exposed himself with and with which he grew up.
[00:02:20] Throughout his life he gave a kind of interesting twist when he entered the university to study lawyer. There, in the urban context of the university, he was exposed to the reality of racism in his country.
[00:02:31] And just as a little context, South Africa was a colony of the British Empire that later was associated with the Dutch. So it was a mix of Africans but also Dutch slash British who had even their own language, the language of the Africans, that's how it is written.
[00:02:49] And obviously this colonized race had a much greater socioeconomic position than the Africans. Now, South Africa's political history gave an interesting twist in 1948 when a nationalist party entered power that introduced a policy called apartheid. What this policy introduced was a more intense segregation of blacks and whites.
[00:03:11] That is, the whites could access certain places, certain areas, certain neighborhoods and the right to exclude blacks from those public or private places were reserved. This obviously made a very intense social difference in which blacks were the poorest and richest.
[00:03:26] Basically this legislation promoted the negative effects of racism and this obviously aroused many groups of political activists who sought the peaceful struggle to end apartheid. Among them there was a movement called the National African Congress which Nelson Mandela entered from a young age.
[00:03:44] And one of the political intentions in the National African Congress's idea was to be able to build a single nation using the tradition and the baggage of the white race and the black race. So this movement didn't seek a kind of struggle between races
[00:03:59] where blacks were more advantageous than whites but rather it was about building something together where both races worked together. But things were an interesting turn in 1960. We're talking about the fact that there were 12 years of apartheid legislation.
[00:04:14] When in the middle of a peaceful protest, military agents began to shoot innocent civilians who weren't even armed. And in that massacre, the massacre of Sharpefield, 69 civilians died. After this, all African movements understood that the peaceful protests weren't going to be the solution.
[00:04:33] And perhaps the peaceful protests had been able to work in other models or situations like Gandhi's case, I don't know. But in this case it was different. So an interview was made in Nelson Mandela where he talks about how everyone was questioning
[00:04:46] how legitimate it was to make peaceful protests against a government that only showed oppression and violence. That's why the National African Congress, or let's say CNA, to not be saying its name all the time, decided to operate in a more violent way through sabotages.
[00:05:02] A struggle that now took a more strategic role, in a kind of violence controlled, mixed with the clamor between the races. Nelson Mandela was the most public figure that represented the movement of the CNA and he was operating under that sabotage
[00:05:18] and guerrillas for at least a couple of years. But in 1962, we're talking about two years of this guerrilla and sabotage scheme, Mandela was arrested with charges of having left the country illegally for being a Marxist, a traitor and a sabotage.
[00:05:33] And all this process in which Mandela was legally prosecuted lasted approximately two to three years if you know the process of Ribona, where he and other heads of the CNA movement were arrested and processed for a long time. Now, on April 20, 1964, Nelson Mandela was called
[00:05:52] to defend his process and there he proclaimed one of the most important and contundent speeches of the 20th century, which says something about the following. I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have established the ideal of a free and democratic society
[00:06:10] in which all people live united in harmony and with the same opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live and that I hope to achieve. But it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die if it is necessary.
[00:06:25] This speech is known as the speech I am prepared to die, by Nelson Mandela. As one of the most contundent and important speeches of the 20th century. And shortly after, at 45 years old, Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment in the prison of Robin Island,
[00:06:41] where Nelson would be 18 of the 27 years he was arrested. Now, Robin Island was in a very strict prison of high security, where the cell in which Nelson was placed was 2.5 meters by 2 meters. We are talking about Nelson living 18 years sleeping on the floor of a cell,
[00:06:59] not bigger than 2x2. During these years in prison, Nelson became a national symbol of freedom in the struggle against apartheid, which continued while he was outside the prison. And it was also in these years where he contracted tuberculosis disease due to the humidity of his cell,
[00:07:15] which would ultimately suffer the rest of his life with very strong respiratory infections, which later, I am spoiling you, but poor man died of that. After being imprisoned in 1962, after a lot of political tension, on February 11, 1990, 27 years later, Nelson Mandela was finally released.
[00:07:37] And after his release, basically in South Africa, a domino effect occurred, with the release of Nelson Mandela, immediately after he brought an end to apartheid, he started a lot of negotiations with the Nationalist Party and the Nelson Mandela Party, the CNA. And after several negotiations
[00:07:53] and several political movements, on May 10, 1994, four years after he was released, he became the first black president in South Africa. As a president, Nelson Mandela was an admirable leader for the people of South Africa, he managed to find unity between those two different races.
[00:08:11] That is, it was not a political movement that only favored the blacks who had been oppressed, but it favored the marginalized and those who were from the island, but it also managed to include the whites, the white tradition that included this race in South Africa.
[00:08:27] And finally, after a five-year prison, Nelson Mandela left his presidency and retired, and he dedicated himself to philanthropic work at a foundation that helped children. He remained a public figure and an activist and philanthropist for the rest of his life, until finally respiratory infections
[00:08:41] charged Nelson Mandela's life in 2013. Now let's continue Nelson Mandela's life and compare it with any other guerrilla and political leader in the rest of the world. The truth is that we are not going to find much difference in terms of achievement, because if someone who started a movement
[00:08:57] and who has certain guerrilla strategies and political sabotage, etc. But the truth is that Nelson Mandela's greatness is not necessarily in that. The greatness of this man is that he spent 18 years, men friends, in a cell of less than 2 x 2.5, and despite being under that arrest,
[00:09:15] it did not stop being an influence wherever he was, in any interaction. And the truth is that there are many leaders with good ideas, leaders who are willing to fight for some better world or whatever you want, but who are not willing to pay such a high price
[00:09:28] as spending 18 years in a prison without hope of leaving. And that's where we can observe the first virtue that is worth highlighting in Nelson Mandela and it's the virtue of compromise. Compromise means that ability to establish a relationship towards someone, an ideal or a dream or desire
[00:09:49] that leads you to act in a consistent way. In Nelson Mandela's case it was his commitment with the ideal of a South African nation who led him to be able to support the different adversities and even be willing to die for the ideal he wanted to achieve.
[00:10:07] That willingness to die only came because he was highly committed with an ideal. Is there any reason, an ideal, a dream that leads you to say I'm willing to die for this? The truth, my friends, is that observing many of the sociological trends
[00:10:25] we see that men don't do that. Men no longer seek to die for no noble cause more than themselves. And it's something very curious because you would say well if they are the cause they are looking to live for maybe they are the happiest in the world.
[00:10:40] But it's not true. In a certain sense, what this story reveals in Nelson Mandela is that giving life for ideal is high, it transcends and it transcends enough to face adversities in a firm way and in a strong way. That's the second virtue
[00:10:57] that we can undoubtedly highlight in Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela was a man Nelson Mandela was a resilient man. That's the second virtue that we highlight, the resilience of this man. What is resilience? Resilience is the ability to face adversities with strength. We see Nelson Mandela stop
[00:11:16] in front of his own judgment where they are accusing him unfairly and we see him write and say a wonderful speech. I'm sure that in many of us if we were in those circumstances we would be small, maybe even afraid. Just, a just and understandable fear
[00:11:32] because we are facing very severe consequences for something, but Nelson remained firm and that firmness could only be seen because he was in love with his ideal, the ideal of seeing a united nation. This man gave his life for that cause. No matter what the adversities are,
[00:11:50] even we, if we are committed to something and say no, I do have an ideal and I do have something for what I'm fighting and for what I would be willing to die. I am capable of facing the adversities that I know will come together with that combo.
[00:12:04] I am capable of facing the adversities that I am being fired from. I am capable of facing the adversities that I have to wake up early. How do I react when challenges come and when difficulties come? That's where the virtue of resilience
[00:12:18] is most demonstrated and we can see more in Nelson Mandela's life. The third virtue that we could highlight of Nelson Mandela is also a kind of tranquility and it's very curious because you see it in interviews, in the midst of a very adverse political climate
[00:12:34] where there are very harsh, where there are massacres, where there are injustices and so on but you see Nelson Mandela always very eco-anime. You never see him as a political leader taking his sword out of his face and angry or something like that.
[00:12:48] The truth is that there is a tremendous tranquility transmitted in Nelson Mandela's discourse. And this is something that he probably learned from his childhood in the African tribe. While many of our political leaders or even our leaders in history have been violent leaders,
[00:13:04] leaders who seek to obtain their cause and obtain the result they are looking through certain violence. The truth is that Nelson Mandela wasn't like that, despite being a kind of Gandhi, which was 100% peace because he wasn't the opposite of an angry leader and a leader like a hooker
[00:13:22] among the communists, but a leader who throughout his political trajectory managed to transmit tranquility and that tranquility also allowed him to have that ability to form a bridge with the oppressors themselves. When Nelson Mandela left the prison he was interviewed by the president
[00:13:40] of that time in South Africa, called The Clerk. The Clerk was the representative of the National Party, the oppressor he was the enemy among the communists and what Nelson Mandela told him when he saw it was that we have to work together. I think that ability
[00:13:56] to work together with his enemy to build a national project was only possible because Nelson kept tranquility and that tranquility doesn't need to be confused with some sort of permissivity or some sort of indifference for nothing. We already saw that Nelson was a
[00:14:12] committed man, he was a resilient man capable of dying for ideals but he was also a man who kept tranquility for all these things my friends, I think we could say that the climax of Nelson Mandela's life wasn't the decision to start sabotaging and guerrillas
[00:14:28] we could say that the climax of his life was his time in prison because in the middle of that time it was when his character was really put to trial. It's easy to be a man of virtues between communists when everything is in your favor
[00:14:42] even when you have conditions to do things but when you are deprived of the favorable conditions in life, there is when you really test who you are and what are the virtues that stand out the most in your character I think that fortunately many of us
[00:14:56] won't spend 18 years of our life in prison but we can spend moments of great adversity maybe you are going through an emotional economic crisis because in those moments it is precisely when most important those wishes for which you are willing to die so everything starts there
[00:15:14] what is there in your life that for which you would be willing to die and in that sense if you don't have something that you are willing to die then why are you willing to live my friends I think that every man needs to have
[00:15:30] ideal causes, something to fight for something to wake up every day and say I'm doing something that is worth it discover what that thing is that you can find meaning and get attached to that it doesn't matter what it is sometimes it can be your business, your family
[00:15:48] but anything of that sort and if you are looking for the virtue and an integral virtue in all areas of your life you are learning to be a better man I hope that we all can learn to imitate Nelson Mandela's character at least in those three virtues
[00:16:02] the commitment with justice the resilience before adversity and the ability to keep calm and calm in the midst of a war now I hope you have enjoyed this first episode if you liked this episode share it on your social networks and with more people follow us on Facebook
[00:16:20] and don't forget to subscribe to our podcast to be up to date with our next episodes my name is Luis Diego Carranza and see you next time