It always seems impossible until it’s done.
Nelson Mandela
Reading the whole 600+ pages of his journey, it does indeed feels like an impossible long walk to freedom. All the struggle facing those trials, prison time, separations with family, underestimations, deceptions, and so on.
I loved how detail Mr. Mandela writes about his story. Every little detail. From his childhood to his life during 27.5 years of prison. I can clearly see the shifting mind of your Mandela when he opened his eyes for the first time about the racism that happening around him. I also love how he always put small stories about his personal life. It’s usually just a short one. But, it’s deep, sweet and heartwarming somehow. Reading this book feels like reading someone’s diary. It’s filled with deep personal thoughts and feels. It takes us to a journey in the eye of a child, a teenager, a young lawyer, an inmate, an activist and an nationalist. Both a son and a father of his nation.
From his story, we could see that he wasn’t really aware about the racism and apartheid that’s happening even until when he was in higher education. With his nature of observing and his friends insights, we were brought into Mandela’s opening eyes journey. We were told how he learned from books, friends and even foes.
I always have a thing with a prison story. Mandela told us the whole 2 chapters about his prison tenure for over 27.5 years. The struggle and the never ending fight for both justice and freedom are perfectly pictured in Robben Island : The Dark Years. I really loved how he told the story about his way to trick the warders to get some contrabands (mostly a newspaper) or his fight to get a decent and fair life in prison (Black inmates received worse treatment compared to Indian and Coloured inmates, even in the term of the diets). The way the inmates planned their approached to get sympathy by the warders just to get more times to discuss about their next political moves. But then, the hope started to arise in Robben Island : Beginning to Hope. In this chapter he told us mostly when he was in a house arrest. Not in his own home, though. But a house that is provided by the state, complete with his own chef and swimming pool. He could be visited not only by his family, but mostly by his comrades where they discussed about their fight against the apartheid. It’s really blown my mind away how he never rest, not even a single night, to fight for the freedom of his nation. He’s unbroken and unbendable.
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
Nelson Mandela
Freedom is indivisible; the chains on an one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.
Nelson Mandela
To be honest, politics are never my thing. I sometimes drifted away when reading this part (which basically most part of this book, for sure). But, the way he writes, it’s so simple yet filled with emotions that makes it so easy to understand. It’s in very much detailed that sometimes I wonder, did he kept a journal? how come he can still remember such detail after all this time? I personally think it’s the right book if you want to know the history of how South African fight over freedom and justice. Especially directly from the hands of their main figure.
Primadisya's Locus Pocus 