Long Walk to Freedom – People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love..

Having just finished reading what is perhaps the most inspirational book I have ever had the pleasure of reading, I felt that I should write a quick blog about it; primarily to capture one of the many wonderful ideas on offer in the book, one that particularly caught my eye. In this way I hope this blog will serve as a both a reminder and a source of hope and inner strength to me.

I often find myself in real despair at the behaviour of the human race. Our behaviour towards each other, our greed, racism, arrogance, stupidity, inability to think for ourselves, the way we are destroying our planet, the way we treat animals, exploitation, slavery, corruption … the list goes on. I have even found myself wondering if the universe would be an altogether better place without us parasites in it. I have to search hard to find reasons why the human race deserves its place … but thanks to ideas from great men like Nelson Mandela I’m able to reconcile my misgivings with the hope he offers through his ideas, his approach to living and his ability to take the hard path when it is the right path. The world needs many more Nelson Mandelas!

This post is not really intended as a review of the book which really needs to be read to be fully appreciated. I can’t put into words how important this man is as an example to the rest of the human race, and not just South Africans – if it were up to me I’d have this book as required reading on the learning syllabus of our schools all over the world.

If I may paraphrase a part of the book, it tells the story of the journey of Nelson Mandela through life as he battles to be free; this journey begins with the innocent freedom of a young child; goes on to recount to freedom of self discovery as a student; continues to the honourable freedom of a young man in his early achievement of his potential – earning his keep, marrying and having a family. As Nelson puts it – the freedom not to be obstructed in a lawful life.

But then it goes on to tell of his politicisation when he realises that not only was he not free, but nor were is brothers and sisters (he includes all fellow South African’s in this idea including Blacks, Coloureds, Asians and even the whites oppressors who imposed apartheid). In such circumstances a more selfish and less thoughtful person would have walked a path of total intolerance and even extreme violence against the people who were oppressing him. But not Nelson Mandela. In his words, in a society where a disgusting idea like apartheid is allowed to blossom - “the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred”.

“To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others” … I believe in this idea, not just as it can be applied to the human race, but also to how we interact with the planet Earth and all the creatures that share it.

The human race is not yet free, it still has a long road to travel to get even close to freedom, but I am full of hope that one day it will. For me there is one idea in the book that reinforces this hope, that is this idea – “People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can also be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite”.

One cannot write about a great man like Nelson Mandela without giving him the last word, so here is an extract from his inauguration speech which we could use as a rallying cry for our freedom -

“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. God bless Africa!”