Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Yesterday afternoon I took my 14 year old son and 10 year old daughter to see the movie, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom –and was totally unprepared for what I saw –what we saw. For some reason I had this romantic notion in my head about what happened to Mandela and not really what happened to him. So to say I was shocked by the brutality of what happened during my lifetime is an understatement.

When Mandela was arrested in 1963 I was being born. When he was thrown into jail for life in 1964, I was a year old. When he was offered a conditional release in 1985, I had been out of University for a year. During his arrest and offer for release, I had been born, lost my mother, and graduated from University. Somehow the time span of his imprisonment had not registered to me until it was put into context by the movie and what had transpired in my life during that time – from babe to woman while he was locked behind bars. I was shaken to the core by that realization. Revelation.

My daughter was crying and very scared at the beginning of the movie because there was a lot of violence, a lot of maiming, a lot of killing and just plain hate and it unnerved her. At first I was upset with her for being so upset because I so wanted her and my son to see the story – to understand the struggle – to know that life will be hard sometimes. So I reprimanded her rather than comforting her. And then when I felt a stab in my heart with what was unfolding before my eyes, I understood her pain. Her innocence about the human race was being shattered before her 10 year old eyes – eyes opened to pain she did not know existed. So I pulled her into me and held her close. Held her through the parts in the movie where I wanted to reach through the screen and shake those who were killing. Those who were maiming. Those who were oppressing the oppressed until the oppressed wanted to become the oppressor. When I wanted to scream to them that the only thing violence begets is violence.

Only when the movie moved beyond the violence to the peace seeking stage when Mandela realized the only way out was through peace did my daughter emerge from my arms. Did she feel the shift in energy from the movie. That she felt safe again and then she was glued to the screen. To hear Mandela say of course he wants revenge but he wants something more than that – freedom – the freedom to walk down the street like any man. The freedom to be. Liberties we take for granted every single day.

Reminding me the only freedom we will ever know is the unshackling of our minds. We cannot go through life blaming others for the predicament we find ourselves in. We cannot seek revenge on those who wrong us. We cannot live our lives angry with those who have crossed us. No what we need to do is forgive and walk on. Let go of that which is trying to shackle us and keep us down and rise above those who threaten us because when we stoop to their level and do onto them as they did unto us, we become them.

When the movie ended, my children and I sat in silence watching the pictures of the true Mandela on the screen. Watching the young idealist man enter prison to the older man who emerge with a lesson greater than anything he could have imagined learned.  As I watched, the weight of what he did for his fellow countrymen and the rest of the world hit home particularly because it was all during my lifetime, I felt raw. Exposed. I allowed the tears to roll down my cheeks. All of his pain was endured during my formative years - making me realize more than anything when we are here to serve, when we seek not power for ourselves but power for all, we reach dreams greater than we ever imagined. We achieve more than we ever thought possible because we are seeking to better ourselves and in doing so help to better our fellow brothers and sisters.

As we left the theatre, there was a white woman that I know crying. I knew she needed to talk to someone so I stopped to talk and she kept saying over and over again how disappointed she was in herself because she did not know the extent of the trials Mandela faced. That she wished she would have done more.  Known more. Participated more to right the wrongs of mankind. I told her there is no need for her to be disappointed as there is no way we can turn back the hands of time but it is up to us to teach ourselves and our children and anyone who will listen the importance of balance in our present day and in the future so we can make this world a better place for you and me and the entire human race – to borrow a phrase from Michael Jackson.

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom –a movie well worth seeing as a reminder that we are a human race not a black race or white race but a human race as Mandela so eloquently put it, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” 
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for, and to see realised. But my Lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."
Nelson Mandela, defence statement during the Rivonia Trial, 1964. Also repeated during the closing of his speech delivered in Cape Town on the day he was released from prison 27 years later, on 11 February 1990.