In spite of all that has happened I have, throughout the ebb and flow of the tides of fortune in the last 15 months, lived in hope and expectation. Sometimes I even have the belief that this feeling is part and parcel of my self. It seems to be woven into my being. I feel my heart pumping hope steadily to every part of my body, warming my blood and pepping up my spirits. I am convinced that floods of personal disaster can never drown a determined revolutionary nor can the cumulus of misery that accompany tragedy suffocate him. To a freedom fighter hope is what a life belt is to a swimmer – a guarantee that one will keep afloat and free from danger. I know, darling, that if riches were to be counted in terms of the tons of hope and sheer courage that nestle in your breast (this idea I got from you) you would certainly be a millionaire. Remember this always.
19. FROM A LETTER TO WINNIE MANDELA, DATED 31 AUGUST 1970
If there was ever a letter which I desperately wished to keep, read quietly over and over again in the privacy of my cell, it was that one. It was compensation for the precious things your arrest deprived me of – the Xmas, wedding anniversary, birthday cards – the little things about which you never fail to think. But I was told to read it on the spot and [it] was grabbed away as soon as I had reached the last line.
Brig. [Brigadier] Aucamp attempted to justify this arbitrary procedure with the flimsy excuse that in the letter you gave his name for your address instead of your prison. He went on to explain that my letters to you were handled in exactly the same way, and that you were not allowed to keep them. When I pressed him for an explanation he was evasive. I realised there were important issues at stake which necessitate the making of serious inroads on your right as an awaiting-trial prisoner to write and receive letters and curtailment of my corresponding privilege. Our letters are subject to a special censorship. The real truth is that the authorities do not want you to share the contents of the letters I write you with your colleagues there, and vice versa. To prevent this they resort to all means, fair and foul. It is possible that communication between us may be whittled down still further, at least for the duration of the trial. As you know, the privilege as far as my normal monthly letters to and from friends and relations practically disappeared with your arrest. I have been trying to communicate with Matlala since January last and with Nolusapho since November.
On June 19 Brig. Aucamp explained that another department had instructed him not to forward these letters, adding at the same time that he was not in a position to give me reasons for these instructions, but that such instructions were not influenced by the contents of the letters. This revelation solved the riddle of the mysterious disappearance of most of the letters I wrote over the past 15 months. The matter entails even more serious implications. I should like to be in the position where I can always rely on what officials tell me, but I’m finding it increasingly difficult to square up wishes with experience. Twice during July and early this month, I was informed that your letter had not arrived. I have now established that the letter was actually here when I was being given assurances to the contrary.
20. FROM A LETTER TO NONYANISO MADIKIZELA, DATED 1 NOVEMBER 197017
If there was ever a time for Zami to remain calm, cautious and calculating, a time to think, and think, and think, it is now. Let her be careful. There are those who do not want to see her free and who will use any pretext to pounce upon her.
When all Zami’s shortcomings have been listed, she still emerges as a woman of great ability and ambition, endowed with qualities far more superior to anything I have ever possessed, and I have the highest regard for her. She deserves encouragement and support. One of my greatest regrets is to be unable to protect her – the one woman who has first claim to everything that I command in the form of knowledge, experience and advice. For courage and dedication she is second to none. But, however much she may be affected by the ideals that have moved other great women, she still lives here on mother earth. She must eat, bring children up, maintain me and have a decent home. One of my fervent hopes had once been that I would give her all these things, which would leave her free to strive to realise her aspirations with a measure of independence. That chance never came, and I never succeeded in providing for her and the children. With her numerous restrictions, no one is prepared to employ her and she finds it difficult to earn her living. What a catastrophe for a young woman of 36! Never shall I regret the decision I made in ’61, but I wish one day my conscience would sit easy in my bosom.18 Look after her, Nyanya. I have given you a glimpse of the woman I adore, the human being behind the veil of fine garments she wears and attractive features for which she is widely known.
21. FROM A LETTER TO WINNIE MANDELA, DATED 16 NOVEMBER 1970
You looked much better than I expected, but far from what you were when we last met in Dec. ’68. The cumulative effect of a thousand and one strains was clearly visible. As I walked back to the jail after the interview, I was preoccupied with the fear that now that you have to live alone for 12 hours in the night, loneliness and anxiety might worsen your condition. This fear still haunts me.
Incidentally, on my way down to the visiting rooms on Nov. 7, I managed to see the boat on which you came as it steamed gracefully to harbour, beautiful in its bright colours. Even at a distance it looked a real prisoners’ friend, and I became more anxious as it approached. You know why! I saw it again as it sailed back to the mainland. This time the picture was altogether different. Though it still retained its brightness, the beauty I had seen only a few hours before was gone. Now it looked grotesque and quite unfriendly. As it drifted slowly away with you, I felt all alone in the world and the books that fill my cell, which have kept me company all these years, seemed mute and unresponsive. Have I seen my darling for the last time, is a question that kept recurring.
22. FROM A LETTER TO ZINDZI MANDELA, DATED 1 DECEMBER 1970
It is on occasions such as this one that I fully understand how I am completely dependent on Mummy in almost everything I do. Ever since I was told that she and her friends had been released, I lived in the hope that I would soon see her, and was excited as you become when you hear the bell of the ice-cream man ring, or when Mummy buys you a mini dress.
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From a letter to Zindzi Mandela, dated 1 December 1970.
I tried hard to remain calm when Kgatho unexpectedly broke the painful news. Perhaps I would have done much better on the stage than in law or politics. I must have acted well because I succeeded in making one of my friends believe that Mummy’s failure to come had not affected me. If only he knew! The truth is that my appearance had nothing to do whatsoever with the state of my feelings. I was badly wounded and shaken.
You and Zeni, and perhaps even Mummy, may be justified in thinking that the magistrate, who seemingly treated us with such pettiness and lack of feeling, is a cruel man. He himself probably has a wife and children, just as I have, and would certainly be aware of the hardship created by keeping Mummy and Daddy in forced separation for so long, and of denying us the pleasure of seeing each other. Yet I know that, as a person, he is far from being cruel. On the contrary, and within the limits imposed by certain traditions which have become accepted in our country, he is kind and courteous, and I consider him in all sincerity to be a gentleman. During the 9 years in which I practiced as an attorney I frequently appeared before him, and I found it a real pleasure to argue before a man I regarded as fair and just.
But even a man like the Chief Magistrate of mighty Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city, and Africa’s richest town, has his hands firmly tied. He cannot do what he likes. His official duties may force him to do what his personal nature violently hates. Even junior officials in other departments may wield more power than him, and have the final say in regard to some of his important official duties. In matters of this kind it is never wise to single out individuals and lay blame on their shoulders. Such individuals may not themselves be
responsible for the decisions they make. They may merely be the means through which more powerful forces operate. On such questions it would be equally misleading to place your trust on good men, no matter how highly placed they may be. Where systems are involved, the goodness of individuals is very often irrelevant. It is, however, a different story when you, Zeni, Maki, Kgatho, Mfundo, Motsobise, Bazala, Pumla, Thamie and Andile, Nombeko, Mpho and Thabo and other young people become united by common ideas and when you follow up common plans.19 Then old systems will be pushed aside and new ones arise. The system as a whole must change. Only then will good men have the opportunity to serve their countrymen fully and well. Then Mummy will not have to travel to Cape Town to see Daddy. I will be at home, wherever home will be. Together we shall sit around the fire and chat warmly and gaily. We might even invite the magistrate for dinner. I don’t know where we shall get the money to arrange the dinner. When I return I shall have forgotten almost everything about law and will have to do something else for a living, perhaps dig roads, clean drains or go down the coal pits with pick and shovel.
23. FROM A LETTER TO JOYCE SIKHAKHANE, DATED 1 JANUARY 197120
Re roba matsoho for you and John!21 Is it true? Can you two really do this to me, take such momentous decisions without even as much as giving me a hint? I must have missed heaps of meat and pudding at the engagement party. To your wedding I would have been accepted just as I am, without having to sport a frock coat, starched shirt and top hat. What is even more important to me, your wedding would have been one occasion in which I could have shined at last. I rehearse daily on a penny whistle; everyone around here calls it that though it cost R2.00. I’m still on the d.t.l.-stage but with more practice I could have tried Handel’s Messiah on it on the great da.
24. CONVERSATION WITH RICHARD STENGEL
STENGEL: Did you have recurring nightmares when you were on Robben Island?
MANDELA: No, no, no. That I never had.
STENGEL: Oh, you didn’t, okay.
MANDELA: No, I never had nightmares.
STENGEL: Okay. What would you say was your worst moment on Robben Island, when you felt the lowest?
MANDELA: Well, it’s difficult…very difficult to pinpoint any particular moment as my worst moment, but the question of my wife being harassed and persecuted by the police, and sometimes being assaulted, and I was not there to defend her. That was a very difficult moment for me. And when I saw that she was being hounded from one job to the other by the police. They would go to the employer and say, ‘By keeping this woman here you are starting trouble.’
STENGEL: But how did that make you feel? I mean, did you feel powerless? Did you feel angry?
MANDELA: Well, naturally there was an element of anger, but at the same time I tried to be cool about it, and remembered that this is the price we have to pay for being committed to the struggle. And it’s something that disturbed me very much, and the feeling of frustration and helplessness was there, because there was nothing I could do about it.
STENGEL: What about…I’ve read before that sometimes you would come back to your cell at the end of the day and they would place press cuttings…
MANDELA: Yes, quite, they would do that.
STENGEL: Quite regularly?
MANDELA: Well, now and again, they did. Whenever there was some bad report about the family, they would put the cutting on my table. Very dirty.
STENGEL: And that would make you angry too, I suppose.
MANDELA: Yes, well one got used to the methods which they used, and decided to keep cool about it. But of course there was an element of anger against it, but one learned to be calm about these things.
STENGEL: Right. Well, I have a quote here from Mac Maharaj, who said about you, and this is relevant to what you were just saying, ‘As he has been living through prison, his anger and hatred of the system has been increasing, but the manifestations of that anger have become less visible.’22 Would you say that that’s true?
MANDELA: Well, that certainly is correct in the sense that I am working now with the same people who threw me into jail, persecuted my wife, hounded my children from one school to the other…and I am one of those who was saying, ‘Let us forget the past, and think of the present.’
25. CONVERSATION WITH RICHARD STENGEL ABOUT COMMUNICATION WITH OTHER SECTIONS IN PRISON
STENGEL: How did you communicate with people in the other sections?
MANDELA: Well, we smuggled letters…and Kathrada, Ahmed Kathrada, was in charge of that. But there were embarrassing situations, because one day I was standing with the warder; they were bringing in food, in drums, and the chaps from the kitchen are only allowed just to give us the drums through the door without entering our section. Now it was the last delivery of food for the day; it was in the evening, at sunset. So there was a young fellow…and he was desperate to pass on this letter, and as I was standing there receiving the food, he just took the letter and gave it to me. Now…by then, of course the warders respected me and I felt very small. I did not know what to do, not so much because of punishment, but because of the effect on this warder; especially because he was comparatively younger than myself, and I didn’t want to abuse, you know, the respect…in which they held me…I was really tortured by that and I just walked away from him and I handed it to Kathrada and I found it very difficult to look at that young warder.
STENGEL: Because he saw?
MANDELA: He must have seen…because we were standing together and this young chap from the kitchen, just after delivering the drums, he just takes this thing and gives it to me. Because he was desperate, he had to pass the thing, you see, to get an urgent message.
STENGEL: And it was humiliating for the warder to witness this?
MANDELA: Well, it was humiliating and it was a breach of duty because he should have acted against that boy, against myself as well. He should have taken the letter, but out of respect, you know, he pretended as if he hadn’t seen anything, didn’t do anything. And that really humiliated me. To abuse your trust in that fashion. At the same time, I couldn’t say to this youngster, ‘Don’t give it to me; take it back,’ because if I had done so, the warder would have punished him. Would have charged him. But we were able to smuggle, very quietly.
26. FROM A LETTER TO TIM MAHARAJ, DATED 1 FEBRUARY 197123
It has been said a thousand and one times that what matters is not so much what happens to a person than the way such person takes it. It may sound silly for me to burden you with what is a matter of more than common knowledge. Yet whenever it is my turn to be the victim of some misfortune, I forget precisely these simple things, and thereby let hell break loose upon me.
27. FROM A LETTER SMUGGLED FROM PRISON TO LAWYERS IN DURBAN, DATED JANUARY 1977
M/S Seedat, Pillay and Co, Durban
I intend instituting legal proceedings in the CPD [Cape Provincial Division] against the Dpt [Department] of Prisons for a declaration of rights and for an interdict restraining the prison authorities from abusing their authority and subjecting me and my fellow prisoners to political persecution and from committing other irregularities.
In this connection I should be pleased if you would act for me and brief Adv. [Advocate] G. Bizos of the Jhb [Johannesburg] Bar or any other barrister he recommends.24 I hope you will be able to arrange a consultation at your earliest possible convenience either with a member of your firm or with counsel when the full facts on which the cause of action is founded will be placed before you.
If your firm is for any reason unable to come down for consultation, I would still like to retain your services but would be happy to have an interview with any other person you might send. Arrangement for payment of your fees and disbursements will be made directly with you or your representative at the consultation.
On Oct 7 1976 I wrote and asked the Commanding Officer, Col [Colonel] Roelofse, for permission to instruct my lawyers to institute proceedings. The request was refused and I had no option but to smuggle this letter out of pr
ison.
On July 12, 1976 I wrote a 22 page letter to the Commissioner of Prisons and expressly drew his attention to the abuse of authority, political persecution and other irregularities committed by the C.O [Commanding Officer] and his staff. A copy of this letter is still in my possession and I hope to hand it directly to you in due course. Meantime I would suggest that you ask him not to remove the document and other papers relevant to the contemplated proceedings from my custody.
Here is a summary of the letter: Abuse of Authority. Both Col Roelofse and Lt [Lieutenant] Prins, Head of Prison, have been systematically preaching racialism to fellow prisoners of different population groups in the single cell section where I live and trying to foment feelings of hostility amongst us.
Improper interference with social relations. After setting out the facts in support of this allegation I added, ‘I now consider the untruthful explanations that are repeatedly made by the local officials about our correspondence and the so-called objection either to the contents of the letter or person who wrote it as a mere technique to deprive us of the legal right of preserving good relationships, between ourselves and our relatives and friends.’
Censorship of outgoing mail. As has often happened in the past, the birthday card I sent to my daughter in Dec. 75 did not reach her. Last Feb I wrote to my wife and regretted the fact. I also referred to photos my daughter repeatedly sent me and that had disappeared without trace. The C.O. objected to this paragraph. My daughter plays rugby and in another letter I advised her to pay attention to her diet. I was asked to remove the passage. My grandniece wished to study LL.B and I wrote and requested Mrs F. Kentridge of the JHB [Johannesburg] Bar to advise her on law as a profession for women. Lt. Prins first asked me to remove this particular paragraph and some wks [weeks] after I had handed in the altered letter I was then told that it would not be sent to her because the Dpt now objected to her person. I concluded, ‘To prevent me from telling my wife that I sent my daughter a birthday card which did not reach her, that I always think of her and that the photos she had posted to me had disappeared is unreasonable and based neither on security considerations nor on the desire to maintain good order and discipline nor to promote my welfare. The same applied to my letter to Mrs Kentridge…’
Conversations with Myself Page 14