Mandela: "The Long Walk To Freedom"

Mandela:

“The Long Walk to Freedom.”

Life Threatening Long Journey Begins:

For eighteen years,

his home was Robben Island-

today’s concentration camp;

for another nine years,

Pollsmore and Victor Verster 

Prisons, 

which physical walls-

are a sad reminders of 

Berlin Wall-

he lived, schooled,

fought his jailers.

Between prisons and

liberation struggles,

two marriages crashed and 

destroyed;

in-and-out-of-prisons,

he fathered Zindziswa and

Zenani.

For seventy years,

he undertook a long walk

to free his people from 

oppression,

seven decades of walk

that ended centuries of-

pains, cries, anguish, 

misery, and dolor.

Walk that dismantled 

apartheid,

worst racial segregation and 

discrimination in history,

risky walk that set black 

majority in South Africa free;

life threatened walk that

recreated South Africa,

unpopular walk now a model

in lands where men and women 

are still in chain.

The Message of Hope and of  Change:

For years his messages 

to his taskmasters and 

bankrollers were: 

no to racial segregation,

yes to equal treatment and

egalitarian society for all,

no to a privileged few,

yes to a prosperous 

South Africa,

for all South Africans-

black, white, and colored.

 

No to Police brutality of 

black and colored,

yes to a decent, civil, and 

humane treatment of 

everyone under 

the law.

No to international support

for apartheid regime,

yes to a worldwide 

condemnation

of right wing political system

premised on social 

stratification and inequalities.

No to continued 

incarceration of

black majority in 

South Africa,

yes to their unconditional 

release and freedom.

No to killings, 

disappearance, and

harm to black population in 

Soweto,

yes to all political activists and

freedom fighters returning home 

from exile without arrest and 

molestation;

no to White minority rule,

yes to all-inclusive-multi-

racial,

national government in 

South Africa.

In Captivity-Powerful, Set

Agenda for International

Deliberation and Release.

In detention and 

solitary confinement,

his towering influence 

continued to soar globally,

behind bars, 

his voice remained distinct

just like cymbal,

his messages remained clear

as crystal and 

forceful as cascading waters.

Year after year,

Mandela became more

popular,

an icon and symbol of

liberty on international 

platform.

Out-of-sight,

his image represented

freedom,

symbolism that haunted

his subjugator’s conscience.

Ideology he professed

-equality and justice-

for all South Africans

soon turned a global
concept,

notion that 

metamorphosed 

to: Free Mandela and 

Freedom to South Africa.

Triumphant End to the Long Walk:

Free Mandela, 

Freedom to South Africa, 

became a deafening slogan 

with irresistible moral force 

championed by world

political heavyweights and 

international organizations.

Slogan that turned a 

powerful force on 

international arena,

a tidal wave no one

could pushback,

political hurricane 

with no repel or 

rollback strategy.

Tidal wave apartheid regime 

could not withstand,

force that shook apartheid

to its foundation,

push that dislocated 

apartheid supporters and 

bankrollers,

thwack that ripped 

National Party and 

Broederbond apart.

Force that pulled down

prison gates and walls,

tide that tossed-out Mandela 

from life imprisonment and

set South Africans free.

Propulsion that turns

South Africa a 

Rainbow Nation.