Nelson Mandela
A Long Walk to Freedom
Answer the Following
1. Why did such a large number of international leaders attend the inauguration? What did it signify the triumph of?
Answer :
The international leaders attended the inauguration, to confer glory and hope to newborn liberty. Because of its policy of apartheid, many countries had earlier broken off diplomatic relations with South Africa. The international leaders gathered there to celebrate the end of the apartheid regime, a common victory for peace, justice, and human dignity.
2. How did Mandela's understanding of freedom change with age and experience?
Answer:
As a young boy, and a student, Mandela's idea of freedom was to be able to stay out at night, read whatever he desired and go wherever he chose. On growing up as a man, he realised that these were "transitory freedoms" he was looking for because their "basic and honourable freedom" had been taken away. Dark-skinned people were to were deprived of their fundamental human rights. For them, freedom was an "illusion".
3. How did Mandela's hunger for freedom change his life?
Answer:
Mandela realised in his youth that it was not just his freedom that was being curated but the freedom of all blocks. The hunger for his own freedom became the hunger for the freedom of his own people. It transformed him from a family man to a man of his people and a frightened young man into a bold one. Thus his desire for a non-racial society transformed him into a virtuous and self-sacrificing man.
4. What is the dream of Nelson Mandela for the future of South Africa?
Answer:
Mandela pledges to liberate all his people from the continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation, suffering, gender and other discriminations. He promises that South Africa will never over experience the oppression of one by another. He wishes the region of freedom will never die in his country.
5. What does the author say about the oppressor and the oppressed?
Answer:
The author says that 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: he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow mindedness. A person can never be free if he is taking away someone else's freedom. Hence, the oppressed alike are robbed of their humanity
