This makes freedom something tangible. But could it be that even when chained, captive and a slave in the physical sense, a man could be free? And this would also then imply the reverse, that a man being free in a physical sense at the same time could be chained and captive?
I have been reading "A biography - Mandela" by Martin Meredith. During my read I have stumbled upon this chapter that made me question the concept of freedom.
"I hate the practice of racial discrimination, and in my hatred I am sustained by the fact that the overwhelming majority of mankind hate it equally....
Nothing that this court can do to me will change in any way that hatred in me, which can only be removed by the removal of the injustice and the inhumanity which I have sought to remove from the political, social and economic life of this country.
Whatever sentence Your Worship sees fit to impose upon me for the crime for which I have been convicted before this court, may it rest assured that when my sentence has been completed, I will still be moved, as men are always moved, by their consciences; I will still be moved by my dislike of the race discrimination against my people when I come out from serving my sentence, to take up again, as best I can, the struggle for the removal of those injustices until they are finally abolished once and for all." - Nelson Mandela
In this excerpt from the book, we read about a man that was captive in a system, but free. For Mandela, his freedom was his conscience, the freedom of a mindset. I believe even there where he was in jail in humiliating circumstances, I believe there he was a free man. Continuing in this book we find that the only ones captive during this testing times were the white National Party leaders. Slaves of their own system of Apartheid.
- You can only become free by allowing others to be free -
Bibliography - 'A biography Mandela' by Martin Meredith, p225
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