The Mandela Effect

[0] It happened on a Thursday.

[1] Acting on a tip from an informant, the police raided a farm where an underground militia was believed to be plotting a violent insurrection against the government.

[2] Nineteen people were arrested.

[3] He accused deliberately and maliciously plotted and engineered the commission of acts of violence and destruction throughout the country.

[4] Their combined operations were planned to lead to confusion, violent insurrection and repellium.

[5] The men were put on trial, and the leader of the group, already serving a short stint in prison on a separate charge, was considered to be...

[6] The number one terrorist.

[7] His own lawyers, they were looking to get him off, or at the very least, make sure he didn't get the death penalty.

[8] And he was always concerned about generating publicity for the struggle.

[9] Day after day, the trial continued.

[10] And with it, the number one terrorist became a kind of celebrity.

[11] Some called him a freedom fighter.

[12] His picture was everywhere, dressed sharply, proudly sitting alongside his young, glamorous wife.

[13] The world waited to learn what fate had in store for him and his accomplices.

[14] There would be good reason for them to sentence him to death.

[15] So there's a very strong feeling that he, if not all of them, may be hung.

[16] At the opening of the trial, he gave a three -hour speech.

[17] These would be his final words to the world for a long, long time.

[18] But it would not be the last we would hear from the so -called terrorist named Nelson Mandela.

[19] In which all persons will live together in house, if it needs to be, it is an idea.

[20] In 1964, after this trial, Nelson Mandela was sentenced to last.

[21] life in prison.

[22] For years, he was labeled by the state as prisoner 46 -664.

[23] But eventually, against all odds in 1994, he transformed from South Africa's number one terrorist into South Africa's first black president, ushering in a new era of democracy.

[24] Hopes were high back in 1994 as years of segregation and white rule came to an end.

[25] Now Samandela talked about a country where every citizen, would live a dignified life and be treated equally.

[26] But 30 years on, many say there's little to celebrate.

[27] South Africa's violent crime rates are among the worst in the world.

[28] Unemployment is at an all -time high.

[29] Inequality has been growing.

[30] Hopes been replaced by disappointment and skepticism.

[31] They're asking themselves, why do we have this kind of a situation?

[32] If you're 25, South Africa is 30 years old, you don't know what apartheid was.

[33] You didn't live it.

[34] You didn't see it.

[35] and that's a fair assessment of the New South Africa.

[36] The New South Africa, where everyone now has the right to vote.

[37] But many, especially in the black community, don't even have access to clean water.

[38] Most whites are still at the top.

[39] Most black people are still at the bottom.

[40] Up to like 60 % of black people are considered poor.

[41] This is Sean Jacobs.

[42] He's a professor of international affairs at the New School.

[43] He grew up in Cape Town during apartheid.

[44] and says because of that, he feels hopeful despite these challenges.

[45] I grew up in a township.

[46] I know the place where my father was removed from.

[47] I know what the apartheid landscape was like.

[48] So that 94 for me is like we won something.

[49] They created the context for us to kind of wrestle, think through, create conditions, work at it to create this other kind of society.

[50] So on the 29th of May this year, South African citizens will go to the polls with a choice on who they want to lead this country.

[51] The upcoming elections could mark a turning point in the story of South Africa in pursuit of that other kind of society.

[52] For the first time since Nelson Mandela took office back in 1994, 30 years ago, his party, the African National Congress, or ANC, may not win a majority of the votes.

[53] Many in South Africa see the party as corrupt and responsible for the country's problems.

[54] It's been a complicated political saga, with all sides attempting to weaponize parts of the past, especially the legacy of Nelson Mandela.

[55] I never wanted to be regarded as an angel.

[56] I'm an ordinary human being with weaknesses, some of them fundamental.

[57] And I've made many mistakes in my life.

[58] I am not a saint unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trial.

[59] Despite his pleas, Mandela is often characterized as a kind of saint, the miraculous savior of South Africa.

[60] But the struggle against apartheid was long and painstaking.

[61] There were setbacks, disagreements, compromises, violence, all of which helped produce the South Africa of today.

[62] And that's where this episode will sit in that murky space between the myth and the man, exploring the complicated questions it raises about the nature of resistance movements, about when, if ever, violence is justified, and what ultimately is the cost of freedom.

[63] Come Woodbury, Minnesota, and you're listening to True Line from NBI.

[64] Part 1.

[65] The Young Lions I grew up in a royal court, the elders of the tribe.

[66] They all tell me stories about the battles which were fought when the whites came and the heroes that emerged from those battles.

[67] Nelson Mandela was born in 1918 in the Transkei, a region in the eastern Cape of South Africa.

[68] The son of a chief, he was given the name Honishla -Mandela at birth.

[69] In Gosa, it literally translates to pulling the branch from a tree.

[70] Colloquially, it means troublemaker.

[71] South Africa was then a British colony, but the British had never really conquered that region of South Africa.

[72] The short of it is, South Africa had been colonized for centuries, first by the Dutch who used it as a trading base with Asia, and then by the British, who wanted access to the enormous reserves of gold and diamonds buried in the land.

[73] There were bloody wars over territory, which put most South Africans under their control.

[74] troll.

[75] The trans guy, Mandela's home, was the last big area where black South Africans could still own land.

[76] It was in many ways in all -black world.

[77] This is Richard Stengel.

[78] Alongside Mandela, he wrote Long Walk to Freedom, the autobiography of Nelson Mandela.

[79] Most of the recordings you're hearing of Mandela's voice in this episode come from interviews Richard conducted with him for that book.

[80] His confidence, his sense of self, his sense of African history, Even his sense of destiny, I think, came from those early days.

[81] And I had this ambition, you know.

[82] A bright child, Holishlashla Mandela, began school at age seven, in a single -room schoolhouse near his home village.

[83] So the teacher automatically gave you a name, an English name when you went to school.

[84] When you arrived, you'd say, well, your name is Nelson.

[85] And for the rest of his life, the world would know Holi Shlashla as Nelson Mandela.

[86] The thing that I think changed the trajectory of his life was when he ran away to Johannesburg.

[87] It was 1941.

[88] I wanted to train as a lawyer.

[89] Aparthi didn't officially exist yet, but racial prejudice was everywhere, the result of centuries of colonization.

[90] I met people like Walter Sissolu, who was a giant in the life.

[91] liberation movement.

[92] Oppressed people of South Africa are determined as never before to carry on until freedom is one.

[93] Now, these are people who exercise an influence on me. And I discovered that there was a world which I did not know.

[94] It was doors open to me. And that was the first time that he experienced the weight of the world.

[95] of racial prejudice.

[96] I had to unlearn what I had learned.

[97] The South Africa that Mandela was opening his eyes to was a bleak one.

[98] Although South Africa's population was nearly 70 % black, politics were dominated by the minority white population, most of whom were the descendants of Dutch colonists, called Afrikaners.

[99] And with the series of laws in the early 1900s, the exclusively white parliament systematically moved land out of the hands of black South Africans and into the hands of white South Africans.

[100] And black South Africans across the country were systematically barred from voting.

[101] A few years after moving to Johannesburg, Mandela joined the African National Congress, or ANC, a political organization that advocated for the rights of black South Africans.

[102] It was self -consciously nonviolent.

[103] Since its founding in 1912, the ANC had mostly operated as a letter -writing organization.

[104] Until...

[105] We can act in only one of two directions.

[106] Either we must follow the course of equality, which must eventually mean national suicide for the white race, or we must take the course of separation.

[107] Daniel Francois Milan.

[108] In 1948, a new exclusively African, Connor government, led by Prime Minister Daniel Francois Milan, came to power in South Africa and put in place a new policy called apartheid.

[109] Apartide shaped every part of life for black and white South Africans, as well as the small but significant populations of mixed -race, quote, colored and Indian people, whose ancestors were often brought to South Africa as slaves and indentured servants.

[110] Black people were removed from their homes and forced to live either in urban townships, often without electricity or municipal services, or rural areas called Bantu stands that were overcrowded and impoverished.

[111] Society was completely segregated.

[112] If you were black, colored, or Indian, you needed a passbook to travel into any white area.

[113] And there was a strict censorship of the media.

[114] Faced with this escalating prejudice, Mandela and other young members of the United States, ANC, including Walter Sisulu and Mandela's partner in his law practice, Oliver Tambo, teamed up to create the ANC Youth League.

[115] These are young people who start to say, we need to change a strategy.

[116] This is DeSepo Malloy.

[117] He's a lecturer in the history department at the University of Johannesburg.

[118] We need to be more confrontational now.

[119] Their stance earned them the nickname, The Young Lions.

[120] They launched what was called The Defiance Canes.

[121] The laws that they defied was to walk into white areas without permission.

[122] When the police come, you expect that they will do what they will do, the dogs will bark, and they may spit on you, but you do not move.

[123] This is Sisonke M. Simung.

[124] She's the author of the book, The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela.

[125] Nelson Mandela is the coordinator of the defiance campaign in the Johannesburg area.

[126] He said, I violated the laws, but the laws themselves are unjust.

[127] The laws themselves should be on trial.

[128] In the midst of all this change, Mandela has his entire world upended when he meets his match.

[129] So she's significantly younger than him.

[130] She's very, very stubborn, and she's very determined to learn.

[131] Her name was Winnie Madhikazela.

[132] She was the first black female social worker in South Africa.

[133] And at a time in the 1950s, when African women certainly didn't get that level of education, she was a real achiever.

[134] They fell head over heels for each other.

[135] And they kind of never look back from there.

[136] And a couple of years later, in 1958, Nelson and Winnie got married against the backdrop of the ongoing anti -apartheid struggle.

[137] A struggle that was about to take a sharp turn as the mood in South Africa darkened further.

[138] On the 21st of March, 1960, activists go on a march in a place called Sharpeville.

[139] The group of people who lived in Sharpeville went to the police station to end their passbooks and be arrested.

[140] The police opened fire on the people, the crowd which was there.

[141] And as they begin to shoot, many of the protesters start to run away.

[142] 69 people are killed.

[143] Most of them shot in the back.

[144] And scores of others.

[145] were injured.

[146] The 21st of March becomes this seminal moment in which it is clear that the apartheid regime is not going to turn back and it's only going to get worse.

[147] The South African government declared a state of emergency nine days after the massacre and banned the ANC and another Black Liberation organization called the Pan -Africanist Congress who had organized the Sharpville protests.

[148] The organizations were forced to operate in exile from nearby countries like Tanzania and Zambia.

[149] Mandela began to think that nonviolent protest wasn't going to overturn apartheid.

[150] And Mandela then became the founder of Umcanti Ussiswe, which means the spear of the nation.

[151] The spear of the nation.

[152] A revolutionary army.

[153] Which was the military wing of the ANC.

[154] There was a manifesto of Mkontovacizizuid that was published on the 16th of December, 1961, and it said, The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices, submit or fight.

[155] That time has now come to South Africa.

[156] We shall not submit, and we have no choice but to hit back by all means in our power, in defense of our people, our future, and our freedom.

[157] Even though Mandela, he abhorred violence morally.

[158] His goal, to which everything was subordinate, was freedom for my people, one person, one vote.

[159] When I asked him about the turn, the embrace of violence, he said, The strategy I would use would depend on the conditions.

[160] That's why we're in a result of violence, for example, because the conditions demanded that we should take up.

[161] almost.

[162] Almost in these words, for Gandhi, nonviolence was a moral principle.

[163] Gandhi would never have a good.

[164] For me, it was a tactic, and when a tactic is not working, you change it.

[165] He thought this was a way of putting more pressure on the government, and perhaps getting more international support.

[166] And that was more his goal than overturning the state or defeating the very powerful South African military.

[167] Which was getting support and weaponry from the West, including the U .S., who saw the South African government as an ally in its Cold War against communism.

[168] Meanwhile, the ANC and its members were considered an enemy in that war because of their links to the Soviet Union and their new willingness to engage in violence.

[169] Mandela was placed on the U .S. terrorism watch list.

[170] Mandela, then shortly thereafter, went underground, and he started to build a guerrilla movement.

[171] They begin to call him the black pimpernel.

[172] He's like this spy figure.

[173] Sometimes he'd wear disguises, sneak into the country, and show up at home without notice, surprising Winnie and their daughters.

[174] And they'll have a chance to touch base and recuperate, and then he'll be gone again, and she can't ask any questions about where he's going.

[175] One day, Winnie receives news that authorities have raided a farm outside Johannesburg, which housed the ANC's base in South Africa.

[176] The evidence they gathered there was enough to bring her husband to trial for treason and sabotage.

[177] He was already serving a short stint in prison on a separate charge.

[178] But now, the South African government had its number one terrorists cornered on a much more serious charge, where the stakes would be life or death.

[179] So when he comes every morning, very well -dressed, often very stark white or very bright colors.

[180] So she's very attuned to the public space as a space of political theater.

[181] And on June 11, 1964, the verdict came down in the now infamous Rivonia trial.

[182] It is an idea for which I am prepared to die.

[183] A life sentence in prison.

[184] Mandela and his comrades in Umkanto -Weiswe are taken away to Robin Island, South Africa's maximum security prison.

[185] Winnie and their daughters are not allowed to say goodbye.

[186] Those who are outside prison homes are simply in a bigger prison.

[187] And for 27 years, prison gates and glass partitions would separate their worlds.

[188] We are all really in prison, in a bigger aparthe prison.

[189] Coming up, in Nelson's absence, Winnie takes up the spear of the nation.

[190] Hello, this is Paulina from Toronto, Canada, and you're listening to ThruLines from NPR.

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[198] Part two, 27 years.

[199] When we arrived, they asked us to crush stones to make rather.

[200] They bring big stones.

[201] They had one on the ground and then you have a hammer and you break the stones on this big stone.

[202] Robin Island is a spectacularly beautiful island just a few miles off the coast of Cape Town.

[203] People called it South Africa's Alcatraz.

[204] Robin is the word for seal.

[205] There were thousands of seals on the beach.

[206] Thousands and thousands of penguins was like a nature reserve with a prison on it.

[207] When he was on Robin Island, no images of Mandela were allowed to be displayed and the colors of the African National Congress were banned.

[208] So Winnie Mandela became the person who carries his voice.

[209] I was the most unmarried, married woman because, because we really never live together.

[210] Who reminds us of his image, and the name of Nelson Mandela is a name that must be spoken and spoken and spoken because that is the way of keeping him alive.

[211] Literally keeping him alive because the sense that he cannot die because he would be too big of a martyr.

[212] Our communication as family was always through the letters and through the bus, the prison bus.

[213] This is some of what they wrote to each other, read by voice actors.

[214] My dearest Winnie, your beautiful photo still stands about two feet above my left shoulder.

[215] I still cannot believe that at last I've heard from you, darling.

[216] I dusted carefully every morning.

[217] Darling, when you get the children's school reports, please study them.

[218] My dearest Winnie, you may find that the Sal is an ideal place to learn to know yourself.

[219] And Zinzi wants to be a teacher.

[220] My dearest Winnie.

[221] I really cannot understand.

[222] Why are there so much harshness?

[223] My dearest Winnie.

[224] Lots of love.

[225] Forever yours.

[226] Winnie Mandela was seen as and described as a mother of the nation.

[227] A young mother to two little girls who faced down the apartheid state for 27 years, alone.

[228] Longing for a beloved.

[229] An experience many Black South African women had.

[230] Around the country, husbands and fathers would travel to Johannesburg, a city literally sitting on a gold mine, to work for powerful mining companies that had influenced over the government.

[231] And often they would only see their families once a year.

[232] The difference for Winnie was that she also had the apartheid state closely monitoring her every move.

[233] The apartheid state had a high, degree of surveillance.

[234] It was full of police officers and full of military personnel.

[235] In 1969, Winnie was arrested in the middle of the night, still in her pajamas, and taken to prison.

[236] And they keep her under what is called the Terrorism Act.

[237] So it allows anyone who's suspected of involvement in terrorism to be detained without trial.

[238] And so what then begins is a series of detentions without trial.

[239] They string her along.

[240] First thing you do when you get into the cell is with that at least you have a pin or something on you.

[241] So you can scratch the calendar on the one.

[242] And that is how I kept saying, because you lose track of the time and date.

[243] For more than a year, she was locked in solitary confinement.

[244] She was beaten, tortured.

[245] I reached a point, I think, a threshold where the baby.

[246] body could not take the pain anymore, and then I would faint.

[247] She was even denied sanitary pads when she was on her period.

[248] That is the extent to which they dehumanized you.

[249] It's a very, very difficult time for her.

[250] And when they threw a bucket of water to wake me up, I got up and I started fighting all over again.

[251] My dearest win.

[252] I sincerely don't.

[253] whether you will ever get this particular one.

[254] During Nelson Mandela's time in prison, information about the outside world was scarce.

[255] Sometimes the guards would leave newspaper clippings in his cell with bad news about Winnie, a kind of psychological torment.

[256] But there was nothing he could do.

[257] He was basically forced to create an alternate reality within the prison walls.

[258] And you see these incredible diaries that he kept of how many push -ups and sit -ups he did every day.

[259] You know, how long he ran in place.

[260] The books that he read, how far he got.

[261] He famously decided to learn Afrikaans in prison.

[262] He memorized Afrikaans poetry.

[263] He learned about rugby, which was the great Afrikaans sport.

[264] He was always, preparing for the time that he got out.

[265] They wanted to break our experience.

[266] So what we did was to sing freedom songs as we were working.

[267] And then, of course, dancing to the music as we were working, you know?

[268] The entire time Nelson Mandela was in prison, the ANC was in exile, strategizing from afar, seeking international support for the movement.

[269] But within South Africa, It was mostly silent.

[270] The white authorities made sure of it.

[271] Then, in the early 1970s, new voices in the struggle began to break that silence.

[272] Changes which are to come can only come as a result of a program worked out by black people.

[273] You have establishment of what was known as Saso.

[274] Saso, the South African Students' Organization.

[275] And it's led by people like that.

[276] Steve Biko.