Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Becoming Nelson Mandela (New Story)

Becoming Nelson Mandela

Produced by Joe Richman/Radio Diaries with help from Deborah George and Ben Shapiro
Originally broadcast on NPR's All Things Considered July 18,2008

NPR host:Nelson Mandela turns 90 years old today.
Over the course of his lifetime Mandela was a lawyer, freedom fighter, leader of the African National Congress,...and finally the first post-apartheid president of South Africa. Today, producer Joe Richman of Radio Diaries takes us back to the events leading up to his 1963 treason trial and the pivotal moment when Mandela became known to the world as a symbol of resistance and democracy.

MUSIC: Miriam Makeba, ?Make Us One?

NELSON MANDELA: I remember when I arrived in Johannesburg. The fear, you know, of the power of the white man inhibited us a great deal. And the government was becoming very tough.

PRIME MINISTER D.F. MALAN SPEECH (ARCHIVAL): The color question is rapidly increasing in seriousness and urgency. I consider apartheid ? that's the separation policy ? to be South Africa's last chance to remain a white man's country. (Applause)

NELSON MANDELA: We now began to feel that the time had come to actually challenge the power of a government like South Africa with all it?s army, police force, and jails.

GOVERNMENT NEWSCAST: The Governor General has proclaimed a state of emergency in 80 of the 300 magisterial districts?
(SIRENS)

NEWSCAST (Walter Cronkite): It was Sharpeville, Monday March 21st 1960. Several hundred natives gathered peaceably to protest the Pass Laws. Police, mounted on tanks, opened fire. 69 natives were killed. Some of the dead were children, women, and elderly men.

NEWSCAST: Demonstrations against the government by Africans continue on an increasing scale, despite the decree of a state of emergency and the arrest of hundreds of leaders of the opposition. The outside world watches and shares the anxiety of a troubled land. (Music ends)

NELSON MANDELA: It was felt that somebody should go underground and lead the movement. I accepted the challenge.

AHMED KATHRADA, activist: My name is Ahmed Kathrada. I was a political activist with Mandela. The circumstances of that period demanded a special person. It demanded a person like Mandela. And he carried on his work underground. But one of the things he had was a beard. So it was well known on flyers and photographs this man with his beard. It was a very nice little beard. And when he went underground we thought the first thing he must do is shave off his beard. He wouldn?t. He just refused. The only disguise he agreed to is he put on a cap and he?d wear overalls, because now and then he acted as a chauffer.

INTERVIEWER: I went to see a 42-year-old African lawyer, Nelson Mandela, the most dynamic leader in South Africa today. The police were hunting for him at the time, but African Nationalists had arranged for me to meet him at his hideout. This is Mandela's first television interview. I asked him what it was that the African really wanted.
NELSON MANDELA, Interview: The Africans require the franchise on the basis of one man, one vote. They want political independence.
INTERVIEWER: If Dr. Verwoerd's government doesn't give you the concessions you want some time soon, is there any likelihood of violence?
NELSON MANDELA, Interview: There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile for us to continue talking peace and non-violence against a government whose reply is only savage attacks on an unarmed and defenseless people. And I think the time has come (interview fades under)

NELSON MANDELA: I had made a statement where I called for armed struggle. Naturally, there was a great deal of resistance. But I believed the government had left us with no other alternative.

NEWSREEL: At the end of 1961, the bombing campaign started. Its targets: telephone poles, power supplies, post offices, telephone booths, and pass offices ? objects, not people. The aim was to shock the government into negotiating.

AHMED KATHRADA: We were branded terrorists by the whole western world. They would have nothing to do with us. As somebody once said: one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

GOVERNMENT MINISTER (ARCHIVAL): As far as the government of South Africa is concerned, the breakdown of law and order in South Africa will not be tolerated under any circumstances whatsoever.

AMINA CACHALIA, activist: Mandela had addressed a meeting in Durban. He was coming back, and the police stopped him. They asked him what was his name and he said ?David.? And they said, ?You?re under arrest Mr. Mandela.?

(SINGING AND CROWD AMBIENCE)

NEWSCAST: A remarkable demonstration by a crowd of several hundred outside the courthouse in Pretoria. Nelson Mandela, leader and founder of the sabotage movement, Spear of the Nation, and a leading member of the African National Congress, accused, with the others, of plotting sabotage to overthrow the South African government by force.

AHMED KATHRADA: There were eight of us in the trial. And the first day the lawyer said, "Chaps, prepare for the worst."

(COURTROOM SCENE)

PROSECUTOR (ARCHIVAL): Firstly, the state alleges the planned purpose was to bring about chaos, disorder, and turmoil in a battle to be waged against the white man in this country.

GEORGE BIZOS, defense attorney: They were called terrorists. We knew there was no hope of getting an acquittal. The question was, "What do we do with the trial?"

NELSON MANDELA: Our approach was one of defiance, because we said, "It is the government that is a criminal and should be standing in the dock to face trial. We are not guilty."

PROSECUTOR (ARCHIVAL): That, my Lord, is the case for the State.

AHMED KATHRADA: When the defense case started, Mandela, he was going to be the first defense witness. The prosecutor had prepared extensively to cross-examine Mandela and break him down. And they all got a shock when our lawyers announced that Mandela will not give evidence but he'll make a statement from the dock.

GEORGE BIZOS: The courtroom was absolutely packed. He stood up and he proceeded to deliver this speech.

NELSON MANDELA SPEECH AT TRIAL (Archival): I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people. I know this sounds revolutionary to the whites in this country. Because the majority of voters will be Africans. This makes the white man fear democracy?.

AHMED KATHRADA: It was a four-hour speech. But that last bit where he said, "These are the ideals for which I am prepared to die." Just that last bit?

DENNIS GOLDBERG: I knew what he was going to say, because we had all seen the speech. Everybody had made comments about it. And I knew he was going to say, in effect, "Hang me if you dare to, Mr. Judge." But only when he said it...

NELSON MANDELA SPEECH AT TRIAL (Archival): I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunity. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for. But, my Lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

DENNIS GOLDBERG: There was dead silence. Nobody said anything. Even the judge didn't know what to say. I knew it was a moment of history. He emerged then as a great leader.

(COURT ADJOURNS)

NELSON MANDELA: The possibility of a death sentence of course worried me. I remember we adjourned for lunch and a friendly Afrikaner warder asked me the question, "Mandela, what do you think is going to happen to you in this case?" I said to him, "Agh, they are going to hang us." Now, I was really expecting some word of encouragement from him. And I thought he was going to say, "Agh man, that can never happen." But he became serious and then he said, "I think you are right, they are going to hang you."

(CROWD AMBIENCE)

NEWSCAST: The next day, armed police massed an even greater force as Mr. Justice de Wet was passing sentence.

JUDGE (Archival): I am by no means convinced that the motives of the accused were as altruistic as they wish the court to believe?

AHMED KATHRADA: When they said, "Stand up for your sentence," we thought, "Well, here it comes."

JUDGE (Archival): I have decided not to impose the supreme penalty, which in a case like this would usually be the proper penalty for the crime. That is the only leniency I can show. The sentence in the case of all the accused will be life imprisonment.

DENNIS GOLDBERG: And, um... we laughed. We turned to each other and laughed because we expected to be hanged.

NEWSCAST: At the back entrance to Pretoria Court, large crowds gather to watch the accused being driven away to start their life sentences.

NEWSCAST: There have been growing protests from all over the world today at the sentence of life imprisonment passed in South Africa on Friday on this man, Nelson Mandela?

(SINGING)

DENNIS GOLDBERG: Nelson Mandela did become the symbol of the struggle for liberation in South Africa. People could identify with Nelson Mandela: Nelson Mandela the lawyer, Nelson Mandela the hero, Nelson Mandela the handsome man. But it was the response to his Rivonia Trial speech, called throughout the world the 'I am prepared to die' speech, which somersaulted him ? and the African National Congress, and the need to put an end to apartheid ? into the world's consciousness.

(AIRPLANE)

NELSON MANDELA: As we were being flown to Robben Island, one tried to accept the reality that we may, in fact, spend years in prison. But we believed very strongly that we would not die in jail. We would return. But we stayed there for 27 years.

MUSIC: ?Mandela?

? 2008 Radio Diaries

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