Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 444 - Nelson Mandela: From Prisoner to President

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

How much do you know about Nelson Mandela and South Africa's brutal, racially oppressive system of apartheid? Mandela became the first black president of South Africa in 1994, just four years after serving 27 years in prison for demanding equal rights for the black citizens of the predominantly black nation of South Africa. Mandela would do so much to help dismantle the South African system of apartheid that led to his incarceration, and we'll learn about how apartheid worked, who Nelson Mandela was, and more in today's inspirational and historical episode. Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch.

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion. People must learn to hate. And if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love. Where love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. That's a quote from a speech given by legendary American thespian Paul Rubens, aka Peebee Herman. He read that at a press conference he gave shortly after his arrest for indecent exposure when he was caught beating off in an adult theater in Sarasota, Florida in 1991. How does that relate to Nelson Mandela? Well, years later Pee Wee would claim that the only reason he was in that adult

theater was because he was hiding from Mandela. A man he claimed was a high ranking officer within the Illuminati. A man he said had sexually abused him for years. Abused him alongside other world leaders, also abusing him, like the infamous sadist Pat Sajak. And the matricidal Roy Disney. Peewee said the abuse occurred while he was locked inside a cage. A cage that sat inside a massive underground child-sex slave complex built and operated by the very same satanic reptilians that visionary

and truth seeker David Icke has been courageously and altruistically warning us about for many years. Wake up sheeple! The time to act is now! We must save the children! Wait, wait no, shit, sorry, sorry, no that was total nonsense. Nonsense that sadly feels like the kind of thing more and more people are actually believing as our world becomes dramatically more insane in recent years Good times to be a lunatic conspiracist. You are being embraced by the mainstream like never before

Thank you subversive Russian cyber operatives for planting so much conspiratorial nonsense on the internet the past decade or so The now complete and utter madness feels completely plausible to a terrifying amount of people. But anyway, that beautiful quote I read comes from a beautiful man named Nelson Mandela. Someone who's powerfully and completely dedicated to fighting disinformation and promoting equality and truth, real truth, back in the days long before the internet. Nelson Mandela was a social rights activist, politician, and philanthropist for the overwhelming majority of his life. He grew up in an extremely racially divided society

and witnessed first hand the enactment of apartheid, South Africa's highly structured and barbaric system of racial segregation and white supremacy. Mandela had been interested in law and activism well before it became a household name. He chose to fight against injustice by becoming one of the leaders of South Africa's anti-apartheid movement. His promotion of truth and his defiant but peaceful call for change terrified the powers that be. And they tried to silence him by convicting him on some bullshit charges of sabotage and treason. Charges that would send him to prison for nearly three decades, starting in 1962. The goal of his imprisonment was to marginalize him,

to make people forget about him, but that would not happen. During his long years behind bars, Mandela's fame grew. He became an international symbol of righteous resistance and unjust incarceration. A growing movement of people from all around the world condemned the South African government for imprisoning this man and more and more voices called more and more loudly for Mandela's freedom.

Mandela was finally granted that long overdue freedom in 1990 and he immediately dove back into politics, helping to negotiate a new government in 1993 after the country finally voted to end apartheid. He would win a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts and then in 1994 he would become the first black president of South Africa. Mandela would continue with his activism all the way until his death in 2013. Now today, a dozen years later, Nelson Mandela is considered one of the most important and influential figures in modern world history. While Mandela fought for change he also emphasized the importance of forgiveness, compassion, and unity. It was a very special meat stack. Someone to both admire and

emulate. If this episode does not inspire you, I have some terrible news. You are literally dead. I'm so sorry to tell you that. I don't know when exactly he became an undead heartless zombie, but it definitely happened. Rest in peace, you. This week I'll do my best to convey an overview of Mandela's long life and how it became intertwined with anti-apartheid activism. I'll share how he became an internationally recognized figure in this biographical. Freedom isn't free. All of us who live free owe our freedom to the sacrifices of those who came before us, the sacrifices of courageous individuals like Nelson Mandela who are willing to forego their own freedom in order to give it to us, addition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck. Well, happy Monday and welcome to the Cult of the Curious. I'm Dan Cummins, the Suckmaster, the director of the Suffolk County Long Island Board of

Tourism. Chicken Joe's parole officer blazes hype, man. And you are listening to Time Suck. A couple quick things and then we're off. Got some new merch for March with St. Patrick's Day upon us in honor of Irish heritage. I'm hoping you will sign a petition making all women the literal no rights having property of either their fathers,

their husbands, or the Catholic Church. Let's roll it back, come on! No, I'm introducing the Pinch Me tee, featuring an illustration of your favorite cult leader in a classic leprechaun top hat, a must have for any St. Patrick's Day occasion. The shirt screams you can't pinch, but I'm sure it's not going to pinch you and probably your bottom. Next we have a time suck timeline tee featuring the action call to strap on those boots soldier. A perfect tee that says ready for the timeline sir Also, we finally have some new time suck hats

featuring the new quick dry snapback feature in a classic style time suck badge in three different colors. Get your new gear at badmagicproductions.com today and my only standup dates of the year quickly approach. And they're, and I think they're selling pretty well. They will be my only dates. I love the Nashville Comedy Festival,

but overall staying focused on podcasting for the time being. So if you want to see me in a comedy club, tickets, selling fast for April 11th and 12th, one show Friday, two shows Saturday, who the fuck knows what stories I will be telling any of those shows, because I don't know,

but I think it's going to be fun. And one more thing, I have gotten a growing number of messages over the past few weeks about how I feel about the rapidly changing state of the nation. I'll keep it brief and I'll preface my thoughts by explaining why I rarely address current problems here. It is not because I don't care. I would think you would know that by now, but maybe some of you don't. If I didn't care about the world around me, why would I have ever started a monthly donation policy that is now given almost a million dollars to dozens of incredible charities? If I didn't care about the world, I wouldn't have spoken out on divisive issues in the past.

Issues that speaking out about I knew would hurt my business and it did. The reason I don't constantly talk about current issues is that there are too many to address. It's just a practical consideration. There are always too many to address and when you address one you inevitably get a bunch of calls to address all the other ones. For whatever atrocity has the zeitgeist worked up at the moment there are dozens of others flying under the radar. I am shocked constantly that people seem to continually forget that. It's always been that way. So when you get pissed that I'm not talking about A, B, or C because A, B, or C, or all of them are near and dear to your heart, I ask you, are you being vocal about X, Y, and Z? No

you're not. No one, literally no one is talking about everything. So why do you insist that I must speak out about the issue you're currently focused on when you don't speak out about all the issues I find important? For example, while everyone has been focused on the Gaza Strip, so many protests, so much outrage, a lot of people piss that I haven't spoken about it, the outrage is justified. What about how many protests have been held in the US during the times of everything going on in Gaza currently? How many how many protests have there been held in the US about the ongoing crisis in

Sudan's civil war? More than 11 million people have been internally displaced since fighting erupted in April of 2023. Several additional million people have fled Sudan. Tens of thousands of unarmed civilians have been raped and or murdered. A genocide has officially been declared. Islamic extremists carrying out a fucking ethnic cleansing. Former US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said just a few months ago that Arab militias had perpetrated quote direct attacks against civilians including the systematic murder of men

and boys even infants on an ethnic basis. They also have quote deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence. One woman working for a non-profit helping Sudanese victims said in an article I read just this morning that she recently worked with at least 10 girls, some as young as 14 years old, who took their own lives after being gang raped by Arab militia men. And I can go on and on and on, having gotten a single message about not speaking out about that. Or about not speaking out about dozens and dozens of other horrible atrocities happening around the world right now.

And I use this as an example to illustrate that if I spoke out against all the bad shit going on in the world every week, there would literally be no room left for me to tell actual stories. I would spend so much time trying to intelligently address instead of just virtue signal this or that current dumpster fire that I would not have enough time to create the content that drew you here in the first place. I don't think many of you truly understand how much time it takes to create these episodes even with researchers. That being said of course there is a lot going on right now that I don't fucking like because I'm a human being with a decent amount of empathy. I don't like for

example a guy no one elected a South African billionaire who I admittedly used to like, shitting on middle class federal workers like a junior high bully, literally laughing as he callously takes away the livelihoods of working class Americans and demonizes them as well, many of whom are fucking veterans. In case anyone forgot that, people fired in wildly undignified, inhumane, and disgusting ways. Even if the federal government does need to be on-size, there is definitely a better way to do it, and anybody who has the morality of something above a junior high bully should understand that.

And I can go on and on, but I won't, because that is not what this podcast is. What I will say is that liberal or conservative, straight, gay, or transgender, man or woman, black, white, brown, everything else, for as long as I choose to do this, and it is a choice, you will have a place here with me. Love thy neighbor, fuck manipulative billionaires, hail Nimrod, and team meat sack forever. Strange times, meat sack, strange strange times to all those hurting right now I am truly sorry that you are dealing with heavy shit, and I wish I could fucking wave it away And that's all I got for right now

I'm gonna keep doing what I've been doing here, and I'm gonna hope it continues to be a place for you to learn laugh Have some empathy maybe feel inspired from time to time and I'm gonna hope that's enough And now let's get back to it. You beautiful bastards. It's topic time motherfuckers I'm gonna start off today With an overview of how the Dutch colonized South Africa and then once we understand that Colonization and the system of apartheid that colonizers created and enforced to keep native Africans living under their oppressive thumbs fucking white people! I'll dig into a timeline of Nelson Mandela's life and

explain how he fought against apartheid so successfully. Hail Nimrod and yip yip yah. According to an article on the History Channel's website, According to an article on the History Channel's website, quote, white settlers had historically viewed black South Africans as a natural resource to be used to turn the country from a rural society to an industrialized one. What a truly disgusting thing to believe, right? And something European colonizers in general believe for centuries, manifest destiny. But they believe that locals were just nothing more than a resource for them to exploit. They weren't autonomous people, right? To be considered as equals, not people with their own culture, aspirations, hopes, and dreams.

Just resources. No different than livestock, gold, oil, or crops. So much easier to make a quick buck when you truly don't give a fuck about using other people to put some extra shekels in your pocket. True then, true now. Because you don't actually see people as people other than yourself in the close circle around you. Beginning in the 17th century, newly Dutch settlers in South Africa, settlers who were businessmen and the families of businessmen, relied heavily on enslaved local labor to build up their new colony. In 1651 the Dutch East India Company, which had been established just under 50 years prior in 1602, a company commonly abbreviated as the VOC, issued orders to establish a refreshment station at the Cape of Good Hope on the bottom of

the southern coast of modern-day South Africa. And by refreshment station I'm not talking about a lemonade stand, which would be funny. I love the thought of an ancient mariner anchoring specifically to grab himself some fresh lemonade. It's a remote location. But no, I'm talking about a place for the VOC's big-ass trade ships to anchor, be repaired, collect some fresh water, fresh food, have other stuff brought on board so the Dutch sailors heading to Asia, particularly the Dutch colony in Indonesia at this time, on board so the Dutch sailors heading to Asia, particularly the Dutch colony in Indonesia at this time, could stay healthy and strong and keep the morale up

as they continued to make loads and loads of money for themselves, the VOC and the Dutch Republic. Jan Van Rijbijk, a Dutch navigator, ambassador and colonial administrator for the VOC, signed a five-year contract to build the resupply station in Fortford Defense. He left for the Cape, the very southern tip of South Africa in December of 1651. He arrived there five months later, April 6th, 1652.

The Dutch East India Company, one of the most powerful and wealthy trading companies in the world at that time, company that had a monopoly on the Dutch Empire's business with nearly all of Asia, granted a group of Dutchmen permission to live near the Cape and established farms there to increase the food supply for future resupply voyages. Initially, there was no goal to colonize the area.

They just wanted to build out essentially the colonial version of a big-ass truck stop, where sailors could grab the equivalent of gas, some snacks, and some bottled water. Within three years, by 1655, some VOC employees had figured out how to grow some vegetables on South African soil, but the settlement still primarily depended on food being brought down from Amsterdam. Because of the high demand for supplies, in 1657, the VOC allowed more employees

who had worked for the company for a few years to lease large pieces of land in the area around the Cape for farming. But still, it wasn't supposed to become its own colony. These early Dutch farmers became known as free burgers or free citizens. They were given seeds, tools and land. Their farms were incredibly labor intensive in the days before tractors and other modern farming equipment and the free burgers imported in slave people from Madagascar, Mozambique and Asia. They were contractually obligated to sell a large part of their produce to the VOC and also forbidden to trade with the Khoi Khoi, the indigenous people of the area who they had established a trading relationship with.

The Khoi Khoi were pastoralists Oh, there you go. Who would bring their cattle to the Cape for grazing and sometimes trade these cattle to the free burgers. And I do like that people called burgers are raising cattle. That's very funny to me. While at first things were peaceful, the expansion of the Dutch in the area who were settling on land traditionally used by the Khoi Khoi of course eventually led to conflict and the Khoi Khoi were no strangers to conflict with Europeans. They had previously fought with the Portuguese who came to South Africa long before the Dutch. They had previously fought with the Portuguese, who came to South Africa long before the Dutch. Back in 1510, a band of Khoikhoi had fought and killed Portuguese Admiral Francisco de Almeida

and 64 of his men in what became known as the Battle of Salt River. Despite some skirmishes, the Dutch settlement grew, and by the 1660s, it began to be referred to as a town by those who sought, hence the name Cape Town, South Africa, a town founded in Ar, April 6th, 1652. The VOC complained in 1661 that Jan van Riebik or Jan van Rebik was in fact establishing... these fucking names the last couple of years sucks. It kills me that the letters like as far as like American pronunciation just not even fucking close to matching how you say it in Dutch. But yes, the VOC complained in 1661 that Jan van Riebik was in fact establishing a colony as opposed to a refueling station,

which was discouraged by the company, but still Cape Town grew. And by the 1670s, the VOC committed to establishing a permanent Dutch settlement, a proper colony, also a company town, at the Cape, something far more ambitious than a place to resupply and repair its ships. The Dutch Cape colony would be the VOC's only permanent settlement and it quickly became a place considered as an ideal retirement spot for their employees, despite a growing amount of violence there. Not only were the VOC colonists involved in continual conflicts with the Khoikhoi people, but they were also under constant threat from the British and the French, who had growing business interests in Asia and wanted the Cape for themselves because of its strategic resupplying location.

The so-called Khoikhoi Dutch Wars were a series of armed conflicts that lasted from 1659 to 1677. There aren't very good records regarding how many died in these battles, but it's thought the tens of thousands of Koy Koy were killed in these conflicts. Eventually the Koy Koy ceded more land to Dutch settlers who then moved further inland once the conflict was over. The Free Burger population was now evolving into two groups separated by social status, wealth, and education. The more educated, wealthier, and more socially elevated Cape Dutch population. And the boars. Boar is the Dutch word for hog folk, pig people, bacon mothers, and pork brothers.

Subhuman dirty animals with human heads, gross little corkscrew tails, and dirty cloven hooves for feet. And these fucking abominations, they remain monsters. Monsters said to possess dark magical powers to this day. Careful if you're in South Africa. Those filthy fucking pig mongols will turn you into a spider and steal your baby if you're not careful. Don't fall for their tricks. I know boar is just a Dutch word for farmer. And the boars are the forefathers of today's Afrikaner people. Nearly three million Afrikaners live in South Africa today and they will rise centuries later to become the most politically powerful group in all of

South Africa and until 1994 they dominated South Africa's politics as well as the country's commercial agricultural sector. But back to the 17th century. King Louis the 14th of France issued the Edict of Fontainebleau in October of 1685 which revoked the Edict of Nantes. They fucking loved themselves an edict back then. And the religious protections for Huguenots now went away. The Huguenots were a group of French Protestants who fled religious persecution at the hands of the Catholic Church in the 16th and 17th centuries. They were followers of the teachings of John Calvin, a theologian who became a leader of Protestantism in the 16th century. And many Huguenots eager to get the fuck out of France and really away from Europe

were attracted to the Dutch colony and settled there alongside the Free Burgers. By the middle of the 18th century, they will be fully absorbed into the Afrikaner population. I.e. those two groups, raw dog fucked each other's dicks and pussy's raw, and they will cease to have a cultural identity of their own. They got fucked. They got literally fucked out of having a distinct cultural presence. Today in South Africa their legacy is mainly seen in a number of French surnames within the Afrikaner population. Jumping ahead, in 1795, the Dutch Cape Colony will fall under British control after the Battle of Muizenberg. This was a military expedition launched by the British against the Dutch.

The VOC port was still highly desirable because it remained the only viable South African port for ships traveling from Europe over to Asia in the days before the construction of the Panama Canal. The British had decided to act militarily after the Netherlands had become part of the French Empire under Napoleon's aggressive European continental expansion, but England's hold will not last long. Less than a decade later in 1802, Britain returned the Cape Colony to the Dutch after signing the Treaty of Emiens. But then just four years later in 1806 during the ongoing Napoleonic Wars, the British reoccupied the colony after the Battle of Bloberg. The Brits are back in town and those limey bastards are gonna stick around for a while this time. In 1814 the Dutch government will formally

cede sovereignty over the Cape to the British under the terms of the Convention of London. The British will now properly launch their own colonization efforts in South Africa, culminating in roughly 4,000 UK settlers arriving in 1820. However, the white population will remain primarily Dutch, and British colonists, for the most part, will not become a major part of South Africa's Afrikaner population. They will also get fucked. The Dutch. They love to keep fucking other whites until their culture was all but forgotten. Gotta keep an eye out on the Dutch.

They will fuck you. They will fuck you so good after a while you won't even remember where you're from. Hail, Lusifena. Throughout all this expansion and fucking, of course, many of these white colonists were subjugating a variety of indigenous people of South Africa. Not just the Khoikhoi, but the Zulu, the Xhosa, and many more. Today South Africa has 12 different official languages, including one that's sign language.

Of the 11 official spoken languages, nine are from different African peoples. Excuse me. The other two being English and Afrikaner. There's a lot of African diversity there. Around the time slavery was abolished in South Africa in 1863, golden diamonds were discovered in the British crown colony.

White owned mining companies employed and exploited the shit out of black South African workers. Fucking white people! The mining companies adopted the concept of pass laws, which were previously used by enslavers to control the movement of enslaved people. Pass laws were part of an internal passport system designed to restrict the rights of Africans and control their movement and behavior. The first internal passports in South Africa had been introduced back on June 27, 1797 in an attempt to prevent free Africans from entering the whites-only Cape Colony. But really decades earlier,

as far back as 1760, slaves moving between urban and rural areas were required to carry passes authorizing their travel. Pass laws entitled police at any time to demand that Africans show them a properly endorsed document or face arrest. One's passport stated where you were able to work, where you were able to live, and where you were able to just visit. And white employers controlled these things. So now if you were fired, you didn't just lose your job, you could often, and did, you know,

often face literal banishment if your passport was rescinded or altered. How fucked is that? Imagine your boss having the ability to not only fire you for just any reason at all, but also if you were fired, to let the local law know that you are no longer authorized to even visit the town you lived in,

a town where you were possibly born in. You could be legally exiled away from anyone, everyone you'd ever known. So basically slavery did not end in 1863 in South Africa, not really, because the past laws remained. And those laws will be revamped and used very heavily during apartheid. Those laws continued well into the 20th century when South Africa became a self-governing dominion of the UK. Backing up a bit again, between 1899 and 1902 Britain and the Afrikaners fought in the Boer War, also known as the Second Boer War, a conflict which the Afrikaners lost. For years leading up to that war a lot of white South Africans were feeling a strong anti-British sentiment and also

an Afrikaner nationalist identity that had become very intertwined with white supremacy. And while the Afrikaners did not win independence in this war, the sentiment that led to war will ultimately lead to their independence. South Africa became an independent nation free from British control after the passing of the Statute of Westminster in December of 1931. And then the Netherlands in South Africa will officially establish diplomatic relations seven years later in 1938. And the two will fight as allies during World War II. And now the stage has been set for the next era of racial segregation and subjugation, apartheid. Nelson Mandela grew up in a highly racially hostile environment. And this environment inspired him to become a political activist and fight against his nation's

discriminatory laws. With all that established, let's now begin a timeline of Mandela's life and the rise and fall of apartheid around him. Right after this week's first of two mid-show sponsor breaks. If you don't want to hear these ads, if you want to help us with donations each month, sign up on Patreon and get the entire catalog ad free and more. Alright now let's enter that timeline. Shrap on those boots soldier. We're marching down a time suck timeline.

Nelson Mandela was born on July 18th 1918, in the village of Umbeiso on the banks of the Umbechi River in the Republic of Tronskai, South Africa. Tronskai was an unrecognized state in southeastern South Africa at the time, also called a Bantu Stand. Bantu Stand? No D. I'll discuss the concept of a Bantu-stan further along in the timeline. Nelson's birth name was Holilala Mandela. In the Cosa language, Holilala means pulling the branch of a tree, which commonly translates to troublemaker. It's a sign of respect many South Africans will

call him Madiba, his Xhosa clan name, representing being strongly connected to one's African culture was, and I think still very much is, a big deal in South Africa. I got to perform at a month-long comedy festival in South Africa back in 2011, the Nando's Comedy Festival, and I worked with African staff at various venues and I was just shocked by how much animosity some members of various tribes had towards members of other tribes. Just like there have been historical tension between various European cultures like the Irish and the British, the Germans and the French, Serbians and the Bosnians, there are tensions between various African nations. But in Africa these nations have been forced by European colonizers to become citizens of the same European controlled nations

which has made things, you know, pretty messy. A lot of people historically at odds with one another have been lumped into the same ethnic categories inside the same borders. Mandela was born into a royal family of Cosa-speaking Tembu tribe. Of a Cosa-speaking Tembu tribe. His father was Gala Henry Mafa Kanishwa Mandela. And try saying that ten times fucking in a row fast. If you don't speak Tembu. His dad was the principal counselor to the King of the Tembu people. His father was destined to be a chief one day, but then he lost his title and

his fortune over some kind of dispute with the local magistrate. Don't have details on exactly what that dispute was, but what a shitty day. To get your soon to be chief title taken away. Mandela was just a baby when that happened. His mom was Nosa Kenny Fanny who was a third of his father's four wives. A lot of these tribes practiced polygamy when Mandela was born and that fucked up practice actually sadly continues today legally in South Africa. Not a fan. It's definitely not done in some kind of fair way. It's not based in some concept of free love.

It's about women being seen as less than men and controlled. Just, yeah, obviously. In the summer of 2021, a proposal made within the South African government to legalize polyandry when a woman could also have more than one spouse at the same time was met with fierce public outcry and backlash. And no one cried more about how disgusting

and immoral this proposal was than dudes with multiple wives. Man, just weak ass little tiny dick hypocrites. Musa M. Salehka, not sure if I'm saying his name right because his show is not filmed in English. He doesn't seem to give any interviews in English as well, is a star of a South African reality TV show about his polygamous family and he said regarding the possibility of women taking more than one husband, this will destroy African culture. What about the children of those people?

How will they know their identity? The woman cannot now take the role of a man. It's unheard of. Will the woman now pay a bride price for the man? Will the man be expected to take her surname? How dare women get literally exactly what he's getting? Anyway, amongst Nelson's father's four wives, he had nine daughters and four sons and because of his father's loss, a chief-to-be status, Mandel and his large family were forced to move to Cuneu, a smaller village north of Omveso. It was located in a grassy valley with essentially zero infrastructure, no roads, just footpaths that linked livestock grazing pastures.

No electricity or running water, just candles, lanterns, some holes to shit in. His family lived in crude huts, ate local foods including maize, sorghum, pumpkin, beans, got their water from springs and streams, they did their cooking outdoors. Young Mandela was playing games and enjoying a acting out ride of passage scenarios with toys he made out of whatever was lying around in this setting. Dude was living like it was 1620s America and 1920s South Africa. He wrote about his childhood in his 1994 autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. An excellent book, by the way.

It was in the fields that I learned how to knock birds out of the sky with a slingshot, to gather wild honey and fruits and edible roots, to drink warm sweet milk straight from the udder of a cow, to swim in the clear cold streams and to catch fish with twine and sharpen bits of wire. I learned to stick fight, essential knowledge to any rural African boy, and became adept at its various techniques, parrying blows, fainting in one direction and striking in another breaking away from an opponent with quick footwork From these days I date my love of the veldt of open spaces the simple beauties of nature the clean line of the horizon It's awesome. That was a dude who knew how to get outside

Well, you didn't have a choice, but wish more people could get outside today my god Well, he didn't have a choice, but wish more people could get outside today. My God. And veldt, by the way, is the word used to describe thinly forested or not forested at all open country in South Africa. Just a flat land full of grass, bush, shrubs. At some point in his early childhood, Nelson's father's friend suggested he be baptized in a Methodist church. And he was. In 1925, young Nelson began primary school at the age of seven. He was the first in his family to receive a formal education. At that time, it was customary for students to be given an English name and this was when his teacher told him his name

would be Nelson. And I think it's pretty fucking weird for a teacher to make that call about a kid. Why not at least send a list of options home for the parents to decide? Assuming the teacher was white and therefore felt very comfortable overriding the black parents here. Pretty weird. 1930 when he was 12 Mandela lost his father to lung disease. After his father's death Mandela was adopted by a high-ranking Tembu regent named Jongin Tabo Dalinyebo. If I had a nickel for every time I heard that name, I would have one nickel. And Dalinyebo now raised him to take on a role in tribal leadership. Couldn't let him be raised by his mom and his three backup moms.

I mean, how could he become a man unless he was raised by a man? The man who raised him felt like he owed Nelson's dad, since Nelson's dad had recommended that Jung and Tabal be made chief. Little Nelson was brought to Magusweini, the provincial capital of Tembu land, to the chief's royal residence. Oh, fuck yeah, bro. He's living in a royal residence now instead of a little dirt hut. Mandela soon adapted to his new home.

He was given the same status and responsibility as the region's other children, a son named Justice and a daughter named Numafu. He did classes in a one-room schoolhouse next to the palace, studying subjects like English, COSA, history, and geography. Mandela grew up hearing stories of how his ancestors fought in wars of resistance and at an early age, he began to dream about how he wanted to make his own contribution in the fight for freedom. Started in 1934, when he was 16, Mandela attended Hilltown, a Methodist secondary school.

There he developed an interest in African history from elder chiefs who came to the Great Palace for official matters. The elders taught him about how the arrival of whites to South Africa destroyed a peace between the tribes who were already there. He was taught that black South Africans shared their land, but then white settlers wanted all the resources for themselves. And that's fucking bullshit! Show me evidence of any white people, literally ever, showing up someplace and taking all the locals' resources for themselves. As a white man, I find that accusation highly offensive and we definitely need to erase

that from more history books than we already have. White people have always treated all other cultures very fairly and continue to do so to this day. Uh, no, that slanderous accusation is very accurate. It sounds like my people. We're takers. We take. It's what we do. And we're very good at it, I might act. And when confronted about it, we think it's pretty fun to lie and gaslight you. White people, we take. It's what we do, the more you know. Also at the age of 16, Mandela was ready to partake in a traditional circumcision ritual to mark the beginning of manhood. Tradition dictated that an uncircumcised man could not inherit his father's wealth to get married or officiate tribal rituals. I had no idea a little bit of extra dick skin could be so problematic.

What? Are you kidding me? How the fuck? How the fuck are you supposed to officiate tribal rituals if no one can see the tip of your cock? Because you've hidden it under a little nasty ass shaft skin turtleneck sweater. Come on think for a second. Mandela participated in the ceremony with 25 other boys, which sounds horrific. That's a lot of cock trimming. Hey Nelson, what are you and all your friends up to today? Oh not much. Just gonna line up naked to get part of our dicks snipped off. Nelson later recalled that the speaker told the young men they were enslaved because their land was controlled by white men and they were not able to truly govern themselves. That they were going to struggle to make a living while doing chores for white men.

Not sure if he told them this before, after, or during their dicks getting trimmed. Mandela said that while he didn't fully understand what the chief was saying at the time, it later helped harden his resolve for South African independence. In 1937, Mandela, now 19 years old, began attending a Wesleyan mission school called Clarkbury Boarding Institute and Wesleyan College. He will say he was successful there due to his, quote, plain hard work. And I like it. You can accomplish so much through plain hard work. Nelson not only excelled in his studies but showed talent in boxing and track.

At first his classmates teased him, called him a country boy, but he was able to make friends with several kids including a girl named Mathona who he later described as his first female friend. 1939 now 21 year old Mandela enrolled at the University of Fort Hare which was the only residential higher learning institution for black students in all of South Africa at that time. It was the African equivalent of Harvard, and scholars from all over sub-Saharan Africa attended this school. Mandela focused on Roman Dutch law to prepare for a career in civil service as an interpreter or as a clerk, which were considered the very best professions a black man could hope to

obtain at that time. During the second year of university, Mandela was elected to the Student Representative Council. Students were dissatisfied with the food, with the lack of power the Student Council had. Students voted to boycott if the demands were not met and Mandela resigned from his position on the council as a show of support, which the university saw as an act of insubordination. So Mandela and several other students were expelled for the remainder of the school year, but he was told he could return if he agreed to serve

on the student representative council again, but he would not, and his regent was furious. And that same regent also now informed Mandela that, hey buddy, you're getting married. He had already arranged a marriage for him. Well, Mandela didn't want to get married. And so he didn't want to recant stepping down in solidarity with his fellow students either. So he leaves school and also runs away from home. Mandela and his cousin Justice moved to

Johannesburg, South Africa in 1941. There Mandela worked as a mine security officer until he met Walter Sissoulu, an estate agent, who introduced him to an attorney named Lazar Sildelski. Mandela then worked as a clerk for the law office of Witkin, Edelman, and Siddelski for about a year. In 1942, Mandela, now 24 years old, completed his bachelor's or bachelor's of arts via correspondence courses through the University of South Africa and was sent back to the University of Fort Hare for graduation in 1943. There he enrolls into the LLB Bachelor of Laws program or after that he enrolls in the LLB Bachelor of Laws program at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. So now there's there is another school in South Africa

accepting black students at some level. The Waters Rand basin, by the way, for some random trivia, is home to the world's largest gold reserves. It's already produced over 40,000 tons of gold. That's a lot of shiny. It's a lot of precious. Mandelable's struggle was Waters Rand. Later admitting he was a poor student, he left school in 1952 without graduating and would not resume formal studies until he was incarcerated a decade later. Shortly before dropping out, he became involved in the movement against racial discrimination in South Africa and he began to attend meetings of the ANC, the African National Congress. The African National Congress is the oldest black political organization in South Africa. It was founded back in 1912 under the

name South African Native National Congress with the goal of maintaining the voting rights of coloreds and black Africans in Cape Province. It was renamed the African National Congress in 1923. And a little note on the term colored real quick before I get some angry messages. That's not me suddenly becoming some kind of old-timey peckerwood getting real comfortable with racist language. Listen colors! No, that's not what's happening here. The term colored was an official racial classificate. Oh my god, the term colored was an official racial classification in South Africa and it was and still is separate from black. During the apartheid era, South Africa had four different racial categories listed in order of social hierarchy. They were white at the top,

then colored, then Indian, then native, aka black. And how was it determined which category you would fall into? Well, legislators quickly realized that trying to classify people scientifically or by some set biological standards was not going to work. So instead, they defined race in terms of two measures. Appearance and public perception. According to the law, a person was white if they were quote, obviously or generally accepted as white. That is some classification system.

How do you know this guy's white? Just fucking look at him. Come on. He's got red hair. He's got these, I don't know, those European cheekbones, he's all pasty as fuck. The definition of native was a person who is in fact, a person who in fact is or is generally accepted as a member of any Aboriginal race or tribe of Africa. People who could prove that they were accepted as another race, well they could actually petition to change their racial classification. One day you could be native, next day you could be colored, because this was not about facts but

about perception. Indians were immigrants from India or their direct descendants. If those descendants had children with non-Indians then those children would be labeled as colored. And colored was someone who was some kind of combination of white and black, white and Indian, black and Indian, white black and Indian or white black and other you know whatever. And if you're thinking what about Asians? How were they classified? Well generally they were classified as colored but sometimes as Indian and other times this is so absurd they were designated as honorary whites. Japanese, Koreans, Hong Kong so absurd, they were designated as honorary whites.

Japanese, Koreans, Hong Kongers, Taiwanese, they were generally classified as honorary whites. But Chinese, well, they can go fuck themselves. They were coloreds. At first, in the early days of apartheid. But then, since there became like a larger population of Chinese than Japanese, for example, in South Africa, a group of about 7,000 people of Chinese ancestry petitioned the South African government to change their designation to honorary white in the early 1980s and they argued that they looked way fucking whiter than Japanese people do. This is fucking

hilarious, but also so sad. So stupid. It reads more of like a satire of how dumb racism is than it but also so sad. So stupid. It reads more of like a satire of how dumb racism is than it does its historical truth. Like there was actually people in a fucking court in the 80s being like, look at this fucking guy over here. Look at this Japanese guy. Look how fucking dark he is. He's clearly colored.

Look at me. I'm white as fuck. Yeah. My eyes are smaller but I'm still fucking pasty. God damn it! Insane. There ended up being so many different legal statuses for each group that kept changing as apartheid went on because it's fucking idiotic. For example, initially Indians could own land and vote, but then those rights were stripped. Yeah, people like the classifications came with all these different legal responsibilities. It kept getting taken away, and it's all crazy. I could easily do an entire episode on the absurdity of just apartheid. And it's so recent! Did not end until

1994. Back to Mandela now. Mandela officially joined the ANC in 1944 when he was 26 after starting to attend meetings in either 1942 or 1943. Around this time, within the ANC a group of young people came together, called themselves the African National Congress Youth League, ANCEL. They believed that ANC is always a polite petitioning. They were never going to be effective. And they were right.

They wanted to transform the ANC into a much larger movement by gaining the support of millions of rural peasants and working people who felt they had no voice because they didn't. They wanted to organize massive protests, marches, boycotts. Mandela would become a key leader of Ansel. 1944, also the year Nelson Mandela married for the first time. He will end up getting married 75 times and have roughly a thousand children. Dude fucked like he was Dutch. No. No, he married three times. And had six kids. His first wife was Evelyn Toko Mase.

A nurse four years his junior. They will have four kids together. Their son Madiba, Madiba Temba Kile, aka Temba, born in 1945. Their second son, Makatu, born in 1945. Their second son Makatu born in 1950. Their third son Blaze motherfucker. No, their first daughter Makaziwa born in 1947 sadly died just nine months old. Then they had another daughter also naming her Makaziwa born in 1954. Then Evelyn and Mandela will divorce in 1957. You know, not everybody's cut out to be married to a

revolutionary. It can't be an easy relationship. Back to 1948, now 1948, one of the most infamous years in South African history. It is the year apartheid began. According to the History Channel, quote, apartheid or apartheid in the language of Afrikaans was a system of legislation that upheld segregation against non-white citizens of South Africa. After the National Party gained power in South Africa in 1948, its all-white government immediately began enforcing existing policies of racial segregation. Under apartheid, non-white South Africans, a majority of the population, were forced to live in separate areas from whites and use separate public facilities. Contact between the groups was limited. Despite strong and consistent opposition to apartheid within the outside of

within and outside of South Africa. Let me repeat that sense. Despite strong and consistent opposition to apartheid within and outside of South Africa, its laws remained in effect for the better part of 50 years. The white minority who controlled the government were the Afrikaners, those descendants of those fuck-happy Dutch colonists we went over earlier, who had invaded South Africa in the 17th century to set up a resupply post for the VOC, aka the Dutch East India Company. And the apartheid laws they were passing, they were really nothing new. Just an extension of the way things had always been in South Africa since the Dutch first showed up.

Discriminatory laws were being passed well before apartheid went into effect. For example, the Natives Land Act of 1913 was passed three years after South Africa gained a bit of independence from Britain when the South Africa Act of 1909 went into effect. And it marked the beginning of modern segregation by forcing black South Africans to live in reserves. This act also made it illegal for them to work as sharecroppers. Opposition to this particular act helped kickstart the African National Congress, the ANC. The Natives Land Act defined a quote, native as any person, male or female, who is a member of an aboriginal race or tribe of Africa and shall further include any

company or other body of persons, corporate or unincorporate, if the persons who have a controlling interest therein are natives. I will always fucking hate reading legal language. It's always so like robotic. The act affected millions of South Africans and prevented them from buying or hiring land in 93% of the country. 93% of the country they had lived in long before the Dutch or any other Europeans showed up. Colonization man, always so fucking ruthless and heartless. So unnecessarily so. It's easier to take over a new land and carve it up for you and those

like you and be greedy as fuck if you just dehumanize the locals. The new economy of segregated and independent South Africa, which became truly independent in 1931, struggled during the Great Depression and World War II. During that time, the government increased racial segregation policies. The goal of apartheid was to separate whites and non-whites and also divide black South Africans even further by tribes in order to weaken their collective political power. The power of people who accounted for nearly 70% of the overall population of South Africa. Only roughly 20% of South Africa's population was white, and white South Africans knew that if they had a true democracy, they would quickly lose all the power they had held since the

days of slavery. Today interestingly, South Africa only 7% white, 7.3% to be exact, according to the 2022 census, or the, yeah, 2022 census, and it's 81.4% black, 8.2% colored, 2.7% Indian, and 0.4% other. A newer designation for certain people who are Asiatic, Hispanic, etc. Back up to the beginning of apartheid, there was unsurprisingly resistance to the laws being passed in the form of protests and strikes and enrollment in the ANC grew rapidly. In July of 1947, Nelson Mandela, who had just turned 29 years old, is elected National Secretary of the African National Congress Youth League, ANCEL, and soon his influence will be felt not just in the Youth League but in all of the ANC.

Starting in 1949, the ANC decides to abandon their old, more conservative methods and adopt the Youth League's strategies of boycotting, striking, civil disobedience, and non-cooperation. Their policy goals included full citizenship for all black South Africans, redistribution of land to black South Africans, since they had so much land taken from them, trade union rights for all, and free and compulsory education for all children. So nothing extreme, just basic you know equality, basic human rights. Mandela will personally lead a number of nonviolent protests where they publicly made those demands but instead of having any of what they were demanding being given to them or even just fucking considered on any level more of the

rights of their rights were taken away. In 1950 both interracial marriage and interracial sexual relations now became legally prohibited in South Africa. In 1950, not that long ago, if you're found guilty of you know putting one color of P in a different color of V, well you could go to prison in South Africa. Lusifena just fucking shaking her head. Also the Population Registration Act of 1950 reclassified all South Africans by race. The new classifications were banned to black South Africans, colored, mixed-race individuals, and white, a fourth category Asian, Indian, and Pakistani was later added. In some cases a parent could be classified as white, their children could be classified as colored, meaning families were separated,

parents would have rights that their kids didn't, or if the parents were black and the children were colored, the kids would have rights, their parents didn't. Just a bunch of silly bullshit. The Group Areas Act of 1950 established residential and business sections for each race in urban areas. Members of other races were barred from living, operating businesses or owning land in certain areas. Members of other races were barred from living, operating businesses

or owning land in certain areas and thousands of people were forced out of designated white areas. Think how that affected some families, right? Some children old enough to live on their own, could not live with or near their parents. If they were deemed members of a different racial categorization, it feels more like some dystopian novel than real life. And you can still see the, this today, if you visit South African cities. I remember when I was there for the Comedy Festival, just talking to the drivers, we're heading from the airport to downtown where we were staying in Cape Town in this example. And there was just like, you know, you would drive, okay, the airport was outside of town,

and then you're driving into the center of town, and there was this and then you're driving into the center of town and there was this periphery area peripheral area out, you know, like this ring around the city of just like shanty towns like I'm like fucking Beyond like fourth world it seemed like I was like what the fuck is going on here? Just little shacks like cinder block shacks With you know tin panels for roofs Out houses like no running water not electricity in a lot of places. I mean just bare, bare bones. And then you go a little further towards downtown and it would get a little better. And then the further you went, you just got a little better,

a little better, a little better. And they told me this was because of apartheid that they set up the cities, these zones where whites would live in the center of the city and it would be by far the nicest. And then there would be a ring around the whites that would be populated by people designated to be colored for example and then beyond that ring was another ring where only Indian classified classified people could live and then beyond that ring was the native slash black, you know population living out there and they said the reason for that Was that the most mistreated people, the black Africans, if they were to riot, that the damage they would do

by the time they made it to the center of the rings, the white area, the police would have had time to stop the riots. So they were like, just let them fuck over the color part of town, the Indian part of town, but preserve the white part of town. It's just, it's so much thought went into just fucking over so many people. Also, new pass laws now required non-white South Africans to carry a domestic passport

on their person at all times, authorizing their presence in various areas that would be restricted to them if they didn't have to be there for work. Separate public facilities were now being built for whites and non-whites. The government also limited the activity of non-white labor unions. Non-whites were not allowed to participate in the national government on any level. Big blow against ANC. Three years later, the Bantoo Education Act of 1953 provided for the creation of segregated state-run schools with the goal of training black children for manual labor jobs deemed suitable for their race, instead of teaching them how to read, write, and be competent to the same degree as their

white counterparts. Fucking white people! That also reminds me of staying there. We stayed in these, you know, this comedy festival, these nice hotels in the white part of town, and I don't remember the staff working there like doing like, you know, like jobs like maids and stuff to ever be anything but black. It was just you know people who lived on the outside of the city coming in to work for the whites. A little awkward. Yeah just how gross is all this. Intentionally dumbing down the school system for black citizens to keep them ignorant and incapable of anything other than manual labor. To keep them from ever competing for white jobs that relied on brain instead of brawn. Keeping from ever mounting an effective political movement. Imagine growing up like that.

Growing up in a nation that has legally deemed you as a member of an inferior race, not worthy of the same level of education as your white peers. How would you internalize that kind of rage and pain? The extension of University Education Act of 1959 then largely prohibited established universities from accepting non-white students. The government created ethnic university colleges and medical schools for Black South Africans, schools that were blatantly subpar to their white counterparts. The Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 reestablished tribal organizations for Black South Africans

and the promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959 established 10 separate so-called homelands within South Africa's borders called Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959 established 10 separate so-called homelands within South Africa's borders called Bantu Stands. The Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act of 1970 made every black South African a citizen of one of these Bantu Stands no matter where they actually lived. It was just on paper. In exchange for being made citizens of these new essentially reservations, they were stripped of their South African citizenship, which then made it easier to discriminate against them and keep them out of politics. It's fucking wild.

Now the majority of the population in South Africa are not technically citizens of the nation they are living in, a nation that keeps fucking them over. The Bantu Self-Government Act allowed the government to now claim there was no black majority in South Africa and it decreased the possibility that black South Africans would unify. The government also now had legally emboldened itself to forcibly remove black South Africans from so-called white rural areas and then the government sold land they had just stolen from former black citizens at super low prices to white farmers. Between 1961 and 1994, over three and a half million people were forcibly removed from their homes and made to live in their designated Bantu Stand.

1994. That's insanely recent. According to the online encyclopedia Britannica, quote, the South African government manipulated homeland politics so that compliant chiefs controlled the administrations of most of those territories. Four of the Bantu Stans, Trans-Kai, Bopuraswana, Venda, and Siske, later granted independence as republics, though none was ever recognized by a foreign government, and the remaining Bantu Stans had varying degrees of self-government. Regardless of their independence or self-governing status, all the Bantu Stands remained dependent both politically

and economically on South Africa. So just a strange complicated system, but to such great confusing links to disenfranchise black South Africans. And before we go further, I'm gonna take today's second of two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thanks for listening to those sponsors keeping this show going. Now let's head to 1951 and reconnect with Nelson Mandela in our timeline. Backing up a bit to reconnect Nelson Mandela in 1951 he was elected president of the African National Congress Youth League that year. Then the following year in 1952 Mandela became deputy national president of the ANC proper,

and he advocated for more nonviolent resistance to apartheid. The ANC became further committed to quote militant African nationalism and mass action into tactics of boycotts, strikes, and civil disobedience. The ANC also collaborated with the South Indian National Congress to organize a mass meeting in 1952 where attendees burned their passbooks. This period culminated with what was called a defiance campaign which was the largest scale nonviolent resistance ever seen in South Africa. We're scared the shit out of the white minority. In response they passed even more restrictive laws many of which we just went over. On April 6, 1952 white South Africans celebrated the 300th anniversary of Yon van Ribich's arrival

at the Cape. The ANC called on black South Africans to observe a national day of pledge and prayer instead and thousands boycotted the nation's anniversary festivities. After the successful boycott, the ANC declared that June 26, 1952 was the official start date for the Defiance Campaign. And a few weeks later, June 22nd was declared the Day of the Volunteers. Volunteers signed the following pledge. I, the undersigned volunteer of the National Volunteer Corps, to hereby solemnly pledge and bind myself to serve my country and my people in accordance

with the directives of the National Volunteer Corps and to participate fully and without reservation to the best of my ability in the campaign for the defiance of unjust laws. I shall obey the orders of my leader under whom I shall be placed and strictly abide by the rules and regulations of the National Volunteer Corps framed from time to time. It shall be my duty to keep myself physically, mentally, and morally fit." How much did that pledge scare the whites? Mandela was chosen as the national volunteer in chief for this defiance campaign, putting a bullseye on his back. The white government of South Africa got more and more familiar with his name and more and

more concerned over his actions. He now traveled around South Africa to organize various regional protests against discriminatory policies and he promoted an ANC manifesto known as the Freedom Charter, which we will learn more about soon. As reported by South African History Online, quote, groups of volunteers went into action, small in numbers, but high in spirits. During the campaign, acts of defiance were accompanied by freedom songs and the thumbs up sign introduced by the Cape ANC in 1949 as a sign of unity,

cries of Africa and Mayubai and cheers from supporting onlookers. 15 Africans and Indians including Walter Sissoulu, Nelson Mandela and Ismail Kachalia marched into Boxburg location into a Boxburg location near Johannesburg without permits. All were arrested. Mandela and Cachalia were present only as observers since they planned to avoid arrest. However, that evening they were among a group of protesters who were arrested in Johannesburg when they left a hall after curfew. In Port Elizabeth 30 people entered a railway station through the Europeans only entrance and were arrested. Others were arrested for entering the European sections

of the post office, sitting on benches marked for whites or violating other apartheid regulations. Mandela following his arrest was charged with violating the Suppression of Communism Acts. What a way to demonize someone only wanting racial equality, right? Call him a commie. He was convicted and sentenced to nine months in prison with hard labor, a sentence suspended for two years. Well, how merciful of the court. All that for being out past curfew, a curfew that applied to black South Africans, but not to whites. Mandela opened a law firm that same year with Oliver Tambo, a student he had met back in school at Fort Hare. And Mandela and Tambo now offered free or low-cost counsel to those effect-dyed by apartheid

bullshit regulations and laws. Because his travel was restricted to Johannesburg, thanks to his wrestler, Mandela had to watch in secret as the Congress of the People signed the Freedom Charter in Cliptown, June 26, 1955. The Freedom Charter asserted, South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black or white. And the South African government did not care for that sentiment at fucking all. And they broke up the meeting, charged 155 people with high treason. The ANC saw a need for a clear statement regarding the future of South Africa, which is how the Freedom Charter and the Congress of the People came to be in the first place.

The ANC and its allies invited South Africans to write down their demands so they could be incorporated into the document and thousands responded. Three thousand delegates came to Clip Town. Among the group were workers, peasants, intellectuals, women, youth, students of all races. It was, quote, the most representative gathering in the history of South Africa, according to South, an article on SouthAfricaHistory.org. And like I said, on December 5th, 1956, Mandela and 155 activists were arrested and charged with treason, treason against the nation that had just told them they were not citizens anymore. How the fuck does that work? They're arrested as part of a countrywide police swoop.

It'll take many years for them to go to trial. Meanwhile, the ANC is facing internal strife due to challenges from Africanists, a group of activists who believe pacifism was ineffective because it was at that time. The Africanists broke away, formed the Pan-Africanist Congress, which hurt the ANC's numbers, diminished their protests. By 1959, the ANC will have lost the majority

of its more militant members. Mandela stayed though, and he became one of the most nationally prominent figures of black resistance. He wrote the following to South Africa's Minister of Justice in 1959, if by refusing me permission to leave Johannesburg you think I will be intimidated and cease to oppose the policy of your government, then I must say with all due respect to you that you stopped reading the contemporary history of South Africa when your party came into power in 1948. You are apparently not aware of the complete failure of all measures adopted by your government during the past 11 years to destroy its political opponents. In spite of the confinement of many individuals,

banning them from organizations and gatherings and the ruthless suppression of civil liberties by the nationalists, the demand for democratic changes has become more assertive and powerful. Your government, which is forcibly imposed on 10 million of its citizens and which is maintained by sheer force and intimidation, must sooner or later give way to a democratic one based upon the will of all the people of South Africa." Powerful words. In the midst of his legal proceedings, Mandela married his second wife, Winnie Madikazela June 14th, 1958. Winnie was a 22 year old social worker. Mandela was now 39. He and his first wife Evelyn Toko Masse divorced the year before. Nelson and Winnie will have two daughters. Zanani, who later became Argentina's South African ambassador,

and Zinzi, the South African ambassador to Denmark. Nelson now has five living children, and he and Winnie will remain married all the way until 1996. The anti-apartheid movement Mandela has dedicated his life to gains new momentum following the tragedy of Sharpeville, a black township near Johannesburg, March 21st, 1960. The Pan-Africanist Congress had planned a series of national protests against past laws, 1960. The Pan-Africanist Congress had planned a series of national protests against

pass laws in 1960. These hated passbooks were being called dumps, meaning dumb passes. Black South Africans were asked to gather outside police stations all around the country on March 21st and offer themselves up for arrest for not carrying their passbooks. At the Lenga Township in Cape Town, two non-violent resistors were killed and 49 others injured for just gathering outside the police station and offering themselves up for arrest. The violence was much worse in Sharpeville, roughly 40 miles south of Johannesburg. The police at Sharpeville initially attempted to disperse an unarmed crowd by flying jets over them, and when that didn't work, they just opened fire. The police claimed they shot at the crowd only when protesters threw stones at them, but that's bullshit.

Many of the protesters were shot in the back. Eyewitnesses said the police continued to shoot while unarmed people were fleeing away. Yeah, unarmed people fucking running away, getting shot in the back, ridiculous. 69 peaceful protesters killed at Sharpeville. Another 180 are wounded. Massive protests now break out in Cape Town in response. Over 10,000 people are arrested at those protests. Mandela later wrote about this time

in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, the massacre at Sharpville created a new situation in the country. A small group of us, Walter Susulu, Duma Nakwa, Joe Slovo, and I held an all night meeting in Johannesburg to plan a response. We knew we had to acknowledge the events in some way and give the people an outlet for their anger and grief. We conveyed our plans to Chief Lethuli and he readily accepted them. On March 26 in Pretoria the chief publicly burned his past calling on others to do the same. He announced

a nationwide stay at home for March 28th, a national day of mourning and protest for the atrocities at Sharpville. In Orlando, Dumanakwa and I burned our passes before hundreds of people and dozens of press photographers. Decades later, when apartheid falls in 1994, March 21st will be declared Human Rights Day in South Africa, a public holiday honoring the victims of the Sharpville massacre. Mandela will say in a 1996 statement, March 21st is South African Human Rights Day. It is a day which, more than many others, captures the essence of the struggle of the South African people and the soul of our non-racial democracy.

March 21st is a day on which we remember and sing praises to those who perished in the name of democracy and human dignity. It is also a day on which we reflect and assess the progress we are making in enshrining basic human rights and values." Backing up to 1960 on March 30, nine days after the massacre, South Africa's apartheid government declares the country's first state of emergency in response to the Sharpeville protests. A week later, April 8, the government bans both the Pan-Africanist Congress and the African National Congress political parties.

Being a member of either is now illegal. So what a shit show of a country. Nelson Mandela, who was still awaiting trial for his earlier treason charge, and other black leaders are now forced into hiding. And while in hiding, Mandela changes his position, now believes only an armed struggle will change things. And many are now worrying that a very bloody revolution is brewing. While in hiding after Sharpsville, Mandela publishes an open letter

to the people of South Africa. The following is an excerpt from that letter. I have chosen this course, which is more difficult and which entails more risk and hardship than sitting in jail. I have had to separate myself from my dear wife and children, from my mother and sisters, to live as an outlaw in my own land. I have had to close my business, to abandon my profession, and live in poverty, as many of my people are doing. I shall fight the government side by side with you, inch by inch, mile by mile, until victory is won. What are you going to do? Will

you come along with us, or are you going to cooperate with the government in its efforts to suppress the claims and aspirations of your own people? Are you going to remain silent and neutral in a matter of life and death to my people, to our people? For my own part, I have made my choice. I will not leave South Africa, nor will I surrender. Only through hardship, sacrifice, and militant action can freedom be won. The struggle is my life. I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days. Hail fucking Nimrod.

That's some badass devotion to a cause. Just over a year after the Sharpeville Massacre on March 29, 1961, Nelson Mandela and other defendants are acquitted of treason. Just days before the treason trial ended, Mandela traveled to Peter Meritsburg to speak at the All-in Africa Conference. He was determined Mandela should write to the Prime Minister requesting a national convention for a non-racial constitution. Mandela should also warn the Prime Minister that if he did not agree agree there would be a national strike against South Africa becoming a republic. Mandela planned for this strike to last from March 29th through the 31st, but it was called off early due to quote massive mobilization of state security. So they got a lot of fucking armed military personnel to shut that shit down.

In June of 1961 shit escalates in what feels like a growing revolution when Mandela is now asked to lead an armed struggle against apartheid. He co-founds and leads Umkanto Sizwe, which means Spear of the Nation, abbreviated as MK, a new armed wing of the ANC. Spear of the Nation officially launches December 16th, 1961. And MK now launches a sabotage campaign against the government of South Africa, which had recently declared itself a republic and withdrew itself from the British Commonwealth. The Commonwealth was pretty fucking glad to see him go, by the way, and would only take them back in 1994 after the fall of apartheid. January 11th, 1962, Mandela secretly leaves South Africa, traveling under the alias of David Mutsot-Maihi.

He attended a conference of African nationalist leaders in Ethiopia. Then he visited his exiled friend Oliver Tambo in London before returning to South Africa in July of 1962. He also underwent guerrilla warfare training in Algeria. Bojangles getting fucking pumped hearing about this shit. Reminds him of his own glory days fighting in various revolutions. Praise Bojangles, the freedom fighter. On August 5th 1962 Mandela is arrested in a police roadblock while returning from a briefing with the ANC president about his trip. He was charged with leaving the

country without permit and inciting workers to strike. Three months later, November 7th, he will be convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. And this will just be the tip of the iceberg regarding his legal troubles. Mandela will remain in prison all the way until February of 1990. He will serve roughly 27 years behind bars. On May 27th, 1963, Mandela transferred from a prison in Pretoria to Robben Island, one of the harshest prisons in the nation, only to be transferred back to Pretoria June 12. Then in July, the police raided an ANC hideout in Ravonia, a suburb of Johannesburg.

They arrested a racially diverse group of MK leaders who were gathered to debate the merits of guerrilla insurgency. And evidence there found implicated Mandela and other activists. And Mandela and other defendants now charged with sabotage, treason, and violent conspiracy crimes punishable by death. October 9th 1963 Mandela 10 others will go to trial for sabotage. These court proceedings will become famously known as the Ravonia trial. December 3rd 1963 Mandela pleads not guilty. On April 20th 1964 Mandela defends himself in court with his famous speech from the dock, following as an excerpt from what was a 176-minute long speech.

We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence. When this form was legislated against and then the government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence. I came to the conclusion that as violence in this country was inevitable, it would be unrealistic to continue preaching peace and nonviolence. This conclusion was not easily arrived at. It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle.

I can only say that I felt morally obliged to do what I did. The complaint of Africans, however, is not only that they are poor and the whites are rich but that the laws which are made by the whites are designed to preserve this situation. There are two ways to break out of poverty. The first is by formal education and the second is by the worker acquiring a greater skill at his work and thus higher wages. As far as Africans are concerned, both these avenues of advancement are deliberately curtailed by legislation. This then is what the ANC is fighting. It is a struggle for the right to live. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination.

I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination I have cherished the ideal of a DEMEC of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal Opportunities it is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve But if needs be it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die Goddamn that dude knew how to fucking pen an incredible speech. Give me strong Rage Against the Machine vibes. I love it. Reggie is the machine in Madison Square Garden, by the way, the greatest concert I've ever been to in my life. Mandela's trial, again called the Ravonia trial, attracted significant international attention. Finally closed after eight months on June 11th, 1964, Nelson Mandela was found guilty of sabotage, treason, and conspiracy. He was sentenced to life in prison the very next day.

Mandela was then sent back to the notorious Robben Island Prison where he would spend the next 18 years of his life. Robben Island was once a former leper colony off the coast of Cape Town. It was used to incarcerate mostly political prisoners since the end or beginning at the end of the 17th century. As a black prisoner, Mandela was subjected to the harshest conditions of the nation's harshest prison and received less privileges than white prisoners. For being a revolutionary, he received less rations than most other prisoners and was forced to do hard labor almost every day in a lime quarry.

Mandela was confined to a tiny cell with no bed, no plumbing. He wrote about the deplorable prison conditions and long walked to freedom. He said, like everything else in prison, diet is discriminatory. In general, coloreds and Indians receive a slightly better diet than Africans, but it was not much of a distinction. The authorities like to say that we received a balanced diet. It was indeed balanced between the unpalatable and the inedible. Food was the source of many of our protests, but in those early days the warders would say, I, you, Caffer, you are eating better

in prison than you ever ate at home. In the midst of breakfast the guards would yell, fall in, fall in, and we would stand outside ourselves for inspection. Each prisoner was required to have the three buttons of his khaki jacket properly buttoned. We were required to doff our hats as the warder walked by. If our buttons were undone, our hats unremoved, or our cells untidy, we were charged with the violation of the prison code and punished with either solitary confinement or the loss of meals. After inspection, we would work in the courtyard hammering stones until noon. There were no breaks. If we slowed down, the warders would yell at us to speed up.

At noon, the bell would clang for lunch, and another metal drum of food would be wheeled into the courtyard. For Africans, lunch consisted of boiled mealies, that is, coarse kernels of corn. The Indian and colored prisoners received samp, or mealy rice, rice which consisted of ground mealies and a soup-like mixture. The samp was sometimes served with vegetables whereas our mealies were served straight. While Mandela did not include this in his book, others incarcerated with him, reported guards doing shit like burying inmates up to their necks, pissing on their faces, and of course all kinds of beatings being dished out. Mandela eventually led a civil disobedience movement at the prison that

actually did push officials into improving conditions. While incarcerated, Mandela was only allowed to see his wife Winnie once every six months. Their visit would only be about 30 minutes long. All that because he wanted equal rights. Mandela's mother will pass away in 1968. His oldest son, Timba, will die in 1969 and he will not be allowed to attend either funeral. Although Mandela showed remarkable inner strength during his years of incarceration, there were at times when he became, of course,

horribly depressed. These feelings are reflected in some of the letters he sent to Winnie. For example, Mandela wrote, on April 2nd,, To me the portrait aroused mixed feelings. You look somewhat sad, absent-minded and unwell but lovely all the same. The big one is a magnificent study that depicts all I know in you, the devastating beauty and charm which ten stormy years of married life have not chilled. I suspect you intended the picture to convey a special message that no words could ever

express. Rest assured I have caught it. All that I wish to say now is that the picture has aroused all the tender feelings in me and softened the grimness that is all around. It has sharpened my longing for you in our sweet and peaceful home. I should like you to know that if in the past my letters have not been passionate, it is because I need not seek to improve the debt I owe to a woman who, in spite of formidable difficulties and lack of experience, has nonetheless succeeded in keeping the home fires burning and in attending to the smallest wants and wishes of her incarcerated companion.

These things make me humble to be the object of your love and affection. Remember that hope is a powerful weapon even when all else is lost. You're in my thoughts every moment of my life." That shit made me tear up the first time I read it. Or have my allergies act up. So much unjust suffering. He wrote on October 26, 1976, over a decade into his incarceration, He wrote on October 26, 1976, over a decade into his incarceration, another letter to Winnie. He said, my dearest Winnie, and his tone here changes, which makes sense because he's been incarcerated longer. He says, my dearest Winnie, I'm going to fucking kill these white devils.

I'm going to cut their Dutch dicks off. I'm going to shove them up in their mother's mouth. I'm going to stomp these peckerwood pork people's fool heads fucking flat. I'm going to bend these motherfuckers in in half sew their white mouths to their brown buttholes And I'm gonna roll them down a hill into the sea. I'm gonna cut their nuts off I'm gonna shoot their balls into their eyes with a slingshot fucking white people How much more can a man take before he just wants to burn them all alive after making them eat their own children? And then he threw that away.

After writing that, he was at rough draft. Here's the final draft of what he wrote, October 26th, 1976. My dearest Winnie, I've been fairly successful in putting on a mask behind, which I have pined for the family alone, never rushing for the post when it comes until somebody calls out my name. I also never linger after visits,

although sometimes the urge to do so becomes quite terrible. I am struggling to suppress my emotions as I write this letter." As he remained incarcerated, Mandela tried his best to stay connected to not only his wife but his children as well. He tried to give fatherly guidance to his daughter, Makazewa, in a letter he sent her November 26, 1978. I would like to tell you again that I am very sorry to learn of the breakdown of your marriage and the rough experiences you have had. Such a turn is always disastrous to a woman. I must remind you, darling, that members of the family and close friends had a high opinion

of you as a girl. They were full of hopes for your conduct inside and outside school, for your serious-mindedness and your natural intelligence. I once hoped that the profession of your choice would match you in these qualities and I urge you to develop them. Divorce may destroy a woman, but strong characters have not only survived but have gone further and distinguished themselves in life. I want to think that you are such a strong person, that far from discouraging you, this experience will make you richer. This is the challenge, darling, please take it. We love and trust you and are confident that a wonderful future awaits you."

While in prison, Mandela would also do his best to study. He would eventually earn a Bachelor of Law degree through correspondence courses from the University of London. He would also smuggle out political statements and a draft of his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. Meanwhile, the anti-apartheid movement he gave his freedom up for is still going strong throughout South Africa. In June of 1976, thousands of black children in Soweto, a black township outside Johannesburg

where Mandela will live after he finally gets released, they protested against the government policy mandating that all classes be taught in Afrikaans. The police opened fire on the crowd with both tear gas and bullets. At least 176 people were killed, some of them children and over a thousand injured. That happens in the summer of 1976. A bunch of kids protesting against the policy mandating classes be taught in Afrikaans. Man, what a bunch of Nazi butchers. The massacre drew more attention to a growing chorus of international activist calls for more countries to cut ties with South Africa. Over a decade earlier, on November 6,

1962, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning the apartheid and calling on members to end economic and military relations with South Africa. Over a decade later, a 1973 UN resolution will label apartheid as a crime against humanity. And South Africa will be rightfully suspended from the General Assembly in 1974. The country receives a ton of well-earned international negative press for more crackdowns that follow the Soweto massacre and now in large part due to economic sanctions against South Africa, the nation experiences a massive economic recession. And that recession shattered any remaining illusions that apartheid was bringing any peace and prosperity to South Africa. That same year, the UN Security Council voted to impose a mandatory embargo on the sale

of all arms to South Africa as well. In 1980 now, Mandela's longtime friend and fellow activist Oliver Tambo launches a quote free Nelson Mandela campaign that fuels more international outrage against apartheid. During his time in prison, despite how badly he misses his family and his freedom, Mandela will end up rejecting at least three different conditional release officers that required him to renounce violence against the state and recognize the independence of the Trans-Kai Bantuistan. And can you imagine how hard that was? To remain unjustly imprisoned when given the chance to live or to leave? So easy to say, hell yeah, man, stay true to the cause. That's what I would do.

But to actually do it, woo, very, very, very few people I think would have the balls. On June 10th, 1980, Mandela's followers released a letter he had written that ended up getting smuggled out of prison. The letter was a call to action that ended with unite, mobilize, fight on between the anvil of united mass action and the hammer of the armed struggle we shall crush apartheid. A statement had been written back in 1976 in response to the Soweto uprising. Mandela also wrote in his letter, the world is on our side. The OAU, the UN, and the anti-apartheid movement

continue to put pressure on the racist rulers of our country. Every effort to isolate South Africa adds strength to our struggle. We face the future with confidence. And what do South Africa's racist rulers do in response to a growing number of calls for Mandela's freedom? Well, they make it a criminal offense now to publish Mandela's photo or any of his writings.

Just a bunch of bastards. And that just increases the number of people who know his name, who demand his freedom, especially internationally. And now the powers that be really want him dead. A 1981 memoir written by South African intelligence agent, Ford and Winter, described a plot by the South African government to arrange for Mandela's quote-unquote escape so they could then shoot him during quote-unquote recapture. But the plan was foiled by British intelligence agents. I'm honestly surprised they didn't just kill him in his cell and then just say, you know, he'd taken his own life or something.

I have to imagine that the only reason they didn't do that was because they were scared of backlash of making him a martyr. Right? If word got out that he had been murdered, that might have just been a like a big match being thrown into a puddle of gas next to a pile of dynamite. And a very bloody regime toppling revolution might have broken out. March 31st, 1982, Mandela is transferred to Palsmore Prison in Cape Town, allegedly to enable better contact with the government. This is another notoriously brutal prison, but less brutal than Robben Island, so Mandela's living situation actually improves a bit. 1985, South African President Peter Wilhelm, aka P.W.

Buetta, offered Mandela a release opportunity in exchange for renouncing the anti-apartheid struggle that he of course turns down. February 10th, 1985, Mandela officially rejected the offer through his daughter Zinzi, who read his statement at a United Democratic Front rally. The UDF had formed in 1983. It was a collaboration of church and political leaders who had not yet been banned by the government. The UDF was led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Reverend Allen Busak, who organized marches in large cities with crowds of 50 to 80,000 people. And here's what Zinzi read. On Friday, my mother and our attorney saw my father at Palsmore Prison to obtain his answer to Buerta's offer for conditional release. The prison authorities attempted to stop this statement being made, but he would have none of this and made it clear that he would make the statement to you, the people.

Strangers like Bethel from England and Professor Dash from the United States have in recent weeks been authorized by Pretoria to see my father without restriction, yet Pretoria cannot allow you, the people, to hear what he has to say directly. He should be here himself to tell you what he thinks of this statement by Borda. He is not allowed to do so. My mother, who also heard his words, is also not allowed to speak to you today. My father and his comrades at Palsmore Prison send their greetings to you, the freedom-loving people of this, our tragic land, in the full confidence that you will carry on a struggle

for freedom. He and his comrades at Palsmore Prison send their very warmest greetings to Bishop Desmond Tutu. Bishop Tutu has made it clear to the world that the Nobel Peace Prize belongs to you who are the people. We salute him. My father and his comrades at Palsmore Prison are grateful to the United Democratic Front, who also, without hesitation, made this venue available to them so that they could speak to you today. My father and his comrades wish to make this statement to you, the people first. They are clear that they are accountable to you and to you alone, and that you should hear their views directly and not through others. My father speaks not only for himself and for his comrades at Paul's Moore Prison,

but he hopes he also speaks for all those in jail, for their opposition to apartheid, for all those who are banished, for all those who are in exile, for all those who suffer under apartheid, for all those who are opponents of apartheid, and for all those who are oppressed and exploited. Throughout our struggle, there have been puppets who have claimed to speak for you. They have made this claim both here and abroad. They are of no consequence. My father and his colleagues will not be like them. My father says, I am a member of the African National Congress. I have always been a member of the African National Congress and I will remain a member of the African National Congress until the day I die. Oliver Tambo is much more than a brother to me. He is my greatest friend and comrade for nearly 50 years. If there is any one amongst you who cherishes my freedom, Oliver Tambo cherishes it more, and I know that he would give his life to see me free. There is no difference

between his views and mine. I am surprised at the conditions that the government wants to impose on me. I am not a violent man. My colleagues and I wrote in 1952 to Milan asking for a roundtable conference to find a solution to the problems of our country, but that was ignored. When Strayton was in power we made the same offer. Again it was ignored. When Verwood was in power we asked for a national convention for all the people in South Africa to decide on their future. This too was in vain. It was only then when all other forms of resistance were no longer open to us that we turned to armed struggle.

Let Berta show that he is different to Milan, Stratum, and Verwood. Let him renounce violence. Let him say that he will dismantle apartheid. Let him unban the People's Organization, the African National Congress. Let him free all who have been imprisoned, banished, or exiled for their opposition to apartheid. Let him guarantee free political activity so that people may decide who will govern them. I cherish my own freedom dearly, but I care even more for your freedom.

Too many have died since I went to prison. Too many have suffered for the love of freedom. I owe it to their widows, to their orphans, to their mothers and their fathers, who have grieved and wept for them. Not only have I suffered during these long, lonely, wasted years, I am not less life-loving than you are. But I cannot sell my birthright, nor am I prepared to sell the birthright of the people to be free. I am imprisoned as the representative of the people and of your organization, the African National Congress, which was banned. What freedom am I being offered while the organization

of the people remains banned? What freedom am I being offered when I may be arrested on a pass offense? What freedom am I being offered to live my life as a family with my dear wife who remains in banishment in Brandfort? What freedom am I being offered when I must ask for permission to live in an urban area? What freedom am I being offered when I need a stamp in my past to seek work? What freedom am I being offered when my very South African citizenship is not respected? Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Herman Toivota Toivo when freed never gave any undertaking, nor was he called upon to

do so. I cannot and will not give any undertaking at a time when I and you the people are not free your freedom in mind Cannot be separated. I will return God damn that's powerful again more rage against the machine full of my head. November of 1985 Mandela undergoes prostate removal surgery after tumors are found recovering in his prison cell. South Africa's Justice Minister will visit him in the hospital and Mandela will later initiate talks about a meeting between the government and the ANC. Campaigns for economic sanctions against South Africa are ramping him in the hospital and Mandela will later initiate talks about a meeting between the government and the ANC. Campaigns for economic sanctions against South Africa are ramping up in the 80s. But there is resistance from powerful international figures like US President Ronald Reagan and

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who both condemn Mandela and the ANC. Yet another reason for me to think that Ronald Reagan was a fucking cunt. A truly good man does not condemn Nelson Mandela. They just don't. And Margaret Thatcher can get fucked too. The US and UK consider the apartheid government to be a cold war ally and believe the ANC would spread communism, even though it was never about communism. It was about equality. But so much easier to condemn, you know, something by just tossing out the c-word, a bunch of fucking propaganda, instead of revealing the truth, right? That you're a racist, soulless whore who cares more about money and power than doing what's right. Did the ANC receive communist funding? Yes, they did for years, but only because no

capitalist superpower was willing to fund them and champion economic equality. Reagan received international criticism, as he should have, for not strongly protesting apartheid. Margaret Thatcher did call for Mandela's release, but condemned the ANC and dismissed Mandela in private. Thatcher said at a press conference, a considerable number of the ANC leaders are communists, when the ANC says that they will target British companies. This shows what a typical terrorist organization it is.

And what a great propaganda thing there too. You know if somebody doesn't play ball the way you want them to play ball just call them a terrorist. They're just a bunch of commie terrorists. Thatcher said Mandela had rather a closed mind per documents from the UK National Archives. She made that comment after a phone call with Mandela in July of 1990. Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney tried to convince the US and the UK that the ANC was not their Minister Brian Mulroney tried to convince the US and the UK that the ANC was not their enemy. Mulroney wrote in his memoirs, Ronald Reagan saw the whole South African issue strictly in East-West Cold War terms. Over the years he and Margaret continually

raised with me their fears that Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid leaders were communists. My answer was always the same. How can you or anyone else know that? Sounds like a reasonable guy. At one point Reagan praised the country despite its racist government and I'm not surprised. 1981 he described South Africa as a country that has stood by us in every war we've ever fought. A country that strategically is essential to the free world and its production of minerals. Exactly. He just wanted that fucking gold. Just wanted that fucking gold. 1985, Reagan also incorrectly told a radio interviewer that South Africa eliminated the segregation

that we once had in our own country. What the fuck's he talking about? It was like the most segregated country in the world. 1986, but yeah, propaganda. 1986, Reagan condemned the ANC by saying the group engaged in calculated terror, the mining of roads, the bombings of public places, designed to bring about further repression. What?

Reagan even vetoed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, but then Congress overrode his gutless decision with a two-thirds majority and passed the act anyway to impose sanctions on South Africa. Reagan said in a 1986 speech, the South African government is under no obligation to negotiate the future of the country with any organization that proclaims the goal of creating a communist state and uses terrorist tactics and violence to achieve it.

Fuck you, Reagan. The UK also imposed limited sanctions on South Africa despite Thatcher's objections. This put a lot of pressure on South Africa, which was at war with Namibia, Zambia, Angola. Meanwhile in the mid 80s South Africa's national party under Peter Bwarta sought to institute reforms such as abolishing laws against interracial sex and marriage. Well how progressive. They were considering legalizing interracial sex in the mid 1980s. How progressive. The Reagan

administration placed Mandela and the ANC on a terrorist watch list after the apartheid government declared the ANC a terrorist group. Numerous politicians held the same views about the ANC. For example, former Vice President Dick Cheney went on ABC's This Week in 2000 and defended voting against the 1986 House bill because the ANC was then viewed as a terrorist organization. Not by fucking rational people, it wasn't. In the mid-80s UK Parliament member Terry Dick said Nelson Mandela should be shot Adding, how much longer will the Prime Minister allow herself to be kicked in the face by a black terrorist? Fucking Terry. Terry Dick sounds just a wee bit racist because he was. This is the guy who once publicly ridiculed a Somali refugee family buying water in a

London supermarket saying, where they come from, they're happy to drink out of puddles. So that's cool. He also called for the long-running BBC TV show EastEnders to be literally cancelled because they aired a scene where one man kisses another man. That fuckhead died 83 years too late in 2020 at the age of 83. August of 1988, the US State Department listed the ANC among organizations that engage in terrorism. The department stated that the ANC disavows a strategy to deliberately target civilians, but noted that civilians had been victims of incidents claimed by or attributed to the ANC.

Jesus Christ. How many unarmed ANC civilians had been gunned down or unjustly imprisoned by the South African government? In January of 1989, the Defense Department included the ANC in their official publication, Terrorist Group Profiles. ANC was listed among 52 of the world's most notorious terrorist groups. The publication referred to Nelson Mandela as part of leadership. The Defense Department also accepted the apartheid government's claim that quote ANC's operations which previously had sought to avoid civilian casualties abruptly changed attacks became more indiscriminate resulting in both black and white civilian victims. Yeah totally they're the bad guys not the government uh-uh. Five months before that

report was issued the ANC took responsibility for some attacks that did result in civilian deaths. They pledged to prevent a recurrence. Those attacks would have just ended if the government would have ceased being a... The government is a fucking terrorist organization. Before Mandela visited the US after his release, the conservative group, the Heritage Foundation, those pieces of shit, accused Mandela of being a communist supporter of terrorism. Not surprised. The Heritage Foundation is so fucking gross.

They're the same assholes who are the authors of the embarrassing, morally repugnant Project 2025. Fuck that project. Terrorist accusations against Mandela continued into the early 2000s. The US continued to classify Mandela as a terrorist until July of 2008 when President Bush finally signed a bill removing him from terrorist lists. Good on him. You know, we don't agree on everything, but I do think George W. Bush has a lot more integrity and a lot more heart than most politicians. I know he's far from perfect, but honestly right now I wish we had more like him than who we fucking currently have. August 21st 1988, Mandel is transferred to the hospital again, diagnosed with tuberculosis.

In December of that year he was put on house arrest in a cottage at Victor Verstaa prison near Parle. He will spend his last 14 months in prison here. The fall of the Berlin Wall helped speed up the end of apartheid in 1989 because it destroyed one of South Africa's main defenses that supposedly needed apartheid to fight communism. South African president P.W. Bweta suffered a stroke in January of 1989 so that's cool. Replaced later in 1989 by Frederick Wilhelm de Klerk who had supported apartheid throughout his career but will have a change of heart. De Klerk, who recently died November 11, 2021, son of a politician, a guy who established a law firm,

active in civic and business affairs before he had a political life. In 1972, he was elected to parliament as a member of the National Party. He served as Minister of Minds and Energy Affairs, Internal Affairs, and National Education and Planning. After President P.W. Berta became sick in January of 89, de Klerk elected leader of the National Party and opposed Berta's resumption of office after he recovered. Berta pressured to step aside. De Klerk formally elected president by parliament September 14. De Klerk committed to speeding up some reforms started by Berta and initiating talks about a new constitution with representatives from all of the different racial groups in South

Africa, which was very new. The clerk gave an opening address to Parliament February 2, 1990, and he said in part, Mr. Speaker, Members of Parliament, the general elections on September 6, 1989 placed our country irrevocably on the road to drastic change. Underlying this is the growing realization by an increasing number of South Africans that only a negotiated understanding among the representative leaders of the entire population is able to ensure lasting peace. The alternative is growing violence, tension, and conflict. That is unacceptable and in nobody's interest. The well-being of all in this country is linked inextricably to the ability of the leaders to come to terms with one another on a new dispensation. No one can escape this simple truth.

On its part, the government will accord the process of negotiation the highest priority. The aim is a totally new and just constitutional dispensation in which every inhabitant will enjoy equal rights, treatment and opportunity in every sphere of endeavor, constitutional, social, and economic. I hope that this new Parliament will play a constructive part in both the prelude to negotiations and the negotiating process itself. I wish to ask all of you who identify yourselves with the broad aim of a new South Africa, and that is the overwhelming majority. That is put petty politics aside when we discuss the future during this session. Help us build a broad consensus about the fundamentals of a new realistic and democratic dispensation. Let us work together on a plan that will rid our country of suspicion and steer it away

from domination and radicalism of any kind. A lot of people very surprised by this. Was change really in the air? Well, sure as shit was. The clerk soon moved to release important political prisoners at Mandela's urging and to lift a ban on both the ANC and the PAC. Mandela would not find out about his own release until the night before. He wrote in his autobiography, I deeply wanted to leave prison as soon as I could, but to

do so on such short notice would not be wise." He actually tried to have his release pushed back a week so he could have time to organize with his family and ANC, but the clerk refused and he was released February 10th, 1990. Mandela said about his meeting with the clerk, It was a tense moment and at the time neither of us saw any irony in a prisoner asking not to be released and his jailer attempting to release him. And I said, he found out, I'm sorry, he was not released February 10th. He found out February 10th.

He was released February 11th after 27 years and he's a free man again. Hail Nimrod. He later recalled that he was very surprised that such a large crowd had gathered to see him walk out saying, I had asked the prison authorities to make sure that the warders who worked with me in the section of the prison where I was kept should assemble at the gate with their families so that I could have the opportunity of thanking them. And I was expecting no more than, you know, 20 to 30 people

because they were working in shifts and so on and I was expecting no more than 30 people. I was surprised then to see the crowd. I never even had the opportunity of seeing the warders because of the crowd both inside the gate and outside. I love that note about the warders, right? Which is a term for Corrections Officer in South Africa, or at least was back in 1990. Shows how Mandela wasn't looking for vengeance when he got out. Wasn't looking for retribution. Wasn't looking for rights being bestowed upon him and his people at the expense of the rights of the people who had long

Imprisoned him and grossly mistreated him and his people. He just wanted true equality true racial harmony He wanted to take time to thank the prison guards many of whom I have to assume are white Who had treated him fairly while he was unjustly incarcerated such a magnanimous man somebody to admire and appreciate I've got I wish we had why can't we have these kind of politicians now? Why can't we have a fucking Mandela? Mandela also later wrote regarding his release, I was astounded and a little bit alarmed. Within 20 feet or so of the gate, the cameras started clicking.

A noise that sounded like some great herd of metallic beasts. Reporters started shouting questions. Television crews began crowding in. It was a happy of slightly disorienting chaos. I bet that kind of attention was overwhelming after he'd spent so many years in comparative solitude. Mandela was supposed to give his first speech at a public square called the Grand Parade, but when his driver got close to the crowd gathered there, they began to pound on the windows of his vehicle in excitement. Mandela wrote, Inside it sounded like a massive hailstorm. Then people began to jump on the car in their excitement. Others began to shake it.

And at that moment I began to worry. I felt as though the crowd might very well kill us with their love. Took over an hour for the car to break free of the masses and the driver sped away from the city in a panic. Mandela had to make a detour to his lawyer's house. Activist leader Archbishop Desmond Tutu then called and instructed him to return saying, Nelson, you must come back to the Grand Parade immediately. The people are growing restless. If you do not return straight away, I cannot vouch for what will happen. I think there might be an uprising. Andella was driven back in a different vehicle,

snuck into a back entrance into Cape Town City Hall. Over 100,000 people were waiting outside to hear him speak. Some had started looting nearby stores. The police had fired warning shots above the crowd. In this chaos, Mandela finally walks out onto the City Hall balcony at dusk and he says, Friends, comrades, and fellow South Africans, I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy, and freedom for all. I stand here before you not as a prophet, but as a humble servant of you, the people. Your tireless and heroic sacrifices have made it

possible for me to be here today. I therefore place the remaining years of my life in your hands." How do I keep loving this man more with every new fucking excerpt from his speeches? Note to self, if I ever get the chance to time travel, go back to South Africa, talk to Nelson Mandela and he give me a huge hug and telling me that I'm in fact a good boy who goes peepee in the potty. But seriously, I love this guy. Mandela repeated part of a famous speech he'd written years before saying, I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which

I hope to live for and to achieve, but if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." Andela later wrote about his first night outside prison saying, After that I then went to the place of Archbishop Tutu. We had discussed the matter in prison with Trevor and others and I had said that I would have liked to be in the township, to stay there, because I didn't think it was wise for me to go and stay in town, but they told me that the nature of Bishop's Court, which was the headquarters of the Anglican Church, had changed, and that with the takeover by Tutu, it had become a people's center, and young people from the townships were now gathering

there on various occasions, and that it was proper for me to go and stay there. So I eventually agreed and they arranged with Tutu that I should go and stay there after I went there when I was released and he and his wife Leah they were very kind to me and Winnie. Upon his release Mandela quickly urged foreign powers not to reduce pressure on South Africa for constitutional reform. He was committed to working towards peace, but he said the ANC's armed struggle would continue until all black South Africans had received their right to vote. March 2, 1990, Mandela was made deputy president of the ANC. Following year, he was elected president of the ANC.

Also in 1991, de Klerk's government passed legislation repealing discriminatory laws affecting residents, education, public amenities, and health care. A peaceful resolution or revolution is beginning. The I guess revolution and resolution. The following year in 1992 de Klerk called for a referendum vote to end apartheid at long last. The National Party and 18 other groups including Mandela's ANC had been negotiating since December on mechanisms to move South Africa to majority government. The Conservative Party argued that radicals within the ANC were going to turn South Africa into a Stalinist state, right? Again with the manipulative propagandist stoking of communist fears. I see that same shit today in this country, right? Politicians stoking fears of radical liberals and

country right politicians still confers of radical liberals and socialists to distract the working class while they sell that same fucking working class down the river by handing over more control of the country to corporate oligarchs right like Elon Musk that's cool make sure the rich get richer at the expense of everyone else they're not even fucking hiding feeding the poor to the rich anymore and the south african far right use fears of communism as an excuse to try and perpetuate a small group of white people living affluently directly at the expense of all the non-whites.

Non-whites. The conservatives claimed that they did not want to reimpose apartheid, but instead just wanted to quote partition of the country. So they did want more apartheid. On March 17th, 1992, a majority of white South Africans voted to end apartheid. The results were a landslide actually. 68.7 to 31.2 percent and good on South Africa. Right? Two-thirds of white people were like, enough! I don't want to live in a fucking country anymore. The continual exploits and subjugates my neighbors.

President de Klerk told the country, today we have closed the book on apartheid. The ballot question stated, do you support the continuation of the reform process, which the state president began on February 2, 1990, and which aimed at a new constitution through negotiations? The clerk, the national party, and allies in the democratic party warned that a no vote was a vote for civil war because right-wing attempts to reimpose apartheid would cause chaos and stricter international sanctions. One anonymous white woman told a reporter for United Press International, I voted yes. Before I came here I was decided I'm voting no. She said she changed her mind because I'm a grandmother. I did it for

my grandchildren. I've got five. I have to think of their future. Another anonymous voter said I voted yes because there's no going back is there? One anonymous woman expressed her fear of change saying if I don't vote no then the communists will take over, and then the blacks will take everything, and the whites will lose everything. Man, spoken like a person politicians love. Somebody so afraid, right? A scared alarmist, easily manipulated.

Later that year, De Klerk underwent negotiations with Mandela and other black leaders over a new constitution that would actually enfranchise black people for the first time in South Africa's long terrible history. An agreement for a free election and a transition to majority rule was finally reached in the summer of 1993. Negotiations leading up to it often strained. Country faced a lot of violence during this transitionary time. At one point ANC leader Chris Han was assassinated. Right, change can be so hard and this change was, but it was necessary. Had apartheid not fallen, the violence would have been even worse.

Mandela wrote about the fall of apartheid in his book Long Walk to Freedom saying, I never lost hope that this great transformation would occur. Not only because of the great heroes I have already cited, but because of the courage of the ordinary men and women of my country. I always knew that deep down in every human heart there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion. People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate they can be taught to love for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. Even in the grimace times in prison when my comrades and I

were pushed to our limits, I would see a glimmer of humanity in one of the guards, perhaps just for a second, but it was enough to reassure me and keep me going. Man's goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished. Man, fuck, so good! So many good quotes and just that brief excerpt, man's goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished. This illustrates why it's so important to spend time with people you think you hate. Try and see their humanity. You can still hate their actions, but you don't have to be overcome with hatefulness and write them off as monsters. If you listen to this show for any length of time, you might easily assume that I truly hate pedophiles, and I probably said that, but I

don't actually hate them. I hate what they do. And there is a difference. I hate what they do to kids. I hate that they don't abstain from pursuing their worst impulses, but I don't really hate them. I feel tremendously sorry for them. What a curse to be born with such an unnatural and destructive attraction.

I still think they should be essentially euthanized like rabid dogs, but that's different than hating them. I don't hate rabid dogs. I feel sorry for them for having rabies They didn't ask to have that infection any more than a fucking pedo You know asked to wake up and get a boner every time he passes by a fucking playground In a much less extreme example, I don't hate people who have very different spiritual or political beliefs than I do I hate their beliefs. Oftentimes. I hate how some of their beliefs very negatively impact so many people that I love. Right? I find many of their beliefs to be abhorrent,

superstitious, wildly unnecessary, but that doesn't mean I hate them. In fact, some of my very favorite people on earth, like my mother-in-law St. Joan, deeply religious. Some of my very best friends, very conservative in ways that I am very progressive. I've known so many people who have certain beliefs I find, you know, disgusting. But damn near every time, those same people will do some of the best kind of shit. While I find some of their beliefs and the actions those beliefs lead them to take to be hateful, I can also see that they are not doing those things to be hateful. They are not coming from a hateful place. They're actually often coming from a loving, altruistic place.

I forget that moments but most of the time I'm aware that the world actually does have more love than hate in it. I just think it's sad how many politicians seem to manipulate that love and turn it into fear and turn it into hate. Sadly sometimes beautiful souls like Nelson Mandela have to endure a lot of pain to remind the rest of us you us that there is more love than hate to snap some of us out of our hateful, divisive mindsets and help us get back on track to a more understanding, empathetic path.

December 10, 1993, Nelson Mandela and President DeKlerk are jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work towards dismantling apartheid. Here's an excerpt from Mandela's acceptance speech. The value of our shared reward will and must be measured by the joyful peace which will triumph because the common humanity that bonds both black and white into one human race will have said to each one of us that we shall all live like the children of paradise. Thus shall we live because we will have created a society which recognizes that all people are born equal, with each entitled and equal measure to life, liberty, prosperity, human rights, and good governance.

Let it never be said by future generations that indifference, cynicism, or selfishness made us fail to live up to the ideals of humanism which the Nobel Peace Prize encapsulates. Let the strivings of us all prove Martin Luther King, Jr. to have been correct when he said that humanity can no longer be tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war. Let the efforts of us all prove that he was not a mere dreamer when he spoke of the beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace being more precious than diamonds or silver or gold. Let a new age dawn. Fuck Yaprel. I of course added that last part. April 27th 1994 South Africa held its first free and non-racial election. And over 22 million people voted.

And Nelson Mandela won by a fucking landslide. ANC won 63% of the vote that election. 77 year old Mandela, former prisoner for nearly three decades, is inaugurated as the country's first black president May 10th, 1994. An incredible moment in history. Mandela told the citizens of South Africa in his inaugural address, It is time to round up the Dutch and to stone those motherfuckers to death. We're gonna butcher those hog folk. We're gonna eat them. We're gonna perform magical rituals that will damn their souls to hell. We're gonna skull fuck their moms. We're gonna skull them. We're gonna perform magical rituals that will damn their souls to hell. We're gonna skull fuck their moms

I'm gonna skull fuck their dads Revenge is now death to whites death to whites death to whites No, here's what he really said The time for the healing of the wounds has come the moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come The time to build is upon us We have at last achieved our political emancipation. We pledge ourselves to liberate all our people from the continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation, suffering, gender, and other discrimination. We succeeded

to take our last steps to freedom and conditions of relative peace. We commit ourselves to the construction of a complete, just, and lasting peace. We have triumphed in the effort to implant hope in the breasts of the millions of our people. We enter into a covenant that we shall build a society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity. A rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world. Mandela promised the people, never, never, and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world. Mandela also praised De Klerk, whom he made his deputy president.

Mandela called De Klerk, one of the greatest reformers, one of the greatest sons of our soil. I love that. De Klerk resigned as deputy minister in 1996, then retired from politics altogether in 1999. Mandela's inauguration was one of the most important dates in modern history and there were some controversial figures in attendance, including the infamous Fidel Castro. What a guy. Not a racist guy. Just a dude who kept millions in unnecessary poverty for decades, who had thousands tortured and or killed by state sanctioned sadists, and who didn't care what race his victims were. Real gem.

But anyway, Mandela formed a government of national unity, or a national unity coalition with the National Party, and the Nkatha Freedom Party. In addition to transitioning the government from minority majority rule, Mandela developed the Reconstruction and Development Plan, which created thousands and thousands of jobs and improved housing and health care for thousands and thousands of poor. Actually millions. 1995 South Africa installed a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address

human rights violations during the apartheid era. The goal of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was not to punish but to heal South Africa by addressing its past. Those who committed crimes were allowed to confess and apply for amnesty. It was headed by 1994 Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The TRC heard testimony from over 20,000 witnesses, including both victims and perpetrators. First five volumes of its final report released on October 29, 1998. The final two volumes released March 21, 2003. The report condemned all major political organizations, including the government, and anti-apartheid

organizations, even the ANC, for contributing to violence. Based on the TRC's recommendations, the government began making reparation payments of about $4,000 US to thousands of victims in 2003. That same year, President Mandela promoted unity by encouraging black South Africans to support the national rugby team. South Africa hosted the Rugby World Cup in 1995. From 1964 to 1992, South Africa had been banned from the Olympics for being exceptionally racist, and the rugby team was kept out of the first two World Cups in the sports history in both 1987 and 1991 for also being wildly racist. The historically white team had come to symbolize the apartheid, but Mandela believed a show

of support for the same team could help lessen the nation's racial division and increase national pride. The Afrikaner National Party was deeply connected to the rugby team, which had all-white players for its first 90 years. The party viewed the team's success as its own and players sometimes used the team to get into politics. The team mascot, the springbok, a native antelope, had also become a symbol of apartheid. After the 1994 election, the all South African national teams adopted the national flower, the protea, as their emblem except the rugby team which kept the springbok.

And Mandela wanted to come up with a compromise that would allow the team to keep their symbol but also bring the nation together. Mandela invited the team captain Francois Pienaar to meet with him to discuss how the team could help foster peace. And Mandela told the people of South Africa, I ask you to stand by these boys because they are our kind. He faced a lot of criticism from that stance, including from his wife Winnie, to whom he had become estranged now, who thought that he was focusing too much on appeasing whites. Mandela said during a visit to the team's training camp shortly before the World Cup, "...we have adopted these young men as our boys, as our own children, as our own stars. The country is fully behind them. I have never been so proud of our boys as I am now and I hope that that pride we all share. South Africa defeated New Zealand in the final on

June 24th 1995 winning the first major sporting event to take place in South Africa following the end of apartheid. The Springboks led the crowd in singing a new anti-apartheid movement national anthem. Nelson Mandela then appeared in the stadium wearing a shirt with the Spring spring box symbol on it. The mostly white crowd cheered loudly for him and it was a very powerful symbolic moment. Team captain Pinar said about the final, when the final whistle blew this country changed forever. Shows the power of sport there which is pretty cool. South African Constitution was signed by Mandela at Sharpeville, December 10th, 1996.

The Constitution went into effect February 4th, 1997. The new Constitution established a strong central government based on majority rule and prohibited discrimination against minorities, including white South Africans, who are technically a minority. July 18th, 1998, his 80th birthday, Mandela married Grassa Michelle, first education minister of Mozambique. He and Winnie had divorced back in 1996, but had remained friendly. She would even visit him on his deathbed. They had divorced on grounds that she had been unfaithful and not just while he was

in prison and she also maybe wasn't the best person. Maybe insanely corrupt. While Mandela was not out for vengeance following his release, I don't think the same can be said for Winnie. It would take too much to get into here, but don't feel sorry for him walking away after she waited all those years for him to get out of prison. Lots and lots of credible accusations out there about Winnie being connected to all sorts of nefarious shit.

Racially motivated murders, extortion, you know, things carried out by her security detail, others close to her. Yeah. Mandela gave his final presidential address March of 1999. He'd been in office almost five years now. And he said in part, honorable members and delegates, I raise this question with great pride in what has been done to lay the foundation of democracy in our country. Personally, I dare to say that moments in my life have been few and far between when I have sensed the excitement of change as in this August chamber. Each historical period defines specific challenges of national progress and leadership, and no man is an island.

As for me personally, I belong to the generation of leaders for whom the achievement of democracy was a defining challenge. I count myself fortunate that amongst this generation, history permitted me to take part in South Africa's transition from that period into the new era Whose foundation we have been laying together. I hope the decades from now when history is written the role of the generation Of this generation will be appreciated and that I will not be found wanting against the measure of their fortitude and vision Indeed madam speaker. I have noted with deep gratitude the generous praise that has often been given to me as an individual. But let me state this. To the extent that I have been able to achieve anything, I know that this is because I am

the product of the people of South Africa. I am the product of the rural masses who inspired in me the pride in our past and the spirit of resistance. I am the product of the workers of South Africa who in the mines, factories, fields, and offices of our country have pursued the principle that the interests of each are founded in the common interest of all. I am the product of South Africa's intelligentsia of every color who have labored to give our society knowledge of itself and to fashion our people's aspirations into a realizable

dream. I am the product of South Africa's business people in industry and agriculture, commerce and finance whose spirit of enterprise has helped turn our country's immense natural resources into the wealth of our nation. To the extent that I have been able to take our country forward to this new era, it is because I am the product of the people of the world who have cherished the vision of a better life for all people everywhere. They insisted, in a spirit of self-sacrifice, that the vision should be realized in South Africa too. They gave us hope because we knew by their solidarity that

our ideas could not be silenced since they were the ideas of all humanity. I am the product of Africa and her long cherished dream of a rebirth that can now be realized so that all of her children may play in the sun. If I have been able to help take our country a few steps towards democracy, non-racialism, and non-sexism, it is because I am a product of the African National Congress, of a movement for justice, dignity, and freedom that produced countless giants in whose shadow we find our glory." Man, once again, beautiful words from a beautiful soul.

Mandela retired from politics at the end of his term term but he continued activism for the rest of his life. He established the Nelson Mandela Foundation in 1999 which helped raise money for schools and clinics in rural areas. Mandela dealt with multiple health issues in his final years as most do. He was diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer again in 2001 at the age of 73, second time he had had it. In 2002 Mandela became an advocate for AIDS awareness and treatment. Sadly 2002 Mandela became an advocate for AIDS awareness and treatment. Sadly his son, Magatu, will die of AIDS three years later in 2005. In June of 2004, now 85 year old, weeks from turning 86 year old

Nelson Mandela, announced his formal retirement from public life and he returned to his home village of Cunu. But he still actually wasn't done helping. July 18, 2007, Mandela and his wife, Grassa Michelle, who is now 61, co-founded the Elders, a group of senior world leaders aiming to work to find solutions to difficult issues. That group included former president Jimmy Carter, who was 136 years young back then. Come on! No, he was 82. According to the Nelson Mandela Foundation,

the elders impact has spanned Asia, the Middle East, and Africa and their actions have included promoting peace and women's equality, demanding an end to atrocities, and supporting initiatives to address humanitarian crises and promote democracy. July 18, 2009 was declared Mandela Day, an international day to promote global peace and celebrate Mandela's legacy Mandela made his last public appearance at the FIFA World Cup final in Johannesburg, July 11th 2010 when he was a week away from turning 92 years old Mandela was hospitalized for a lung infection the following year in January of 2011 But that tough bastard was discharged just two nights later

Although he retired from public life, Mandela continued meeting with high-profile figures privately such as Michelle Obama, who visited and spoke with him during her trip to South Africa in 2011. President Barack Obama had met Mandela years earlier during his 2005 trip to the U.S. when Obama was a senator, and Obama chose not to visit Mandela this time because he said quote I'm fucking sick of upper yellow black men telling me what the fuck they think I'm supposed to do. I'm the goddamn leader of the free world. If I want a powerful black leader's voice, I'll ask my motherfucking reflection.

Barack Obama I'm guessing has never spoken like that in his entire life. That was my bullshit. That was a shitty impression I decided to try to throw out there last minute. Mandela was admitted to the hospital again in December of 2012 due to a recurring lung infection. Discharged later that month. Mandela admitted to the hospital again March 2013. Discharged again that same month. Then admitted again. Then returned to the hospital. June stayed through September 1st, 2013.

Sent home again. And then Nelson Mandela, uh, living at home for his final three months, died in his own bed, December 5th, 2013 in Johannesburg at the age of 95. And his last words were, I was wrong. Kill the whites, kill the whites, kill them all. Tear their babies in half. Feed their grandparents to lions, peel their dirty Dutch dicks like bananas and make them choke. I don't know what his last words

were but they were fucking way better than that. On the day of his death South African president Jacob Zuma, a black African man who could have never led South Africa without Nelson Mandela paving the way for him, released a statement that said in part, wherever we are in the country, wherever we are in the world, let us reaffirm his vision of a society in which none is exploited, oppressed, or dispossessed by another. And that'll take us out of this timeline of Nelson Mandela's remarkably inspirational life. Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely.

Nelson Mandela, what a memorable, wildly impressive life. He didn't let 27 years in prison change his convictions. 27 years away from his wife, away from his kids, one of whom died while he was in jail. He still stayed strong,ed true to his beliefs. And when he finally got out, he kept fighting. And what he fought for could not be more noble. He didn't fight for revenge. He fought for equality. After being unjustly imprisoned for being black, he went out of his way to show he held no animosity towards anyone who was white. Can you imagine how hard that would be?

Shit. It was so easy for him to have given in to hate. To lust for vengeance, to want to give the same people who fucked him over a strong taste of their own medicine. But Mandela knew that if he did that, the nation he loved would just continue to be divided. And the man who had been a victim of racial hatred did not want to see others become victims of the same mindset. He rose above it. So much easier said than done, but he did it. He worked with South Africa's president

to bring about the formal end of apartheid, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And he replaced apartheid with love for all of South Africa, black, white, or otherwise. He went on to become the first black president of South Africa, helped unify the country further, created a new constitution that protected the right of all South African citizens.

Until his dying breath in 2013, Mandela continued to be an activist, and even today, his legacy lives on through the Nelson Mandela Foundation. The Foundation is currently active in registering young children in various educational programs in South Africa. They pay speakers to give lectures about equality, freedom, and inclusion. They promote religious tolerance, access to clean water for all, queer rights, racial rights, gender equality, access to health care for all, access to legal representation for all, and on and on and on. They appear to be a wonderful organization

continuing to build on the legacy of a wonderful man. A wonderful man who never once ever teamed up with Pat Sajak and Roy Disney to hurt some kids. And I'm not saying that Pat and Roy have hurt kids by the way. I don't need to hear from any lawyers. I'm just saying that whatever fucking Pat and Roy may have done as evil as it may have been, Nelson not a part of it.

Time for our takeaways. Time shock, top five takeaways. Number one, Nelson Mandela's father was the advisor to the King of the Tembu people, but he lost his title and fortune over a dispute with the local magistrate. After his father died, Mandela was adopted by a Tembu region, who raised him for a future in tribal leadership. Mandela would later flee from his adoptive father when the man tried to arrange a marriage for him and he joined the activist community in Johannesburg. Number two, Nelson Mandela became a leader within the African National Congress. He initially promoted nonviolent resistance, but he changed his stance after the 1960 Sharpeville massacre where the police killed many unarmed protesters. He founded the militant wing of the ANC that focused on sabotage and guerrilla warfare tactics believing these extreme measures to be the only way to bring about true change.

Number three, Nelson Mandela would serve 27 years in prison because of his activism. The government did everything it could to suppress his cause, even banning the publication of his very image. But Mandela's family and supporters continued to help spread his message and he became an international beloved symbol of anti-apartheid resistance. Number 4. On April 27, 1994, Nelson Mandela voted in South Africa's first truly democratic election and became the first black president of South Africa.

Number 5. New info. The Mandela Effect The Mandela Effect, which I dedicated in early episode 2, episode 31, is defined as a popularized phenomenon in which a group of people collectively misremember facts, events, or other details in a consistent manner. Paranormal researcher and author Fiona Broom conceptualized the Mandela Effect in 2009 after discovering she and others had vivid but false memories of Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 80s. Broom even recalled his

widow's speech and riots breaking out in some cities after he died. Riots that never happened. A speech that was never given. After learning Mandela was still alive, she dismissed her memories as a simple misunderstanding, but then she spoke to a security staff member at a sci-fi and fantasy convention she was at, and she learned others shared the same false memory with eerily similar details. Broom created a website for people to share and discuss their memories that did not align with history

and coined the term for this phenomenon the Mandela effect. Thousands of people responded and the Mandela effect went viral. Researchers have since found evidence for a specific Mandela effect concerning the misidentification of pop culture images. For example many many people have mistakenly believed the Monopoly Man from the board game to wear a monocle. People like me, but the character doesn't. It's fucking crazy. I have a definite picture in my mind of him definitely wearing a monocle. Nope. Others recalled the Fruit of the Loom logo containing the cornucopia, but it doesn't. I also remember it having that. But that's bullshit.

Many recite the line, mirror, mirror on the wall from the 1937 Disney movie Snow White, but the line's actually magic mirror on the wall. One of the most famous misremembered lines in film history comes from Star Wars, episode five. Luke, I am your father. Like, Luke, I am your father. But the line is actually, no, I am your father. the line is actually no I am your father

doesn't say Luke what the fuck glitches in the matrix another example many recall seeing a movie called Shazam from the 90s starring American comedian and actress Sinbad but there was no such movie they may be confusing it for the 1996 film Kazam starring Shaquille O'Neal as a Genie 2022 study conducted by psychology researchers at the University of Chicago also found evidence for a visual Mandela effect, a subtype of the phenomenon. The Mandela effect can be explained by the Schema Theory of Memory, meaning people tend to misremember details when these details coincide with their expectations of the image. For example,

the belief that the Monopoly Man wears a monocle draws on the fact that it seems like an appropriate accessory for that character. However, the study found that the visual Mandela Effect could not be universally explained and images may be subject to the phenomenon for different reasons. False memories are often cited as an explanation for the brain to fill in gaps in memory by adding incorrect information, which can cause groups of people to recall details that are false even though they fit with the situation in question. Suggestability is the tendency to incorporate false information from other sources into memories. This can cause the Mandela effect, especially when combined with the power of social media. It's fucking crazy, right? That's why when you know, sometimes people don't get convicted for crimes based on eyewitness testimony because eyewitness is not necessarily reliable. Even if they're being honest, even if

they're honest people try not to bullshit anyone. Just because someone truly believes they saw something doesn't mean it happened. Memory in general much more fragile than a lot of us want to believe it to be. I have gotten countless emails over the years from listeners pissed off over something that they say that they heard me say, and I definitely never said it. Very strange. Or maybe I did say what I don't think I said,

and I just said it in a different dimension. There are many who believe the Mandela effect is a result of parallel realities or alternate universes. ["Mandela Effect"] Hmm. parallel realities or alternate universes. ["Time Suck Theme from The Bad Magic"] Hmm. I just wanted to hear that music for a little bit. ["Time Suck Theme from The Bad Magic"] Time Suck, top five takeaways.

Nelson Mandela from Prisoner to President has been sucked. Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for their help in making Time Suck. Thanks to Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsay Cummins, for being the fucking best. Thanks to Logan Keith, helping to publish the episode, designing merch for the store at badmagicproductions.com. Thank you to Olivia Lee again for her research. Thanks to the all-seeing eyes moderating the Cult of the Curious private Facebook page,

the Mod Squad making sure Discord keeps running smooth, and everyone over on the Time Suck subreddit and Bad Magic subreddit. And now, how about we head on over to this week's Time Sucker updates. Updates! Get your Time Sucker updates! For our first update this week, let's start with some positivity. This dose of gratitude sent our way by super sack James Webber, who sent in a message to Bojangles at TimeSuckPodcast.com with the subject line of, How hope prevailed for me. And he writes, first of all, Italian accent. Hell yes, $10,000 per 30 minute session of your Italian masterclass has finally paid

off. Oh, I'm so glad it worked. Now for some happiness. After 17 and a half years of depression, mental torture and anguish, my daughter is back in my life. Long story short, I left when she was two and a half years old. Then her mom kept her from me. I spent so many years trying to find her, including trying to get her mom to let me

talk to her, but I always kept hope alive. Well my daughter recently reached out to me and it has put me on top of the world. She turned 20 last month and she is amazing. I'm sharing this with you, Lindsay, Time Suck and our community because you've kept my head above water. I've listened to the triumph over tragedy suck numerous times as a reminder that life kicks you in the balls or lady balls but you have to keep going. Great now my eyes are watering. Thanks you son of a bitch. My daughter's name is Paige and it would mean a lot if you can give her a shout out. I'm getting her into time suck so if this is read on air I hope she hears it. My message for everyone else, no matter what you're going through keep your head

high. Don't let depression and anger win. We get one shot for sure at life, so make it your bitch and not the other way around. Hail Nimrod, hail Lucifina, even though she can go on and get it. And hail you, Dan. I get to be a dad again. Hugs and tugs, and James Webber. James, I'm so happy for you and so happy for Paige. Right?

None of us get to go back in time, unfortunately sometimes. But what we can do is focus on the present and plan and hope for the future that we want. You can't go back and make memories with Paige in the past, but you can damn sure make so many new memories right now. And I hope you and Paige get to spend so much time together, get to heal together, get to build a bond that no longer can be blocked by any parental interference. Good on you, James. Yes, man, keep your head high. Fuck yeah, bro. Love Paige with everything you got.

And just trust that that'll be enough. So happy for you both. Hail Nimrod. And now, Super Sucker Jake Naso sent in a message with the subject line of thoughts and hope from a long-time sucker. He writes, What's up, Master Suck? Long-time listener and loyalist here. Just some food for

thought for you and fans of the suck, for whatever that's worth. I want to preface this by stating that I always listen to the podcast even with the differing views of the vast listeners and the host as I can separate what I like and what I believe. But I do just want to point out a couple of my own thoughts on a recent update you read on air. I am just a double electrician so what do I know obviously but I live my life by critically thinking and problem solving and I have a slightly different take on some things you've brought up lately. I agree the points that you have brought up about everyone being an expert on stuff that they have no business being experts in, but at the same time I thought this podcast was made to encourage curious people. It's one of my favorite aspects of it.

To ask why is not always demeaning of an expert. And the point of research and asking questions can change the expert's opinion. That's literally the point of science. Defunding stuff is a separate topic for a separate time, but the narratives put on the public were proven to be wrong and due time about certain recent events, COVID, and the fact that pharma companies and solutions were shoved down the public's throat under the guise of experts is a hill I will die on. Big Pharma has the largest fines ever incurred in the history of litigation. They have and will continue to lie to the public for profit, so I have to say I will be skeptical

of them and their science. However, that doesn't mean I don't believe in the many life-changing aspects of them and other stuff they make. But you've always said that curiosity is the goal of furthering the human race so I think that some people trying to shake up a political landscape that is captured by lobbyist groups and political payouts is borderline necessary in this country. Money needs to be removed from politics to make this a better and more informed country to live in, at least in my fucked up head. I love this show and it's gotten me back from the brink of suicide more than once. I'll never stop listening on the different ideas of me to you or myself to anyone else. Just wanted to share my two cents. Love you all and everything you do. Jake Naso.

Jake, yeah thank you for offering a different point of view here. Yes, yes we should be curious. The cult of the curious we should question, but we should also know when to take a back seat. We should also be self-aware enough to realize when we are out of our depth on an issue or when politicians are obviously out of depth on issues. When politicians start talking about scientists doing this and that and question scientists, I think like, well, how do you know how science works? Do you have a scientific background, politician? And right now this whole thing of defunding things,

I just trust who is doing the defunding and why. And just like you distrust Big Pharma and I do as well, I distrust politicians who have immense stock reserves, who own millions and millions of shares of stocks. And I question is their motive for privatizing things in the public's interest or are they just increasing their wealth? Are they just you know gonna throw money towards corporations that are going to you know, make them more billions of dollars I'm very worried about that

Specifically with Elon Musk, but also with Trump. It's like these guys are businessmen, you know And maybe they're doing a good thing for the country, but I fucking doubt it It seems like they're fleecing the country time will tell Yeah, but concerning big pharma. Yeah, I don't trust them carte blanche because of the opioid crisis But I do trust the science like I think you do as well that their business is built on the back of And I and I trust that if the overwhelming consensus from the global scientific community is for example that vaccines are a good thing You know hello herd immunity then vaccines are a good thing, you know, hello herd immunity, then vaccines are in fact good. An unvaccinated child just died the day before I recorded this of measles in Texas because measles is spreading there because of kids not getting vaccinated. It's very simple and it's fucked.

And I think it's just the beginning because we got all these people that now, you know, have taken things too far with their distrust and gone into the realm of paranoia. You know, you've probably heard that phrase, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Well, that is happening so much right now. People tossing out a whole bunch of science just because some fucking piece of shit big pharma execs did lie to us. And it's a huge overreaction. and that's the hill I will die on. The hill I will die on is that formal education including scientific education and respect for expertise gained via the scientific method and formal education is the foundation that an evolved first world progressive culture is built on and that kind of culture is the only kind I will ever

support. Yes, be curious. Question things. Yes. But don't let your ego combined with your curiosity think that you know more than a massive group of thousands of people from all over the world who have dedicated their entire lives to studying something that you only have a cursory understanding of at best. That's what fucking kills me right now. Is somebody who, you know, even if they spent a year, alright, they spent a year on their own reading who knows what on the internet you know and then they question people who have diligently studied in peer-reviewed ways formally there is a difference I've been educated just enough to really appreciate that it is different you know uneducation leads to a lot of fear.

You know, like, fuck, if I read the fucking text messages my dad sends me, Jesus Christ, he finds this shit on Facebook and he gets so afraid and he thinks the world is ending tomorrow and it's fucking gibberish. And I'm like, Dad, just because somebody fucking wrote this doesn't mean it's true. This is just fucking nonsense. And I feel like we have a country right now of people doing that and I feel like we have politicians preying on people's ignorance when it comes to that kind of shit. Worries me very much and I don't get enough track.

But I appreciate that you listen even when you don't agree as I do to so many people in my life. Now one more. Anne Grayson. Very funny. Very funny meat sack. Sends in the following. A subject line of Cummins law by someone else and Anne writes, greetings Dan and all. The Cummins law story is a couple of months old, but I just finished my annual review at work and wanted to make sure the events of that day had not affected my review in any way. I'm happy to report that I appear to have gotten out of the situation unscarred except for emotionally. Someone else Cummins laud me or Cummins laudught on me I'm not sure what the appropriate terminology would be. I like that somebody cumminslaught on you that's pretty funny. I was transferred to a new

department at work October 1st however because of a hurricane that shut all life down for a couple weeks then a couple of important events the scheduled vacation for my boss and me taking Veterans Day off to help childhood friends celebrate the 20 year anniversary of losing his leg in Iraq and only his leg the rest of his unit not as lucky, I wasn't able to have a formal meeting with my new boss until November 12th. During that meeting my boss suggested we take the department vehicle to go look at some projects I was working on around campus. Now being new to this department, I've never driven the department vehicle before, it's just a standard Ford Explorer,

no big deal. I get into the driver's seat, go ahead crank it to start the AC because even in November it's 85 and humid in the south. While I'm adjusting my seat, I'm 5'4", whoever drove this last was clearly a giant. I hear my boss exclaim, quote, what the fuck is this? Initially, I have no idea what he's talking about. I assume he's talking about something outside of the car. Then I realized playing through the car speaker is a smooth saxophone and someone who's clearly a man imitating a woman attempting a sultry voice. I assume it's an advertisement from one of the local drag clubs even though I've never actually heard a commercial for one but I don't listen to the radio that often. Then the man pretending to be a woman says my saliva or his

will provide all the moisture our romance desires but we won't even need to use spit now for also, for he also in his sexual wisdom brought me a sex swing for Valentine's Day and 75 gallon drum of astroglide that he had delivered to the side of my bed. Not being familiar with this car, I didn't know where any of the buttons for the radio were, so I just threw it in reverse, backed out as quickly as I could. After we'd gotten around five feet back from the exterior wall of the offices, the kind female voice says, AI voice says Bluetooth disconnected. I quickly start stammering. I have no idea what that was as I drove off. Later, when I have time to think clearly, I realized that on the other side of the wall we were parked against are five offices within range of the vehicle's Bluetooth. Clearly someone in one of those offices had not disconnected their phone the last time they used

the car. And because I'd spent the previous day celebrating with friends, I had not engaged in my normal routine of downloading and listening to the new episode of Time Suck on Monday afternoon. I hadn't heard any of the episode at all, had no idea it was you, and that I had just been cumming slot until weeks later when I finally had time until, excuse me, until later that week when I had time to catch up on the episode Andrew Higgins D-Day's Secret War Hero. Lucky for me, my boss never brought it up again. Before I let you go back to the rest of your life, I also wanted to point out you missed an opportunity with the San Francisco Witch Killers episode you briefly mentioned Michael Carson going to the University of South Carolina. How could you miss the opportunity to reference the Gamecocks, their mascot? Do better with your research. That episode missed out on what could have been so much cock. Love always for Lindsay, the Polish goddess, and I guess something for you. Sincerely,

Anne, pronounced A-N-N with a silent E. Well, hello Anne with a silent E. I love that you got put into an uncomfortable situation thanks to a Bluetooth mishap from somebody else listening to the suck. And also thank your friend for their service and their sacrifice. I hope they weren't someone who got a shitty email from a billionaire who has never served in combat. And thank you for being the kind of person who shows up for their friends to honor them. That's fucking awesome. Happy to be a part of a community with so many cool people like yourself. Take care, everybody. Thanks, Time Suckers. I needed that.

We all did. Well, thank you for listening to another Bad Magic Productions podcast. Scared to death and Time Suck each week. Short Sucks, a nightmare fuel and the Time Suck, scared to death podcast feeds twice a month. Please don't become a racist, oppressive, nationalistic prick this week. Instead, maybe help look out for the disenfranchised and the marginalized and keep on sucking. And now an excerpt from one of Mandela's speeches. It's been edited a bit, but it's the best one I can find.

Sadly the audio quality for many of his speeches is pretty terrible. And many of his best written speeches never recorded. But this still beautiful. The time to build is upon us. This still beautiful. nation. We succeeded to take our last steps to freedom in conditions of relative peace. We commit ourselves to the construction of a complete, just and lasting peace. We have triumphed in the effort to implant hope in the breasts of the millions of our people. We enter into a covenant that we shall build a society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right

to human dignity, a rainbow nation, at peace with itself and the world. Hail Nimrod.