Frasi di Nelson Mandela

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“Il perdono libera l’anima, rimuove la paura. È per questo che il perdono è un’arma potente.”

“Non giudicatemi per i miei successi, ma per tutte le volte che sono caduto e sono riuscito a rialzarmi.”

“Ho imparato che il coraggio non è la mancanza di paura, ma la vittoria sulla paura. L’uomo coraggioso non è colui che non prova paura ma colui che riesce a controllarla.”

“Esseri liberi non significa semplicemente rompere le catene, ma vivere in modo tale da rispettare e accentuare la libertà altrui.”

“L'istruzione è l'arma più potente che puoi usare per cambiare il mondo.”

“Ho percorso questo lungo cammino verso la libertà sforzandomi di non esitare, e ho fatto alcuni passi falsi lungo la via. Ma ho scoperto che dopo aver scalato una montagna ce ne sono sempre altre da scalare.”

“Non c'è nessuna strada facile per la libertà.”

“La maggior gloria nella vita non è non cadere mai, ma rialzarsi ogni volta che si cade.”

“Nessuno nasce odiando i propri simili a causa della razza, della religione o della classe alla quale appartengono. Gli uomini imparano a odiare, e se possono imparare a odiare, possono anche imparare ad amare, perché l’amore, per il cuore umano, è più naturale dell’odio.”

“Se parli con un uomo in una lingua a lui comprensibile, arriverai alla sua testa. Se gli parli nella sua lingua, arriverai al suo cuore.”

“L'uomo audace non è quello che non si spaventa, ma quello che conquista la paura.”

“Lo sport può risvegliare la speranza, dove prima c'era solo la disperazione.”

“Una persona che viaggia attraverso il nostro paese si ferma in un villaggio, e qui non ha bisogno di chiedere cibo o acqua. Appena arrivata la gente le offre il cibo, la intrattiene. Questo è solo un lato di Ubuntu ma Ubuntu ha anche altri aspetti. Ubuntu non significa che le persone non debbano dedicarsi a sé stesse. La questione piuttosto è: Vuoi farlo per aiutare la comunità che ti circonda a migliorare?”

“Unitevi! Mobilitatevi! Lottate! Tra l'incudine delle azioni di massa ed il martello della lotta armata dobbiamo annientare l'apartheid!”

“Il risentimento è come bere veleno sperando che un altro muoia.”

“La questione del cessate il fuoco non è nel suo vocabolario.”

“Niente come tornare in un luogo rimasto immutato ci fa scoprire quanto siamo cambiati.”

“Sembra sempre impossibile, finché non viene realizzato.”

“A Qunu, da bambino, non ebbi molto a che fare coi bianchi. Il magistrato locale, naturalmente, era bianco, e anche il gestore del negozio più vicino. Di tanto in tanto, viaggiatori e poliziotti bianchi attraversavano la nostra zona. Ai miei occhi erano splendidi come dei, e sapevo che bisognava trattarli con una sorta di paura e rispetto. Ma il loro ruolo nella mia vita era remoto, e in generale pensavo poco ai bianchi e ai rapporti tra la mia gente e quelle figure strane e distanti.”

“[Parlando di Miriam Makeba] Le sue melodie hanno dato voce al dolore dell'esilio che provò per 31 lunghi anni. Allo stesso tempo, la sua musica effondeva un profondo senso di speranza.”

“Sebbene per molti il signor Botha resti un simbolo dell'apartheid, noi lo ricordiamo anche per le iniziative assunte per aprire la strada a una soluzione pacifica e negoziata.”

“Unitevi! Mobilitatevi! Lottate! Tra l’incudine delle azioni di massa ed il martello della lotta armata dobbiamo annientare l’apartheid!”

“Quando un uomo ha fatto quello che ritiene il suo dovere per la sua gente e il suo paese, può riposare in pace.”

“Si dice che uno non conosce davvero un paese, finché non è stato nelle sue carceri.”

“Detesto il razzismo, perché lo considero qualcosa di barbaro, sia che provenga da un uomo di colore o da un uomo bianco.”

“Dirigi dalle retrovie — e fai credere agli altri di essere in prima linea.”

“Potrai ottenere di più in questo mondo attraverso gesti di misericordia, che attraverso atti di punizione.”

“La gente coraggiosa non teme di perdonare per il bene della pace.”

“L'odio annebbia la mente. Si interpone nel percorso strategico. I leader non possono permettersi di odiare.”

“Non sono un santo, a meno che non si pensi a un santo come un peccatore che continua a provarci.”

“Ho lottato contro la dominazione bianca, e ho lottato contro la dominazione nera. Ho coltivato l'ideale di una società democratica e libera, in cui tutte le persone vivono insieme in armonia e con pari opportunità. È un ideale che spero di vivere e realizzare. Tuttavia, se necessario, è un ideale per cui sono disposto a morire.”

“Nella cultura africana i figli e le mogli delle proprie zie e dei propri zii sono considerati fratelli e sorelle, non cugini. Noi non pratichiamo le stesse distinzioni tra parenti in uso tra i bianchi. Non abbiamo fratellastri o sorellastre. La sorella di mia madre è mia madre; il figlio di mio zio è mio fratello; il figlio di mio fratello è mio figlio, o figlia.”

“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.”

“What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.”

“The names of those who were incarcerated on Robben Island is a roll call of resistance fighters and democrats spanning over three centuries. If indeed this is a Cape of Good Hope, that hope owes much to the spirit of that legion of fighters and others of their calibre.”

“There must be an end to white monopoly on political power, and a fundamental restructuring of our political and economic systems to ensure that the inequalities of apartheid are addressed and our society thoroughly democratized.”

“I must deal immediately and at some length with the question of violence. Some of the things so far told to the Court are true and some are untrue. I do not, however, deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness, nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation, and oppression of my people by the Whites.”

“Gandhi arrived in South Africa in 1893 at the age of 23. Within a week he collided head on with racism. His immediate response was to flee the country that so degraded people of color, but then his inner resilience overpowered him with a sense of mission, and he stayed to redeem the dignity of the racially exploited, to pave the way for the liberation of the colonized the world over and to develop a blueprint for a new social order.
He left 21 years later, a near maha atma (great soul). There is no doubt in my mind that by the time he was violently removed from our world, he had transited into that state.
He was no ordinary leader. There are those who believe he was divinely inspired, and it is difficult not to believe with them. He dared to exhort nonviolence in a time when the violence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had exploded on us; he exhorted morality when science, technology and the capitalist order had made it redundant; he replaced self-interest with group interest without minimizing the importance of self. In fact, the interdependence of the social and the personal is at the heart of his philosophy. He seeks the simultaneous and interactive development of the moral person and the moral society.”

“Let's hope that Ken Oosterbroek will be the last person to die.”

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

“I watched, along with all of you, as the tens of thousands of our people stood patiently in long queues for many hours. Some sleeping on the open ground overnight waiting to cast this momentous vote.”

“A great measure of world poverty today and African poverty in particular is due to the continuing dependence on foreign markets for manufactured goods, which undermines domestic production and dams up domestic skills, apart from piling up unmanageable foreign debts. Gandhi's insistence on self-sufficiency is a basic economic principle that, if followed today, could contribute significantly to alleviating Third World poverty and stimulating development.”

“Gandhi remained committed to nonviolence; I followed the Gandhian strategy for as long as I could, but then there came a point in our struggle when the brute force of the oppressor could no longer be countered through passive resistance alone. We founded Umkhonto we Sizwe and added a military dimension to our struggle. Even then, we chose sabotage because it did not involve the loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Militant action became part of the African agenda officially supported by the Organization of African Unity (O. A. U.) following my address to the Pan-African Freedom Movement of East and Central Africa (PAFMECA) in 1962, in which I stated, "Force is the only language the imperialists can hear, and no country became free without some sort of violence."”

“It's a tragedy what is happening, what Bush is doing. All Bush wants is Iraqi oil. There is no doubt that the U. S. is behaving badly. Why are they not seeking to confiscate weapons of mass destruction from their ally Israel? This is just an excuse to get Iraq’s oil.”

“I had no specific belief except that our cause was just, was very strong and it was winning more and more support.”

“Because of their courage and persistence for many years, we can, today, even set the dates when all humanity will join together to celebrate one of the outstanding human victories of our century.
When that moment comes, we shall, together, rejoice in a common victory over racism, apartheid and white minority rule.”

“It is fit and proper to raise the question sharply, what is this rigid color-bar in the administration of justice? Why is it that in this courtroom I face a white magistrate, am confronted by a white prosecutor, and escorted into the dock by a white orderly? Can anyone honestly and seriously suggest that in this type of atmosphere the scales of justice are evenly balanced?
Why is it that no African in the history of this country has ever had the honor of being tried by his own kith and kin, by his own flesh and blood?
I will tell Your Worship why: the real purpose of this rigid color-bar is to ensure that the justice dispensed by the courts should conform to the policy of the country, however much that policy might be in conflict with the norms of justice accepted in judiciaries throughout the civilised world.”

“We thank all our distinguished international guests for having come to take possession with the people of our country of what is, after all, a common victory for justice, for peace, for human dignity. We trust that you will continue to stand by us as we tackle the challenges of building peace, prosperity, non-sexism, non-racialism and democracy.”

“You will notice that France, Germany, Russia, China are against this decision. It is clearly a decision that is motivated by George W. Bush's desire to please the arms and oil industries in the United States of America. If you look at those factors, you'll see that an individual like myself, a man who has lost power and influence, can never be a suitable mediator.”

“We consider ourselves to be comrades in arms to the Palestinian Arabs in their struggle for the liberation of Palestine. There is not a single citizen in South Africa who is not ready to stand by his Palestinian brothers in their legitimate fight against the Zionist racists.”

“I never think of the time I have lost. I just carry out a programme because it’s there. It’s mapped out for me.”

“What I am condemning is that one power, with a president [George W. Bush] who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.”

“If I am asked, by credible organizations, to mediate, I will consider that very seriously. But a situation of this nature does not need an individual, it needs an organization like the United Nations to mediate.
We must understand the seriousness of this situation. The United States has made serious mistakes in the conduct of its foreign affairs, which have had unfortunate repercussions long after the decisions were taken.”

“I did not enjoy the violence of boxing so much as the science of it. I was intrigued by how one moved one's body to protect oneself, how one used a strategy both to attack and retreat, how one paced oneself over a match.”

“A fundamental concern for others in our individual and community lives would go a long way in making the world the better place we so passionately dreamt of.”

“In Natal, apartheid is a deadly cancer in our midst, setting house against house, and eating away at the precious ties that bound us together. This strife among ourselves wastes our energy and destroys our unity. My message to those of you involved in this battle of brother against brother is this: take your guns, your knives, and your pangas, and throw them into the sea! Close down the death factories. End this war now!”

“May Peace be with you! We have joined you this Easter in an act of solidarity, and in an act of worship. We have come, like all the other pilgrims, to join in an act of renewal and rededication. The festival of Easter, which is so closely linked with the festival of the Passover, marks the rebirth of the resurrected Messiah, who without arms, without soldiers, without police and covert special forces, without hit squads or bands of vigilantes, overcame the mightiest state during his time. This great festival of rejoicing marks the victory of the forces of life over death, of hope over despair. We pray with you for the blessings of peace! We pray with you for the blessings of love! We pray with you for the blessings of freedom!”

“I really wanted to retire and rest and spend more time with my children, my grandchildren and of course with my wife. But the problems are such that for anybody with a conscience who can use whatever influence he may have to try to bring about peace, it's difficult to say no.”

“Difficulties break some men but make others. No axe is sharp enough to cut the soul of a sinner who keeps on trying, one armed with the hope that he will rise even in the end.”

“The sight of wounded and whipped Zulus, mercilessly abandoned by their British persecutors, so appalled him that he turned full circle from his admiration for all things British to celebrating the indigenous and ethnic. He resuscitated the culture of the colonized and the fullness of Indian resistance against the British; he revived Indian handicrafts and made these into an economic weapon against the colonizer in his call for swadeshi — the use of one's own and the boycott of the oppressor's products, which deprive the people of their skills and their capital.”

“The victory of democracy in South Africa is the common achievement of all humanity.”