Mandela, a legendary life
- By Zhang Ming'ai
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E-mail China.org.cn, December 6, 2013
Prison life, 1963 to 1990
Mandela spent 27 years in prison. In 1962, he was sentenced to five years in prison over "inciting worker strikes" and "leaving the country without permission."
![File photo of former South African President Nelson Mandela [Xinhua]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20130703/001372acd6e1133dfacb24.jpg "File photo of former South African President Nelson Mandela [Xinhua]") |
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File photo of former South African President Nelson Mandela [Xinhua] |
In a local prison of Pretoria he had asked permission to wear long trousers and eat traditional food. The prison warden had replied he would meet Mandela's requirements at one condition: he would be locked in a cell all by himself.
"I was locked in alone. I could neither see the faces of other prisoners nor hear their voices," Mandela recalled. "I would rather take a beating than be locked alone. After being locked up alone for a period of time, I was delighted to be together with the bugs in the cell. Sometimes I wanted to chat with a cockroach."
He could sometimes see a middle-aged black prison guard. One day, Mandela offered to bribe him just to have a talk with him.
In 1964, he was transferred to the prison on Robben Island. Classified as the lowest grade of prisoner, Class D, Mandela was allowed to write letters or see visitors every half year. His mother went to Robben Island to visit him in 1968 and died not long after.
His cell was about 4.5 square meters big and had no bed inside; a thin straw mat had to do.
He was very polite to the white prison guards and actually befriended one of them. When Mandela was sworn in as South African president on May 10, 1994, this guard was invited to attend the ceremony. In 2006, the story of their friendship was turned into a film, starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon as Mandela and the guard respectively, called "Invictus."
In 1982, Madela was transferred to the Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town. In May of 1984, the authorities allowed Winnie to visit Mandela alone. When Winnie first learned of this news, she was shocked because as she thought he must have been ill.
"We two went to the same room and embraced each other," Mandela recalled. "I hadn't touched my wife's hands in 21 years."
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