JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A new Nelson Mandela book, slim, bound in black and set in eye-straining type, looks a bit like a bible or a prayer book.
That's fitting, because the editors of "Nelson
Mandela By Himself" brought something close to religious zeal to the task
of choosing and checking more than 2,000 quotations to ensure the world gets
the anti-apartheid icon's words right. The book was released Monday — days
after U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama got an advance copy signed by Mandela when
she met him during a visit to South Africa.
Editors Sello Hatang and Sahm Venter work for
Mandela's foundation, which oversees charity and development work on his behalf
and houses some of his archives. Hatang and Venter say the Nelson Mandela
Foundation receives thousands of requests from researchers and others to
confirm the accuracy of Mandela's quotes. The book is, in part, an attempt to
settle such questions in one place.
The editors turned to speeches, notebook entries,
recorded conversations and other material, some until now unpublished, for the
book.
Hatang and Venter say in their introduction:
"We can all honor Nelson Mandela by quoting him correctly and
accurately."
The apartheid government once declared it illegal
to quote Mandela. He is now, according to Hatang and Venter, among the most
quoted people in the world. But they say he often is misquoted.
For a book that would slip easily into a jacket
pocket, "Nelson Mandela By Himself" has a daunting table of contents.
There are 317 subject headings, from accountability to Zionism.
"Prison" is divided into a further 26 headings, one short of the 27
years Mandela was incarcerated, with his musings on his release, visitors, even
contemplating escape.
Victory is found between vengeance — "We had
to refuse that our long sacrifice should make a stone of our hearts" — and
violence — "Great anger and violence can never build a nation.
"We are striving to proceed in a manner and
towards a result, which will ensure that all our people, both black and white,
emerge as victors," from a 1990 speech to the European Parliament, is
among eight victory quotations offered.
The book's emphasis on the uplifting and the
pedagogical might lead some to draw parallels to Mao's little red book. But we
also see Mandela questioning his choices:
"I have often wondered whether a person is
justified in neglecting his own family to fight for opportunities for
others."
And there are flashes of his famous,
self-deprecating humor:
"If only to emphasize that I am human, and as
fallible as anyone else, let me admit that ... accolades do flatter me."
The quotations are arranged chronologically within
each category, allowing readers a sense of how Mandela's ideas developed over
time — or in some cases held firm, as with his loyalty to regimes in Cuba and
Libya that supported his African National Congress during the struggle against
apartheid. His early observations on Africa suffering under imperialism evolve
to more recent criticism of the continent's homegrown tyrants.
On AIDS, a disease that has devastated South
Africa, he becomes increasingly blunt as his urgency grows.
Here he is in 1992: "Many of us find it
difficult to talk about sex to our children, but nature's truth is that unless
we guide the youth towards safer sex, the alternative is playing into the hands
of a killer disease."
And, simply, in 2005: "My son has died of
AIDS."
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
