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Chapter 35
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Long Walk to Freedom, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism and Division
Negotiation, Democracy, and Progress
Nonviolent Protest vs. Violent Protest
The Value of Optimism
Summary
Analysis
The State of Emergency makes it difficult for Mandela and other accused to communicate with their lawyers. They develop a strategy of trying to drag the case on as long as possible, with the hope that the State of Emergency will end. Prison life remains difficult, although Mandela sometimes finds camaraderie with the other prisoners, and on rare occasions, Winnie is allowed to visit. Mandela and the others continue to stall in court by calling one another as witnesses until finally the State of Emergency ends and their lawyers are allowed back.
Mandela shows how one of the main strategies of the South African government to sow division among activists is to shut down communication between them. By contrast, Mandela positions himself as someone who believes that open communication helps people to better understand one another, representing a healthier alternative to the paranoia that the government tries to foster.
Themes
Mandela’s own testimony begins August 3rd. The state wants to paint him as a violent Communist. They think it’s dangerous to give votes to people who aren’t “educated,” but Mandela points out that there are many types of education and that an illiterate person may nevertheless know things you can’t learn in school. Mandela finishes his testimony. The defense ends with Professor Matthews, who argues eloquently that the accused are part of a nonviolent struggle for freedom.
As Mandela’s own early life shows, there are many different types of education, and formal education isn’t the only way to learn things. In this passage, Mandela compares the prosecution’s argument to the elitism he used to see at the prestigious schools he went to when he was growing up.
Themes
