Mandela as a Political Figure

Rick Politician
2/08/02
History 152
Mandela Paragraph

Throughout the first few sections of the autobiography, Mandela transforms from a self-involved boy, to a selfless young man. As a young boy, Mandela’s thoughts were completely focused on himself.  He knew that he was part of the Mabida clan, Themba people and Xhosa nation, which were his African designations not the whites.  The village of Qunu represented everything his whole world.  He wrote “I had had no thought of anything but my own pleasures, no higher ambition than to eat well and become a champion stick-fighter.”  Interests in stick-fighting, girls and his mother dominated his existence.  He had no comprehension of his future struggle, “I thought little if at all about the white man in general or relations between my people and these curious and remote figures.”
At Chief Jongintaba’s house he saw himself as “introverted” and “serious.”  The best he could ever become was a counselor to a chief; but through his commitment to religion, schooling and daily life lessons he began to want to do more.  He saw himself as a strong Christian and an upright individual.  For example, when he went to the police station and confessed that the gun was actually his father’s revolver to free the blame from Bikitsha.
As Mandela becomes more and more aware of the injustices in South Africa, he dedicates himself to the cause of freedom.  “Politics was not a distraction but my lifework…it was an essential and fundamental part of my being.”