ved from racism. Unlike Mandela, she lacked the intellectual stature and curiosity to see the effects of centuries of British colonialism an the African people, and persistently sided with other politicians who likewise claimed Christian virtue while killing and violating the human rights of many, such as Ronald Reagan and Augusto Pinochet.
I will begin with Mandela, providing a bit of biography, and then examining excerpts from two speeches given 40 years apart, which, in spite of the passage of many years demonstrate a consistency of vision that shows the true character of the man. Once reviled as a terrorist by American politicians such as Reagan and Jesse Helms, he is now almost universally recognized to have been a freedom fighter. That such a dramatic turnabout in perceptions can occur in the span of one man's lifetime shows how dangerously inadequate our current definitions of terrorism are.
Mandala was born into the Xhosa tribe in the Transkei in 1918, the son of a small town chiefton (en.wikipedia.org). His education was interrupted when he was expelled from Fort Hare University for taking part in a boycott protesting university policies.
After earning a law degree in Johannesburg he
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