If any man can teach us about making a new country, it is Nelson Mandela. Some people in South Africa thought he was a terrorist. Others thought he was a hero. He believed he was meant to help free his country from a system of oppression called apartheid. He spent 27 years in prison for trying to bring equal rights to his country. After 27 long years, he left prison a better man, became his country’s president and changed it forever.
1) When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.
2) No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
3) Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.
4) If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. [When Mandela was in prison he learned to speak Afrikaans fluently (the language of his enemies), so he could talk with them.]
5) As I walked out the door [of the prison] toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison.
6) Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.
ANSWER FROM KEITH—
ReplyDeleteI really like quote 4: "If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner." It makes me think about the recent news, the terror attack in Paris. It's very sad to hear that news, and I wish they could forget the pain. I think we could have avoided the war, if only we had conversed more with others. I hope that everyone could learn something from Mr. Mandela, and something that is love, not revenge.
ANSWER FROM ANDREI—
ReplyDeleteI think #2 is most interesting. Always hatred is connected with fear, you hate what you fear. For example, someone hates spiders because they are afraid of them. From childhood, then, an important part of their education should be to help them overcome their fears. The main fear of humanity is the "unknown" when you don't know something. We would be surprised at what people don't know. For example, at least 70% of the people on earth don't know that the earth moves around the sun. They think the sun moves around the earth! So, someone hears something about another culture, if they hear the words, "Those people are bad," even if they don't know if it's true or not, they usually believe it. They say "first impressions are the strongest". Again, what children are taught is the most important: if they are taught to love or to hate, that is what will go out in the world. If I am being honest, I personally believe that you cannot change adults when they are grown. People only change when they feel the closeness of death. They analyze their life only then. // But there is something else that is hard to explain. I am sure that there is love inside everyone. Everyone loves something. It may be hidden but it is still there. It is the one thing you cannot take from a person.
Quote #6 is meaningful to me. I always kept this quote in mind and whenever I thought about my future helping poverty eradication and protecting human rights, I always saw myself as a justice-seeker. Considering the breakaway from poverty as a human right sometimes makes me angrier at the current situations in the world, but most importantly it makes me more motivated in my efforts to slowly help the process towards a poverty-free world.
ReplyDeleteANSWER FROM AIDA —
ReplyDeleteThe third quote is very good. "Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies." It means we must not be hatred and we must not hate. Hatred is like drinking poison which hurts only us not others. Prophet Muhammad says, "We must not hate someone or we must not be sad with someone more then three days." If we do then we will not be a complete Muslim. Also if a person was first to bring peace between each other and was first to talk, his place is in the top of the paradise. As a Muslim I prefer to not be hatred, because hatred kills us and does not let us to be calm. If we reduce hatred so, there would be more peace. First there should be leaders like Nelson Mandela. We need leaders like him and heroes and wise people to do it and show it to us. Such people can help their society like that.
Another source of hatred is envy. When someone has what you don't, hatred is simmering in the back of your mind. A silly yet powerful example of this was how some people in our country hated the Patriots football team, simply because they are so good. It was a lesson to me...don't let my own insecurities turn into hatred. On a larger scale, many of the have-nots of the world, see the rich and powerful. So many wars are fought simply to gain what someone else has.
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