Legacies of Nelson Mandela

Abstract The chapter is an account of Mandela’s character, political imagination, and development which looks at his appropriation of Gandhi, his use of the arts, his transformation on Robben Island, and the various attempts which have been made in recent years to define and dismantle his legacy. The chapter is centred on Mandela’s understanding of political violence and his attempt to see through the fantasy of violence to its real purposes and uses, a project in which he was assisted by a reading of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. It explores the connection between violence and non-violence as Mandela conceived it in connection with Gandhi and Tolstoy. The material covers the defiance campaigns of the 1950s, Mandela’s cultural life in prison, and the tenor of his presidential term.