Nelson Mandela's Speech Shaken The African Continent: I'm Ready To Die

FW de Klerk and black fighter Nelson Mandela. (Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - Nelson Mandela delivered one of the most famous speeches of the 20th century. The speech he delivered in sixteen years ago. Where he thought he would be sentenced to death by a panel of judges at his last trial at the Rivonia Court, South Africa, on April 20, 1964. But in reality, he even made his dream of realizing a democratic and free society on the African continent.

Nelson, who has the status of the number one defendant, stood on the court table for three hours and said words that eventually changed South Africa. All visitors in Pretoria's courtroom were silent and listened to every speech spoken by Mandela. Mandela tells about his goal of fighting for the rest of his life against white minority power reaching the end.

Reported by VOI from Al Jazeera, Judge totaling de Wet managed not to look at Mandela in most of his speech. But before the defendant number one delivered his last sentence, defender's lawyer Joel Joffe remembered, Mandela was silent for a long time and looked sharply at the judge before saying:

Throughout my life, I have devoted my life to the struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I uphold the ideals of a democratic and free society where everyone will live together in harmony and have the same opportunity. These are the ideals I want to live and make. But, Your Majesty, if needed, it is a goal that I am willing to die to make it happen, "said Mandela.

After she said the last sentence, novelist and activist Nadine Gordimer, who was in the courtroom on April 20, 1964, said, "The strangest and most touching sound I've ever heard of from the human throat comes from the Black side of the court audience. The voice is short, sharp, and terrible: like urge and calming."

This is because it is very likely that Mandela and his colleagues will be sentenced to death for opposing the apartheid government. His lawyers have actually tried to persuade him not to include the phrase "I'm ready to die" because they think it can be seen as a provocation. But as later written by Mandela in his autobiography.

"I feel like we're going to be hanging, whatever we say, so we'd better say what we really believe." said Mandela.