Freedom Is Not About Speaking up but Choosing When to Be Silent

Freedom is not a status but a mindset.

Freedom is not a status but a mindset.

Freedom is a state of mind — Pic by Darkness

“In my country, we go to prison first and then become President.” — Nelson Mandela

Imagine that you’ve just been set free after 27 years in prison. The crowds gather around you to listen to your first words in decades. Your only crime was to oppose a white-minority regime. Those who imprisoned you, are right at your side too. What would you say?

“I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy, and freedom for all.” — a 71-year-old Nelson Mandela said.

Devoid of self-pity, he addressed the same people who had jailed him and who had brutalized fellow blacks to preach “true reconciliation.” Mandela always felt free, even if his body was kept behind bars for almost three decades.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu said: “He came out a far greater person than the man who went in.”

Most of us would have felt rage. We’d probably cursed our captors and wished to take revenge. But Mandela did not. He learned that “courage was n…