Mandela understood that blacks and Afrikaners had something fundamental in common

Afrikaners believed them-selves to be Afrikaners believed themselves to be Africans as deeply as blacks did.He knew,too,that Afrikaners had been the victims of prejudice themselves,the British governmnet and the white English settlters look downed on them.Afrikaners suffered from a cultural inferiority complex almost as much as blacks did.



Mandela was a lawyer,and in prison he helped the warder with their legal problems.They were far less educated and worldly than he,and it was extraordinary to them that a black man was willing and able to help them.These were the most ruthless and brutal of the apartheid regime's characters,says Allister Sparks,the great South African historian,and he realized that even the worst and crudest could be negotiated with.