Years before meeting Mandela, I had interviewed a man who had been imprisoned with him on Robben Island for five years. “We had rooms [cells] next to each other,” he told me. “What did he teach you?” I asked. “He taught us to forgive,” came the answer. “I was a bitter young man, and Mandela picked it up immediately when we first met. He said to me, ‘Son, you are of no use to our movement until you learn to forgive the white man. You can hate his cause, but you cannot hate him.’”
