Nelson Mandela: Inaugural Address (1994) Commentary by Christopher Saunders, University of Cape Town, South Africa

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Mandela's inaugural address was highly symbolic. The very fact that he, a black man and former prisoner of the apartheid regime, was delivering it before a large crowd in which there were representatives of most of the countries in the world, demonstrated that South Africa had rejoined the world community after a long period of isolation under apartheid. Mandela speaks of humanity having “taken [South Africa] back into its bosom” and remarks, “We, who were outlaws not so long ago, have today been given the rare privilege to be host to the nations of the world on our own soil.” Mandela was acknowledging that apartheid South Africa had long been isolated and treated as a pariah nation because of its racial policies, and he was celebrating that now South Africa had become a model for others to follow, a land in which it seemed that racial reconciliation had triumphed. And so Mandela thanks the guests from all over the world for attending...