15/12/2025
“The man who used to urinate on my head when I was in prison.”
Nelson Mandela said:
“After I became President, I asked some members of my security team to walk with me through the city and have lunch at one of its restaurants.
We sat at a downtown restaurant and ordered food.
After a while, the waiter brought our meals, and I noticed a man sitting alone at a nearby table waiting for his order.
I told one of the soldiers: ‘Go ask that man to join us and eat with us.’
The soldier went and invited him. The man brought his food and sat next to me as I had asked, then began eating.
His hands were trembling continuously until everyone finished their meal, and then he left.
The soldier said to me: ‘It seems that man was very ill. His hands were shaking the whole time he ate!’
‘No, not at all,’ I said.
That man was a prison guard in the prison where I was held.
Many times, after the torture I endured, I would scream and beg for some water.
And that same man would come each time and urinate on my head.
I saw him now—afraid, trembling—expecting that I would take revenge on him, at least in the same way, by torturing him or imprisoning him, now that I had become the President of South Africa.
But that is not my nature, nor my principles.
The mentality of revenge destroys nations, while the mentality of forgiveness builds them.”
