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Chapter 73
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Long Walk to Freedom, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism and Division
Negotiation, Democracy, and Progress
Nonviolent Protest vs. Violent Protest
The Value of Optimism
Summary
Analysis
Colonel Willemse succeeds Badenhorst and is not quite progressive, but he’s much better than his predecessor. Willemse asks Mandela for help disciplining the prisoners. Mandela gets permission to meet with his allies to consider the proposal. More MK soldiers enter the prison, and while Mandela isn’t happy to see them captured, he’s grateful for news from the outside.
Although Mandela tries to see the humanity in all his oppressors, he also changes his behavior based on how reasonable his current adversary seems. Here, Mandela can sense that Willemse is more reasonable than Badenhorst, and so Mandela cooperates with him, reasoning that it’s important to cooperate if there’s a chance doing so will help his cause.
Themes
