During the meeting a speech by Frederik Willem de Klerk as well as a visit to Robben Island took place. In the aftermath both events made evident to me that particularly Nelson Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom not only recapitulates his life and his struggle for freedom in South Africa but also the common political will of both leaders to overcome apartheid.
It also became evident to me that Mandela addresses key issues of information ethics and particularly of IFAP topics, namely: information for development, information literacy, information preservation, information accessibility, and multilingualism. Mandela's experience of writing and smuggling his text, chapter 78 of the autobiography, is an example on how freedom of speech can be defended in "heterotopian spaces" M.
Foucault such a jail. Multilingualism from an ethics-political perspective is a key issue not only at a global level, but also in many countries and regions, also within the context of digital technology. The singularity of the South African history and Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom is not incompatible with situations in other societies but can be reflected in order to give some orientation when dealing with 'language struggles' that are at the same time political, economic and, last but not least, cultural.
When going through the diversity of situations and topics that Mandela's biography makes manifest the question arises about the 'red thread' that gives a unity to Mandela's life and to his reflection thereupon. This 'red thread' consists in making manifest issues of in- human information and communication addressed by him before, during and after the time of his imprisonment dealing with the history his country and continent as a struggle against what can be called information and communication apartheid.
The issue of apartheid goes beyond not only of African countries but also of Mandela's lifetime as he himself is aware of. But on reflecting upon the historical situation of apartheid in South Africa he gives a potential universal perspective a concrete and unique historical and cultural background.
