Mandela's no easy walk to freedom speech (1953) : A critical discourse analysis

Abstract

The present paper explores the ideological dimension that is embedded in the greatest speech ever given by the hero who dedicated his life to fight the racial segregation by white minority under the apartheid system in South Africa. It is Nelson Mandela's, "No Easy Walk to Freedom" speech, delivered on September 21st, 1953 to the ANC Congress. We relied on Van Dijk model (2006) of discursive strategies of positive self-presentation and negative others-presentation that were accommodated to achieve the objective of the study. The results reveal that those ideological strategies are used in Mandela's discourse. Moreover, Mandela uses polarizations in his use of "We" vs. "Them". Furthermore, the use of "we" aims to deepen the relations between him and his masses and maintain the flesh and blood ties between the African National Congress (ANC) and the Masses. Besides, he uses "Them" to refer to the out-group or the racially white state authorities. In addition, the findings show that Van Dijk's model (2006) is suitable and applicable for the analysis of this corpus since our assumptions are accepted and confirmed. Besides, Van Dijk's model is realized by the use of the strategy of Positive Self-Presentation that reflected Mandela's underlying ideology to glorify and praise the blacks for their long-standing challenge of the unjust policies of the racist state. In addition, the strategy of Negative Other-Presentation was used to talk about the tragedies and miseries inflicted on the black people by the racist state. To conclude, Mandela uses more negative terms to express his conservative ideology towards the racist state. Also, his speech is featured mainly by social inclusion and exclusion, racism, misbehavior, battle, and humanism