Mandela archives

Here’s something by way of antidote to helicopter parents fighting each other over plastic eggs & political wangles over who should have access to the quality of life that decent healthcare coverage brings: Nelson Mandela’s papers have been digitized, & are now (as of Tuesday) available online.

The archive is a joint project of the Google Cultural Institute & the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory. Letters, photographs, manuscripts, church membership cards videos—all available to anyone with Internet access.

Here’s one, a letter to his daughter, Zeni, from his prison cell; blue ink on ruled paper, dated 1 March 1979, remembering Zeni’s birth:

“Your birth was a great relief to us. Only three months before this, Mummy had spent fifteen days in jail under circumstances that were dangerous for a person in her condition. We did not know what harm might have been done to you and to her health, and were happy indeed to be blessed with a healthy and lovely daughter. Do you understand that you were nearly born in prison? Not many people have had your experience of having been in jail before they were born. You were only 25 months old when I left home and, though I met you frequently thereafter until January 1962 when I left the country for a short period, we never lived together again.”

It’s always amazing to sift through archives, to go to the primary source. To have these materials, on this man, available at the click of a mouse is…well, where I come from, that would be called a real mitzvah.