1961, it could not be denied that our policy to achieve a non-racial State by non-violence had achieved nothing" (Mandela 22). This quote shows that Mandela and fellow members of the ANC new something new needed to be done within the ANC. What Mandela and other nationalist leaders decided to do was to form a military faction of the ANC called the Umkanto Sizwe (24). Mandela lets readers know this was the last option when he writes, "We did so not because we desired such a course, but solely because the government had left us with no other choice" (24). The nationalist members of the Umkanto decided on sabotage, over guerrilla warfare, terrorism, and all out revolution, as a means to obtain their goals (26). Mandela makes readers aware of why they chose sabotage when he writes, "Sabotage did not involve the loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations" (26). The main targets of this sabotage were power plants, infrastructure, government buildings, as well as symbols of apartheid (26-27). The efforts of the Umkanto were designed to have a crippling effect on both the government and the economy, and in doing so change the attitudes of South African voters (27). Mandela was the leader of this group until he was arrested in Natal on August 5, 1962, and sentenced to life in jail (27). By leading and partaking in these efforts to rebel against a repressive government, Mandela once again shows himself as a nationalist. After looking at the brutal effect apartheid had on Mandela and the people of South Africa, as well as the tactics he used to fight this practice, one must delve deeper into Mandela's life to better understand what shaped his nationalistic ideas. In his own autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela says, "I cannot pinpoint a moment when I became politicized, when I knew that I would spend my life in the liberation struggle" (83). Mandela goes on to discuss how frustrating it was that he could...
