“All I can say is 20 years in what became a very very soft prison taught him to try for pragmatic ends.”
It was an entire 27 years and all of that time he had a swimming pool, private quarters, a cook and all the visitors he wanted.
The Mandela apologists try to paint a narrative that he was in the little cell that Obama visited and exploited for his own political purposes.
“It was an entire 27 years and all of that time he had a swimming pool, private quarters, a cook and all the visitors he wanted.”
That’s not at all true. He didn’t have any of that stuff (private quarters/chef/etc.) until he was transferred to Costner Verster prison in 1988, just about 2 years before his release.