Chapter 5: the Rivonia Trial (1963-1964)

CHAPTER 5: THE RIVONIA TRIAL (1963-1964)

COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS

Answer the following questions using YOUR OWN WORDS. Do NOT copy from the text!

1. Why could Bram Fischer help the accused during the trial?

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2. How did the situation change during the trial regarding the accused’s clothes and the people allowed to be in court?

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3. What was the Ninety-Day Detention Law?

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4. Why was Bruno Mtolo’s declaration important?

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5. What did Mandela say to the judge in his declaration?

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6. Why was Joe Slovo in London? What did he organise there? Why couldn’t he go back to South Africa?

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7. What was the verdict of the Rivonia trial’

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8. How did the people waiting outside react to it?

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9. Where were the prisoners first taken to?

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10. Why were some of the prisoners moved somewhere else at night? Where were they taken to this second time?

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CHAPTER 5: THE RIVONIA TRIAL (1963-1964)

VOCABULARY WORK

Write your own vocabulary list for chapter 5 here.
CHAPTER 5: THE RIVONIA TRIAL (1963-1964)

KEYWORD SUMMARY

Write your own keyword summary for chapter 5 here.

CHAPTER 5: THE RIVONIA TRIAL (1963-1964)

EXTENDED SUMMARY

Complete the following summary with the words and expressions in the box.

In July 1963 the Rivonia trial began because Mandela, Walter Sisulu and others had been accused of sabotage. This was a political trial and the government lawyers were going to ask for the death sentence. These were the two sides in the trial:

-The defense, (1) ______most important member was Bram Fisher, one of the members of MK who had escaped South Africa before the police surrounded Lilliesleaf Farm. He led the team of lawyers, (2) ______met the accused every day in order to prepare for the trial.

-The accusation, (3) ______most important member was Bruno Mtolo. He had been a member of the ANC and the MK but now he was helping the police.

During the trial, Joe Slovo, who was in London after having escaped from South Africa, led a march to protest against the trial. The United Nations also asked the South African government to stop it.

(4) ______, a new law was passed called the Ninety-Day Law which established that people suspected could be arrested for ninety days. (5) ______of this new law, Albertina Sisulu and Caroline Motsoaledi were kept in prison and they were unable to go to their husbands’ trial.

Mandela was the first accused to speak in court. He spoke for more than four hours and he told the judge that this was the struggle of the African people, inspired by their own suffering and experience. He (6) ______said that it was a struggle for the right to live and that he had cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society for a long time and he was prepared to die for it.

(7) ______, on 11 June 1964 all the accused except for Lionel Bernstein were found guilty, and were given the death sentence. They were all sent to the prison of RobbenIsland except the white prisoner Denis Goldberg, who stayed at Pretoria Prison.

CHAPTER 6: ROBBEN ISLAND (1964-1970)

COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS

Answer the following questions using YOUR OWN WORDS. Do NOT copy from the text!

1. Why did Nelson Mandela have 466/64 as his number?

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1. What was the black prisoner’s routine? Describe it.

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1. Why did political prisoners receive only a few words of the letters they received? How often did they keep in touch with their friends and family?

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1. Why does Mandela say “a letter was like the summer rain”?

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1. Why did some men not receive any visitors for years?

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1. What was Winnie’s first visit to RobbenIsland like? Describe it.

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1. When did the last political prisoners leave RobbenIsland?

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1. Did the last ordinary African prisoners leave that same year?

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1. Why were the prisoners covered in white dust by the end of the day? Why did they cry?

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1. Why did RobbenIsland become known as “the university”?

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1. What happened in 1965? What did Mandela do? What was the result of this?

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1. What is Madiba?

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1. Why did some prisoners sometimes whisper “thank you” to Mandela?

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1. How did political prisoners find out about what was happening in South Africa?

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1. What happened to Bram Fischer?

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1. What happened in September 1966? What two consequences were derived from this?

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1. Who visited Mandela in spring 1968? Why was Mandela sad soon after that?

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1. What happened to Winnie in May 1969? What was the result of this?

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1. What happened on a cold July morning in 1969? How did Mandela feel as a result?

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CHAPTER 6: ROBBEN ISLAND (1964-1970)

VOCABULARY WORK

Write your own vocabulary list for chapter 6 here.

CHAPTER 6: ROBBEN ISLAND (1964-1970)

KEYWORD SUMMARY

Write your own keyword summary for chapter 6 here.

CHAPTER 6: ROBBEN ISLAND (1964-1970)

SENTENCE TRANSFORMATION

Transform the following sentences using the words in bold below.

a) During the day, the door was locked; during the night it was locked as well.

also

too

b) Mandela was the 446th prisoner on RobbenIsland that year of 1964, so his number was 466/64.

because

That’s why

c) Ahmed Kathrada was given long trousers because he was an Indian.

so

That’s why

d) Political prisoners could write and receive one letter every six months. They could also have a visitor every six months.

Too

As well as

e) White dust covered the prisoners by the end of the day. Tears ran down their faces because the bright sunlight shone on the white lime and damaged their eyes.

so

That’s why

f) Mandela became the leader who continued to speak for the others, although he always discussed things with Sisulu.

However,

but

g) The guards soon stopped them from singing songs in Xhosa. However, the prisoners were able to talk together in the quarry.

although

but

h) Mandela remembered the difficulties and suffering of his mother’s life. He had put the struggle for freedom first, and because of that, he had been unable to make her life easier.

That’s why

i) Mandela’s children had grown into young adults, but his mother looked thin and old.

However,

CHAPTER 7: PRISON AND SEPARATION (1971-1984)

COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS

Put the following events in order by matching the event with the corresponding date.

In the 1960s and the 1970s – ______

In the 1970s – ______

In 1972 – ______

In 1975 – ______

In 1975 – ______

In 1975 – ______

In 1976 – ______

In 1976 – ______

In May 1977 – ______

In September 1977 – ______

In 1977 – ______

In 1978 – ______

In 1980 – ______

In March 1982 – ______

In May 1984 – ______

In 1994 – ______

a) Prisoners were taken to work on the beach.

b) Winnie visited Mandela in Pollsmoor and they could kiss for the first time after twenty-one years.

c) Work at the quarry ended and Mandela and the rest were allowed to stay in their cells to read, study and write letters. Mandela also took care of the garden he had made in the prison.

d) 15,000 black schoolchildren in Soweto protested about the new law passed that forced teachers in African schools to speak Afrikaans; more than 600 children were killed and thousands arrested.

e) Mandela started writing his biography; the prisoners buried the 500 pages he had written in the prison’s garden, but they were discovered a few weeks later when a wall was built there. As a result, Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Ahmed Kathrada weren’t allowed to study for four years.

f) Winnie and her daughter Zindzi were taken by the police to an African township called Brandford (nearly 500 km away from their home in Orlando); for seven years, they lived in a flat without running water or electricity and Winnie was forbidden to leave.

g) Winnie Mandela was arrested for helping children and families in the townships and imprisoned in The Fort (in Johannesburg) for five months.

h) The prisoners were given permission to read the newspapers, but the guards censored what they could read.

i) Steve Biko was arrested in Port Elizabeth and tortured by the police; he was then taken to Pretoria Prison and he died there. After that, the police arrested all the members of the Black Consciousness Movement and took them to RobbenIsland. Thanks to that, Mandela could meet these new African leaders, some of whom joined the ANC.

j) Nelson and Winnie decided to send their two daughters to school in Swaziland.

k) Zindzi (Mandela’s daughter) went to visit him on RobbenIsland.

l) Mandela was taken to Pollsmoor Prison, a modern prison near Cape Town. Although living conditions were better there, Mandela and the other prisoners missed the sea and the birds of RobbenIsland.

m)The Black Consciousness Movement was created by Steve Biko and other young black leaders.

n) Mandela’s biography (Long Walk to Freedom) was published.

o) Zeni (Mandela’s youngest daughter) married Prince Thumbumuzi Dlamini (the brother of King Mswati the Third of Swaziland). For the first time, Zeni could visit her father in prison and they were allowed to meet face to face; also, Mandela could meet and hold his granddaughter in his arms.

p) The government obliged more than 6 million Africans to move to black ghettos called Bantustans.

CHAPTER 7: PRISON AND SEPARATION (1971-1984)

VOCABULARY WORK

Read chapter 7 and find the words corresponding to the following definitions:

Pages 42 and 43

a)A synonym of freezing (adjective, 2 words)  ______

b)The opposite of to get wet (verb)  ______

c)A synonym of to set free (verb)  ______

d)To put underground in a hole (verb)  ______

e)A synonym of to be banned to do something (adjective)  to be ______to do something

Pages 44 and 45

f)A synonym of any other person (noun+adjective, 2 words)  ______

g)A synonym of to be decisive (collocation)  to ______an important ______

h)Another way of saying making South Africa free (expression)  ______to South Africa

i)To get money as your salary (verb)  ______

j)Lots of people together (noun)  ______

k)To walk as a means of protesting (verb)  ______

Pages 46 and 47

l)A synonym of lorry (noun)  ______

m)A black ghetto (noun)  ______

n)To hope for something to happen (verb)  ______

o)To become a member (verb)  ______

p)A place where stone is dug out of (noun)  ______

CHAPTER 7: PRISON AND SEPARATION (1971-1984)

KEYWORD SUMMARY

Write your own keyword summary for chapter 7 here.