What does it mean to be human? This was a question Hun students were asked to consider on November 9th, 2023 during a visit from Christo Brand, Mandela’s prison guard and best friend.
Christo Brand, the only white child playing with african children while growing up on a farm, was taught by his father early on that in the eyes of God, all people are created equal. As he got older, in an attempt to avoid serving in the military, Christo became a prison guard assigned to Robben Island. His dreams of being an electrician were diminished but his fears of being killed at war were too, so he accepted his newfound role and performed it with pride despite his instructions.
Christo Brand says, “I was told I was going to meet the biggest criminals. I was told to break their spirits, to enforce hard labor, and to never talk or communicate with prisoners if not for the direct intention of giving orders. Then I met Nelson Mandela.”
He went on to describe the way that Nelson treated him with the utmost respect everyday; although Brand was his prison guard and forty years younger, he was spoken to as if he was an equal. When Brand became in charge of handling visitors, Mandela’s wife being one of them, the friendship began to blossom. He allowed Mandela to hold his child, uncaring that it was strictly against the rules of the prison. Brand could have been thrown in prison himself for doing so, but risked it all because at the end of the day, he saw a father and a child rather than an inmate and an unallowed visitor.
The friendship between the two men lasted until the death of Nelson Mandela in 2013. Over the years, Mandela encouraged Christo to study hard, to respect his elders, and to stand up for the things in which he believed. The two men spent quality time together, both during and after Mandela’s sentence, going as far as to spend holidays together in the prison, eating fruitcake and drinking coffee on Christmas because everyone’s life deserves a little sweetness at least once a year.
Ten years after Mandela’s death, Christo Brand is taking his mentor’s advice and standing up for his beliefs. Spending his days speaking at schools across the country, he preaches that underneath social status, religion, race, sexuality, age, ethnicity, and the other hundreds of categories that people shove themselves into, everyone is human.
He follows in Mandela’s footsteps by emphasizing this simple truth everywhere he goes: every person is human before they are anything else. People are often conditioned into hating certain groups of other people; prison guards aren’t meant to love the prisoners. The epitome of humanity is realizing that each person is unique and complicated and good and bad, and that the only people unworthy of the distinction “human” are those who choose to treat others as if they are anything less.
