h/t Sami Ben Gharbia @ifikra
Nelson Mandela training with the Algerian Liberation Front in 1962. The Algerians fought an 8-year war, 1954-1962, to become independent from French imperialism, in the course of which between half a million and a million Algerians died (the population of the country was then 11 million). In 1962, South Africa was ruled by right wing Afrikaners who denied the black majority basic human rights, including the franchise, while exploiting their labor.
For more see The Middle East Institute
Let us say, both Gandhi & Mandela were giants coming from different countries than Algeria, where 10% of the populous were French/European, living close by, “d’outre mer” (across the Mediterranean). Back in 1954 then Minister of the Interior Francois Mitterrand forewarned the Algerians: “the only negotiations (for partial independence) you can expect from the French is war”. If we spell that out you get torture, napalm, massive bombing and relocating approx. 2 million Algerians in camps. Sartre about these camps wrote: the only difference with the camps in Germany were the chimneys. Having written a political novel about the French-Algerian war from an Algerian perspective, ending before Mandela went to Algeria, I somehow feel pleased to know a, Mandela did visit them and b, with a purpose we all do understand: back in those days neither the French nor the Afrikaners and English were even thinking about giving back to those what was rightfully theirs. Other means of persuasion were needed to rethink their points of view.