This interview was originally published in Reader's Digest in April 2005.

RD: When you finally achieved political freedom you chose the path of reconciliation.

Are you at all surprised at how powerful a force it has been?
Mandela: Well, people respond in accordance to how you relate to them. If you approach
them on the basis of violence, that's how they'll react. But if you say we want peace, we want
stability, we can then do a lot of things which will contribute towards the progress of our
society. 
 
RD: As president, sometimes you referred to characters in Reader's Digest stories. On
Robben Island, you used to read the magazine?
Mandela: Yes, that's true. It has very interesting stories! One was about a young man in
Canada who had cancer of the right leg and they advised amputation. They did, but he did not
want to sit down in a corner and weep. He was near the Atlantic but decided to walk with one
leg to the Pacific.  So in this way, Digest stories encourage people. Even if you have a
terminal disease, you don't have to sit down and mope. Enjoy life and challenge the illness
that you have.
  
RD: Has religion played an important role in your life?
Mandela: It is important not to be hostile to what a greater part of society has embraced,
whether as Christians, Hindus or Muslims. The relations between a human being and his or
her god are a personal matter. Broadly speaking, religion has played a good role [in world
history]. The only difference is the competition now between various religious groups. That I
would discourage. But the widely held belief that there is a superior being who supervises our
affairs is good for humanity. 
 
RD: You have described HIV/AIDS as the greatest public health crisis of all time. Have
you made a personal crusade out of AIDS because you believe that more needs to be
done?
Mandela: Yes. One of the things we have to deal with is that of stigma, of avoiding people
who suffer from AIDS. Princess Diana went down to the hospital with AIDS sufferers, sat
down on their beds, shook hands with them and smashed the idea that you can't be in the same
room as a person suffering from AIDS. She did very well. 

In 2000, I went to Limpopo province [in the north of South Africa] for the opening of a rural
school. I was conversing with the locals and they said to me that in a home nearby both
parents were dead, leaving children, the eldest of whom is eight. I said, "CAn we see them?"
Oh, they were happy about that. As we were going there they were singing some songs about
me. Then I went inside. I stayed for about 25 minutes. When I came out, the same crowd that
had been singing about me ran away from me.  
 
 
RD: So a role that leaders like yourself and others should be playing is to help get rid of
the ignorance which leads to this stigma.
Mandela: Absolutely I know a number of people who are suffering from AIDS but because
we visit them and talk to them, this has given them a lot of courage. We tell them, "Don't
isolate yourself, you don't have to hide that you are suffering from HIV."
 
RD: Beyond AIDS, what is the single greatest problem facing the world right now?
Mandela: The question of poverty and lack of education, those two combined. It's important
for us to ensure that education reaches everybody.
 
RD: You criticised the UK and US governments for taking action in Iraq without the
approval of the United Nations. Recently people have waited for the UN to take action
against ethnic cleansing in Darfur province of Sudan yet it has been unwilling or unable
to do so. Doesn't this show the weakness of the UN?
Mandela: There is no institution in the world which has no weakness. What we have to do is
try to make sure that those institutions attain the aims for which they were formed. We have
to fight inside those organisations. When you have an organisation representing the entire
world, it's not correct to leave it and act unilaterally. 
 
 
RD: So you would like to see a stronger UN?
Mandela: I don't know if I would say the UN is not strong enough, but there are cases where
you expect them to take action where they do not.
 
RD: You became the leader of the military wing of the African National Congress after
you and other ANC leaders decided that non-violent struggle alone would not end
oppression in South Africa. Are there places in the world today where armed struggles
are justified?
Mandela: We had to create a military wing of the ANC because the apartheid government
were not prepared to have any discussions with us. They were not prepared to accommodate
our feelings and so we had to adopt methods to force them to do so and we succeeded. So a
decision that you take depends on the actual circumstances facing you.
 
RD: Where would you draw the line between terrorism and legitimate freedom-
fighting?
Mandela: I am fully committed to the principle—and I have confidence in the capacity of
human beings—of finding rational solutions to situations of conflict.
 
RD: You served as president of South Africa for only one term. And you once famously
observed that "some leaders do not know when to leave". Robert Mugabe has ruled
Zimbabwe for 25 years with increasing repressing. Is it time for him to leave?
Mandela: It is not good for any democracy when its leader remains in power so long.
However, this is something for the people of the country to decide. 
 
RD: When you were in prison, was there something that helped sustain you and keep up
your spirits?
Mandela: There was a poem by an English poet, E.E Henley, called "Invictus". The last lines
go:
It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
 
RD: What would you say is your greatest strength and greatest weakness?
Mandela: Well, I have a lot of weaknesses. I don't think I have any strengths.
  
RD: Some observers feel you would have made a good professional boxer. What other
jobs do you think you might have enjoyed?
Mandela: I would have liked to have been an ordinary labourer digging trenches. Boxing is
something I very much enjoyed too, but it might have been difficult [as a career].
 
RD: How would you like history to remember you?
Mandela: I would like to be remembered as an ordinary human being with virtues and vices,
rather than some deity.