"Newspapers are more valuable to political prisoners than gold or diamonds, more hungered for than food […]." - Nelson Mandela

Newspapers, even local ones were not allowed in the prison. "The authorities attempted to impose a complete blackout, they did not want us to learn anything that might raise our morale or reassure us that people on the outside were still thinking about us", Nelson Mandela says in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom.

But prisoners could apply to study for high school and university courses and thus order publications necessary for their studies. And so, together with publications on subjects such as accounting and economics, the prison administration also allowed in The UNESCO Courier. During many years of his imprisonment, The UNESCO Courier brought regularly news and ideas from the five continents to Nelson Mandela.

It was President Mandela himself who recounted this in September 1996 to the then Director- General Federico Mayor, in the President’s Office, Union Buidings, Pretoria, during the latter’s official visit to the new democratic South Africa.

The President explained how pleased he and his companions had been to read The Courier through which they had learnt about so many subjects never before encountered, such as cultural diversity and mankind’s common heritage, African history, education for development and so on. All these subjects did not exist in the apartheid lexicon, let alone in the solitary confines of Robben Island.

In November 1983, The Courier published an issue on Racism with a portrait of Nelson Mandela on the cover. Have a look here: http://on.unesco.org/2uFhOs4

*Robben Island became the first South African national site to join the World Heritage List in 1999. If ever there comes into existence a world heritage list to name those who have expanded and uplifted the collective conscience of mankind, Nelson Mandela will have pride of place on it. More info: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/916

For more information about the UNESCO Courier visit: http://en.unesco.org/ #MandelaDay #UNESCOCourier #WorldHeritage