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The highest military generals of the South African defence force and police saluted Mandela and pledged their loyalty. When the military generals saluted Mandela, he was not unmindful of the fact that not too many years ago, they would not have saluted him, but arrested him. This change in attitude was due to the fact that a new, non-racial government was elected and Mandela was then the President of South Africa.

(i) In the first decade of the twentieth century, the white-skinned people of South Africa patched up their differences and erected a system of racial domination against the dark-skinned people of their own land, thus creating the basis of one of the harshest and most inhumane societies the world had ever known.

(ii) In the last decade of the twentieth century, the previous system had been overturned forever and replaced by one that recognized the rights and freedoms of all peoples, regardless of the colour of their skin.

On seeing men stand up to attacks and torture without breaking and thus showing strength and resilience that defied the imagination, Mandela learnt that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.