Hopefully, his lack of bitterness will make it easier for him to go forward in the world outside Guantanamo.
I particularly admired his lack of bitterness towards his jailers, which I think set the tone for South Africa's transition to democracy.
Instead there was apartheid, and Mr Mandela languished in jail for 27 years.In 1981, an assessment of the largely forgotten political prisoner on Robben Island noted his idealism, his personal magnetism (and modesty), his powerful memory, his lack of bitterness towards whites, his flexibility about means and his unshakeable confidence in the eventual triumph of African nationalism.
He beamed in by phone, and his nature — his lack of bitterness, his acceptance and hope and calm — was striking: a marvel of human grace.
To summarize the substance of many recent interviews and blog posts: advocates praise its low acidity and lack of bitterness, and its intense but smooth flavor.
But what's notable about it, and indeed the whole of the book, given the circumstances of its creation, is the impressive lack of bitterness or rancour.
And whatever the final judgment of history may be on apartheid and its aftermath, it is certainly true that Mandela's extraordinary lack of bitterness towards his jailers, and towards all his erstwhile oppressors, made a decisive difference.
"It is an insight into his extraordinary determination, and lack of bitterness and self-pity, that the show isn't a painful, disconcerting exercise in sentimentality, or something even odder and sadder, but a buoyant and inspiring performance that never once suffers from a failure of nerve or a loss of concentration.
