Published Date:
17 March 2006
WORLD leaders have their faults, the former South African president Nelson Mandela told the cast of an Oscar-winning gangster film, recalling his own teenage years as a pig thief.
"All of us were mischievous in our younger days," he said yesterday after meeting with the cast of Tsotsi. "You know, we had a method as young chaps of about 16 or 17, of stealing pigs."
Tsotsi, South Africa's first Academy Award-winning film, portrays a violent young gangster's journey of redemption after stealing a car and shooting its owner, only to discover a baby in the back seat. The 87-year-old Nobel laureate joked that he, too, had a wayward youth, roasting stolen pigs.
He and his friends would leave beer out to tempt the pigs, adding: "Once we are far away we will get behind the pigs and drive them to a valley and then stab it ... the owners will not hear its sounds and then we would roast it and eat it".
But, he added: "Some of the leaders of this country and elsewhere in the world started with misdemeanours of all kinds, but as they grew up, they became responsible people."
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Last Updated:
16 March 2006 11:56 PM
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Source:
The Scotsman
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Location:
Edinburgh
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Related Topics:
Apartheid
