Shakespeare's Supporting Role in South African History.
AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, we imagine South Africa saying goodbye to one of its last anti-apartheid activists as Ahmed Kathrada, 87 years old, passed away after a short illness today. He was a colleague and confidant who accompanied Nelson Mandela on his long walk to freedom. Kathrada served 26 years in prison, alongside him for fighting South Africa's all-white system. And after they were all finally freed, Kathrada went on to serve in parliament. With Mandela and Kathrada now gone, you can only imagine their aghast reaction to reports today that William Shakespeare could be exiting stage left from South African schools. Throughout those long, bleak decades behind bars, they read whatever they could get their hands on, including the complete but forbidden works of William Shakespeare. Smuggled in under heavy disguise. After freedom came, Mandela's annotated pages were made public, prominent was this quote from Julius Caesar, "Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never tasted death but once." One playwright later wrote that Mandela lived his entire life according to those two lines. And so we ask the South African Ministry of Education why? And they assured us that they're not giving short shrift to Shakespeare. They are only discussing cutting down on his works in the curriculum to make room for home-grown writers. We certainly hope that all's well that ends well. And that's it for our program tonight. Remember, you can always listen to our podcast, see us online at Amanpour.com and follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.