Mandela leads South Africa to an apartheid free country through the country’s main sport rugby. The documentary starts off by introducing conflict “’rugby is war…it is a battle of guts.’” A metaphor is used to compare rugby to a crime, where lives are lost. This displays the commitment to the sport, despite the dangerous consequences. Rugby is also used as a symbol “’rugby [represents]…the worst of apartheid.’” Rugby symbolizes the feud between the blacks and whites of South Africa. Justice Bekebeke, an activist, provides another perspective on the game of rugby in south Africa, “’every time the beat up one of the white guys we would shout for joy…[what] they did to us on a daily basis, they got it on this rugby field.’” It is ironic how they …show more content…
However, the doubt is gone when Mandela openly shows his pride for the team and his country, “’There is Mandela – somebody could execute him. There he stands in all his blackness, behind this white sport – with these big boys.’” This statement can be an allegory that represents the elimination of apartheid in South Africa. The ‘blackness’ represents all the black people of south Africa who have been suffering because of the fear of standing up could result in an execution. Moreover, the white sport, known as rugby, shows who is dominant. It is ironic for a black man to be standing in front of white people during the time of apartheid. However, Mandela changed the views of many South Africans “’He was our 16th man’” this is a reference to the title. In a rugby team, there are 15 players on the field, in this case the extra player could stand for Mandela because he was considered to be a part of the
| Relevant Biographical Information About the Author: * White * Born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa in 1903 * Father was Scottish and mother was South African of English heritage * Worked at a reformatory with black youths
Racial discrimination ravaged the country, tearing it apart. Mandela was a civil activist who had been thrown in prison for 27 years. When he was released, he saw sport as opportunity to create a sense of
In the 1930’s it was rare for a black South African to attend college. But Mandela not only attended, he graduated, got a degree from law school, and set up a practice in Johannesburg which he hoped could support his small family. Yet apartheid was always a humiliation to him. When the Afrikaner, or Dutch South African, Nationalists came to power in the 1948 election, the segregation habits of the past three hundred years became law. Hoping for a brighter future, Mandela joined the African National Congress (ANC) and became its first Youth Leader.
However, Mandela provided the country with a means to pull together as a unified unit and cheer for the Springboks because of one astonishingly courageous act: in front of a crowd of 65,000 individuals that was virtually all white, Mandela marched onto the field wearing a Spingboks jersey and embraced the teams captain Francois Pinenaar, which left the crowd silent at first, but quickly transitioned into fans chanting “Nelson! Nelson! Nelson!” (Busbee, 2013, pg. 1). The South Africa Spingboks would subsequently move forward and win the game giving South Africans both white and black an opportunity to celebrate the victory together as not white or black, but rather as unified South Africans with a more hopeful future ahead. In 2009, this amazing story was chronicled in the film ‘Invictius,’ which featured Morgan Freeman as Mandela and Matt Damon as Pinenaar with the fundamental premise being the uniting power of the universal language of sport.
I have always thought that Nelson Mandela has been one of the most important people in history. I find it very fascinating that one man could end the Apartheid and that is why I want to find out more about this. South Africa is a country with a past of enforced racism and separation of its multi-racial community. The White Europeans invaded South Africa and started a political system known as 'Apartheid' (meaning 'apartness'). This system severely restricted the rights and lifestyle of the non-White inhabitants of the country forcing them to live separately from the White Europeans. I have chosen to investigate how the Apartheid affected people’s lives, and also how and why the Apartheid system rose and fell in South Africa.
The Springboks were seen as the whites’ team. The blacks hated and rooted against the Springboks, who had fourteen white players and just one black player (30 for 30). They would cheer when the opponents would beat or hurt the Springboks, because in their eyes they saw the people oppressing them being beat. However, Nelson Mandela decided to embrace the Springbok team and use them as an opportunity to bring the nation together. Mandela put on the Springbok hat at a rally in Soweto, endorsed the Springboks, and asked the black South Africans to support them too (Lodge 212). The blacks met the speech with boos, skepticism, and anger. Black South Africans hated rugby, and the Springbok logo was one directly associated with apartheid oppression (Carlin 192). Nelson Mandela was a very calculated political leader, and he understood that the black South Africans would be reluctant of accepting the Springboks. However, he also understood the impact of sports and that an entire nation rooting for their national team would bring the country together. South Africa was a very fragile nation at the time, and if things at the World Cup went wrong, it could have backfired. Mandela’s plan relied on both the whites and blacks
Thesis Statement: Apartheid may have been a horrible era in South African history, but only so because the whites were forced to take action against the outrageous and threatening deeds of the blacks in order to sustain their power.
Nelson Mandela was a ‘defiant’ man, he stood his ground, and never withdrew his beliefs. He stuck straight with his plan to bring unity in a separated South Africa. He used sport to bridge the gap between the black and white South Africans, as well as establishing his country’s brand internationally. When questioned on his ambiguous plan to revive a broken nation, he stood firm, ‘the day I am afraid to do that, is the day I am no longer fit to lead’ he quoted. President Mandela describes that to unite the nation; forgiveness to those who had previously done wrong by him is necessary and uses the decision to not decimate the Springboks National Rugby team as a physical representation of this forgiveness; ‘forgiveness liberates the soul. It removes fear. That is why it is such a powerful weapon’, he quoted. Nelson Mandela, in the film Invictus, showed the nation of South Africa how some things have to be sacrificed for the greater good of the
Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko, were one of the braves’ black African men who fight against their citizen rights, and against the Apartheid, which was taking place in South Africa between 1948-1978, this term means to segregate South African citizen based on their race, and that lead south Africa to end up with unstably and unequal society where every one feel foreign and unequal to other.
This change away from apartheid will not be easy for anyone in the country, but Mandela has to figure out how to galvanize the residents of the country together. Because of his love of the game, Mandela places his support behind the Springboks, the national rugby team. South Africa is hosting the 1995 Rugby World Cup, that being the only reason the Springboks are even competing in the tournament as its years on the sideline of world rugby events has not made it world ranked. The Springboks were previously considered the team of white South Africa, and as such was denounced by Mandela when he was in prison. But he does whatever he can to make it the team of all South Africa. He needs the support of the Springboks and its captain, Francois Pienaar, to achieve his unrealistic goal of the Springboks winning the World Cup, even against such rugby powerhouses the All Blacks representing New Zealand. Mandela tries to inspire Pienaar to lead by example, much like Mandela has himself. Beyond Mandela's dream, his racially mixed security team has the added pressure of protecting him at the Springboks' matches while he places himself in potentially unprotected
The distrust that the white people had towards Nelson Mandela made a twist when he went directly to the important symbol of them, the rugby. All he learned about the other culture was while he spent time in prison, the strategies that he used to make a better country all came to him with the time, and with the 27 years that he had to think while he was alone in his cell.
Nelson Mandela unified South Africa by using sports and the Truth Reconciliation Committee. Through sports like rugby, Mandela brought South Africa together. Rugby was mainly seen as a white game. Even today, it attracts mainly white supporters, and most of the players are white. In 1995, there were still fears about the policies the government would adopt in regards to the treatment of white people. Mandela showed white South Africans that there was no cause for worry and that they would be included in the new South Africa. The Springboks (the name of the national rugby team) were hated by the blacks, he used this opportunity to unify the blacks and whites. At a rally he put on a Springboks hat, he supported the team every step of the way and encouraged South Africans of all races to get behind the Springboks (Bartleby.com). The Rugby World Cup was held in South Africa in 1955 and South Africa won so the whole country
By the year 1910, Britain had granted South Africa self-rule and they were no longer under British law. This gave South Africa the opportunity to become its own nation developing its own laws and way of ruling. South Africa at the time was mostly African Americans with the small minority of people being white. During this time in the year 1918, a young black boy was born to a tribal leader named Gadla Mandela. This boy was named Rohihlahla Mandela. His first name means “troublemaker”. He would later be named Nelson by a primary school teacher he had. No one could have known what his life would become as the years went on.
Nelson Mandela was the man who abolished Apartheid, freeing South Africa from the binds of racial segregation forever. However, it was not an easy road and Mandela needed patience, strength of character, focus, passion, understanding, perseverance, and most importantly, forgiveness, to achieve this. For more than forty years, black South Africans were subject to the harsh racial segregation of the Apartheid system; despite making up over 70% of South Africa’s population, they had little to no rights.
“To deny people their right to human rights is to challenge their very humanity. To impose on them a wretched life of hunger and deprivation is to dehumanize them. But such has been the terrible fate of all black persons in our country under the system of apartheid (“In Nelson Mandela’s own words”). Nelson Mandela was a moral compass symbolizing the struggle against racial oppression. Nelson Mandela emerged from prison after twenty-seven years to lead his country to justice. For twenty-seven years he sat in a cell because he believed in a country without apartheid, a country with freedom and human rights. He fought for a country where all people were equal, treated with respect and given equal opportunity. Nelson Mandela looms large in the