-
(pg 19)
“Nineteen eighty-five was a hopeful year for the world but not forSouth Africa. Tensions between anti-apartheid militants and the police exploded into violent escalation of racial hostilities.”
- Exposition -
(pg 21)
"In this climate, in this year, Mandela launched his peace offensive. Convinced that negotiations were the only way that apartheid could ultimately be brought down, he took the challenge alone and, as it turned out, one arm tied behind his back.”
- Exposition -
(pg 24)
“Both men knew very well that the significance of the meeting lay not in the words exchanged, but in those left unsaid. The fact that there was no animosity in the encounter was in itself a signal…for the beginning of a new exercise, ‘to talk, rather than fight.’”
- Exposition -
(pg 44)
“Police were unprepared to cope with the ensuing mayhem in which rioters burned houses and vehicles. The police opened fire, killing a pregnant black woman. They said later she had been throwing stones at them. But the truth, as far as Pallabelo was concerned, was that she had simply stepped out of her house to buy some bread.”
- Exposition -
(pg 36)
“Mandela didn’t want to get out of prison just yet, despite the clamor that had been building around the world for his release. He could do more good, he saw, by staying inside, talking.” -
(pg 52)
"The worse the Botha regime treated the blacks out on the streets, the better it treated Mandela. He could have protested. He could have raged at Barnard, made demands, threatened to call off the secret talks. But he did not. He played the game, because he knew that while his power to intervene in contemporary events was practically nil, his potential to influence the future shape ofSouth Africamight be immense.”
- Exposition -
(pg 55)
“I remembered telling him that the time was absolutely right to meet Mr. Mandela, as quickly as possible. If not, we are going to slip, perhaps, one of the most important opportunities in our history.”
- Rising Action -
(pg 75)
“On February 11, 1990, Nelson Mandela put an end to his own exile, walking out of jail.”
- Rising Action -
(pg 85)
“Most important of all, Mandela stated that the way to a negotiated solution lay in a simple-sounding formula: reconciling white fears with black aspirations.”
- Rising Action -
(pg 93)
"These people feared that they were about to lose everything. They were government bureaucrats who feared they would lose their jobs, small businessmen who feared they would lose their shops, farmers who feared they would lose their land. And all feared they would lose their flag, their anthem, their language, their schools, their rugby.”
- Rising Action -
(pg 153)
“The ANC had won the elections with just under two-thirds of the national vote, and nearly 89 percent of the black one. (Which now meant there was) a new coalition government over which Mandela would preside.”
- Rising Action -
(pg 157)
“And that would be the end of that: order restored, old enemies reconciled, the good king crowned, all the players exeunt—exuberantly—stage left. But it was not the end…. As Viljoen pointed out, ‘Forty or fifty percent of my people did not take part in the voting.’”
- Rising Action -
(pg 163)
“‘He talked about the power that sports had to move people,” said Pienaar, in whose mind Mandela was seeking to plant the first seeds of a political idea.”
- Rising Action -
(pg 171)
“The question now was whether the Springboks would save Mandela. He had stuck his neck out for the rugby people and now it was up to them to pay him back in kind.”
- Rising Action -
(pg 213)
“June 24, 1995—afternoon. In the sixty minutes between two o’clock, when Mandela arrived at Ellis park, and three o’clock, when the game began, everything happened. First there was the song, then a jumbo jet, and finally a shout that shook the world.”
- Climax -
(pg 239)
“The six minutes passed, the Springboks held the line, and the whistle blew. Francois Pienaar exploded out of the scrum and leapt high with his hands in the air…. ‘It was impossible to say anything that could express what we felt. We all jumped and jumped, and smiled and smiled,’ said Joel Stransky, smiling. “I smiled for a whole week. I’ve never stopped smiling.’”
- Climax -
(pg 241)
’When the game ended,’ Morne du Plessis said, ‘I turned and started running towards the tunnel and there was Edward "Griffiths, who said to me, ‘things are never going to be the same again.’ And I agreed instantly, because I knew right there that the best was behind, that life could offer nothing better. I said to him, ‘We’ve seen it all today’.”
- Falling Action -
(pg 242)
“(A reporter asked Pienaar) ‘What did it feel like to have 62,000 fans supporting you here in the stadium?’ Without missing a beat, he replied, “We didn’t have 62,000 fans behind us. We had 43 million South Africans.’”
- Falling Action -
(pg 251)
“Noting that ‘sports isolation was one of the main pressures that precipitated political change,’ the newspaper said, ‘Isn’t it ironic that rugby should be such a uniting force when for so long it served to isolate us from the world.’”
- Resolution -
(pg 253)
"It was a weapon so powerful that it brought about a new kind of revolution. Instead of eliminating the enemuy and starting from zero, the enemy was incorporated into a new order deliberately built on the foundations of the old.”
- Resolution -
(pg 253)
“’That was the occation,’ Mandela said, his eyes sparkling, ‘when I saw that the impact of the rugby match was going to last, that the attitude of the Afrikaners toward me really had changed completely.’”
-Resolution