The political system
known as apartheid was set up during the middle of the twentieth
century by the white minority in South Africa to create an
arrangement of racial segregation. Nearly all blacks in South Africa
were opposed to this and few were actually willing to try and do
something about it. The solution of the white man’s government was
to send all the people who they perceived as threats to their system
to Robben Island, known as the Alcatraz of South Africa. Robben
Island is a small island about four miles from the shore of Cape
Town, South Africa. It was there that a sport helped form the basis
of the government of South Africa after apartheid ended. Soccer is
considered the world’s most popular sport, and this simple game
provided a template for a potential government and taught the
prisoners how to effectively run and organize a group. In 2010, South
Africa held the first World Cup ever in an African country and ESPN
produced a short documentary about how soccer helped those imprisoned
develop a system of organization and ways to maintain an association.
This documentary titled Robben Island: A Greater Goal
illustrates the influence of the sport on the creation of a new
government in South Africa.
This documentary
was first shown in the month before the 2010 World Cup in South
Africa and it immediately grabbed my eye because I love both history
and soccer. Once I learned how much of an impact my favorite sport
had in the development of the current South African government I
wanted to share this with my friends and family because it shows how
people can make the most out of what they have. When someone watches
this short film, it is important to pay attention to the background
and the interviews. For this documentary, an unknown narrator begins
by explaining what Robben Island is and why people were sent there.
He then explains what apartheid is and how numerous people were sent
to Robben Island because the government feared that they would try
and end apartheid. The interviews that ESPN set up for this episode
were extremely important in illustrating the relationship between
soccer and government. Each clip from the interviews gives the
watcher a deeper insight to how hard life was in the prison and just
how much the game of soccer meant to them. The campaign of the
prisoners to be allowed to play soccer began in the fall of 1964 and
it took three years until the first game was allowed to be played.
Before then, many commented during their interviews how miserable
life was and how hard it was to be a prisoner there. But as soon as
the simple gift of soccer was given to them, hope was all around the
island. The sport gave them something to look forward to every week.
Everyone wanted to play the beautiful game on the weekends. Anthony
Suze, a prisoner at Robben Island for 15 years, was one of the best
players there. Soon, he and other prisoners decided that they needed
to set up a league to make sure everything is done correctly and
fairly. This would become the basis for experimentation of the
development of a government.
The Makana Football
Association was formed from the overwhelming desire to play soccer.
By 1969, there were 27 teams in the league and more than 300
prisoners participated in the weekly games. Lizo Sitoto in a part of
his interview says “Because we were political prisoners, every
chance that we have we must practice what we feel must happen when we
get our freedom.” This quote shows how the development of the
Makana Football Association was more than just the creation of a
soccer league for prisoners. It was used as a practice government
because it showed that those imprisoned had the ability to set up an
organization and run it efficiently. They created everything they
needed to run the MFA efficiently: rules, team rosters, injury
reports, schedules, standings, statistics, roster changes, and even a
constitution. Dikgang Moseneke, while imprisoned at Robben Island,
earned a law degree through correspondence, was the chairman of the
MFA and he was the one who wrote the constitution for the Makana
Football Association. Just as a constitution is the basis for a
government, so too was a constitution the basis for the soccer
league. On November 21st, 1970 a match was played between
the Blue Rocks and the Atlantic Raiders, a newly formed all star
team. During the game, the Blue Rocks scored a fluke goal which
allowed them to win and the Atlantic Raiders then went on protest for
five months which almost destroyed the entire league. Dikgang
Moseneke represented the Makana FA and his arguments won the case
which helped preserve all the prisoners had worked for. In an
interview he says, “When there is conflict, that is hardly the time
to jettison rules, it is the time when you need rules.” This shows
how many prisoners at Robben Island learned how to act in ways to
promote their values of equality and fairness.
Numerous players
and officials from the Makana Football Association would go on and be
involved in the government once apartheid ended in 1994 with the
election of Nelson Mandela as president of South Africa. Dikgang
Moseneke would write his second constitution, this time for the
country of South Africa and is now the Deputy Chief Justice of South
Africa’s Constitutional Court. He says that “It isn’t strange
at all that [some values of the Makana Football Association] are
built into the kind of constitution that we adopted. One of the
former players Jacob Zuma went on to become the president of South
Africa. Who could have thought that soccer, a simple sport, would
help political prisoners put into practice their beliefs that would
one day form the basis of a nation.
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