Nelson Mandela
Wearing the other side's jersey
Requisition the enemy's symbol
The 1995 Rugby World Cup; Laureus Awards speech, 2000
Black spectators had spent years cheering the opposition. This is what he accomplished on the day he put the shirt on.
What actually happened?
The Springboks were a white team and an emblem of apartheid, and black South Africans had long supported whoever they played. At the 1995 World Cup final Mandela walked onto the pitch in the green and gold jersey, wearing the captain's number 6. A crowd of sixty thousand, mostly white, was briefly stunned, then chanted his name. South Africa won and he handed the trophy to the white captain. Five years later he gave the method away: sport has the power to change the world, the power to inspire, the power to unite people in a way that little else does.
Destroying a symbol makes enemies, taking it over makes belonging
A new order normally abolishes the old symbols, renames the team, redesigns the badge. That confirms to the other side that they are losers being settled with. He reversed it: keep what they treasure exactly as it is and wear it himself. The emblem unchanged, the meaning replaced.
Taking over an acquired team, scrapping their product name asserts ownership. Keeping it and championing it yourself takes the people.
Reconciliation has to be spoken in their language
A hundred speeches about forgiveness would have done less for that community than wearing the jersey once. Speeches were his language and rugby was theirs. A message sent in the receiver's own language needs no translation, and goodwill that needs translating arrives discounted.
To make peace with an engineering team, do not send a company-wide note. Turn up and take part properly in one of their technical reviews.
The resistance he had to hold off was his own side
The hardest opposition did not come from white South Africans. Most of his own party wanted the Springboks abolished, and he pushed this through over them. The first obstacle to reconciliation is never the enemy's hostility, it is your own side's appetite for a reckoning.
Pushing a partnership with an old rival, the hardest people to convince are those on your team the rival has hurt. Skip that and the handshake is a photograph.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: you have won, their symbols and habits are still standing, and your people want a reckoning.
Ask first: what does this symbol mean to them, and what would it say if you were the one using it?
Where it goes wrong: making the gesture and changing nothing, so the emblem is worn while the policy still settles scores; or keeping everything on principle, including what should go.
Lines to keep
Sport has the power to change the world.
It has the power to create hope where once there was only despair.
Same situation, other people are asking
I won, and now I don't know when to stop.It's going well and I can't shake the feeling it won't last.Three in a row and everyone wants me to press harder.They're scattered. Do I finish them off or let them turn on each other?After the win · all 10 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.