Pan Africanism In South Africa

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4.0 Introduction This chapter will focus on the diplomatic role hosting the FIFA World Cup had on South Africa. It will discuss the spirit of Pan Africanism in relation to the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the Equality, Freedom, Tolerance and Solidarity relating to the 2010 FIFA World Cup. 4.1 Pan Africanism and the 2010 FIFA World Cup In order to win the rights of hosting the World Cup scheduled for 2010, the leaders of the post 1994 South African government and football administrators used sports and cultural diplomacy as enabling instruments to emphasise their country’s credentials. This move was so bold and accepted that it was made possible by the fact that sport had been used successfully for a number of decades as an oppositional tool against…show more content…
The suspension kept South Africa out of international football until 1992. The basis the apartheid regime arrayed was sports diplomacy in good measure to promote minor modifications with the goal to end international seclusion. In the year 1970, South Africa was expelled from the Olympic movement which led to Prime Minister John Vorster bring up a new ‘multinational’ sport policy. This multinational sport policy was the permission for Europeans and non-Europeans to compete against each other as individuals in the open ‘international events. The non-Europeans in this context are the Africans, Indians and Coloureds in the apartheid language. The open international events were the Olympic Games, Davis Cup etc. Although there was permission to participate in the said international events, there was no permission to participate in racially integrated South African national teams. However, at club, provincial or national levels, non-racial sports within South Africa were prohibited. Due to the Prime Minister, the multinational policy led to one of the most politicized international events involving Apartheid sport, that is, the South African Games in 1973. The novel list of participants read much like the extension of the Cold War in the sports arena. The participants included West Germany, Britain, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Rhodesia. Amid the Cold War allies, the…show more content…
Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, stated in September 1995 in his address to South African ambassadors that South Africa’s responsibilities in the continent are followed in the fact that there are also expectations from Africa, which include that despite the country’s limitations and problems, the main objective is to make a significant contribution to ensure peace, democracy and respect for human rights and sustained development. The certain principles are fundamental to South Africa’s foreign policy. Including sport diplomacy, compressed attention was paid to concerted preventive diplomacy by the newly formed ANC government through the formulation and implementation of the foreign policy of South Africa. Stated earlier, according to Aziz Pahad who was the former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, South Africa’s foreign has since been based on a vision of “a better South Africa, a better Africa and a better world”. Subsequently, the South African government acknowledged some essential values important to inter-national relations in the 21st century. The essential values included freedom, equality, unanimity and tolerance. These values stand as strong forms of South Africa’s cultural diplomacy, as a fundamental force behind staging the prominent FIFA World Cup in the year 2010.

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