Nelson Mandela is known as being South Africa’s first democratically elected president. The year after his first and only term, Mandela spoke at the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law conference on Human Rights and the Administration of Criminal Justice in Johannesburg, South Africa. He aimed to provide an understanding and convince his audience of the wickedness that was the apartheid and how they should work together to ensure no one will ever be manipulated this way again. Mandela’s appeal to ethos, pathos and his deliberate style are used solidly to provide a high-quality argument.
Before the late 1990s, South Africa had a political system in place known as apartheid. This system created a divide among the people of South Africa based primarily upon race. Nelson Mandela and other leaders risked imprisonment and also possible execution to try to change this structure. Mandela and his peers were eventually tried for various crimes and sentenced imprisonment for life. In 1990, Nelson Mandela was released after the President announced the beginning of the transition to end apartheid. Four years later he was inaugurated and went on to serve one term as the South African President. Nelson Mandela never stopped supporting the democratic movements and reforms in South Africa which explains why he chose to speak at the conference on Human Rights and Criminal Justice.
The International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law, whose members were the target audience of Mandela’s speech, is composed of not only esteemed jurists but also other men and women looking to reform criminal law. The choosing of the words in the address is strategic and very fitting for the audience listening. He speaks at level with the audience ...
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...he apartheid as something that shouldn’t be duplicated ever again.
Many speeches and other forms of media with fallacies and lack of persuasion techniques can easily be overlooked from the surface. It isn’t until one digs deeper that flaws in the argument can be found and argued as well. Nelson Mandela does a fine job at using ethos and pathos heavily to persuade his audience to see things from his viewpoint despite the few flaws that can be found upon digging deeper into the speech.
Works Cited
Mandela, Nelson. "Address by Nelson Mandela at the Fourteenth International Conference of the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law." Speech. Fourteenth International Conference of the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law. Sandton, Johannesburg. 3 Dec. 2000. Nelson Mandela Center of Memory. Nelson Mandela Foundation, 2012. Web. 9 Feb. 2014.
“Using Memory to Create Social Justice”. NelsonMandela.org. Nelson Mandela Foundation, n.d. Web. March 15, 2011.
Nelson Mandela has just gotten out of prison and is speaking to a rally of ANC Supporters in Cape Town urging a continues struggle for racial equality and a government not dominated by any one race, black or white.
Nelson Mandela is a South African former winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and who became the first black President of South Africa on 19 May 1994. He helped end apartheid system in South Africa for the freedom of its black and coloured population. Furthermore, Mandela faced imprisonment for opposing apartheid law. Apartheid is a policy of racial segregation in South Africa where the white-government divided its people.
Nelson Mandela Foundation. "Biography - Nelson Mandela." – Nelson Mandela Foundation. Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory, 2014. Web. 06 Jan. 2014. .
University of Pennsylvania-African studies center. Inaugural speech, Pretoria (Mandela)- 5/10/94 in Nelson Mandela’s inaugural speech-Pretoria ,May 10 from ancdip@WN.APC.ORG
Barack Obama has made no secret that over the past three decades Nelson Mandela has been the greatest influence in his life. Coming from an African ancestry, Obama drew inspiration from Mandela’s life and influenced Obama to take himself upon a journey of self-discovery and find his own voice (Obama, 2004). The repercussions of Mandela’s inspirational work caused Obama to become a part of an anti-apartheid divestment movement in college and to shift to focusing on law and politics (Epstein, 2013). Now that Barack Obama has become President of the United States of America, he has consistently quoted Mandela in all his keynote speeches speaking of freedom and equality and his actions and words are inspired by the desire to emulate Mandela’s powerful actions and movements and the examples that he set, in the 21st century (Killough, 2013). Even within the tribute to Mandela, Obama (2013) says “You can make his life’s work your own…It stirred something ...
Nelson Mandela was born on July 18th, 1918 in Mvezo, Eastern Cape, South Africa. He is best known for his fight against apartheid and becoming the first black President of South Africa. Mandela was born into the Thembu people and was motivated to study law after experiencing the tribal democratic leadership. He joined the African National Congress in 1942 and participated in the organization of a many protests against apartheid. In 1952 “Mandela and Oliver Tambo started the first black law office in South Africa with the intent of fighting black injustice (Saunders, World Book 133)”. Mandela was arrested in 1962 and given a life sentence for charges for conspiring against the government. He was released in 1990 after serving 27 years. In 1993 he received the Nobel Peace Prize along with F. W. de Klerk for their contribution towards ending of apartheid and establishing multiracial elections. He was elected the first black President of South Africa in 1994. While in power he focused on fighting racism, inequality, and poverty in South Africa. Mandela retired his presidency in 1999 and made his last public appearance at the 2010 FIFA World Cup Final. Nelson Mandela died December 5th, 2013 in Johannesburg. Throughout his early life, his imprisonment, and his presidency, Nelson Mandela always stood for change.
Worse, barriers to communication, “obstacles that interrupt the flow of conveying and receiving messages,” had arisen due to the division between the whites and blacks (P.380). Because of this, the future of South Africa was not only misunderstood by South Africans, but by the international community as well. In order to promote his vision, Mandela understood that he would need to actively communicate, “the…transmitting [of] information, thoughts, and processes through various channels,” to make his intentions known, and to create motivation, “drive to complete a task,” throughout the country (P.
"Nelson Mandela." UXL Biographies. Detroit: U*X*L, 2011. Student Resources in Context. Web. 22 Feb. 2014.
Activist, lawyer, father, prisoner, survivor, president, the face of equality. Nelson Mandela has an inspiring story of fighting Apartheid forces and surviving a long prison sentence all in the name of freedom and equal rights. Through Nelson Mandela’s constant fight for freedom of the African people from white apartheid forces, he was dominated by the corrupt government. After uprising numerous riots against apartheid forces, Mandela was sent to jail for twenty-seven years revealing the cruelty that humans can possess. With the strong will power and complete support of the African people, Mandela survived his prison sentence and became the first democratically elected president of South Africa exposing the strength in human nature by showing that humans can persevere through tough times. Mandela left a profound impact on the African people by saving them from corrupt Apartheid rule and bringing a democratic government. Thus teaching the world that in an event where a body of people is suppressed, they will inevitably rebel by any means necessary to gain their freedom.
John Dugard, Nicholas Haysom and Gilbert Marcus. (1992).The Last Years of Apartheid: Civil Liberties in South Africa. New York: Ford Foundation
1. Thesis: Nelson Mandela’s courage brought justice to his country and greatly improved South Africa overall.
“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 actions of activists and politicians. He inspired music and movies, and swayed the mind of powerful leaders. Making him an influential person who affected American culture.
Nelson Mandela is one of the greatest ethical and political leaders in recent history. Nelson Mandela dedicated his life to the fight against the racial oppression of the apartheid regime in South Africa. In doing so, he became the first democratically chosen black president of South Africa. Nelson Mandela’s life is a blue print for the development of a leader who fought against discrimination and aimed to build fairness and justice, and by doing so, acquired the ultimate achievement: equality for South Africa.
On 1962, Nelson Mandela was arrested for sabotage and treason. He spent 27 years in prison until finally, under the tension of the UN and other nations, the South African government released him, on February 11, 1990. He then changed many of the unfair apartheid laws and created democracy in South Africa.}