South Africa's Anti-Apartheid Movement Is a Manifesto for the South African People

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

By the 1970s, apartheid South Africa was one of the last white-ruled countries in Africa. Anti-apartheid campaigners believed that isolating it from the rest of the world would be best way to force change. Activists understood how this withdrawal from world sports would make the white government feel like pariahs. Those who invest in South Africa for goodness sake must know that they are upholding and patressing one of the most vicious systems the world has ever known.

If you live in South Africa, you definitely know someone who runs ultra-marathons, probably lots of someones. Here, ultras are the stuff of a whole country’s new years resolutions and mid-life crises. They’re the kind of thing that a totally ordinary, not-athletic person wakes up one day and decides they’re going to do -- and then does. In one of the most economically unequal countries in the world, extreme distance running is a sport that feels like it includes everybody. And improbably, that inclusiveness happened during one of the darkest, most divided moments in South Africa’s history – during the final years of apartheid.

The Comrades