You may or may not have watched the movie Invictus (2010) played by Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. This storyline is about how South Africa’s newly elected President Nelson Mandela overcame racial issues to unite the whites and blacks of South Africa through the spirit of sports. Rugby is one of the strongest national sports played in South Africa. When South Africa had the honors to host the Rugby World Cup back in 1992, it felt the sweetness of international competition once again, and to reward its comeback, the Springboks won the cup.

Prior to that, South Africa was denied entrance at any international sporting events due to Apartheid. It was then after Apartheid crumbled, the world started viewing this country as a deserving sports competitor. It was also then the start of a new era in South Africa sports where both black and whites could play together as teammates and won trophies for their country. And thereafter, South Africa has had many opportunities to host several major international sporting events such as the Cricket World Cup, Confederation Cup, and now in 2010, the Fifa Soccer World Cup.

Today, many of us are fortunate enough that our “Human Rights” have been well protected, and we may just take these rights for granted. However, most of us are in fact unfamiliar with the struggle a country, a nation, and a race had to go through for centuries before it was concrete to justify the legal system. In South Africa, being the richest country in Africa ironically was one of the countries lacking such knowledge for many centuries. After apartheid crumbled, it was vital for the nation to learn from its faults and recognize the new constitution enacted and written based on human rights. This was injected through various kinds of education, through schools, media, sports, and word of mouth.

The New Constitution was based on the Bill of Rights which included the change of the following:
A certain race, creed, or group is denied recognition as a "person".
Men and women are not treated as equal.
Different racial or religious groups are not treated as equal.
Life, liberty or security of person are threatened.
A person is sold as or used as a slave.
Cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment is used on a person (such as torture or execution). Punishments are dealt arbitrarily or unilaterally, without a proper and fair trial.
Arbitrary interference into personal, or private lives by agents of the state.
Citizens are forbidden to leave or return to their country.
Freedom of speech or religion are denied.
The right to join a trade union is denied.
Education is denied.

South Africa has the most complicated and most up to date Bill on Human Rights and it would take pages to list all of them here.

To the outsiders who have no idea how bad it is in South Africa, one might see this country as a successful nation who overcame racial issue. But to those who had to suffer the consequences, it is to the extreme contrary. The nation had to suffer through violence and crime before in order for a lesson to be learnt. After the empowerment of the “New South Africa” where the white government officials were all replaced by the black officers, South Africa started declining at a dramatic speed. These newly elected officers, once oppressed are now in the parliament. They have no prior past official experience or education on how to run a country. To give them such a huge task to do, it will only create chaos. Crime rocketed and economic sank.

Human Rights is now enforced and in effect, but it costs a country dearly. Was it worth it? Well, some say it should have never happened and South Africa will be as safe as before, but then on the other hand, if South Africa never walked out of its Apartheid shell, what’s difference between South Africa and a communist country where the government was proud where they could let their people have no voice or power, where the government controlled the people’s freedom, in speech, religion, gatherings and the list goes on.

It is not up to ones choice where they are born, or which ethnic they want to be, or which family they are brought up from. But it is up to us to change how we view things and how we make things equal amongst each other. For South Africa, this is a new process, and a long road to go, but it is surely but slowly an improving one.