Talk:History of South Africa (1994–present)

Mandela: The Authorised Biography

I am trying to expand this article, mainly focusing on the differences between this book and other accounts (books and otherwise) of South Africa throughout this period. Any comments or suggestions are appreciated on the talk page.BillMasen 13:23, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Expand

I am expanding this article and I think it's now fairly strong on the political progression of the past 15 years, but it's missing general themes like reconciliation and economics. It still needs more work. Zaian (talk) 21:06, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Mandela Pienaar symbolism

I disagree with the text in the article that reads "Nelson Mandela wore a Springbok rugby jersey to present the William Webb Ellis Cup to South African captain Francois Pienaar, a symbolic image of reconciliation." Neither of the two references given make a case for the cup handover to be symbolic of anything. And one has to ask "symbolic of what?". A black man is handing over a cup to a white man? A nation's president is handing over a cup to the nation's national team's captain? A man who was in prison is handing over a cup to a man who hasn't been in prison? What is the symbolism? I agree that mr Mandela's behaviour was very reconciliatory on the day, but I don't think we should regard his actions as deliberately symbolic.

The second reference contains statements that are typical of foreign journos who see things in South Africa and apply their own reasons for the events. For example, the stadium was silent for a moment when Mandela walked onto the field. The journo attributes this silence to disbelief. Well, maybe his own silence was disbelief. I'm reminded of the difference in commentary I saw on British and South African television of the 1995 match, when the Springboks grouped together, on their knees, after they've won the match. South African commentator "They are saying a prayer of thanks". British commentator "They are crying in disbelief". -- leuce (talk) 14:19, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

It seems pretty clear to me that that it was a symbolic moment of reconciliation between the races, and I think both references back that up. I'm sure there are hundreds more referring to the importance of the moment. Some will be enthusiastic foreign journalists like the second reference, but there will be local sources too. Mandela's actions were frequently deliberately symbolic. Zaian (talk) 16:25, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Leuce, now that you've got me curious, were they praying or crying? Invmog (talk) 20:30, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, I can only tell what I would have thought if the commentator had not said anything. It used to be fairly common at many school and university rugby matches for the teams to group together and say a prayer after the game (sometimes on the field but often in the dressing rooms), although this tradition has largely been lost in bigger games since Christianity stopped being the official religion of South Africa. So my interpretation would have been that they were saying a prayer, and it is interesting that this was the commentator's interpretation too. -- leuce (talk) 15:16, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I didn't know that Apartheid was a legitimate form of government

In the opening sentence it states that South Africa "transitioned from the system of apartheid to..."

So... Since when was Apartheid a form of government? I thought it was just one bad policy of a government. In fact, South Africa was a Republic before (and after) its transition of power. Would someone please correct this huge flaw in the first sentence of this article? Invmog (talk) 01:22, 28 June 2009 (UTC) Invmog (talk) 20:44, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Haha, awww. Take your deliberate ignorance somewhere else, Afrikaaner. 58.7.155.232 (talk) 09:42, 18 September 2011 (UTC) Harlequin

Governments are referred to by their ideology ie communist states, fascist states ect even though Germany was a republic under Hitler it was a fascist state, hence although SA was a republic it is also termed an apartheid state --Scottykira (talk) 14:57, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the original poster, but this is just our opinions, and is far from the consensus - just like Russia was called Communist, even though, in some people's opinion, it did not contain real Communist ideals. In the same way, I see that the original philosophy behind Apartheid was to allow different peoples to develop seperately, and to keep their cultures seperate, though it is obvious that the whole definition of the word was contorted from the beginning. However, I see no reason to go about changing Wikipedia on this subject (Apartheid), unless it was changed to match other 'incorrect terms which happen to be consensus' (i.e. the aformentioned faschism and communism). Just like the person on the IP 58.7.155.232 won't change his post to a more mature one any time soon. :)
...Also, the sentence states that Apartheid and majority rule is a 'system', and not a 'government' or 'form of government'. So the sentence is correct anyways. --86.5.226.63 (talk) 02:43, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

2010 FIFA Football World Cup

Seeing as this is a major event for the newly risen republic and for the rest of the world, I think the 2010 FIFA Football World Cup should have a small section in this article with reference to the main article. Themes could include public reception, promotion, vuvuzela controversies, factual details on how the tournament went down etcetera. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.162.205.169 (talk) 09:39, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

This article is about the history of the country, mentioning that the event took place is enough, the rest should be in the world cup article --Scottykira (talk) 14:59, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

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Orphaned references in History of South Africa (1994–present)

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of History of South Africa (1994–present)'s orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "cib11":

• From Afrikaans: Census 2011: Census in brief (PDF). Pretoria: Statistics South Africa. 2012. p. 27. ISBN 9780621413885. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 May 2015.
• From South Africa: Census 2011: Census in brief (PDF). Pretoria: Statistics South Africa. 2012. pp. 23–25. ISBN 978-0621413885. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 May 2015.
• From Languages of South Africa: Census 2011: Census in brief (PDF). Pretoria: Statistics South Africa. 2012. pp. 23–25. ISBN 9780621413885.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. Feel free to remove this comment after fixing the refs. AnomieBOT⚡ 23:46, 26 April 2023 (UTC)