A Glimmer of Hope

A Glimmer Of Hope

World Cup soccer, the world’s most popular sporting event is over, but a lasting image for me is Nelson Mandela waving to the crowd in South Africa in an appearance he made shortly before the championship game. Much like the picture of Mandela on page 690 showing him voting as a free man, Mandela is the face of South Africa and represents its freedom from apartheid and white domination. It was the process of decolonization that gave the people of South Africa their freedom and dignity from the empires of Europe. It was a struggle that was hard fought by the South Africans, and eventually, with the rest of the world’s help through boycotts and embargos, the cries for freedom were heard.

South Africa was the host of this year’s World Cup, and given its checkered past, came through as one of the best hosts this tournament has ever seen. Mandela was instrumental in helping South Africa become the host for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. He is now 86 years old and made a very brief appearance at the championship game as a show of support for his nation that had hosted this great event.

Hosting World Cup is a significant milestone in South Africa’s history because this event is a prestigious world-renowned tournament, which crowns the absolute best in the world of soccer. The tournament was played over a span of a month and its venues were located throughout South Africa. Thousands upon thousands of people traveled to this small country at the tip of Africa- some from as far away as the Netherlands to cheer on his or her own country. Soccer is truly a global sport and the World Cup brought people of different races, colors and religions together under the same peaceful banner. Everyone enjoys watching the “beautiful game” and this was apparent during this year’s World Cup. Watching World Cup soccer being played in South Africa made me feel as if a weight had been lifted from the world’s shoulders. Here, among all of the previous controversy of apartheid, this small nation was able to host a spectacle as large as the World Cup. This is a glimmer of hope for me in the world today.

Nelson Mandela is considered the world’s greatest statesman and a global icon for peace because he has campaigned tirelessly for peace and freedom for the Black people of South Africa. His approach was similar to Gandhi- asking for nonviolent demonstrations to try and get their message across to the South African government, but this did not work and the government responded with repression and violence against the leaders of the vocal movement. Mandela was arrested and imprisoned from 1962-1990, but the echoes of his work were felt around the world. With internal struggle and violence as well as international demands to end apartheid, the South African people finally won their freedom and equality. Nelson, for his instrumental role in abolishing apartheid, was elected the first president of post-apartheid South Africa from 1994-1999.

It seemed extremely fitting that South Africa would host this year’s World Cup tournament in order to unite people, change the world and lay a foundation for a better future. “This World Cup was the stage for a very special moment, tied up with the history of freedom and the history of one man,” explained the FIFA President. “This is a man who has suffered so much, but since being freed from prison he has spoken only of peace and understanding. I first met Nelson Mandela in 1992 and he had a dream: to bring the World Cup to his country. That dream has come true. He brought the World Cup to South Africa, and on the day of the Final he realized his ambition of attending in person. I have to pay homage to the world’s greatest living humanist – Nelson Madiba Mandela (FIFA World Cup).”

The Question of Blame

Since my in-laws are German and both grew up in Germany during World War II as children, I became intrigued by World War I and the implications of the Treaty of Versailles on Germany. My mother in-law experienced first hand the annexation of the German speaking part of Czechoslovakia to Germany while my father-in-law lived in a small town outside of Stuttgart during World War II. Their lives were severely impacted by the hardships of the war. Going back historically to World War I, the Treaty of Versailles provided the conditions for World War II; however, I was struggling with the “punishment” concept imposed on Germany from the Versailles Treaty. I couldn’t get the answer I was looking for in our textbook so I did some online research to better understand why Germany was blamed for the Great War and the subsequent punishment that was metered out in the Versailles Treaty.

There are a number of superficial and fundamental causes of the Great War. In reading through a number of web sites, the most comprehensive site, http://www.firstworldwar.com laid it out pretty succinctly. The struggle for power, domination, land, military might and a lot of political posturing was prevalent in Europe, but it was the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand that lit the fuse for war. Germany had a big hand in all of this because they were considered the instigators behind Austria declaring war on Serbia. Due to the alliances that had been formed, Triple Entente (Russia, France, Great Britain) versus the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy), each big power came to the aid of the little guy because of treaties that had previously been signed. Germany’s biggest mistake and which drew a lot of criticism, was the invasion of Belgium, a neutral party, to obtain access into France during the war. It seems fair to say that Germany should shoulder much of the blame for World War I since it had the opportunity to prevent it and German military establishment seemed eager to go to war to advance their agenda; however, there were other factors and circumstances for the power struggle that was going on in Europe and all parties involved were at fault. I kept coming back to my question as to why punish Germany so severely in the Versailles document?

Germany was a big fish in the struggle for power within Europe. Through historical documents from this time period, Germany single-handedly precipitated an escalation of the Austrian-Serbian crisis in order to launch the war they were looking for with Russia and France. After the assassination of the Archduke, Germany told Austria to be unreasonable in their dealings with Serbia. Austria had issued an ultimatum to Serbia “that the assassins be brought to justice effectively, nullifying Serbia’s sovereignty (www.firstworldwar.com).” but instead of rejecting the ultimatum as was expected, Serbia conceded all but a few minor points. Austria-Hungary could then have accepted Serbia’s concessions as they stood; however, Germany encouraged Austria to attack Serbia anyway. Germany had given Austria a “Blank Cheque” which was an almost unconditional guarantee of support for Austria-Hungary no matter what she decided to do. Germany was actually looking forward to war. Additional documents show that Germany also had a plan called the Schlieffen Plan - which included passing through Belgium in order to get to France and after France’s defeat the German army would make their way east to Russia. All fingers pointed to Germany and they would pay for their “war-plans” at the end.

The end of the Great War was declared with the signing of the Versailles Treaty. Germany was presented with the document at the Palace of Versailles and was given three weeks to accept the terms. German delegates complained about the severity of the conditions, but these went unheeded, and it is well documented that Britain and President Woodrow Wilson felt that the document was extremely harsh against Germany. According to the Versailles Treaty, Germany had to take sole responsibility for the war, pay steep reparations to the “winners”, lost 13.5% of its 1914 territory and all of its overseas possessions, had growth on its army restricted to 100,000 men and was banned from the use of heavy artillery, gas, tanks and aircraft. This was a huge blow to Germany. Their chances of domination had dissipated, and by all historical accounts, Germany’s pride and nationalism would resent this treaty for the next twenty years. It is easy to look back now and speculate as to what might have happened if all of these situations were handled differently. I am glad I did a little more research to understand Word War I and the Treaty of Versailles. It helps me understand what happened next in the course of world history.