The role of Nelson Mandela

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Coursework Assignment: The role of Nelson Mandela

  1. Source A is a newspaper advert highlighting Mandela’s imprisonment. It was paid for by the African National Congress (ANC) who were strong supporters of Mandela and the African civil rights movement. This means that it may have been biased in favour of the civil rights movement. The ANC wanted to show how badly mistreated the blacks in Africa were in order to gain support from many countries around the world and defeat apartheid. It was printed in 1988 when there was already quite a lot of support for the movement following the ‘Free Mandela’ song and concert in 1984.  This means that the ANC were probably also trying to reinforce the people’s view of apartheid and Mandela’s imprisonment. The source is quite limited and although a primary source does not give any information on the suffering of the ordinary people at the time. Also it does not show how things were improving in South Africa. Without this information it is only showing one side of the argument and thus can make people have a biased view. It is most likely to be biased and unreliable, as there is no evidence to support the facts that are presented. We do however know that most of the facts presented are true from our studying of the history of apartheid and South Africa. With this knowledge we can say that the source is reliable from the facts represented but the language used to represent these facts is very charged and biased.
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  1. Source B is from a defence speech made by Nelson Mandela at his own trial 1963. He wanted to make a dramatic impact to create huge support for his cause. Firstly he explains why he took part in sabotage. During the speech and the whole trial he never denied responsibility for the attacks and this makes the source slightly less biased. However as it came from Mandela who was a leading figure in the rights movement it was very biased and unreliable. He only shows one side of the argument to present Apartheid in a bad light. It ...

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