Lesson 10－Part 1
The final game /
of the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa /
was one of the most exciting international games /
for most people in the world. //
However, /
it meant more than that /
to South Africans. //
All the people in the country, /
of many different races, /
were watching the game /
with a big hope for the future. //
People who were once enemies /
were cheering together /
for their national team. //
In South Africa, /
black people had long been discriminated against /
under the system called apartheid. //
They had to live separately from white people /
and use separate seats in public places. //
Eventually, /
the people who were against this idea /
began growing in number /
both inside and outside the country. //
Nelson Mandela was leading a group of these people /
when he was taken away by the police /
and put in prison. //
He was kept like that for 27 years /
until he was finally freed in 1990. //
Mandela became the president of South Africa /
in 1994. //
In that same year, /
apartheid came to an end. //
However, /
black people could not forget the hard times /
they had been suffering for many years. //
At the same time, /
white people were now afraid of black people, /
because black people were very angry with them. //
They were far from becoming friends. //
In fact, /
they were only a step away /
from war. //
To solve this problem, /
Mandela thought /
he could use sports /
to make people feel closer to one another. //
He chose rugby. //
In South Africa, /
rugby was a “white people’s sport.” //
Black people hated the Springboks, /
South Africa’s national team, /
so much /
that they did not cheer for their team /
but cheered for foreign teams. //
Mandela thought /
if people of different colors played a sport together, /
or cheered for the same team together, /
they could become closer. //
