SXSW 2013 Sampler

INTRODUCTION: LIKEABILITY, ROGUE
ECONOMISTS, AND THE LOVABLE FOOL
If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his
head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.
—Nelson Mandela
The first time I experienced the powerful influence of Nelson Mandela
was from the front seat of a taxi cab riding down the streets of Jo’burg
(as the locals call Johannesburg). Mandela’s picture was on billboards
along the highway to the city even though he was no longer president
of South Africa, and my driver was speaking about his influence and
how he had inspired the nation. That story started nearly 20 years ago.
In 1993, tens of thousands of Afrikaners (white South Africans) were
preparing for war. Three years earlier, a man named Nelson Mandela
had been released after 27 years in prison. He was no hero to this group.
They saw him as the founder of a terrorist organization who threatened
their way of life and belonged in jail. They were ready to fight.
As reporter and biographer John Carlin wrote, that was the moment
where Mandela began ‘‘the most unlikely exercise in political seduction
ever undertaken.’’ 1Heinvited the Afrikaners leaders over for tea and
listened to their concerns. Then, he persuaded them to abandon their
guns and violence. The battle never happened.
A year later, he was sworn in as president of South Africa and vowed
to make reconciling the racial tension between whites and blacks his
number-one priority. Somehow he had to overcome decades of hate
and convince people ready to die for their causes to see one another as
brothers.
In one of his first acts as president, Mandela invited Francois Pienaar,
the captain of the South African Rugby (Springbok) team, to have tea
with him. That afternoon he struck an alliance, asking Pienaar to help
him turn rugby into a force for uniting all South Africans.
xxvii