Playing the Enemy by John Carlin

People forget Invictus and read this book. It is the book Invictus is based off of, but goes into all the ways Mandela has to learn about Afrikaaner culture (including Rugby) to win over his jailers and the government. And then after that to unite a nation. Well written and a gem for a peace and conflict resolution kid like me.

Mandela is getting out of Milpark hospital today. The hospital we know well from Emily and Joanne’s stay in July. And I must say Madiba is truly a leader, a father, and an uncle to this country. And I have more than become South African in that respect. I hope the country does not fear what happens to Mandela too much though, he is still a man. And his work will live in this country and with so many people. With people I meet, but they must not be afraid to see this in themselves. You see we all have a bit of our parents in us.

So get well Madiba, but we were listening even if we are afraid sometimes.

End of the intro to Playing with the Enemy by John Carlin

"More than once people remarked that the book I was going to write felt like a fable, or a parable, or a fairy story. It was a funny thing to say for those who had been the real-life protagonists of a blood-and-guts political tale, but it was true. That it was set in Africa and involved a game of rugby was almost incidental. Had it been set in China and the drama built around a water buffalo race, the tale might have been as enduringly exemplary. For it fulfilled the two basic conditions of a successful fairy story: it was a good yarn and it held a lesson for the ages.

Two other thoughts struck me when I took stock of all the material I had accumulated for this book. First, the political genius of Mandela. Stripped to its essentials, politics is about persuading people, winning them over. All politicians are professional seducers. They woo people for a living. And if they are clever and good at what they do, if they have a talent for striking the popular chord, they will prosper, Lincoln had it, Roosevelt had it, Churchill had it, de Gaulle had it, Kennedy had it, Mar¬tin Luther King had it, Reagan had it, Clinton and Blair had it. So did Arafat. And so, for that matter, did Hitler. They all won over their people to their cause. Where Mandela - the anti-Hitler - had an edge over the lot of them, where he was unique, was in the scope of his ambition. Having won over his own people - in itself no mean feat, for they were a disparate bunch, drawn from all manner of creeds, colours, and tribes ¬he then went out and won over the enemy. How he did that - how he won over people who had applauded his imprisonment, who had wanted him dead, who planned to go to war against him - is chiefly what this book is about.
The second thought I caught myself having was that, beyond a history, beyond even a fairy tale, this might also turn out to be an unwitting addition to the vast canon of self-help books offering people models for how to prosper in their daily lives. Mandela mastered, more than anyone else alive (and, quite possibly, dead), the art of making friends and influencing people. No matter whether they started out on the extreme left or the extreme right, whether they initially feared, hated, or admired Mandela, everyone I interviewed had come to feel renewed and improved by his example. All of them, in talking about him, seemed to shine. This book seeks, humbly, to reflect a little of Mandela's light."