Nelson Mandela's speech on the day he was released from prison

None of the news reports on the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison that I've seen have replayed any excerpts from the speech he made at City Hall in Cape Town.

This doesn't really surprise me, as it was far from being the barnstorming piece of oratory that many (including me) were expecting at the time.

Speaking into a microphone held by someone standing next to him, a bespectacled Mr Mandela clutched closely to the clip board holding his script - from which he read extremely carefully (see video below).

Given what might have happened had he done otherwise, it reminded me of the Queen's Speech as an example of the relatively rare occasions when there are very good reasons for not conveying any passion about what you are saying.

Something I posted a while back on The Queen's Speech: an exception that proves the ruler included the following thoughts about Mandela release-day speech.

Why such a 'low key' speech?

A much more surprising case was Nelson Mandela’s first speech after being released from prison in 1990. Here was a highly effective communicator, whose words at his trial 27 years earlier are to be found in most books of great speeches, and who had had the best part of three decades to prepare an inspiring and memorable text.

But it was not to be. As if modeling his performance on the Queen’s Speech, he buried his head in the script and spoke in a flat measured tone that came across as completely lacking in the kind of passion everyone was expecting from someone who had suffered so much and was held in such high regard by his audience.

Having waited for years for this historic event, anticipating something on a par with Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech, I remember being disappointed and surprised by what I saw and heard from the balcony of City Hall in Cape Town. It was only later that it dawned on me that this was another case where rousing rhetoric would have been completely counter-productive.

The political situation in South Africa was poised on a knife-edge and his release from prison had only happened at all because the apartheid regime was crumbling. It was a moment when anything more inspiring from Mandela might have come across as a call to arms and could easily have prompted an immediate uprising or civil war.

But the political understanding with the minority white government was that the African National Congress would keep the lid on things for long enough to enable a settlement to be negotiated.* As when the Queen opens parliament, Mr Mandela knew exactly what he was doing, how to do it and that he could not have done otherwise.

(* On which it's interesting to note that, at the end of this clip, the reporter actually comments on Mr Mandela's concern for keeping things orderly among the crowd).

SCRIPT OF EXCERPT IN THE VIDEO:

The sight of freedom looming on the horizon should encourage us to redouble our efforts.

It is only through disciplined mass action that our victory can be assured. We call on our white compatriots to join us in the shaping of a new South Africa. The freedom movement is a political home for you too. We call on the international community to continue the campaign to isolate the apartheid regime. To lift sanctions now would be to run the risk of aborting the process towards the complete eradication of apartheid.

Our march to freedom is irreversible. We must not allow fear to stand in our way. Universal suffrage on a common voters' roll in a united democratic and non-racial South Africa is the only way to peace and racial harmony.

In conclusion I wish to quote my own words during my trial in 1964. They are as true today as they were then. I wrote:

'I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.'

You can't judge book by its cover

One of the things that vaguely irritates me about Twitter is that famous (and not so famous) quotations are constantly being launched into cyberspace for no apparent reason.

The only reason I'm making an exception today is because I have some clear, if shamelessly self-promotional, reasons for posting 'you can't judge a book by its cover':

1. To celebrate the publication of Lend Me Your Ears in Russia on 19 February.
2. To advertise my wares to British, American, Spanish and Russian audiences.
3. To prove that famous quotations are sometimes literally true, as when 4 different covers = the same book within.
4. To invite publishers in languages other than English, Spanish and Russian to write to me asking for a free copy to consider whether it might be worth translating.

To quote a phrase from Mrs Thatcher there are grounds for "cautious optimism" about the possibility of a forthcoming French edition.

My only worry at this stage is about the cover - because, if Marion Chapsal* has her way, the cover of a future French edition of the book might end up looking like one (or both) of the following:

On second thoughts, they might be preferable to the ones used so far - on which, of course, authors are allowed no say whatsoever.

(* To whom many thanks for her not so "cautious" enthusiasm so far).

Business Communicator of the Year 2010

Brian Jenner has just announced that the UK Speechwriters' Guild 'Business Communicator of the Year, 2010', is Martin Broughton (right), Chairman of BA and former President of the CBI.

Further details of the citation can be seen HERE, where, the news is introduced as follows:

The judges said: "During his tenure as President of the CBI Martin Broughton's speeches were witty, direct and controversial, making headlines and entertaining audiences. He can craft a phrase, select a great quotation and crack a good joke, which is extremely rare among top British executives and almost unheard of from a man trained as an accountant. His speeches should be studied by corporate communications departments as models of excellence."

The runners-up were Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England and Rory Sutherland, Vice-Chairman of Ogilvy Group UK.

Snakes, ladders & the folly of Q-A campaigning

I began the year by raising the question of whether interviews ever deliver anything but bad news for politicians and boredom for audiences, since when I've posted some illustrative videos, like yesterday's example of a gaffe from Mrs Thatcher in her final interview during the 1987 general election.

My concerns arise from what John Heritage and I dubbed the snakes and ladders theory of political communication, which proposes that speeches are like the ladders in the board-game with the potential for generating positive sound bites and news that take you up the board - whereas interviews and other Q-A formats are like the snakes that at worst trip you up, and at best leave audiences with an unmemorable sense of blandness and/or boredom.

As we move towards a general election that promises little in the way of speeches, rallies or excitement, here's a reminder of just how tedious Q-A campaigning can be.

Ask the Alliance rallies

Although Margaret Thatcher and Neil Kinnock made some pretty impressive speeches during the 1987 general election (e.g. HERE), the SDP-Liberal Alliance thought they knew better than to hold traditional campaign rallies, opting instead for Q-A sessions with the two Davids (Owen & Steel).

As far as I remember, these generated no quotable quotes from either of the leaders - but the format itself became the news story, resembling as it did:

Gardeners' Question Time on a bad day

NEWS: Is the format working?

So, about half way through the campaign, and in the absence of much to report, the mass television audience is being told that the Q-A format has itself became the main news story.

And here, from the same programme as the one above, we're taken to a park bench, where two Alliance MPs (John Cartwright, SDP, and David Alton, Liberal) are earnestly discussing the problem and what to do about it:

Rochdale to the rescue

Two MPs would hardly have agreed to be filmed worrying about campaign had the Alliance parties themselves not been having second thoughts about the Ask the Alliance rallies.

And sure enough, the next clip showed that another Liberal MP, Cyril Smith, was doing something about it and had invited Liberal leader David Steel to make a speech from a trailer at an open-air rally in Rochdale.

But, as the reporter implies in winding up the story, by then it was too little and too late:

Lessons for 2010?

Nearly a quarter of a century later, the current Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, has been touring the country to speak at Meet the People meetings that have a remarkably similar format to those of the ill-fated Ask the Alliance rallies.

Meanwhile, the political parties are locked in continuing discussions with the BBC, ITV and Sky about exactly what form the Q-A sessions with party leaders will take in the televised 'debates'.

My hope is that those who are cooking up the rules - as well as the parties' campaign strategists - are old enough and wise enough to have learnt something from the tedium generated by the Ask the Alliance rallies.

My fear is that the TV debates - and much of the rest of the campaign - will do little more than make Gardeners' Question Time on a bad day the daily norm, rather than the dreary exception that it was in 1987.

The day when Mrs Thatcher apologised (twice) for what she said in an interview

I've made the point in an number of recent posts (e.g. HERE and HERE) that radio and television interviews seldom generate anything but bad news for politicians - but only hit the headlines if the interviewee slips up and says something that the rest of the media thinks worth reporting.

One of the most spectacular cases of such a gaffe came when David Dimbleby was interviewing Mrs Thatcher two or three nights before polling day in the 1987 general election - in which she referred to people who "just drool and drivel they care".

Dimbleby immediately picked up on her choice of words, in response to which she apologised (twice) whilst revising what she had said.

The drool and drivel sequence was quite widely replayed and reported elsewhere in the media but, luckily for her, it happened so close to polling day that there wasn't time for a big story to brew up and it had little or no impact on the eventual result.

RELATED POSTS:

· Do interviews ever deliver anything but bad news for politicians and boredom for audiences?

· Will the 2010 UK general election be the first one to leave us speechless?

· Two more straight answers from Mandelson - about failed coups and the PM's rages

· Mandelson gives two straight answers to two of Paxman’s questions

· Rare video clip of a politician giving 5 straight answers to 5 consecutive questions

· Politician answers a question: an exception that proves the rule

· A Tory leader's three evasive answers to the same question

· Gordon Brown's interview technique: the tip of a tedious iceberg

· A prime minister who openly refused to answer an interviewer’s questions

· Why it's so easy for politicians not to answer interviewers' questions - and what should be done about it

· Why has Gordon Brown become a regular on the Today programme?

· Interview techniques, politicians and how we judge them

Nobel Prize for Economics (& Atkinson Award for Imagery): Joseph Stiglitz

Today's Independent has an interesting interview with Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, in which he is described as having 'the veteran teacher's ability to put the intellectually inferior at their ease'.

Unlike the economics teachers of my undergraduate days (who only inspired me to drop the subject in favour of sociology), Stiglitz has quite a way with words that I've blogged about before.

How good an economist he is, I have no idea, but this isn't the first time that I've been impressed by the ease and frequency with which he uses imagery to make his points intelligible to wider audiences.

Here are some samples from the article in today's Independent, followed by video clips of him from televised interviews over the past year or so.

Garbage disposal service
The US government, Stiglitz says, was reduced to the role of garbage disposal service for the banks' toxic assets, bad loans and worthless securities they themselves had created.

Safety net
The safety net should focus on protecting individuals; but the safety net was extended to corporations, in the belief that the consequences of not doing so would be too horrific. Once extended, it will be difficult to withdraw.

Blackmail
The world-weary response of the media and the politicians, after the immediate horrors have passed – to give in to the financial sector's blackmail.

A gun to our heads
He reminds us that the banks have effectively tried to keep "a gun to our heads", that says that if we don't keep them going on their terms then they will "kill the economy".

The market is a crazy man
"You're dealing with a crazy man, you're asking what I can do to placate a crazy man: Having got what he wants he will still kill you."

The Great American Robbery
His sheer indignation at what he calls "the Great American Robbery" – that multi-trillion dollar bailout for the banks sanctioned by the Bush and Obama administrations – is as awesome as the sums involved, and as understandable.

Calm sea of financial stability
According to Stiglitz, far from free markets delivering a calm ocean of financial stability, they have delivered us a financial crisis, on average, every year or two.

Stiglitz on 'tail-spins', 'diseases' and 'party-poopers':

(If you're interested in how effectively imagery can be used in speeches and presentations, see Chapter 7 of Lend Me Your Ears: 'Painting Pictures with words: the use of imagery and anecdotes', pp. 215-240).

Televised debates about televised debates really would be worth watching!

It was, I suppose, only to be expected that debates about the format and rules for the televised pre-election leaders' debates would hot up as the election draws nigh - no matter how pointless and unenforceable such rules are almost certain to be.

The Guardian is warning that the party leaders' election debates are in danger of 'being negotiated to death', and today's Times is reporting that Brown is calling in 'the Obama team for help with television debate'.

As readers of this blog will know, I'm fully expecting the 'debates' to be as boring as all the other interviews the media will be inflicting on us during the election.

But all this talk about the debates about the debates has given me an idea:

Why don't the BBC, ITN and Sky insist that all further negotiations with the main political parties about the rules and formats for the debates must be conducted in front of the cameras?

That would surely make for such riveting viewing that it wouldn't matter very much whether or not the actual 'debates' ever get to take place at all.

RELATED POSTS:

• TV Debate Claptrap: a warning to those cooking up rules for the leaders' election debates
• Will the 2010 general election be the first one to leave us speechless?