ABSTRACT
It was an event full of poignant moments. One in particular seemed perfectly framed, both visually and historically. On stage, Tony Suze stood behind a podium almost as tall as he is. A soft-spoken man, reluctant to thrust himself into the spotlight, his story of spending more than 15 years as a political prisoner on Robben Island in apartheid-South Africa – and the highly organized soccer league that he and his fellow prisoners created and competed in on the Island – transfixed an audience of 150 post-lunch conference-goers. Nearing the end of his tale, wearied by illness, jet lag and the weight of the story he was telling, Tony paused, put his head in his hands, and gave in to his own overwhelming emotions. The discussion on the anti-apartheid movement and sport for which Tony was the final act also included American scholars Richard Lapchick and Charles Korr who recounted their own engagements with sport and South Africa’s apartheid regime. The panel was moderated by Abdul Moola, a South African expatriate who remained active in the African National Congress (ANC) while raising a family in Canada. As Tony wavered, Abdul walked quietly but purposefully across the stage and silently put his arm around Tony, a lifelong member of the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC). With the audience hushed, unsure of how to honour the raw emotions so unfamiliar to academic meetings, another invited guest strode towards the podium. Opening keynote speaker Harry Edwards, the founder of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, moved towards the front of the room. Standing below the stage, Harry offered Tony a bottle of water, his six-foot, eight-inch frame nearly eye-to-eye with the two South Africans on stage. And so the moment was captured: resistors and activists; protestors and the punished; ANC and PAC; the north and the south; the past in the present.
