Nelson Mandelas speech Our march towards freedom is irreversible Analysis

Each the speech served various objectives and addressed to various audiences. At the outset, the speech was meant to mark the beginning of South Africa’s brave move towards immense changes and give the nation a new outlook as a land of hope, freedom, justice and equality. Though the speech, Mandela aimed at assuring his audience of unity and preparedness in addressing the challenges that South Africans had faced for a long period. Another objective of the speech was to draw his immediate and secondary audience towards his position as the first black president of South Africa. While addressing the audiences, Nelson Mandela aimed at assuring people that he would use his position as the president to unite all races and promote democracy.

To a greater extent, the objectives of the speech were achieved as the audience became optimistic of a better, unified, democratic and a developed South Africa. South Africans felt that everything said in the speech was achievable as long as they cooperated towards the attainment of these objectives. Identify the specific audiences that your chosen speech was meant to address and assess whether those audiences received the messages that they were hoping for Nelson Mandela’s speech constituted of both immediate and secondary audiences who listened and watched his speech through radio and televised media. The audience not only comprised of South Africans, but it also consisted of global patriots. Among his audiences, a great deal of his speech was directed to South Africans given that Mandela was their first black president.

While speaking this group, Mandela took precaution not to raise rebellious or resent feelings. The primary goal of Mandela’s attitude to South Africans was to cultivate the need for unity and change in reshaping South Africa irrespective of race. “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” (Mandela, 1990). He talked of the destruction caused by the apartheid system so that the whites could gain insight into the need for change. Evaluate whether the speech was appropriate for the occasion Given that the address advocated for freedom, it was fit for the event since it was delivered at a time when South Africa yearned for freedom.

For too long, South Africa had been dominated by the Apartheid causing great destruction to the country’s economy. As such, the speech served as a right time for the people to fight for their freedom. ” We call on our people to seize this moment so that the process towards democracy is rapid and uninterrupted” (Mandela, 1990). South Africa also experienced racial division as the ruling system favored the Whites at the expense of the blacks who were the natives. Fighting the white dominion was the only way that South Africa would gain freedom. The speech had to address the immediate needs of black South African people while preventing the flight of white South Africans and foreign capital from the nation and thus, the speech needed to establish the ground from which progress would grow rhetorically.