South Africans came together on Monday to bask in the glow of the country’s victory at the Rugby World Cup, hoping the triumph would help heal the racial divisions of the post-apartheid era.
But behind the jubilation over the 15-6 win against England on Saturday was the realisation that the racial unity could be as fleeting as it was in 1995, when South Africa last won the rugby title.
Smiles and congratulatory handshakes were the order of the day as office workers, shop assistants and street peddlers returned to their jobs after the Springboks triumphed in Paris.
Newspapers, ranging from the predominantly white-backed Citizen to the largely black-read Sowetan, heralded the unity engulfing the nation as it prepared to welcome the team home.
A huge crowd was expected to greet the players when they arrive at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport early on Tuesday, kicking off several days of festivities, including a nationwide ticker-tape parade.
”On Giants’ Shoulders” the Star newspaper proclaimed in a front-page headline. Beneath it ran a photo of South African President Thabo Mbeki holding the Webb Ellis Trophy while hoisted by jubilant Springboks players and officials in Paris.
Although rugby is traditionally dominated by the country’s white minority, particularly its Afrikaner community — descendants of the original Dutch and French settlers — the black majority has also been swept up in the fever.
Bars in Soweto, the sprawling black township south of Johannesburg, were packed on Saturday with fans cheering the Bok’ with the fervour of true believers. Eateries and bars in the giant Indian community in Durban also swayed with supporters.
Multiracial crowds celebrate
Elsewhere, multiracial crowds danced and sang at fan parks in scenes reminiscent of the celebrations that erupted in 1995. Back then, the rugby championship coincided with the honeymoon of the transition to a multiracial democracy after the first free elections in 1994.
”Colour didn’t matter. We hugged, cried and kissed across the racial lines. Our collective blood was green,” Andrew Molefe, a Sowetan journalist, wrote on Monday after watching the game in a pub in Benoni, a white conservative enclave.
But there are fears that South Africa could quickly return to the racial polarisation that has held sway for much of the post-apartheid period.
The races, especially black South Africans and white South Africans, often hold starkly different views on the major issues affecting society and stake out opposing positions on what to do about high levels of violent crime, black poverty and government corruption.
The divide reaches into almost every corner of society but is most vivid in the political arena, where the ruling African National Congress (ANC) is largely a voice for the black majority and smaller numbers of Indians and coloured people.
The main opposition party, however, is dominated by white people.
Ironically, rugby has provided one of the key racial flashpoints, with the ANC pledging to get more players of colour on the Springbok team, a policy tied to a controversial affirmative action programme put in place after the 1994 elections.
The ANC did not wait long to reaffirm that vow.
”It is our hope that this victory will further give impetus to the central task of working together as a nation to ensure that all our national teams reflect the diverse backgrounds of our people,” the ANC said in a statement on Sunday. — Reuters