JOHANNESBURG — The imposing hall resonated with the euphoria of a nation where everyone seemed, for the moment, to have put their differences behind them.
Celebrants spoke Zulu, Sotho, Tswana, Afrikaans and English. They were black and white, young and old, mining company managers and restaurant waitresses.
They sang and danced together. South African flags waved. They wore the same green and gold attire as their rugby heroes when they gathered at Oliver Reginald Tambo Airport in Johannesburg recently to welcome the team after the championship match in France. A bronze statue of Tambo with one hand raised stood amid the jubilation, as if granting his blessing to a scene made possible by the work he did to overthrow apartheid.
South Africa has become the winningest Country in the relatively short history of the Rugby World Cup, achieving its second consecutive crown and fourth overall. This nation of 60 million people has gone crazy ever since. The celebration reached a raucous peak when the team embarked on a recent four-day tour of the country.
“Unity,” is how Maureen Mampuru, 43 years old and black, described the impact of the victory for the Country—a description echoed by Martin Peens, 60 years old and white; Jacqui Vermaak, 56, white; and Happy Mthethwa, 40 years old and black.
On October 28, after South Africa claimed a tense 12-11 victory over New Zealand, celebrations broke out across the country.
“It’s about more than just rugby,” said Francois Pienaar, who captained the 1995 South African team that won the first national championship at the Rugby World Cup. “It’s about a nation. It’s about hope. “It is about building a future for everyone in our country.”
At the airport, a white family held a sign that read: “Siya for President,” a reference to Siya Kolisi, whose life reflects freedoms once unavailable to black South Africans. He is the first black captain of the national rugby team, has an interracial marriage, and after the victory posted a video on Instagram of himself and several white teammates chanting a popular Zulu chant that essentially says they are brothers.
“Invictus,” the 2009 Hollywood film, told the story of South Africa’s victory in 1995. At the time, many South Africans were brimming with hope that under a new democracy and a new President, Nelson Mandela, they could achieve shared success. .
However, now the corruption, poor leadership and entrenched disparities of the apartheid era have left the Country struggling with many crises. Electricity is not reliable. Unemployment and crime rates are high. Race continues to determine where many people live and their experiences in school.
“We really hope this doesn’t end with a little celebration for a week,” Kolisi said. “He needs to do more.”
The ruling African National Congress, a once-vaunted liberation movement that has shouldered much of the blame for South Africa’s current struggles, wasted no time trying to capitalize politically on the victory ahead of next year’s national elections. President Cyril Ramaphosa gave a nationally televised address in which he congratulated the team before going through a list of his government’s achievements and then declaring December 15 a public holiday.
But the day after the final, power outages to relieve the overburdened power grid returned for the first time in 10 days.
When a security guard was asked if he had watched the game, he flashed an exasperated smile. His neighborhood in a predominantly black township had been without power for two weeks, so he could only listen on his phone.
But it didn’t matter. South Africa was number one in the world in something and that made him happy.
By: JOHN ELIGON
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6975588, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-11-08 18:30:07
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