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June 11 was a truly great day for South Africa. Crystal clear winter skies over Johannesburg and Cape Town heralded perfect conditions for the opening games of the Fifa Soccer World Cup.
Flag-festooned carloads and packed taxis heading for fan parks and stadia, with blasting plastic trumpets, gridlocked one freeway to a standstill as a lone superman ran down the dotted line with a huge South African flag as his cape. South Africa was in a super mood.
Outside Cybar, a little pub in Rondebosch, was a sign: “Fill it. It is here!” I settled down in a packed crowd before a big television screen.
Then Siphiwe Tshabalala cracked that first goal of the tournament. The place erupted. Waitrons and patrons threw arms in the air, screamed, ran out into the near deserted street and blasted the air with vuvuzelas – and hugged and danced and ululated and shouted with unashamed and overwhelming joy.
It was perfectly scripted: a great start to a grand spectacle for our Bafana Republic.
This is an extravagant party that will leave many an expensive white elephant in its wake but, unlike the arms deal that was touted to downstream so many benefits which never materialised, 11 June 2010 was the catalyst – the date the entire nation focused on completing major public works of airports, freeways, and the most fabulous Gautrain.
Visitors expecting to find a radical country living out the stereotypes they read about are astounded by the spectacle of South Africa and how normal we all are! We are not that well-worn package of words which once described us as racially divided, dangerous and politically turbulent.
With whatever dissatisfactions we may individually harbour, we live free; we are financially stable; industry, mining, agriculture and tourism keep us in business; the middle class continues to expand; we have sporting prowess that makes us proud; civil society is robust; we do not have a Robert Mugabe holding us all under the batons of thugs; we are at peace with our neighbours; we are citizens of the world; and we are a proud nation.
Despite the well-cited problems in education, crime, health, housing, energy and a bureaucratic government that awards itself its own tenders, we are surprisingly in very good shape, and we have an edginess in our soul which many of the highly developed countries envy.
The rawness, the close contact with nature, the will to survive and improve, and the awareness now – with the find of a near two-million-year-old common ancestor’s skull near Johannesburg – we have a great spirit of humanity.
Visitors to our country are rewarded by their contact with us. We have gees.
