South Africa celebrates first Rugby World Cup win under black captain
JOHANNESBURG - In Sakhumzi bar in Johannesburg’s Soweto township, crowds erupted in cheering and singing on Saturday as South Africa’s rugby team triumphed 32-12 over England to win the World Cup in Japan.
The crowd at the Sakhumzi outdoor bar on Vilakazi Street in Soweto, made famous by being the home of two of the most celebrated resisters of apartheid – late former President Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu — reflected the harmonious multiracial society that South Africa still aspires to become.
Mandela had become the country’s first black president the year before, after the first democratic elections brought apartheid to an end. “It means a lot to many South Africans, many Africans. This wasn’t just a win, this win reunited the nation,” said Blaze Zonde, a fan who watched the game on Nelson Mandela Square in Johannesburg’s financial district.
His rise from the poverty of a township in the Eastern Cape province to bring home the cup as captain is a rags-to-riches story many South Africans would love to repeat, as they still grapple with inequalities. In a subtle sign of how much work South Africa still has to do to heal its racial divide, when President Cyril Ramaphosa flew to Japan wearing his green springbok jersey, the government wrote on Twitter that this was in his role of “promoting the unity of the nation”.
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