"South Africa... much better, brighter and bigger-hearted than you'd think."

                                Cape Town Fan Walk before the semi final. Pic by Jeff Ayliffe.

This month has changed South Africa, I think for good.

Instead of me trying to explain why, I'm going to leave it to the respected English journalist, John Carlin. Believe me he's well qualified. Carlin is the author of 'Playing The Enemy,' an account of how Nelson Mandela used the 1995 Rugby World Cup to win forever the hearts of white South Africans. His book was recently turned into a movie called Invictus, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Morgan Freeman as Mandela and Matt Damon as Springbok captain Francois Pienaar.

I remember Carlin writing for the UK Independent in the late 1980's when I lived in London and I always enjoyed his writing back then. He spent 6 years in South Africa from 1989 to 1995 and saw the beginning of transformation firsthand. He now lives in Barcelona and writes for El Pais. How perfect is this World Cup for him?Not sure how he worked that one, but you must think, well done, well done indeed John Carlin.

His article amounts to a take on the 2010 World Cup and was published in the Weekend Argus and Weekend Star last Saturday. It also appeared on www.news24.co.za. What makes it such a fascinating article is that it is essentially the view of an outsider, albeit an outsider with a thorough understanding of what makes this country tick. It's long but well worth the read......

Yes, South Africa can

July 10 2010 at 08:24AM

By John Carlin

It's been a spectacular success. Everything according to plan, smooth as silk; South Africa successfully re-branded; no unpleasant surprises, and plenty of pleasant ones. 

Not a cheep, for example, out of the ludicrous Julius Malema, who the ANC wisely locked up in the attic, as you do with the mad live-in relative when important guests come around. 

No reports of any new Zuma off-spring, or even wife. As for the bigger and far more important picture, the games all started on time and were broadcast live around the world without a hitch (though I gather there were some power-cut problems in England "mercifully, perhaps" during one of their national team's relentlessly hapless displays). No massacres of foreign visitors, either, as long advertised in the foreign press.

Crime generally seems to have sunk to Swiss levels of innocuousness during South Africa's four-week World Cup honeymoon.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu famously declared on April 27, 1994, the day all South Africans went to vote for the first time: "It's like falling in love!" Well, 16 years later, it was a renewal of the marriage vows; it was South Africa falling in love with itself all over again. 

All those stories, promoted by Fifa, among others, about this being Invictus II, about 2010 being the 1995 rugby World Cup all over again, about healing racial wounds, uniting the fractured nation and so forth, were off the mark. It was much, much better than that.



What we saw was just how united and racially healed South Africa really is, how far we've advanced since the nervy 1990s. The word for what we have seen in these past few weeks is consolidation. Nothing new, these past years, to anyone who has walked about South Africa, done ordinary everyday things, in seeing black and white people getting along just fine. 

All the racial tension stories that surfaced after the death of Eugene Terre'Blanche ("South Africa on the brink of racial war" etc), have been shown to be, as a British friend of mine who knows the country well, succinctly put it the other day, "just so much bollocks".

I've been to watch loads of games at the stadiums, but by far the best memory I take away from the World Cup was the atmosphere at Melrose Arch, in Joburg, during the South Africa-France game. From what I saw there, and from reports of friends and fellow journalists who have taken part in identically joyous events of this kind up and down the country, I'd like to ask a question: "If South Africa is not a united country, then what country is?" 

As I have written in these pages before, the thousands gathered before a big screen at Melrose to watch Bafana Bafana's heroic exit from the competition knew in their hearts that it was a lost cause, that their team would not make it to the second round of the competition. But the solidarity was absolute. People of all colours and religions, in what until not very long ago had been an exclusively white residential area, heaving and swaying and singing, celebrating their common South Africanness with proud, unforced energy: what a blow for the legion of dismal sceptics that flood the opinion pages of this country's newspapers!

Never mind black and white, there were a number of Jewish people with yarmulkes on their heads at Melrose and a number of Muslim men with long beards and Muslim women wearing veils on their heads. Where else in the world would you see such people mingling without tension, their national identities trumping ancient religious divides? Not too many places, believe me.


And the great thing is that the world has got to see all this. The rebranding really has kicked in.


Via 15 000 fellow journalists that have descended on this country (please, don't anyone tell me ever again that the World Cup was a waste of money!), the entire planet has got to see South Africa's best face - in my prejudiced view, the best face in the world.



I have spoken in the past four weeks to journalists from Mexico, El Salvador, the USA, China, India, Britain, Germany, Spain - you name it. The first thing that has surprised them has been the total absence of racial friction. Most of them being white, or white-ish, they concurred that the contacts they had had with black South Africans had been consistently civil, cordial, respectful, good-humoured, even fun. 

As for the panic in their hearts at the prospect of murderous hordes chasing them down dark alleys, the predominant sensation among those who acknowledged they had succumbed to these terrors was embarrassment.

I did a bit of work early on in the competition for a big US television channel, some on-air punditry about South African politics and society. The recording studio was at Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton, just above the big statue of the great man. About 100m away was the television station's tented base of operations. 

  
I and an American producer walked from the studio to the base camp and back half a dozen times. Our trajectory was through a crowded mall. The only potential peril I was aware of was that we might trip on the mechanical escalators and bang our heads. 

But you know what? The television station's rules required that on each of these strolls we should be accompanied by a beefy security guard - a dark-suited Nigerian, in this case. The producer I was with honourably squirmed at the timorousness of his employers. The Nigerian kept a poker-face, but inside he was laughing, all the way to the bank.

Worse was the case of the English journalists covering the England camp. The bus they travelled in always had one security escort in front and one behind; four Afrikaner former police officers or soldiers kept watch on them everywhere they went. 

At first the journalists were not displeased to have them around. I heard that before the World Cup the bosses of one major British newspaper (won't tell which, but it wrote about the looming racial bloodbath following Terre'Blanche's death) had the brilliant idea, in these troubled economic times, of hiring a security consultant to address the South Africa-bound troops. 

A man with a briefcase appeared (presumably working for the same outfit that would later provide the detachment in South Africa) and rattled off the figures for violent crime in the purportedly benighted country, for murder, for rape - not excluding male rape. He put the fear of God into the poor journalists. Four weeks later what they feel is deeply embarrassed. 




Talking of journalists, on a less foolish note, the way Fifa and the Local Organising Committee set up the bureaucracy of accreditation and general facilities was a dream. 

Cleverly aware of how critical we often unsavoury characters would prove in the marketing of South Africa, they set up a wonderfully smooth operation. 

Getting your tickets for games was straightforward and the staff were as cheerful as they were efficient. At the stadium media centres and the press seats the internet connections (journalists' lifeblood these days) were excellent, whether you were in Rustenburg, Bloemfontein or Joburg's Soccer City. 

I covered the World Cup in Japan in 2002: this was incomparably more hassle-free. I heard the same from journalists who covered the World Cup in Germany four years ago.




Oh, and let's not forget the Fan Walk in Cape Town, a two and a half kilometre (2.5km) vaudeville show from the centre of town to that beautifully elegant Coco Chanel hat of a stadium, along which the massed hordes, thousands of children included, were bursting with bonhomie - so much so that for the semi-final on Tuesday the love in the air breathed unexpected life into the sails of old Holland. 

The long-buried historical connection with the Dutch (Jan van Who?) suddenly surfaced in the Mother City in a riot of orange. I went up to one orangeman and woman after another, a number flying Dutch flags, and, to my astonishment, all the ones I spoke to turned out to be South Africans.


 

They were happy Holland won, not least because they avenged Uruguay's unspeakably cruel victory over Ghana. But what they were happiest about was, I think, that they had reclaimed the streets. Save for the odd case of pickpocketing (you get them in Vienna), nothing to fear. 

I have a theory - I actually had it, rather more wishfully, before the World Cup - that the criminal classes would go on a patriotic strike during the tournament, doing their bit for Brand SA. 

Whether that was it, or whether it was a pragmatic calculation that what with the emergence of these swift and severe World Cup courts and the flooding of World Cup venues with the men and women in blue it might be best to keep their heads down, the fact is that the country has been more relaxed and at peace than it has been for a long time - maybe ever.

Actually, to be serious, huge credit has to be given to the police. I came across loads all over the country and they were, without exception, polite and efficient, oozing civic responsibility. One that I met off duty in a bar in Bloemfontein sang me a symphony of racial brotherhood, banging on - in his cups, a little - about how South Africa was a piano. The black and white keys had to play together, he said, or not at all.

Obviously we'll have to see if all this lasts after the World Cup is over. Enough people have vented their views on this already and there is not much more to add. 

Though it will be intriguing to see if the police turn out to be as assiduous in protecting the foreign Africans here, against whom murder and mayhem is threatened (especially in jolly old Cape Town), after the final whistle blows on Sunday night, as they have been in keeping the rather more welcome World Cup visitors safe. We'll have a test case right there of whether it's all been a dream or not. 

Which brings us to the first lesson of this World Cup: the primary purpose of government is to protect its citizens. Well, let's absorb that thought and act on it. Sustain the good work that's been done after the show is over and watch this country go.

The second lesson, not at all unrelated to crime, is that if South Africa really puts its mind to something, it can do it, it can make a plan. Fifa has got a pretty bum rap from people in this country for its autocratic ways, but the Swiss-Germanic rigour that's flowed from Zurich has definitely sharpened up levels of efficiency and organisation round here, not to say - the big South African "d" word - of delivery. 



Someone who works high up in the Local Organising Committee told me how at first it had been a big culture shock to work with these Swiss; they did not understand each other at all. But in time they established a rapport and the fusing of African ebullience with old European discipline ended up doing the job admirably.

The big lesson I take away from all this is one that I already knew but had forgotten, amidst the distracting babble we read about in the press and, hear and see in the broadcast media from the political classes, chatterers and newspaper columnists. 

South Africa is much better, brighter and bigger-hearted than you'd think from paying attention to all that lot. The society is great, and it is the reason why (never mind the safari parks and the fairest Cape) so many of us foreigners who've spent time here find this country more beguiling than any other on Earth. Ordinary people have so much more wisdom, grit, resilience, invention, courage and generosity than you find in most countries.
 

And some of these ordinary people are to be found, for sure, in the ANC. Even in the upper reaches of the government, if you look hard enough. There are the looters, the hypocrites and the frauds, too, as we all know. We can just hope that the experience of the World Cup might have awoken their better angels, brought out the good that lurks in many of them, that sparked their commitment to politics in the first place. 

Failing that, as a friend here says, let's pray that they remain content with taking just five or 10 percent of the national cake, instead of 30 percent or the full damn monty.

Your Julius Malemas - and I use him as a generic term for all that's rotten and silly about the South African political scene - are best ignored. Or rather, friends in the media, try, if you can resist the temptation, not to publish and broadcast what he says. Delve deep, rather, into what he and his like do. 

As for Zuma, he is a nice guy and has many of the best instincts of the best South Africa. The problem is that he lacks gumption and sexual maturity. Not much we can do about the latter, but maybe we can prod him to show a bit of principle and character and lead the ANC back to what it once was, abandoning its lootocratic ways. A leader must not be a jellyfish, said PW Botha. Heed those words, Mr President.

Though, perhaps, he won't. In which case, let's take comfort in the knowledge that the country is, I repeat, bigger and better than the state. 

If the state does not get in the way, if it actually helps, as it has done with this World Cup (notably the policing, but also the building of infrastructure) then great. 

If not, well, South Africans have it in them to make a plan. The big message from this spectacularly successful staging of the greatest show on Earth is that, yes, South Africa can.
 

Now, with more confidence and pride and calm than ever before, get on and do it.

·  John Carlin was the correspondent for the London Independent in South Africa between 1989 and 1995. He has returned to South Africa frequently since then, including nine times in the past 18 months, chiefly to work on television documentaries. He wrote Playing the Enemy, the book on which the Clint Eastwood film, Invictus, is based. The book has been translated into 16 languages, including Spanish and Dutch.

This World Cup really can change South Africa.

I heard someone describe Cape Town this week as a ghost town.

In reality it's no different to how it is any July. Three million people going about their daily lives; schools back; roads busy. But I know exactly what they mean. There's an eerie lack of World Cup in Cape Town, and across the whole country, this week. Nothing seems quite real. There's a kind of numbness about. I can't even feel properly upset at the Springboks losing to the All Blacks this morning, for the second week in a row !



Slowly, the enormity of what we pulled off is settling upon us. Our mood swings from intense pride to a melancholy sense of loss. Mandela's 92nd birthday is tomorrow and most people will be doing their 67 minutes of helping others. It's particularly pertinent this year given how we have got to know each other over the past month..


The best thing about this week has been hearing the World Cup stories of so many South Africans. I knew the World Cup would put this country on the international map but what I underestimated was just how much ordinary South Africans would get swept up in the event. I have yet to speak to even one person who was not deeply moved by what happened this past month.

This is the story of one Afrikaans family who sent their story in to Kfm radio station this week;

Hi
The Schreuder family just had one of our most amazing months ever. To truly appreciate how big the world cup impacted our lives you need to understand that we are a very conservative Afrikaans family who passionately follows rugby and cricket. Until the world cup, we have never watched a full soccer game together before. With the build up to the event my wife and kids was not too excited and did not expect it to be too big a deal....



Wow, were they wrong.


I literally cried when Bafana did not go through after playing so well against Mexico and France. Still they can keep their heads high and be proud. They should also know that going forward they will always have the Schreuders from Durbanville screaming at the top of their lungs whenever they play.

The Schreuder family on the Fan Mile in Cape Town.

We realized that we had to now pick a new team to support. We had a 50/50 split in our house with the girls supporting Germany and the boys backing Argentina. So we had to do the fan mile with the kids. We also made use of public transport to get there, which was another first for the Schreuders. What a great experience. The fan mile was pumping for the Argentina Germany game, with complete strangers stopping us to take pictures with us and especially our kids, who my wife transformed into
little works of art. We will never forget the vibe and the camaraderie we experienced that day.

Now it is all over, but our lives have been changed by this wonderful event and we will never be the same. If you have any doubts, have a look at this.... to see how sport can change the world.

Schreuder son with new friends on the Fan Mile.


Regards,
The Schreuders from Durbanville

11 July - The Final - Soccer City - Spain vs Netherlands

Spain reign as the Dutch get all butch....


So that, ladies and gents, is that. Match number 16, the biggest of them all and most certainly the biggest event I've ever been to.

I had to shake my head in disbelief a  few times. You keep saying to yourself  "I'm at the World Cup Final" but it's hard to really take it all in.



Joburg was buzzing on Sunday morning. We went down to Nelson Mandela Square for breakfast and the atmosphere was electric. Dutch and Spanish fans trying to outsing each other and a real sense of something huge happening.



Then on to Gold Reef City to while away a couple of hours in the early afternoon. It was deserted and very eerie. The kids got to ride everything they wanted witout any queues but eventually the quiet became too much. This was World Cup Final day and we needed noise. A quick hop to Soccer City (we were there by 4pm) and the goosebumps started to make their appearance. Thousands of Dutch fans were camped outside the ground having their own party with their own stage and their own dj.



One of the wonderful things about a World Cup Final is how the nations of the world are represented. It's considered proper form to wear the colours of your country.......... even if they didn't qualify. So of course I wore my Irish shirt while the rest of the family wore Bafana shirts.

The closing ceremony really was as good as it looked on tv. I was following a BBC website on my phone while sitting in the stadium. They sugegsted, tongue-in-cheek, that the only reason the stadium was full for the ceremony was because Shakira was appearing. The BBC probably don't realise how close they were to the truth given the immense popularity of the Colombian superstar and her World Cup anthem 'Waka Waka.'



While waiting for the game to start I sms'ed a contribution to the BBC site........"From John, an Irishman living in SA.....I watched my first World Cup Final on TV in 1978 when Argentina beat Netherlands. Have always dreamt of going to a final since then. I'm writing this from the stand at Soccer City. Am so proud of what this country has achieved over the past 4 weeks. There might be a few tears shed tonight."


And there were. The closing ceremony was spectacular and the appearance of Mandela was the real highlight.

What chance did the actual game have after that? Even less once it became clear that the Dutch were going to try and kick their way to victory. Not a classic by any means but not as bad as people are making out. Apart from the last 20 minutes of the first half chances were being created on a regular basis, mostly for Spain, but not exclusively. I do think the referee was too quick to hand out the first couple of yellow cards. It just raised the temperature from what was already boiling point.


So, a disappointing game, but, in truth, it's been some time since we've had an exciting World Cup Final. I would say France-Brazil in 1998 was the last quality final and even that wasn't brilliant. Before that you have to go back to Argentina-Germany 1n 1986. But thank God it didn't go to penalties. That really would have been a pity for everyone except the Dutch.

At Soccer City you have a brilliant view no matter where you are sitting and I am proud to say that I saw live a goal that won a World Cup. It really was like watching it in slow motion. Iniesta looked odds on to score as soon as he got the ball. In the precise moment that I saw the net bulge I knew immediately the enormity of this strike.

To watch the Spanish celebrate there and again 5 minutes later when the final whistle went was so gratifying. To watch the Netherlands players crumple and collapse was heartbreaking.

Which is why the World Cup is as big as it is. One single shot  means a lifetime of regret for one and immortality for another.


My kids got up at 6.30 this morning to go back to school . It was dark and exceptionally cold. I think they were completely shellshocked. The contrast with the last 5 weeks is so huge it's disorientating. Which is how the whole country is feeling today. It'll take us all a few days to readjust but nobody's really complaining. Successful people recover quickly and it's abundantly clear after the last 5 weeks that South Africans are particularly successful people !

6 July - Cape Town - Netherlands vs Uruguay

Let The Squid Earn You Quids

Paul the Octopus has got nothing to do with this article, but relevance should never stop you using a good headline when you think of it.



Semi Final slideshow


On to matters in hand. I sat down tonight to write about Tuesday's semi final in Cape Town. I had just written such a long article on the occasion and how I admired Uruguay even though they knocked out both Bafana and Ghana. This article spoke of Uruguay's penchant for 20-year gaps in World Cups....winning in 1930 and 1950; semi finalists in 1970 and 2010; and last 16 in 1990.

I also spoke about how Uruguay have given similarly-ranked countries like Ireland hope. If they can reach the semi finals then so, perhaps, can we.

I then went on to remark how aggressive I found the Uruguay supporters outside the stadium after their defeat. What had really impressed me was how the South African Police intervened and prevented a flare-up. They remained calm and avoided antagonising the supporters. This is apparently attributable to the training they received from the French riot police. Nice to know that the French brought at least one useful thing to this World Cup.

Finally I praised Cape Town and the wonderful job this city has done in hosting 8 World Cup matches. Everything about the Cape Town experience has been magnificent ! That's according to the visitors (by all accounts). The fan walk was a revelation, the stadium was world class and the city in general was just one big happy party for the past 4 weeks.

Much, much more important is what this last month has done for the people of this city. It's incalculable. This World Cup has produced a fundamental shift in how we see ourselves and each other. Let's give FIFA credit for insisting on Green Point as a location, and let's not forget the names Arthur Wienburg and CEPA (Cape Town Environmental Protection Agency) who almost succeeded in scuppering the building of the stadium in their own narrow interests. I would love to know if Arthur and his mates walked the fan walk or did they actually stick to their principles and stay indoors for the past month ?



Anyway, I wrote all of this, and then pressed some new button on my laptop that deleted it all. So this is just the summary.

Let me finish by pinching myself because, in less than 2 days, I will be attending a World Cup Final. You might attempt to argue that the Olympics, as an entire event, rivals the World Cup in scale. But when it comes to a single sporting event the World Cup Final is untouchable. Think of the biggest event you've ever been to and then multiply it by 100.

I remember being captivated by those old FIFA World Cup documentaries that always showed the early-morning streets of the host city on World Cup Final morning. And I always thought how much I wanted to be there. Ok, in truth, I always imagined a final with Ireland in it but, as fantasies go, the notion of waking up in Johannesburg this Sunday morning is close enough for me. A World Cup Final is still a World Cup Final even if your true favourite isn't there.

 Time to savour now. Will report back on Monday. Oranje Boven, Zondag. (Tx Des.)

Letter from South Africa.....July 2010

This is a letter which a colleague of mine wrote to his uncle in London this week. Sums up the mood quite well I thought........ 

I thought that I’d take some time out to tell you a bit about what it’s been like having the World Cup in South Africa. The first few months of 2010 were ones that were filled with much indignation as people sent around clippings from British tabloids and the German press peppered with some choice comments from other countries, all amounting to the same thing namely that the 2010 World Cup was not one to attend. Some of the more amusing ones that I read included threats of death by strangulation courtesy of Africa’s fearsome rock pythons, the others – a little more serious – played up threats of social instability, crime, the lack of preparedness by South Africa’s police services and countless other reasons not to come to South Africa. 

Last Wednesday I sat in the barber’s alongside a German tourist who commented how his friends thought he was crazy to come. He had travelled the country and was loving his experience. Today our news bulletins carried comments from tourists, all of whom raved about the experiences that they’d had in SA. Their stories all echoed a theme that I have heard echoed in bars, restaurants, in media interviews and overheard on trains namely that everyone who came loved the country, loved its people and were having a great time. My German tourist friend commented that he could not believe how different the country was to what he had been told it would be like. It has been so gratifying to read press from around the world that has been unequivocally complimentary. The sniping and the negativity has disappeared and some have even been gracious enough to be publically apologise for their earlier scepticism. Once again South Africa has proved the world wrong and it has been great to be here whilst we’ve done it in such style.

Some of our more left wing press has moaned that the World Cup is a strictly middle-class experience and to be sure the cost of the tickets has meant that it has been beyond the reach of many South Africans, yet the ivory tower commentators have missed the point. On the opening day of the World Cup, my building was woken up at around 03h00 by the security guard trumpeting on his vuvuzela. When asked why, he shrugged his shoulders and said “The World Cup is here”. We smiled wryly and went back to bed. The entire country has been galvanised by this spirit. Some provincial governments chose to buy thousands of tickets to send poorer South Africans to the games. Some have dismissed this gesture as being of the ‘let the people eat cake’ variety. I disagree, I think that it was an inspired gesture to let all in the country experience what greatness we are capable of when we put our minds to it.

Two days before that our company, together with the Football Association had arranged a ticker tape parade for Bafana Bafana, the national squad. Originally envisaged as a bit of a parade for a few hundred people, it brought Sandton – SA’s financial district – to a halt for a few hours as tens of thousands of people flocked to support their team. All the spectators were dressed in the national kit and blew fiercely on their vuvuzelas. Thato’s firm, a conservative law firm in Sandton, stopped work for a few hours and braaied boerewors. The week before all the partners had learnt the Diski Dance, a complicated dance that was meant to be the SA equivalent of the Mexican Wave. As it turned out the vuvuzela blew away all that stood before it. Be that as it may, the sight of suited lawyers blowing plastic trumpets is probably not one that could be replicated in many countries around the world. Indeed, an Irish colleague of mine kept saying “Only in South Africa is this possible”.

That night the opening concert was held in Soweto. In addition to many global mega-stars, the Arch-Bishop Desmond Tutu made a guest appearance. Again, my colleague’s words echoed in my mind – where else on earth would you have a 80-something year old Bishop dancing up and down on stage? Only South Africa! The outpouring of support for Bafana reverberated around the country that night and I eventually gave up trying to sleep and wandered down to Long Street – a mere two blocks from my city loft and the heart of Cape Town’s party district. I sent an sms to multiple friends saying “My God, we might have just have f*(&)@#(d up the world” because wherever I looked was a tourist handing a vuvuzela to a South African asking “How does this work?” For the remainder of the World Cup I have seen the most hilarious vuvu blowing competitions as locals and visitors take each other on to demonstrate their prowess. It seems that no vuvu blow can go unanswered and any innocent blast triggers a cacophony of answering blasts. Vuvuzela blowing has turned out to be a team sport as big and as competitive as the soccer itself.  I have no doubt that it is going to echo across the world for years to come.

I have two favourite memories of vuvuzela blowing. My absolute favourite is of Thato’s two year old niece wielding a vuvuzela as long as she is tall and blowing it with complete aplomb. Children throughout the country have taken to it as a way of terrorising and impressing their less competent elders. A close second is of Os du Randt, a Springbok rugby legend attempting it. For a 6 ft 4, 120 kilo man he produced a rather feeble squeak – still he did it in good spirit and, in doing so, encapsulated the spirit that has infused this World Cup – one of being willing to give it a try, to create a smile, to be a little silly, all with aim of making it more fun for all of us.

Last weekend Thato and I were lucky enough to be invited to the Argentina-Mexico game at Soccer City. What a stadium !  Designed to look like a giant calabash it seats over 90,000 spectators. It is a behemoth that dominates the landscape for miles around. It radiates in the rich coppers and browns that define so much of Gauteng’s landscape. Our game experience was seamless, smooth, untroubled, world-class. It was twelve years since I’d been to Soccer City. The transformation was such that it might just as well have been in a different country in a different century. Indeed, it feels in many respects like South Africa has fast-forwarded into a new world. It is now possible for me to hop on a bus a few hundred meters from my flat, be whisked to the airport and arriving in Johannesburg I can catch a train that will have me at my office in central Sandton in a mere 15 minutes. It is like the Heathrow-London connection – only a little cleaner J Indeed one Brit commented ‘you can smell how new the concrete is’. The transport systems are more integrated than they’ve ever been and certainly are now at a level that they are world-class.

Of course the World Cup has had it’s sad moments – the biggest of them caused by Uruguay. First their 3-0 thrashing of Bafana ensured that despite valiant games against France and Mexico we did not advance to the round of 16. Second, and even more devastatingly, was their victory over Ghana. I watched the game with dozens of passionate Africans, most of whom could not hide their tears at the end of the match. It just did not feel fair to lose in such a cynical way. I spent most of Saturday sulking determined to ignore the World Cup, but once again the Pied Piper trumpeting of the vuvuzela was too alluring to resist and I headed out onto the streets. I am so glad that I did. It was a clear winter’s day and tens of thousands of people flocked along the fan walk. Every few hundred meters there were musicians playing South African tunes and the vibrancy was incredible. I walked to the Waterfront were over 150,000 had congregated to watch the game in various venues and then walked back to Greenmarket Square to catch the rest of the game. I guess that’s the joy of a city like Cape Town that you can walk to the stadium in back in about 35 minutes and be surrounded on all sides by gorgeous greenery, mountains and the ocean. It was a special walk and wherever I looked where jubilant fans framed by one of the world’s most beautiful city-scapes.

Tomorrow is the first of the semi-finals. I hope that the Netherlands humiliates Uruguay. I am not alone, there are about 1 billion African who feel the same way. Sunday is the final of the World Cup but hopefully not the end for us. The World Cup has been a success but it is the culmination of 16 years of hard work by South Africans. We are all too often in the headlines for the wrong reasons, because of crime, corruption and stupid statements by silly people. 

All of that serves to obscure the enormity of that which we’ve achieved as a nation. Achievements that have accrued over the past decade and a half and have laid the foundations for the success that we’ve achieved over the past 4 weeks. This time around our success was not a miracle. It is a culmination of hard work by dedicated and passionate people. It is the end point of work that took a country that was collapsing under debt with failing infrastructure and teetering at the brink of civil war to a country that can host the biggest media spectacle in the world and do so successfully. More importantly it has done so in a way that is uniquely South African, in a way that has left the world a little more rowdy than it was before but with a lot more joy, a lot more belief in the power of humanity, in power of Africans to shape their own destiny. This has been my World Cup experience.

Love,

Karl

3 July - Cape Town - Argentina vs Germany

Best Day of the World Cup So Far !

This is easily the largest slideshow we've uploaded so far, but have a look and I hope you'll see why. Today was match day 14 for us and it was by far and away our best experience to date. Forget the football. I don't love the German football team, never have, so the fact that I feel elated at the end of this day just shows what an unbelievable show the Mother City put on today.

This was a remarkable day for Cape Town. I've lived here for 13 years and I have never seen a day like this before.  There were 64 000 people inside Cape Town Stadium today but I swear there were 500 000 on the fan walk. People on our train gasped in awe when someone announced that they had a ticket for the match. I reckon that 80% of those on the train were just coming into town to experience the vibe. Just getting on a train was a miracle. In the end the trains didn't even bother stopping at stations because they were just too full.

I have never seen so many smiles and so little irritability, despite some serious queues and crowds. The weather was benign and it would seem that half of Cape Town decided that today was the day to get out and celebrate just how good the people of this country feel about what has gone down over the past 3 weeks.



To think that FIFA were worried about South Africans losing interest after Bafana Bafana were knocked out ! That might be the case when a developed country like Germany or England hosts the World Cup but you simply cannot overestimate what hosting the World Cup has meant to the people of this country. In a blog post written 6 months ago I said that "South Africa was waiting like a neglected child for our chance to shine."

Truth comes in action, not words. Over the last 23 days South Africa has shone like the vibrant and utterly capable country it truly is. Since 19th June I have driven  6500 km's on one of the best road networks in the world; I have slept and dined at world class accommodation facilities; I've successfully posted video, audio and words on the internet from every small town I've been through, and I have seen a police presence like none I've ever witnessed anywhere else in the world.

The success of this World Cup is not that the world has finally seen us for what we are, but rather that we have finally seen ourselves for what we are.

Perversely, I almost think that this World Cup really took off for South Africans when Bafana Bafana were knocked out. We were freed of the anxiety of worrying about things we couldn't control, and we were freed up to focus on the things we could control......like making sure stadiums were full, like making foreigners feel welcome, and like making sure that this World Cup will be remembered as the noisiest and most vibrant in history.

Which brings me back to Germany, hosts of the 2006 tournament. It will be a travesty if the nation who so openly criticised the decision to give the 2010 World Cup to South Africa actually wins the damn thing in this country. Please don't forget what Uli Hoeness and Franz Beckenbauer said about our ability to host the event. (You can see what they said in one of my earliest posts back in Jan or Feb of this year.)  In effect the message was; Togo team gets attacked at African Cup of Nations in Angola....therefore Africans can't be trusted to organise a World Cup. This, from the country who hosted the most disastrous Olympics of all time in 1972 when 11 Israelis were kidnapped from the Olympic Village (and eventually murdered.)

This is a very good German team who have inflicted defeats of cataclysmic proportions on both England and Argentina but it's  also an arrogant team. Captain Philip Lahm had quite a bit to say about how the English had under-prepared for their Bloemfontein match-up. He then went one better by describing South Americans as emotional and bad losers. Nothing like a good racial stereotype when you're trying to play mental games in the build-up to a World Cup Quarter Final. But perhaps the Germans should pay heed to the enormous damage racial stereotypes have played in the sorry history of  the country hosting this World Cup.  Perhaps they should also pay heed to their own sorry history before throwing racial stereotypes around so casually.


I sincerely hope that Spain turn them over on Wed night. Germany have scored 4 goals on 3 occasions in this World Cup and that fact alone is screaming 'World Champions.'  In Spain's favour, however, is the fact that they haven't really caught alight, yet they're in the semi-finals. There's a sense that they could still catch fire , a bit like Italy in 1982. Plus, they did demolish Germany 3-0 in the final of Euro 2008.

However, the most intriguing reworking of World Cup history involves Germany beating Spain on Wed night...and then facing The Netherlands in the final. The 1974 World Cup Final in Munich is legendary mainly because one of the most talented teams ever seen on the world stage (Holland) were beaten by an efficient and workmanlike German team, 2-1. Could 11 July in Johannesburg see the roles reversed ? A highly talented and precocious German team being beaten by a solid, efficient and unspectacular Dutch outfit ?

Only 7 countries have ever won the World Cup. I really hope that, next Sunday, we see an 8th country join that list. There are no more worthy contenders for that honour than Spain or The Netherlands.