This will be South Africa's second World Cup. The first was much smaller than the impending football jamboree. But the 1995 Rugby World Cup was an extraordinary affirmation of the country's recent transition to democracy, celebrated joyously with the host nation's victory. More important than the result was the masterful moment of reconciliation politics in which Nelson Mandela appeared in the shirt of the South African captain François Pienaar, acknowledging that the newly empowered majority had embraced the game of apartheid, that we were now "one nation, one team". This was the apex of "rainbow nation" symbolism, a new democracy brimming with hope and promise. The country that will host the 2010 Fifa World Cup has lost this illusory lustre.
For though a post-apartheid South Africa will always be an improvement on its racist, oppressive precursor, Mandela, the man-myth, has been replaced by Jacob Zuma, an all-too-human leader whose corruption and rape trials have inflicted permanent damage. Zuma's ineffective leadership of a divided African National Congress party and government has done little to suggest he might yet meaningfully address the huge challenges facing South Africa. The latest UNDP Human Development Index figures rank South Africa 129th out of the UN's 182 member states. The difference between this measure and the country's GDP, as well as its Gini coefficient score, make it the world's most unequal country, a worse position than before the dawn of democracy.
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