The drop kick that healed a rainbow nation

“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

The match was only due to start at 1:30pm but by 12pm, the stadium was already full, the 60,000 spectators buzzing like bees around a blooming flower. The spectators were swimming in a sea of South Africa’s new colourful flag, and the Soweto Gospel Choir’s Shosholoza reverberated, seemingly urging the nation to move forward.  

Desmond sat upright, his jaw clenched, trying to ignore the sideways glances from the white fans nearby. Smells attacked him from all sides — sweat, beer, fish and chips. 

He wasn’t a big rugby fan; in fact, he didn’t like it at all. Growing up, he played football on dirt roads with worn-out deflated balls. Rugby was a white man’s game, and the Springboks were their team. To Desmond it was still a symbol of apartheid, five years after its end. So he supported the All Blacks, for three reasons: the name appealed, they were undoubtedly the best rugby team in the world, and it pissed off the Boers. He also enjoyed the haka. 

Desmond was sitting next to a white man dressed in khaki shorts, a buttoned shirt and a safari hat. They had lived on this land for roughly the same number of years, but did they have a single thing in common?

Desmond smiled as the white man shifted in his seat, his eyes darting around the sea of green and gold — and white and black, though mainly white; most black people couldn’t afford the ticket price. Even so, he’d probably never been this close to so many blacks and coloureds before, terror-stricken no doubt. Every few minutes he put his hand in his pockets — first the right, wallet still safely in place; then the left, car keys still there. Did he feel cheated he had to share this once-in-a-lifetime experience, his beloved Springboks playing in the Rugby World Cup final against their archrivals on home turf, with so many of them?

The stadium echoed with an expectant chatter as the teams warmed up on the field. How can they expect black people to support them when they only have one black player, he wondered as Chester Williams practised his sprints off to one side. All around him Desmond could hear excited Afrikaans jabber, which grated on his ears. 

“Ons gaan hulle ‘n ding of twee wys vandag, boytjies!”

“Kry vir my ook ‘n bier, ’seblief man!”

“My naam is Anton, aangename kennis.” This last statement came from the white man sitting next to Desmond and to his surprise was addressed to him, hand outstretched. A few others looked at them quizzically. 

The Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974, which forced all black schools to use Afrikaans and English in equal measure, came into force when Desmond was at high school. Black people didn’t like this since, as Desmond’s namesake Archbishop Tutu had said, it was the language of the oppressor. And so they revolted. Desmond joined the protest movement that culminated in that fateful rally on 16 June 1976. Desmond, together with his friends, felt a sense of freedom as they walked, chanting “Down with Afrikaans”. But of course the police knew about their planned march and were waiting for them. They set their dogs on them, so the kids protected themselves, killing the dogs. They should have known what would follow; after all, it was no secret that Afrikaners valued their animals’ lives more than they did black peoples’. His friend was one of the first to be shot. 

“What did you say?” Desmond asked. Mandela had said: “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” But the Boers had never tried talking to them in their language. In this melting pot of cultures, would the day ever come when a white man would speak to Desmond in his native Xhosa tongue? Would they from now on talk only head to head, in English? 

“Oh, sorry,” he said in a thick Afrikaans accent. “I’m Anton, nice to meet you.”

“Desmond,” he said, and they shook hands briefly. He kept his eyes on Anton to see if he would wipe his hand on his clothes, but to his surprise he didn’t. 

And then President Nelson Mandela appeared on the field, and wait, was he? Yes, he was wearing a Springbok jersey. Number 6, Francois Pienaar’s — the captain’s — number. Desmond felt a complicated mix of emotions as he saw the country’s first black president and the first democratically elected one of any colour, his hero, the leader of the anti-apartheid movement who spent 27 years in jail, don the shirt of the oppressor with seeming… pride? How could he do it? Intellectually, he knew Mandela was right when he said, “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” But he couldn’t stop himself from drinking the poison. Desmond lost more than one friend and suffered many injustices, but he wasn’t jailed for 27 years. So why couldn’t he also let go and move on? 

The crowd cheered and began chanting “Nelson! Nelson! Nelson!” in deafening unison. Everyone adored this man. Black and white. Did they finally have something in common? 

“Why are you chanting for him?” Desmond asked with genuine interest. 

Anton looked him straight in the eyes, then smiled. “Ja, to be honest, my father couldn’t stand Mandela. During the election campaign my brother and I, we put an ANC poster with Mandela’s face in his room. You know, as a joke. Jislaaik, he was so angry, he didn’t talk to us for weeks. He said he was a dirty terrorist and the country will go to shit. That there will be a civil war and we should get out. But then—” Anton’s voice caught and he paused as he took in the unfolding scene. “Then he just forgave us. For all the hurt. The injustice. Just like that. How can I not cheer for this man?”

A tear formed in Desmond’s eye, and he looked away and dabbed at it subtly with his knuckle. 

Almost kick-off time. The expectance among the crowd was electric and their cheers deafening, but then an even louder sound approached the stadium. Was that a… plane? Yes, a huge plane was headed to the stadium. Would the whole day be spoiled after all by a terrorist attack? It flew impossibly low, and the crowd cheered even louder as they saw it — ‘Go Bokke’ was written underneath. 

It wasn’t too late to switch sides. If Madiba can support them, surely he can too? 

“Come on, Bokke!” Desmond screamed, as Andrew Mehrtens kicked off, and Anton smiled in approval. 

***

When Joel Stransky’s drop goal soared between the posts in extra time, Anton and Desmond leapt to their feet as one, embracing without thinking. As they realised what they’d done, they quickly stepped apart, embarrassed but grinning. 

All they had to do now was hold on for seven more minutes. What was seven minutes? To most people in the crowd, it felt like hours. To the few All Black supporters, mere seconds. 

And then, at long last, after 100 minutes of gruelling play, the final whistle blew. South Africa had won. The crowd went wild, as tears of joy filled the Springboks’ eyes and the All Blacks trudged off the field. South Africa were the world champions of rugby, just three years after being allowed to play again. But this match was never about rugby, was it? 

When the interviewer asked Francois Pienaar how it felt to have the support of 60,000 South Africans, he smiled wryly and said he was mistaken. “We had the support of 43 million South Africans.”

As Desmond left the stadium surrounded by people from all walks of life celebrating with abandon, he wondered if they did after all have a common language — sport and forgiveness. 

And at long last — hope.