The Reality of the Rainbow Nation: 16 Years after Apartheid, South Africa Fights for Its Future

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The same applies to many black football fans, including those in Port Elizabeth on the southern coast, a one-and-a-half hour flight from Johannesburg. The streets of the Indian Ocean port city are empty by 10 p.m., and the brightly painted downtown area near the harbor seems completely abandoned. Magnificent beaches extend along the entire Nelson Mandela Bay, where white retirees from all over the world stroll in the morning.

Here, one can encounter people like the sprightly retiree from the German city of Kleve who immigrated to South Africa 41 years ago and still has a subscription to the German car magazine Auto, Motor und Sport, who loves football but wouldn't think of going to the local World Cup stadium, because watching the matches on television is so much more comfortable.

In South Africa, Port Elizabeth is usually referred to as "PE." The region has become a center for the auto industry, and Volkswagen has a large plant there. Seen from the water, it is a typical New World-style city, with wooden seaside houses along the boardwalk, and establishments like the Blue Waters Café, where white children wearing white outfits sit outside, eating white sandwiches. It is an eerie place.

Festive Mood

Blacks are in the majority in the downtown neighborhoods. The inner city climbs the steep hills rising up from the coast. Every house has a view of the ocean, but the seaside neighborhoods aren't the real Port Elizabeth. That part of the city lies farther back, in the hinterlands, covered with enormous, densely populated apartheid-era townships. This is where the people live who will not see PE's new World Cup stadium from the inside, not because it's too dangerous for them to go there, but because it's too expensive.

This crass divide could deprive the World Cup of a great deal of enthusiasm and flair, as a visit to a match between the Orlando Pirates and a visiting club, Als Puk Tawana, suggests. As a white man in the stands, one is almost alone among thousands of blacks. The league championship matches have already been played, and this match is for the Nedbank Cup, an invitational tournament. Orlando and Tawana are playing to qualify for the quarterfinal. The tickets cost 20 rand, or €2, but even that is too much for many blacks. The stadium is less than half-full.

The 20,000 people who are there make enough noise for 100,000, and after the kickoff, the entire arena begins dancing and tooting horns, particularly when, in the 10th minute, the Pirates shoot their first goal, and then again in the 22nd, the 34th and the 45th minute. The score at halftime is 4-0, and the crowd is already ecstatic over the prospect of victory for the home team. The mood is festive, and the few white fans are readily included. Amid much hand-shaking and thumbs extended jubilantly into the air, football seems to effortlessly connect the two worlds of blacks and whites.

Diminishing the Bad, Bit by Bit

Football also brings together South Africans, but it is quite possible that they don't even realize. On the country's independence day, April 27, the anniversary of the first free elections in 1994, the shopping malls near the sand-colored Nelson Mandela Square, surrounding a bronze statue of a cheerful, many times larger-than-life Mandela, were as busy as usual. Huge models of each of the World Cup balls are on display across from the statue: the 1974 "Telstar," the "Etrusco" from the World Cup in Italy, the "Azteca" and the "Jabulani." Throughout the holiday, many passersby, Indians, Chinese, coloureds, blacks and whites stood in front of the giant balls to be photographed. When placed next to one another, the copies of the photos reveal a "rainbow nation," the members of which ultimately enjoy very similar things, pose for very similar snapshots and could, in fact, feel very comfortable around each other when it comes to watching football, be it in a stadium or on a large screen, without having to be afraid of each other.

But it's very unlikely that this will happen. South Africans live in separate but parallel worlds, and old divides continue to exist, 16 years after the end of apartheid, while new ones are opening up today. Their lives do not revolve around big victories. Rather, they revolve around small steps. For them, the process of increasing the positive and diminishing the negative is a slow and incremental one.

Too Forceful?

On this Sunday in Soweto, 40 days before the kickoff for the World Cup, the negative in South Africa has lost a little ground. At the end of this long day, the surly police officers' operation against two murderers is a success. The detectives apprehend one of the killers at an intersection, and after a few minutes of rough interrogation, he reveals the name of his accomplice, who is soon sitting next to him, his hands and his feet in restraints.

By European standards, one might say the police officers were too forceful. But European standards cannot apply in South Africa, at least not right now.

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• Part 1: 16 Years after Apartheid, South Africa Fights for Its Future
• Part 2: 'The Wind Has Shifted'
• Part 3: The Entrepreneur from the Slums
• Part 4: 'When Things Go Wrong in South Africa, They Really Go Wrong'
• Part 5: Yearning for a Normal Life
• Part 6: Bridging the Divide through Football