South Africa Wins Rugby World Cup. Rugby football, a sport enjoyed by the white elite in South Africa during the era of apartheid (rigid racial separation), in 1995 became the unlikely common cause of both black and white South Africans. . South Africa Wins Rugby World Cup As the South African team took the field to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup, it accomplished something that had rarely been seen in that country before. It created a place where blacks and whites--even if for a fleeting moment--could stand shoulder-to-shoulder in support of the same cause. Rugby, a sport that above all others had embodied South Africa's racially divided past, set a surprising example for what could be a more just future. Team member Nick Mallot summed up the event this way in Sports Illustrated: "Rugby--this great, stupid, odd, confused game--[has] given us its best attribute: its ability to unite different characters and groups and create respect, affection, and unity." Few who witnessed South Africa's victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup could overstate its significance. With the eyes of the world trained on Johannesburg, the nation demonstrated not only its great athletic advances but also its progress toward racial harmony. Even more stunning than the events on the field were the events in the grandstands and on the streets. Blacks and whites sang together, waved flags together, drank together, and celebrated together. For a few weeks in May and June, it seemed as though apartheid, South Africa's policy of racial segregation, had been nothing but a dream--or rather, a nightmare that everyone had chosen to forget. Rugby, which was invented in England in 1823 and played in British spheres of influence throughout the world, had developed a particularly deep stronghold in South Africa. Until a loss to New Zealand in 1956, South Africa reigned as the unofficial world champions for six decades. Like virtually every other statesanctioned activity, rugby was the exclusive domain of the country's minority white population. The government went so far as to ban schools from teaching the sport to black children. Whites, on the other hand, received the finest training, equipment, and facilities that money could buy. In recent decades, however, South Africa became unable to show off its national team's increasing prowess, because it was banned from official international competition. Ironically, the oppression of blacks at home was limiting the participation of South Africa abroad. Apartheid's abolition in the early 1990s opened the door for South African whites to compete in the third quadrennial Rugby World Cup. Ratcheting up the stakes a good deal was the location of the tournament: Ellis Park in Johannesburg. The government's sponsorship of a sport viewed by blacks as racism incarnate caused no small degree of trepidation. A few months earlier, rugby fans attending a match against Australia had energetically ignored a request by President Nelson Mandela that they not unfurl South Africa's apartheid-era flag or sing the former national anthem. The display rankled blacks, many of whom protested the World Cup's impending arrival in Johannesburg. Perhaps no one despised the racial divisiveness of rugby more than Mandela himself. While imprisoned at Robben Island, where he was held for 18 of his 27 years as a political prisoner, he goaded white guards by rooting for whoever opposed the national team, the Springboks (named for an indigenous gazelle). A year after his election as president of the new South Africa and just a few weeks before the World Cup, Mandela saw through his dilemma. He realized that a symbolic act could resonate in the world of sports, a highly symbolic environment. A few days before the opening match, according to Sports Illustrated, Mandela met with the team, put on a Springboks cap, and told the players, "The whole nation is behind you." He went on television and urged the people to "back our boys." Standing next to him, team captain François Pienaar pledged to win the championship "for our president." Mandela took his message to the streets, reported Sports Illustrated, telling a black crowd in Ezakheni township, "This cap does honor to our boys. I ask you to stand by them because they are our kind." A speech in a white neighborhood left the crowd chanting, "Nelson! Nelson! Nelson!" Mandela's call for unity was heard loudly and clearly. The Sowetan newspaper explained the rules of the game to its black readership. A headline blared, "Our Springboks." Team members learned the new national anthem, "Nkosi Sikelel'i Afrika" (God Bless Africa). The Springboks even adopted as their theme song, "Shosholoza," a ballad sung by black workers. On the eve of opening day the team requested a tour of Robben Island. More than 60,000 people at Ellis Park--including a jersey-clad Mandela--watched the Springboks score an unlikely first-round victory over Australia, winners of the previous World Cup in 1991. Few sightings of the former national flag were reported. In the neighboring black township of Soweto, residents watched the game on television, even though the Springboks' first and only black player, Chester Williams, was sidelined with an injury. "The good has all been done," retired star player Naas Brotha told Sports Illustrated after the 27-18 triumph. "It brought the whole country together. It doesn't matter what we do the rest of the way." Brotha's comment didn't stop the Springboks from advancing to the final match with a 19-15 win over France. The last day of the World Cup found South African archbishop Desmond Tutu, the legendary crusader against apartheid, watching television in an Irish bar in San Francisco, California. Across the globe Mandela wore his green number 6 Springboks jersey--the same as Pienaar--to Ellis Park. The game, against New Zealand's All-Blacks, was being broadcast throughout South Africa in the country's 11 official languages. Souvenir vendors blanketed Johannesburg. The highly favored New Zealand squad was a young, aggressive unit known for its old-fashioned, attacking style of play. In six previous games New Zealand had registered 41 "tries," or running scores, more than triple South Africa's output. Several All-Blacks, however, were suffering from food poisoning and not playing at 100 percent. Backed by a rambunctious crowd of 62,000 and the moral support of an entire nation, the Springboks used their swarming defense to halt New Zealand, 15-12. Marking one of the finest moments of the early postapartheid era, Mandela handed the World Cup championship trophy to Pienaar. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
