All eyes on South Africa

It’s here. After six years of waiting, doubting and scepticism, it is finally here. The decision to award South Africa the right to host the 2010 Fifa world cup was always going to be met with some disapproval. Not just because it was the first tournament to be held in the African continent but also because of the rocky history of the country itself. Despite expectations riding heavily on the shoulders of the countries taking part, they are lucky as it is only a game. Not so long ago in apartheid South Africa, men and women were prepared to die for a cause and sport was dragged into the centre of the storm.

Throughout the twentieth century, racism was embedded heavily in South African society; the continent itself had been the dominion of European countries. For the white minority in South Africa, black majority rule was a frightening prospect as they feared a similar situation to Zimbabwe, a loss of governance of land and the country they lived in.

Under the apartheid policy, enforced by the government from 1948 right through to 1994, whites and non-whites were segregated in all aspects of life. Non-whites were deprived of citizenship and were provided with services that were far inferior to those that were provided for the whites. To call this policy barbaric is an understatement and the tension the apartheid policy caused amongst the whites and non-whites were also catastrophic. Sport in the country was also heavily affected with the apartheid laws affecting how sport was conducted within the country as whites and non-whites could not play together.

Basil D’Oliveira was one such sportsman affected by the apartheid movement. Born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, D’Oliveira played cricket and was hugely talented but because he was classed as coloured he was not allowed to play first class cricket for South Africa. Instead he moved to England in 1960 and played first class cricket for Worcestershire until eventually gaining his British citizenship in 1964 going on to play test cricket for England in 1966. In 1968 D’Oliveira looked odds on for a place in the test team that was to tour South Africa later on that year after a successful test against Australia but under pressure from the South African government the England selectors dropped him. Ironically, the man called up in place of D’Oliveira suffered a tour ending injury leaving the already embarrassed MMC to pick D’Oliveira. The inclusion of D’Oliveira outraged the South African prime minister and the MCC agreed to cancel the tour in what was seen as a pivotal moment between sport and politics in the apartheid movement.

South Africa started to ease on apartheid in sport in the 1970’s and 80’s as they realised that they could not get away with it anymore. Black golfer, Lee Elder was allowed to compete in the Johannesburg open in 1971 and Errol Tobias became the first black person to play a test for the springbok’s rugby side in 1981. While integration, however big or small, was taking place in sport the social aspect of the apartheid movement in South Africa was still the same. Even after the policy’s end in 1994 tensions remained high between whites and non-whites despite the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as the country’s first black president and his calls for unity.

The first test of social unity within South Africa post apartheid was the rugby world cup in 1995 which they hosted and won. It may be said that it proved that the apartheid era was over by that point but social factors were still certainly prevalent and have been in South Africa despite the apartheid movement being well and truly over.

While South Africa may have hosted numerous cricket and rugby matches, the opportunity of hosting the world cup is on a truly different scale as it will play host to the second biggest sporting event on the planet. It is a chance to show how far they have come in the 16 years since the end of the apartheid era. It is a chance to show how much the social barriers have been broken in the country and to show how capable a continent Africa as a whole is. The slogan for this world cup is Ke nako which translates as celebrate Africa’s humanity. Hopefully the world will be left celebrating this long after the tournament.