Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation by John Carlin

Author:John Carlin [Carlin, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Africa, South, Republic of South Africa, Sports & Recreation, Rugby, Sports
ISBN: 9781440634246
Google: TXnD5iuM6DkC
Amazon: 0143115723
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2008-08-13T16:00:00+00:00

Real life carried on regardless. Half a mile away from the World Trade Centre, people were working at offices and factories as usual. A mile farther away, passengers checked in for flights at Johannesburg Airport and airplanes continued to take off and land without interruption. The city bustled on as usual, the traffic lights turned red and green, the coffee shops were full. And Pienaar’s Springboks trained like demons, 375 miles away in Durban, for the game the next day against France.

The ANC had had by now ample reason to say, “Enough is enough, we’re taking the carrot away now and never giving it back.” But they did not. Again Mandela, supported by Steve Tshwete, prevailed, arguing that it was not the Viljoens and Terreblanches and the Von Maltitzes they were appealing to, for they were a lost cause for now, but to the ordinary Afrikaners. Like ordinary people everywhere when a country is poised between war and peace, they put safety and prosperity before ideology, watched what way the wind was blowing, tried to judge which option would best serve the interests of their families. For those people, rugby remained an inducement; taking it away would cause them pain, tempt them to lean closer to the Viljoen camp. Mandela understood that rugby was the opium of apartheid, the drug that dulled white South Africa to what their politicians were doing. It might well be useful to have on hand a drug that could anesthetize white South African minds to the pain of losing their power and privilege.

The game against France, a powerhouse in world rugby against whom South Africa had not been allowed to play in thirteen years, was the proudest moment in François Pienaar’s twenty-six years. Played before an exuberant full house of 52,000, it eclipsed, in the popular imagination, the events at the World Trade Centre twenty-four hours earlier. The game ended in a 20-20 draw, but to Pienaar, and to most of white South Africa, it tasted like victory.

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