JOHANNESBURG: South Africa brimmed with pride and anticipation Thursday on the eve of the first World Cup on African soil as the nation’s icon Nelson Mandela said the tournament would bridge racial divides.
While the last of the 32 competing teams flew in, the Rainbow Nation was caught up in a wave of euphoria not seen since the demise of the whites-only apartheid regime and Mandela’s election 16 years ago.
As blasts of the ear-splitting vuvuzela horns echoed around town, flag sellers who set up stalls by traffic lights struggled to keep pace with demand and even police officers wore jackets in South Africa’s national colors.
After tens of thousands thronged Johannesburg’s streets Wednesday to cheer on the Bafana Bafana (the Boys) national side in an open-top bus, it was the turn of Cape Town to join the party.
"We came here to feel the vibe with the rest of Africa. Just to be here — it’s like an experience of a lifetime," said Marks Louw, 23, as he arrived for a street festival in the city centre complete with bands and a light display.
The front-page of the Citizen proclaimed "Bafana Mania!" while an editorial in the same paper said the outbreak of patriotism in a country still struggling to escape a history of racial segregation could only be a force for good.
"For one brief shining moment we can forget the problems that beset the country and hopefully build on the enthusiasm and patriotism sweeping the land," it said.
In The Star newspaper even the cookery pages were caught up in the excitement, including a recipe for chocolate brownies with tequila sauce in a nod to South Africa’s challengers Mexico in Friday’s opening match.
"South Africans are late believers but once they believe, they are fanatical believers," said Danny Jordaan, the chief executive of the local organizing committee, at a final pre-tournament session with reporters.
As international artists such as Shakira and the Black Eyed Peas prepared to take to the stage at the historic Orlando stadium in Soweto, the township’s most famous ex-resident welcomed a new chance to combat prejudice.
"The 2010 World Cup is more than just a simple game," Mandela, the country’s first black president, said in a message to football’s governing body FIFA.
"It symbolizes the power of football to bring people together regardless of their language, color of their skin, their politics or religion."
Ever since it became the first African nation to win the right to stage the tournament six years ago, South Africa has had to fend off claims that its high crime rate, lack of infrastructure and rudimentary public transport rendered it an unsuitable choice.
Work at the 10 host stadiums finished on time while World Cup infrastructure projects are up and running, including Africa’s first high-speed rail link.
But a labour dispute by pubic sector workers was looming after salary talks between unions representing some 1.3 million state employees and the government reached a deadlock.
And the spectre of crime continued to stalk visitors, with a Chinese TV crew among the latest victims robbed at gunpoint and a spokesman for Greece revealing 1,500 euros in cash had been stolen at the team hotel.
In northeastern South Africa, two British tourists were killed and around 20 injured when their overland truck crashed.
Some 300,000 foreign fans are expected in South Africa for the tournament. Organizers said VIPs at Friday’s opener would include US Vice President Joe Biden, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.
Thursday night’s concert at Orlando stadium should also attract tens of millions of television viewers.
The venue is home to the Orlando Pirates, one of the oldest South African football teams which was a symbol of the fight against apartheid.
One of the bloodiest episodes of the 1976 Soweto uprising came when police opened fire at a crowd of thousands who were marching towards the stadium in protest at laws forcing schoolchildren to learn Afrikaans.
