EDITORIAL: Thank you, to the victorious Springbok team of 2019 who gave us something to cheer about.
Neverland is a fictional place made famous in the works of JM Barrie. It is a faraway place, where Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, the Lost Boys and other mythical creatures reside. Although not everyone who went to Neverland ceased to age, its most famous resident refused to grow up.
And yet, in the euphoria of our Rugby World Cup victory last weekend it is exactly this notion that has been trotted out again. The rainbow nation, made famous in the works of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, bless his heart, has never existed outside of the nomenclature of the industrial nation-building complex. It has always been an ambition, not a reality lived by the 60-odd million people living in this country.
And yes, we have to admit that this particular World Cup victory does feel different to that other Neverland moment in 1995, when Francois Pienaar accepted the trophy from a beaming Mandela. For one, the fact that a black man held aloft that trophy on behalf of South Africa in Yokohama last week was quite special itself. But it was another moment that was especially poignant. Kolisi asked coach Rassie Erasmus to accept the trophy with him. The coach refused. This was, after all, Kolisi’s right.
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