Even Sowetans get the Blues

Jonathan Jansen: My friend has no sense of occasion. "Isn't it great that all those Blue Bulls and Stormers' players and fans descended on Soweto?" I asked. A June 1976 activist, my now ex-friend responded glumly: "It's true what they say; people tend to return to the scene of the crime."

He is not alone among those refusing to buy into the emotion of this historic moment; one of the text messages doing the rounds jokes that "the last time there were so many people wearing blue in Soweto, they were accompanied by Casspirs". Please.

Yet there is no denying that with last Saturday's final (and the weekend before with the semi-final match of this Super 14 rugby competition), the political ground shifted in South Africa.

Tens of thousands of white citizens came to Soweto and broke down important social, cultural and psychological barriers. For South Western Townships (Soweto) is not only a physical place; it is also symbolic terrain. It represents political South Africa more than any other town or city.

Soweto was the site of what many believe was the turning point in the struggle against apartheid. This is home to the Mandelas, the Tutus and many other political luminaries.

Here lie the graves of struggle heroes like Zolile Hector Pieterson, a tourist stop for those from outside the township. It was here that the white government massively miscalculated by trying to force Afrikaans onto the tongues of black people. Taxi to Soweto, the hilarious film, captures through humour the fears of white South Africa about black township life.

What an important moment in our democratic transition. Just a few weeks ago there were all kinds of prophecies of a racial doomsday when the prominent white supremacist Eugene Terre Blanche was allegedly killed by two black men.

Yet here was the most significant non-racial celebration since that other great day when rugby broke barriers - the 1995 World Cup when Mandela donned the white captain's No6 Springbok jersey.

The scene was even more impressive than in 1995. Whites were blowing vuvuzelas; here were no irritating debates about the effects of this blowpipe on white eardrums.

Breakaway shots showed Tutu eating in the stands, white clients drinking alongside black residents in local taverns (until last week they were called shebeens), whole white families being invited into black homes ("Julle lyk honger! Kom binne" - "You look hungry; come inside") for the mandatory braai. What once was a place to fear, for many white South Africans, is now a place that carries sweet memories of camaraderie and celebration across those dangerous fault lines of race.

The first time I went to Loftus Versveld, the home of the Blue Bulls in Pretoria, and where they could not play last week because of Fifa's plans for the field, a number of fans asked me to get them drinks. That was in 2002.

There were angry debates around Loftus about racial quotas in rugby, some of this noise intended for my ears as one of the few blacks in the stands those days.

When he is drunk, you do not want to be around a male Blue Bulls fan if you're a woman or if you're black. It can get nasty.

None of this barbaric behaviour in Soweto this past month. Only joy.

On the other side of the country a historically white political party wins the election in a large black township of Gugulethu, Cape Town.

All the theories of black political behaviour took a shot to the groin. Many black people are not that strongly wed historically or emotionally to one party, let alone epidermally; what matters more is whether you can get the job done.

What matters in rugby, as in politics, is not what colour you are, but whether you can give people a sense that they are winning.

This is the optimism I see from Cape Town to Johannesburg as national flags suddenly sprout from the roofs of cars and drape themselves around the mirrors of vehicles.

There was no Mandela here with a green rugby top. The "Mandelas" were not only the affable Bulls Coach, Frans Ludeke, and the giant of a captain, Victor Matfield - the real "Mandelas" were the people of Soweto, who scaled a huge emotional mountain and opened their hearts to their brothers and sisters from Pretoria; and when they did that, they found a gracious response from the other side.

It feels good to be Blue, if you know what I mean.