Rewriting history in black and white

BARRY BEARAK, SOWETO
June 5, 2010

THE fans of rugby's Blue Bulls are a decidedly white lot, except for the blue paint they smear on their faces and their blue wigs.

They customarily attend games at Pretoria's Loftus Versfeld Stadium, where they are comfortably among their own kind and the language over the loudspeakers is Afrikaans.

For most, the township of Soweto, although only an hour away, is a world apart, a no-go area, too black, too intimidating. In the days of apartheid, this was the best-known bastion of resistance to white rule.

But for the past two Saturdays, with Loftus Stadium booked for other events, two of the Blue Bulls' biggest games of the year had to be moved to the nearest available arena of sufficient size, Orlando Stadium in Soweto.

There was worry among the bluest. ''From a security point of view, I didn't know whether I wanted to risk coming here,'' said Bulls fan Timus Geyser, 48. ''Were people going to be friendly? Were people going to get hurt?''

As it turned out, Soweto embraced the rugby hordes with open arms, open hearts and, most important, open bottles of beer. The streets near the stadium turned into parties. Whites and blacks got soused together in taverns.

Commentators immediately called this merriment one of South Africa's greatest moments of racial reconciliation. One sports writer said ''the beloved country cried tears of joy'' as pot-bellied Afrikaners swigged their beer on a sunny Soweto day. The TV station here said Nelson Mandela's dream of a non-racial South Africa was starting to be realised.

This display of brotherhood, it was also noted, was especially timely given that the most-watched sports event of all, soccer's World Cup, begins on Friday. Eight games, including the opening match and the finals, will be played in Soccer City, a stadium on the edges of this township.

On Saturday, Christoffel Groenewald found it hard to believe he had waited so long before visiting Soweto. ''There's a vibe here you just don't get when it's white people alone in Pretoria,'' he said.

By rugby standards, he was modestly dressed, with only wildly oversize blue sunglasses to enliven his wardrobe. He had boarded a bus that morning, crossed the racial divide and come to an epiphany: black people are better at accepting white people than white people are at accepting blacks.

The 37-year-old engineer said: ''If black people came to our stadium, white people wouldn't be as welcoming. White people wouldn't be selling them beer, inviting them into their yards, grabbing them by the arm and asking them to come meet another white person.'' He seemed compelled to add: ''White people wouldn't even do that for other white people.''

Behind him, blacks and whites sat together on benches. A new-found friend, Mandla Tshabalala, ambled over, beer in hand, and said: ''Everyone is mingling with everyone here. South Africa is a changed country now.''

Up the block, off-duty policeman Louwtjie Bekker called the scene ''South Africa as it ought to be. We're learning how the other lives.''

One after another, Blue Bulls fans were having those feelings of pinch-me-I-must-be-dreaming. A young man named Pieter phoned a friend. ''I'm in Soweto, man,'' he said. ''It's once-in-a-lifetime.''

It was difficult for blacks to understand why it took these white people so long to venture into their famous township. Tour groups come here all the time.

''They didn't even know where Soweto was,'' said 25-year-old Bongani Maseko. ''They had to punch it into their GPS.''

NEW YORK TIMES