After the celebration, “Mandela’s children”

Once the World Cup finished, there is a risk that the rest of the world may forget about South Africa. It would be wrong.

 In a multi ethnic world, in the peak of an economic and ecological crash, the Rainbow Nation is a laboratory of the future, the place that will determine if the man is capable of facing all the challenges that await him. Starting from the social challenges, in South Africa the racial tensions are still strong. Racism still transforms in xenophobia, because in the townships the different is not the black itself, but the immigrated,  Angolan or Somali, accused of stealing jobs.

The truth is that hate is often a consequence of poverty. If we only think that 40% of South Africans live with less than two dollars per day, it is unacceptable to any democracy. It is a paradox that if once everybody wanted to have at least a drop of white blood in their veins, nowadays it is the exact contrary and having at least one sixteenth part of black blood is recommended as if it was a sign of “social novelty”. The standards of privilege change with every regime. And what has happened to the fight in recognising that our kind, the human kind, doesn’t need distinctions based on the blood composition. They have already made a disaster in the past. Once there were blacks that wanted to assert their being white. Now there is a white that wants to assert his being black.

The secret is the same.

If you scratch the surface, in one way or the other, the racial conflict comes out.

Apartheid has fallen but South Africa remains one of the Countries more unequal in the world. 80% of the territory belongs to the whites, the Stock Exchange is in the hands of a small elite, a handful multinationals and managers divided the economy control. And then there are the important health emergencies, as AIDS, and environmental threats: in the entire Southern Africa the erosion has reached alarming levels and it is feared that in 2013 water shortage will occur in the province of Gauteng, economic engine of South Africa.

However this World Cup shows that the Rainbow Nation can do it. Its greatest resource is not gold but its people. South Africans have endless patience, dignity and courage. Only their commitment will transform South Africa in a better Nation without forgetting the teaching of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela:

“ There is no easy  road to freedom”