Boks World Cup victory: A beacon of hope amid economic woes

The running joke among South Africans during the Rugby World Cup was that the Springboks mustn’t dare lose a game because as soon as they lost, electricity blackouts would be back with a vengeance.

The joke wasn’t really a joke, because Eskom announced even before the Springboks beat the All Blacks on Saturday that the country would be going back to the reality that it is used to a day after the final.

No-one can be blamed for thinking that the Springboks not only served to lift the national spirit, but their performance in the World Cup eased the country’s electricity problems.

The Springboks defended their world title by displaying an incredible resolve that saw them beating the rest of the world.

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So, the day-dreaming that South Africans allowed themselves to indulge in during the Springboks’ run-in the Cup is not totally without foundation.

They did what seemed impossible. And by doing so, allowed the dying flames of Project South Africa to reignite and burn just a little brighter than they did two months ago.

On Wednesday, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana is presenting the medium-term policy budget statement and expectations are that it is bad news.

All indications are that the country is running out of money (well, at least out of money that the Treasury set aside to spend in this financial year).

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Some estimates are that the shortfall could be as huge as R50 billion. And the government must find a way out of this shortfall, whether through debt or some other means will be up to them.

The Springboks arrive home from France with the Webb Ellis Cup today, just days before Godongwana announces this most unsettling news.

The Springboks’ World Cup triumph is going to present a soft landing for President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government to announce that the country is temporarily broke.

It has been tempting for some naysayers to want to take away the true value of the Boks defending the Cup by constantly interjecting with “but the team is not truly representative” of the demographics of the country.

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Some even going as far as saying that the Springboks are the “new opium of the masses”, bringing temporary relief for deep-rooted problems.

But no-one has ever presented the team as a magic wand for South Africa.

The reason the team is held in such high regard by South Africans is exactly that it is not perfect, or matching South Africa’s demographics like it is some BEE project.

Its biggest attraction is that it is imperfect, just like South Africa.

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But rugby director Rassie Erasmus and coach Jacques Nienaber have found a way to make it work – and make it work so well that the rest of the world will need four full years to try and conjure up some sort of response to this perfect imperfect South African project.

The World Cup provided a surreal moment when English rugby player Tom Curry accused Springbok hooker Bongi Mbonambi of racially abusing him when South Africa beat England in the semifinals.

Ordinarily, such an accusation would have been a recipe for disaster in the South African camp and, who knows, it might have been aimed at creating discord within the Springboks.

But this time around, the whole team and the country managed to laugh it away.

Racism is not funny and must not be treated lightly, but the Springboks have managed to show that with enough focus on the goal at hand, even ugly things like racism do not stand a chance.

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