There I was last Tuesday, decked out in my garish Bafana Bafana shirt, greeting similarly dressed complete strangers in the shopping mall, exchanging a few words and expressing the hope that the ancestors/gods/big referee in the sky would be on our side that afternoon and lead us to a 5-0 victory against the squabbling Frogs. What has been amazing is the power of the Bafana Bafana shirt during the World Cup, particularly if it’s being worn by a middle aged white man. Thumbs were stuck up by passing motorists and newspaper sellers smiled and asked me what the score would be (naturally I said 5-0) . If we want to unite the nation after July’s final game all we need is a Presidential decree that the entire nation must wear a yellow Bafana Bafana shirt every day. It will be the new SA citizen’s uniform and a damn good way of getting rid of all that unsold stock hanging around on the shelves. Mind you, I’d still rather have a Bafana Bafana shirt than an Italian or French one.

And so I watched the game against a revolting French team and when we scored an early first goal I thought 5-0 could be a possibility. Then France scored and there were a few “almost” goals and our dream of going into the next round was shattered. But Bafana Bafana played as though their lives depended upon it and they were wonderfully sportsmanlike and entertaining and they won the game. Unfortunately not by a large enough margin to get into the next round and that makes them the first host side NOT to make it into the second round in the history of the World Cup. But we don’t like to dwell on that. What we like to remember is that they played very well against Mexico. Just not well enough I’m afraid. Which is tough luck because it would have been fantastic to be able to justify wearing that garish yellow shirt again.

When the whole Razzmatazz of World Cup 2010 is over what will we have learned? Probably that we can throw a damn good party and put on a show that is world class. But we knew that anyway didn’t we? We’ve done it before for both rugby and cricket and our foreign visitors have left singing our praises. This time around it’s been on a larger scale but thus far the 2010 World Cup has been mostly hassle free. The stadiums look tremendous, the pitches look as green as billiard tables and even the transport hiccups seem to have been sorted out. The strike and outbreaks of sporadic violence by disgruntled Stallion security staff made the international news but didn’t seem to spoil the fans’ enjoyment of the games. Even the police have been widely praised. So if it’s a party you’re after, we’re the people who can deliver.

If it’s a winning team you’re after, you may have to wait some time. It may seem churlish to complain but the fact is Bafana Bafana (however much they may have won over the hearts and minds of people normally uninterested in football) didn’t shine as much as we would have liked. We are applauding them because they seem like good guys and they are South Africans and…yes….we feel a bit sorry for them. But that sort of attitude doesn’t make for a winning nation and it’s a national malaise discernible in our politics, in our attitude to global competitiveness, in the workplace and in our education system. We are prepared as a nation to accept second best, conveniently blaming it on our brutal apartheid past. The thing is, the rest of the world doesn’t care. If they did they would have let us get through to the second round. They would have taken pity on the poor darkies who were trying so hard and that would have been patronizing.

So we must decide what we want. Do we want to be treated like retards by the rest of the world or do we want to compete on the world stage as equals? If it’s the latter then we have a lot of work to do to shake off our national inferiority complex. Do we really have one? You bet we do. It comes through every day on the radio talk shows, in the columns of black “journalists” and in the comments of black politicians and trade unionists. It’s normally cloaked under the mantle of racism which means that it’s not up for argument. But it should be up for argument because what World Cup 2010 has demonstrated is that South Africans of all colours get on pretty well and have the same goals in life. What we need to do now is to shake off that loser mentality and aim much higher. And in four years the country with one of the safest banking systems in the world will be supporting the finalist in the 2014 FIFA World Cup. And that’s worth blowing your vuvuzela for.