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By Root 965 0

within it was Mandela’s entirely serious, real-life purpose. His mission, in common with all politically active black South Africans of his generation, had been to replace apartheid with what the ANC called a “non-racial democracy.” But he had yet to achieve a goal that was as important, and no less challenging. He was president now. One-person-one-vote elections had taken place for the first time in South African history a year earlier. But the job was not yet done. Mandela had to secure the foundations of the new democracy, he had to make it resistant to the dangerous forces that still lurked. History showed that a revolution as complete as the South African one, in which power switches overnight to a historically rival group, leads to a counterrevolution. There were still plenty of heavily armed, military-trained extremists running around; plenty of far-right Afrikaner “bitter-enders—South Africa’s more organized, more numerous, and more heavily armed variations on America’s Ku Klux Klan. White right-wing terrorism was to be expected in such circumstances, as Moonsamy’s political readings taught him, and white right-wing terrorism was what Mandela sought most of all as president to avoid.

The way to do that was to bend the white population to his will. Early on in his presidency he glimpsed the possibility that the Rugby World Cup might present him with an opportunity to win their hearts. That was why he had been working strenuously to persuade his own black supporters to abandon the entirely justified prejudice of a lifetime and support the Springboks. That was why he wanted to show the Afrikaners in the stadium today that their team was his team too; that he would share in their triumph or their defeat.

But the plan was fraught with peril. Mandela could be shot or blown up by extremists. Or today’s pageant could simply backfire. A bad Springbok defeat would not be helpful. Even worse was the prospect of the Afrikaner fans jeering the new national anthem that black South Africans held so dear, or unfurling the hated old orange, blue, and white flag. The millions watching in the black townships would feel humiliated and outraged, switching their allegiances to the New Zealand team, shattering the consensus Mandela had striven to build around the Springboks, with potentially destabilizing consequences.

But Mandela was an optimist. He believed things would turn out right, just as he believed (here he was in a small minority) that the Springboks would win. That was why it was in a tense but cheerful mood that he sat down on this cold, bright winter’s Saturday morning to his habitually big breakfast. He had, in this order: half a papaya, then corn porridge, served stiff, to which he added mixed nuts and raisins before pouring in hot milk; this was followed by a green salad, then—on a side plate—three slices of banana, three slices of kiwifruit, and three slices of mango. Finally he served himself a cup of coffee, which he sweetened with honey.

Mandela, longing for the game to start, ate this morning with special relish. He had not realized it until now, but his whole life had been a preparation for this moment. His decision to join the ANC as a young man in the forties; his defiant leadership in the campaign against apartheid in the fifties; the solitude and toughness and quiet routine of prison; the grinding exercise regimen to which he submitted himself behind bars, believing always that he would get out one day and play a leading role in his country’s affairs: all that, and much more, had provided the platform for the final push of the last ten years, a period that had seen Mandela take on his toughest battles and his most unlikely victories. Today was the great test, and the one that offered the prospect of the most enduring reward.

If it worked it would bring to a triumphant conclusion the journey he undertook, classically epic in its ambition, in the final decade of his long walk to freedom. Like Homer’s Odysseus, he progressed from challenge to challenge, overcoming each one not because he was stronger than his