Rethinking rugby and the rainbow nation

Abstract

The Hollywood film Invictus tells the story of South Africa's hosting and winning of the World Rugby Cup in 1995 just months after the country's transition to democracy. It is a mythical moment in South Africa's contemporary history, capturing the hope and optimism that a brutally divided nation would come together and in doing so would be, as the title suggests, invincible. Central to the narrative is the game of rugby itself. Once emblematic of white supremacy, rugby becomes, in the film, the terrain upon which Nelson Mandela, the first president of the democratic era, cannily wages a battle to bring black and white South Africans together. This article offers a less triumphant reading of the 1995 World Cup, and in doing so argues that far from being indomitable, South Africa's democracy, much like the fortunes of its national rugby side, is fragile and precarious.