Soweto gets chance to demonstrate what freedom has brought

Soweto: From the back of the crowd, the big screen was scarcely visible beyond the wall of green and gold standing on top of the gentle slope, holding aloft a thousand vuvuzelas, their incessant droning filling the air. Little more than a mile or so from Soccer City, only a lucky few enjoyed an unrestricted view of the moment the world was watching.

Nobody seemed to mind. The football, after all, was incidental. None of the thousands who braved the snaking traffic along Soweto's main drag, abandoning their cars outside the shacks that still comprise much of South Africa's most famous township, rainbow flags draped from their shoulders, to reach the Elkah Stadium fan park were here just to watch a match.

They came to the edge of Soweto from all over southern Johannesburg to drink and dance, to eat, to celebrate. They streamed into the park on foot or by bus, the ramshackle 16-seater Combi vans unloading fresh swarms of passengers as soon as the noise reached ear-splitting levels, their drivers turning round and speeding off, no doubt keen to find another fare-paying load.

Month-long party

The football world may have been waiting for the game's elite to come into close-quarter combat, to anoint heroes and ostracise villains, but this means much more to South Africa.

It is a chance to show the world where 16 years of freedom has brought them. A chance to stand together, side by side, black and white, and enjoy a month-long party. Billowing smoke from barbecues enveloping the crowd in a thick fug.

Families opened picnic boxes, unfurled deckchairs, enjoying the sort of ample space denied to those at the Mary Elizabeth Park fan festival, where three people were injured in a crush. Groups of Argentine and Chilean fans, sampling a genuine South African atmosphere rather than the soulless experience of watching the game in a bar in one of Johannesburg's gentrified areas.