South Africans are about to get proudly shitfaced - it's what they do best

The simple solution is to enjoy the party and to suspend critical thought until the inevitable August hangover. It is an attractive idea in many ways, but it requires powers of self-deception that are beyond many of us -- and frankly, it is unpatriotic.

In short, we make our engagement with all that is wonderful and awful about the tournament a monument to South Africa that is more lasting than any stadium -- and we yell ourselves hoarse for the country that we are trying to dream into being.

SHOOT: A well written piece of nonsense. Dawes is trying to make the case that we should, with good conscience, party. It's not 1995. Things have gone south a lot since then. A bit like someone stealing a few cases of liquor [killing the liquor store owner] and then you saying, c'mon, what the hell, the deed is done. Really? Either you get shitfaced and ignore reality, or it's a grimmer view and a grimmer stance. What's this business of being proudly South African though? Proud of what?
Watch the game, sure. But don't talk nonsense about being proud or building monuments.  Sort out the 500 child rapes every day, sort out the deplorable misery so many live day in and day out and once you're satisfied that you've eased that social burden, that incredible debt we owe the majority of this countries poor citizens, then you can start to think about being able to honestly, and in good conscience, enjoying yourself in this country.  The way we are carrying on shows a dangerous level of social schizophrenia. 

clipped from www.mg.co.za Bafana jerseys are not a message we send to the national team; they are a message we send to one another, louder and clearer than skin colour or language. At one level they say: "We are together in this. You're on my team." At another, subtly but crucially different, they say: "I need you to see that I believe we are together in this." It is precisely in insisting on our solidarity that we acknowledge that you can build a bridge only between places that are divided. This is not patriotism as the last refuge of the scoundrel; it is a complicated, very South African affirmation of our persistent, impossible and yet essential effort to find our way to a less anxious, awkward way of inhabiting this country. We have overspent to a grotesque and completely unnecessary degree on stadiums, most of which will be a drain on municipal finances for years.