On a chilly and cacophonous June night, as hundreds of thousands of his compatriots celebrated the hosting of a great sporting tournament, a young black South African friend found himself in an argument with two white policemen. Words led to blows. He staggered home shaken and thoroughly cynical about the supposed new national spirit so enthusiastically promoted by the world's media.

The organisers of the football World Cup can relax: the 2010 fairy tale is intact. This fracas was at the end of the 1995 Rugby World Cup. But the moral of the story endures. Then, the world delighted in “rainbow” South Africa after Nelson Mandela, a year into his presidency, embraced the sport of his apartheid oppressors. His gesture did help to bond Afrikaners to the fledgling nation, but South Africa soon found itself again wrestling with the challenges still hobbling its potential: socio-economic inequalities; 30-40 per cent unemployment; and the tendency of the ruling African National Congress to conflate party and state. In short the joy was ephemeral and the hangover acute.

Now, once again, South Africa is on a high. There is talk of a turning point for Africa, of the vanquishing of Afro-pessimism and even that the continent's long-derided “lion” economies may finally attract a hard look from investors. At a lunch for fund managers, attended by the ever-ebullient President Jacob Zuma, a Zambian businesswoman all but broke down as she told him of her pride as an African in the tournament. “When we fall we fall together, when we stand together . . . ” she said. The audience burst into applause.