Today (11/6) the World Cup begins in South Africa. As this marks the start of a month of world class football and post-apartheid South Africa's debut on the world stage this should be a day of huge celebration.
It has been overshadowed though by two fatal road accidents. In the first that occurred yesterday morning a bus carrying British students in the country to study for a degree in wildlife management veered off the road near Barberton in the north of the country. Three of the students were killed and four remain in seriously ill in hospital. A culpable homicide case has been opened against the Zimbabwean bus driver.
In the second which occurred yesterday night a car carrying Nelson Mandela's great-granddaughter home from a concert to celebrate the start of the world cup overturned on the M1 motorway on the outskirts of Johannesburg. The 13 year old Zenani Mandela was killed and the driver has been arrested on a charge of drink driving.
I don't wish to focus on the Mandela crash because to me it looks like a genuine accident caused by an ill-disciplined driver getting caught up in the celebrations.
The first crash though is more suspicious. After the fall of apartheid certain South Africans in, shall we say, Terre'Blanche territory argued it was a bad thing because it left the roads full of potholes. Likewise white farmers in neighbouring Zimbabwe complained that Robert Mugabe was letting the country fall into ruins because his government was no longer maintaining the roads. Although I think most South Africans have grown out of it by now any discussion over the state of the country's roads is likely to be very racially and politically highly charged.
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