Apainting which attempts to portray an autopsy being done on the body of iconic South African Mr Nelson Mandela has caused a considerable stir in South Africa.

News reports say the African National Congress (ANC) and others have condemned the art work as a violation of Mr Mandela’s dignity and broadly speaking, common decency.

The artist, Mr Yiull Damaso, is reported as saying his aim is to make South Africans confront the inevitable death of Mr Mandela, now just short of his 92nd birthday and fading.

The artist’s belief apparently is that the South African nation is ill-prepared to face a future without the man seen as the single most important element in forging of the “rainbow coalition” in post-apartheid, postfascist South Africa.

It is difficult for us to stay here and judge the artist as to whether he was being cheeky or was giving his honest artistic interpretation of future events involving Mr Mandela, for whom we have the greatest respect and admiration.

Certainly, for many of us looking on from afar, there is a distinct fear that the departure of the great man could so rekindle hatreds and prejudices that the South African democracy itself becomes at risk.

For when Mr Mandela walked free in 1990 — after 27 years of unjust imprisonment — he carried with him not just a vision of radical transformation in the lives of his nation’s black majority but a smiling embrace for all, including his jailers.

By word and deed, he has set an example hardly thought possible and in the process, kept at bay the extremists and bigots.

If those antisocial types are to remain outside the pale, politically and otherwise, Mr Mandela’s South Africa must prove itself viable at any and every opportunity.

From this newspaper’s perspective, that’s why it is so pleasing that the FIFA 2010 World Cup which ended yesterday with a historic 1-0 triumph for Spain has been deemed such an outstanding organisational success.

So successful in fact that Mr Danny Jordaan, chief executive of the tournament’s organising committee, is now suggesting that his country is well placed for a future bid as hosts of the summer Olympics.

The sceptics had openly questioned the capacity of an African nation to efficiently host a tournament as huge as the FIFA World Cup. But the evidence suggests that in all the important respects, the ‘i’s have been dotted and the ‘t’s crossed. Suggestions that the country’s high crime levels would have seriously affected attendance have been proven wrong. Reports say more than 500,000 fans from around the world have entered the country for the football tournament and more than three million have watched live action.

So even as we hail Spain for their magnificent achievement in winning the FIFA World Cup, let’s also salute South Africa for a job well done. Just as Ghana did on the field of play, the hosts have represented Africa well.