And the eyes of the world are watching now…
Peter Gabriel sang about a very different South Africa in that song, but indeed, the world once again turns its eyes to this country for the next four weeks, and even as the World Cup finally begins today, some are still asking the question: is South Africa up to this task? And what would be considered a success?
- Ian Plenderleith at When Saturday Comes suggests that it doesn’t really matter who the host is. Once FIFA comes to town, they’re the only one who really enjoys the party.
FIFA is not only your outside caterer, it also becomes the self-invited control freak that tells you exactly how to run your own party. At huge expense, it bullies you into remodelling and renaming all your rooms (“This bog is now the Coca Cola Personal Hygiene Facility”). It moodily threatens to move the party somewhere else if you don’t get your act together and finish the preparations on time. It dictates which beer and food to serve. It makes sure that it will be the guest of honour, quaffing vintage champagne in an exclusive VIP room with its best corporate friends, and you’ll only be allowed in wearing a butler’s uniform. And then when it’s all over, it packs up and leaves you feeling used and empty – like those huge, all-seater stadiums it insisted that you needed so that Chile could play Honduras.
- Dave Zirin at the nation turns even more negative, suggesting that, as the old saying goes, “when the elephants party, the grass will suffer.”
Our government has managed, in a fairly short period of time, to deliver “world class” facilities and infrastructure that the majority of South Africans will never benefit from or be able to enjoy. The APF feels that those who have been so denied, need to show all South Africans as well as the rest of the world who will be tuning into the World Cup, that all is not well in this country, that a month long sporting event cannot and will not be the panacea for our problems. This World Cup is not for the poor—it is the soccer elites of FIFA, the elites of domestic and international corporate capital and the political elites who are making billions and who will be benefiting at the expense of the poor.
- Meanwhile at the Financial Times, Simon Kuper reminds us that this World Cup isn’t entirely about the economics. It’s about South Africa opening its doors to the world for the first time since the end of apartheid, something many never thought would happen 25 years ago.
This week South Africans are welcoming the world. For most of them, that’s still a new sensation. That’s why so many are filling airports to greet the most mediocre visiting teams, and wearing shirts and beanie hats that promote their own hapless Bafana Bafana national team. There may not be many visiting fans, but there is what South Africans call a “gees”, a spirit, around this event. My grandmother, in her widow’s flat in northern Johannesburg, and Nesta, up in the Drakensberg mountains, are both old ladies now, but when the football kicks off I suspect even they will be watching with pride. They know how far South Africa has come.
- Over at South African site SuperSport, Peter Davies would like to remind the foreign media to watch out for those stereotypes, please.
As you emerge blinking from your luxury hotel room into our big blue winter skies, you will surely realise you are far more likely to be killed by kindness than by a stray bullet. Remember that most of the media reports you have read, which have informed your views on South Africa, will have been penned by your colleagues. And you know what journos are like, what with their earnest two thousand word opuses on the op-ed pages designed to fix this country’s ills in a heartbeat. Based on exhaustive research over a three-day visit.
- Finally, two important moments in South African soccer history deserve a look: the formation of South Africa’s first multi-racial side in 1976, and the Bafana Bafana’s run in the 1996 African Cup of Nations.
Hat tips to Sport Without Spin and Must Read Soccer for some of these links. Also, our condolences go out to Nelson Mandela, whose great-granddaughter died today after a one-car accident last night.
