In exactly one year, the football World Cup will kick off in South Africa – a vital first for the African continent. In the lead up to it, however, there has been much sniping from other countries, mostly Western nations, suggesting that either we are unlikely to be ready in time or the event itself will be badly organised.
The fact that South Africa has hosted a Rugby World Cup, the Cricket World Cup, as well as, at the last minute, the recent Indian Premier League cricket jamboree, all with spectacular success, doesn’t seem to dent such prejudice. The big test, therefore, will be if South Africa proves confident enough to host a truly African-flavoured event.
Or will we meekly present an anodyne, Disney Lion King version, to conform to stereotypes that this continent is all about tribal drums and wild animals?
One FIFA requirement, for example, was the building of an enormously costly new stadium in Cape Town rather than upgrading an existing one in a poor area (where most soccer fans live). A FIFA delegate actually said that television cameras, when drawing back from action on the pitch, should not offend viewers with a glimpse of all those huddled shacks. Instead the backdrop will now be scenic, iconic Table Mountain.
In other words, FIFA seems to want South Africa to censor our poverty and pretend to be a developed nation. So the question is: will we play along with this charade?
Another highly suspicious sign is a high-profile government scheme to remove shack dwellers from the motorway that leads from Cape Town airport into the city. This project has been “fast-tracked”, almost certainly in the desire that visitors in 2010 will no longer see unsightly, rickety shacks, but be impressed by dignified housing. The project, however, has been seriously delayed because the poor themselves refused to be moved.
They knew that once they were shifted elsewhere, far out of the city, they were likely be forgotten and stranded. This has been fought all the way through the courts. Finally, last week, the Constitutional Court gave the go-ahead for about 20,000 people to be moved – but stipulated that a suitable alternative must be found for them.
It has yet to be seen, however, if the evictees and the government can agree on what constitutes a suitable alternative. In the past, people from the Joe Slovo informal settlement along the N2 motorway who had agreed to move soon found that, first, they were so far from town that even those with jobs couldn’t afford the transport and, second, when new houses were built, rents were pitched at a price they couldn’t possibly afford.
The hoardings along the N2 show happy black families standing outside shiny new homes with fuzzy slogans such as: “Slums shall be abolished”. What the poor fear is that these slogans really mean, “Slums will be removed – out of sight.”
The World Cup has a wonderful potential to demonstrate that South Africa is not just a place of corruption, crime and game parks, but that there is a vibrant cultural life here as well, rich as well as poor. Yet this will never come across as long as Africa needs to pretend it is some kind of faux Western nation, just with more sunshine.
There is a world of difference between proudly presenting yourself as you are and a desperate, insecure desire to please. A friend recently returned from a provincial game reserve situated along the western edge of Kruger National Park. These are wonderful wildlife wildernesses run by the provincial authorities, which few know about – so they have the added bonus of being sparingly visited. But my friend was depressed.
The two black rangers in the small, tented camp where he stayed had been sent to Spain, along with other rangers from other camps, for a two-week language course in preparation for a hoped-for tourist invasion during the World Cup.
How many soccer fans, let alone Spanish ones, will visit? How much of a foreign language can one pick up in two weeks anyway? Yet the cost must have been enormous.
As my friend pointed out, these are smart guys who may not be formally well-educated, but my goodness they know their stuff and are fantastic natural communicators. “What will actually upset any foreign visitors”, observed my friend sadly, “is to see that the rangers’ shirts are threadbare and that their shoes are in desperate need of repair.” What do we really want the World Cup visitors to see? There are (at least) two nations on offer: a business and suburban world, with homogenised shopping malls, plus a harsher, poorer reality. It seems on the evidence so far that we may attempt to present a minority face: pretending, with a fixed smile, that the other Africa doesn’t really exist - like the illusion along Cape Town’s N2 motorway that we have done away with slums.
But if we really are going to greet visitors with a few stock phrases in their own language, while wearing a threadbare shirt, we will still only be fooling ourselves.
- Tribune
The fact that South Africa has hosted a Rugby World Cup, the Cricket World Cup, as well as, at the last minute, the recent Indian Premier League cricket jamboree, all with spectacular success, doesn’t seem to dent such prejudice. The big test, therefore, will be if South Africa proves confident enough to host a truly African-flavoured event.
Or will we meekly present an anodyne, Disney Lion King version, to conform to stereotypes that this continent is all about tribal drums and wild animals?
One FIFA requirement, for example, was the building of an enormously costly new stadium in Cape Town rather than upgrading an existing one in a poor area (where most soccer fans live). A FIFA delegate actually said that television cameras, when drawing back from action on the pitch, should not offend viewers with a glimpse of all those huddled shacks. Instead the backdrop will now be scenic, iconic Table Mountain.
In other words, FIFA seems to want South Africa to censor our poverty and pretend to be a developed nation. So the question is: will we play along with this charade?
Another highly suspicious sign is a high-profile government scheme to remove shack dwellers from the motorway that leads from Cape Town airport into the city. This project has been “fast-tracked”, almost certainly in the desire that visitors in 2010 will no longer see unsightly, rickety shacks, but be impressed by dignified housing. The project, however, has been seriously delayed because the poor themselves refused to be moved.
They knew that once they were shifted elsewhere, far out of the city, they were likely be forgotten and stranded. This has been fought all the way through the courts. Finally, last week, the Constitutional Court gave the go-ahead for about 20,000 people to be moved – but stipulated that a suitable alternative must be found for them.
It has yet to be seen, however, if the evictees and the government can agree on what constitutes a suitable alternative. In the past, people from the Joe Slovo informal settlement along the N2 motorway who had agreed to move soon found that, first, they were so far from town that even those with jobs couldn’t afford the transport and, second, when new houses were built, rents were pitched at a price they couldn’t possibly afford.
The hoardings along the N2 show happy black families standing outside shiny new homes with fuzzy slogans such as: “Slums shall be abolished”. What the poor fear is that these slogans really mean, “Slums will be removed – out of sight.”
The World Cup has a wonderful potential to demonstrate that South Africa is not just a place of corruption, crime and game parks, but that there is a vibrant cultural life here as well, rich as well as poor. Yet this will never come across as long as Africa needs to pretend it is some kind of faux Western nation, just with more sunshine.
There is a world of difference between proudly presenting yourself as you are and a desperate, insecure desire to please. A friend recently returned from a provincial game reserve situated along the western edge of Kruger National Park. These are wonderful wildlife wildernesses run by the provincial authorities, which few know about – so they have the added bonus of being sparingly visited. But my friend was depressed.
The two black rangers in the small, tented camp where he stayed had been sent to Spain, along with other rangers from other camps, for a two-week language course in preparation for a hoped-for tourist invasion during the World Cup.
How many soccer fans, let alone Spanish ones, will visit? How much of a foreign language can one pick up in two weeks anyway? Yet the cost must have been enormous.
As my friend pointed out, these are smart guys who may not be formally well-educated, but my goodness they know their stuff and are fantastic natural communicators. “What will actually upset any foreign visitors”, observed my friend sadly, “is to see that the rangers’ shirts are threadbare and that their shoes are in desperate need of repair.” What do we really want the World Cup visitors to see? There are (at least) two nations on offer: a business and suburban world, with homogenised shopping malls, plus a harsher, poorer reality. It seems on the evidence so far that we may attempt to present a minority face: pretending, with a fixed smile, that the other Africa doesn’t really exist - like the illusion along Cape Town’s N2 motorway that we have done away with slums.
But if we really are going to greet visitors with a few stock phrases in their own language, while wearing a threadbare shirt, we will still only be fooling ourselves.
- Tribune
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