WC 2010

[danalwyn]

I don't blog about sports. I don't talk about sports, partially because I'm generally not interested in them. And when you're not interested in sports and you live in a place where people seem to be obsessed with them, it becomes a mark of your identity to not discuss them.

That is why I feel somewhat pained to admit that, for the first time since I was about ten and had to be excited in the World Series because everyone else was, I'm excited about a sporting event. Not because of the teams, because I don't know who's good and who's bad, or even who's playing. I'm excited about the World Cup because of the host.



If you listen to people's accounts of Africa, not the news reports, but the accounts by experts and by people who visit and work on the continent, two pictures of Africa emerge. One is the familiar Africa from the news, where people are fighting and dying of deadly diseases exterminated in the civilized world, and the words "poverty" and "squalor" seem to describe 99% of the backdrop, with the rest being made out of a generous helping of "corrupt dictator". But there's another Africa, a more temperate Africa where everyone seems to own a cell phone, where people can earn a living and still come home safely at the end of the day, where things might not be great, might not be fantastic, but people are doing all right. This is the Africa that doesn't make it into the news, because nobody wants to read about the kind of place where people get up in the morning, go to work, earn money, come home and have dinner, and then talk with friends until late in the night. Africa A, the beating heart of darkness, is what gets the attention of the press, while Africa B, where things are going at least okay, gets ignored.

This is why I'm excited about the cup. I think it's a chance for Africa B to force its way to the news, to show the world that Africa is not a caricature of hell on Earth, but that it is a part of what is now truly a global world, that there are things in Africa besides burnt villages and children who can only be saved by being adopted by American celebrities. It's a chance to tell the world that life may not be perfect in Africa, but that Africa isn't full of only needy people who need to be rescued by affluent foreigners, but is full of people to do business with, colleagues to discuss ideas with, and children who can dream of the future without it being tempered by the despair of impossibility.

For good or ill, South Africa is the face of Africa to the world, the representatives of a billion people, and the best chance to date of spreading the awareness that Africa is a vibrant, lively continent where even as things go wrong, some things are going right. We hear enough about everything going wrong. I'm excited to see what kind of a show they can put on.

Comments

[tx-cronopio.livejournal.com]

Great opinion. There is also an Africa C, which I have not experienced, but which many of my friends have -- apparently the spirit of Africa can really get into your blood, much like New Orleans, and become a unique place that one can never forget. I think the SA games are a great celebration of that -- yes, even with the damn vuvuzelas :)

[silverjackal.livejournal.com]

*raises hand* Africa C for me. Yes, there is poverty and cruelty, and there are problems beyond counting. I am not blind to them. By the same token there is grace and beauty beyond telling. Both states coexist simultaneously. Unfortunately I don't think Africa C can be conveyed in the media at all. One has to experience it for oneself, and then either the place lays claim to a piece of you... or not.

So I'll agree that I think danalwyn's point is excellent, and will bring at least a little of Africa B to the world. Unfortunately South Africa isn't necessarily the best choice to do this. Tanzania by contrast is very "ordinary" in the sense of people living their lives without the horrors of festering war and total destitution... but then they didn't choose the venue for the World Cup for that reason.

[danalwyn.livejournal.com]

Everyone's personal favorite in the US seems to be Botswana for various reasons. From what I've read, Tanzania is also a very nice place. Unfortunately nice, in many cases, seems to be equivalent to "doesn't have the transportation infrastructure necessary" for the tens of thousands of fans. South Africa, rife with several of Africa's largest problems, is, for better or worse, the one who gets tapped for representation.

I've been reading a lot of foreign aid stuff recently, and the largest complaint that I see from them is that there's a complete ignorance of that fact that, in some places, Africa seems to be working. I'm hoping that at least some of that will show up in the cup.

[silverjackal.livejournal.com]

You know, I didn't even think of Botswana. Not that it's not an amazing place, but that it's comparatively small, and the infrastructure... well, Tanzania has considerably more, but still not enough.

here's a complete ignorance of that fact that, in some places, Africa seems to be working

Well, one never hears about those places on the news here because there is no war/famine/ etc. so of course it's like it doesn't exist. Even the way people talk about the place: it's *Africa*, a monolithic whole. Never mind that it's an enormous continent, full of very different countries. Tanzania in no way resembles Equatorial Guinea, but that's a distinction that is lost in the media representations.

[danalwyn.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that Africa holds three countries named Guinea, but none of them are very like each other. It's just something with a history that can't be divided into the usual imperial framework as European and Asian history. The fact that there is such a large difference between urban and rural in some places in Africa also warps perceptions. It makes us think of Africa as a single thing, not a complex tapestry.

Botswana is the favorite for the development enthusiasts, who tout it as one of the continent's success stories (our mixed history with Nyerere taints our memory of Tanzania I think). But until people can go fairly easily to all of Africa they're unlikely to think of it as anything but a distant, exotic, and broadly characterizable place.

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

I would say that Alexander McCall Smith's Ladies' Detective Agency novels (http://www.mccallsmith.com/botswana.htm) (and the subsequent HBO mini-series) also helped spread the image of Botswana as a friendly, relatively modern, safe place. People who never would have heard of the country otherwise found it in their reading clubs. *g*

[danalwyn.livejournal.com]

I overlooked Africa C, although I was thinking about the people who live there, many of whom probably love it whether they live in A or B.

Of course, there is no real A or B, there's only one place, and it's all mixed together. I'd just be happy if people came away from this without thinking "Oh, Africa's a mess and we've got to go tell them what to do to get out of it."

[mergle.livejournal.com]

You have a very good point about the US needing to see more Africa B. I think that even moreso than the conference and seeing the ruins of ancient Carthage and the fantastic mosaics at the museum, the most important thing about going to Tunisia for me was having my assumptions that Africa is uniformly grim Africa A shot to pieces.

I've seen a few blogs basically trying to argue that South Africa should be viewed as Africa A (citing a higher rate of rape than of literacy for women), and therefore is unworthy of the honor of hosting the World Cup. I don't know enough about the situation there to comment.

[danalwyn.livejournal.com]

South Africa has a lot of problems, including the rape and violent crime rate, an immigration and emigration problem, and a whole bunch of other issues. The problem is that South Africa, despite its problems, is possibly the only country seriously in the running. Only a few countries in Africa have the necessary airport infrastructure to handle international visitors at this scale, as well as the necessary economy needed to keep the infrastructure for the cup going. South Africa is one, and Egypt is basically the other (some noise about Morocco here).

I think putting the Cup in Egypt would have made it more of an Arab-Mediterranean affair, whereas South Africa was probably the only choice in sub-Saharan Africa. They're by no means perfect, but I don't think they can keep ignoring Africa when they choose sites for the Cup, so this was probably considered a decent compromise.