World Cup, you got some issues man

Prologue to Blog 28

“Fu#k FIFA, and fu#k the World Cup.” – A fellow Peace Corps Volunteer

On to Blog 28

From the bad things to the good things, everything has some sort of controversy and trust me; Africa’s first World Cup held in South Africa has plenty of it. I wanted to first state that I am a firm believer in the principles of unity and the sharing of ideas and cultures that sport is capable of doing. I am also a firm believer in South Africa’s readiness to host a successful tournament. Being here for the past year and a half and being able to see the strides that have been taken I feel South Africa has proven itself worthy and capable. The people of South Africa could not be more proud of hosting this event and the people believe they are worthy as well, at least for the most part.

But what of people not from South Africa? What do many people think? One mustn’t look far to see people’s views. Think back to African Cup of Nations tournament back in January of 2010 held in Angola when the Togolese National team’s bus got caught in crossfire between revolutionaries and government forces resulting in several deaths. People from around the world exclaimed, “Oh my god look at Africa, how could anyone have thought that having the world cup there was a good idea. We are all going to die if we go.” Okay not everyone said things like that but enough people for me to think “do some of you even realize that there are different countries in Africa and that South Africa is totally different from Angola and revolutionary like violence has not happened in South Africa for over a decade and a half and has one of the most stable democracies in the world. Do you even know what you’re talking about?” Fast forward to Sunday’s stampede. North Korea and Nigeria recently played a friendly match that resulted in a 3 – 1 victory for Nigeria in Tembisa, South Africa. But the real story was what happened outside of the stadiums where there was a stampede that resulted in 15 people having to be hospitalized. I know what you’re thinking. Well that was just a few days ago, in the host country and was a fairly serious situation. Fair point but this was a fairly isolated incident. No serious stampedes have happened in South Africa for nearly a decade and it seems the logistics of letting people in caused the situation. So before you go and start screaming “Oh there goes Africa again” think of some situations where this might happen elsewhere such as a black Friday shopping where several people die each year or when Apple announces the release of a new Iphone. Do people go screaming, “Oh my god, America, OH MY GOD!” Probably some but most people would say well that was an isolated incident. Exactly. When Soccer riots happen in Mexico people don’t go screaming, “Oh North America has dun lost its marbles again.” No most people would say, that was an isolated incident and remind people that Mexico and the USA are two totally different countries. Do you have a right to be concerned? Of course, I am a bit as well, but all I’m saying is before you purposefully search the news for negative press about South Africa so you can convince yourself that the end of the world is coming because Africa is holding a World Cup don’t swear every small thing that happens is all bad and is a sign that South Africa can’t handle it, because trust me, crazy things happen in each country.

There is one group of people that I was somewhat surprised to have an ultra-apocalyptic view of the World Cup, Fellow Peace Corps Volunteers trying to convince people that the end of the free world has arrived because no one will be able to move and all government agencies will stop functioning and people will be dying in the street as a result. Do they have a point? Maybe, but once again don’t you think perhaps you’re exaggerating the situation a bit? An interesting statement was made by a friend of mine and she told me, “There’s not enough electricity and power being produced in the country to sustain the power that will be necessary to keep blackouts from happening in the host cities so they plan on siphoning off electricity from the rural areas to conserve electricity for the major cities and as result people in rural areas will starve to death!” I thought this was absolutely outrageous until one week I noticed that the power in my house went out; in fact the entire village’s power went out, every day, at the same time, the time? 6pm sharp, in fact on day 4 I looked at my host brother counted down the minutes to 6pm and bam lights go out long enough for me to miss ESPNSoccerNetPressPass (Soccer talk show at 7pm) but short enough for the electricity to come back on right in time for Generations (South Africa’s most popular soap opera at 8pm, South Africans old and young alike watch it religiously. It’s insane.) Yeah, convenient. This was happening one month before the World Cup and got me thinking, am I brushing aside some of my colleague’s statements and concerns a little too quickly because I’m that crazy of a sports fan? The blackouts stopped a week later and never happened again but I had to think about it, although she was exaggerating the consequences to an absurd degree, did she have a point? Are the people in the rural areas getting the shaft and not really benefitting from the World Cup and is all the benefit being isolated to the major urban areas? Or another friend’s view, is the World Cup actually damaging the country by focusing more on urban development, when rural development should be a priority? Let’s take a look.

South Africa has a long history of economic disparities. It is a known fact that South Africa has one of the highest Gini coefficients (economic measure of economic disparity) in the world. One mustn’t look too far to see the disparities of South Africa. When walking around a major South African city, it will remind you of a place you’ve been before. Durban reminds me of San Diego, downtown Cape Town reminds me of New York City, parts of Johannesburg remind me of Washington D.C., Pretoria reminds me of Arlington, VA. So in a sense South African cities remind me of America. Fully developed, large malls, highways, a wealth of infrastructure, you name it they got it, except for decent Vietnamese food. But then go just a few hours outside of the cities and what is there? Shacks, dirt roads, informal settlements, townships in which a house of for a family of 4 has 14 people living in it. In the villages? Well let’s just say you’d be lucky if you even had a clinic that could take care of the sick and the dying. You’d also be lucky if your child’s class had less than 60 students in it. You’d be extremely lucky if you have continuous access to water, which we did not until recently. It got so bad one time, I was literally spooning water out of a container trying to get each ounce of water that was left I was so thirsty. Come on you’ve seen those Susan Sarandon commercials while she’s holding the starving baby while claiming that 80 cents a day can give this child a decent education, I think you understand what I’m trying to get at. So when tourists come to see South Africa most of them stay in the cities and if that’s all they see then perhaps they’ll think, “Wow this country is so developed and people are never really that hungry because there are so many restaurants to go to.” All of this while some people in the rural areas suffer from hunger in the face of indifference, not because people don’t care, but people just don’t know. So the government has a set amount of money to begin development projects in different areas. The argument is because of the World Cup the government must further develop the cities which by comparison to the rural areas is beyond extremely developed. “Hmmm we will have to expand the highway since there will be more cars during the World Cup but only have limited funds. Ah sorry Siphiwe, looks like your village is going to have to wait until next year to get a new school in which your class doesn’t have 73 students in it, because we need to money to put up flags all along the MR3 highway to welcome the tourists coming in from the airport.” So as you see the argument brings up a valid point. One could also make the point that the money that the country will receive from tourism will benefit the economy of South Africa, increasing the tourism industry even further and therefore bringing more income into the country so the investment in the World Cup will bring greater economic progress to the country in the long run. Very true, but who would that benefit? Once again businesses in big cities, or tourists areas. So there is no guarantee that the extremely impoverished rural areas will see a dime of that money. It is my hope that large sales tax revenue that the country will generate will go into developing rural areas.

But what if it doesn’t? And the money stays in the urban areas? This would mean that all the jobs are in the cities and not rural areas. Siphiwe ends up being a stellar student but wants to stay in the village. But she needs to work, but where are the jobs? In the cities, so she would be forced to leave. Imagine that! A brain drain within a country itself! Crazy no? During the building of the World Cup stadiums there was a mass exodus from the villages to the cities of people working for work, primarily in construction projects such as the building of the World Cup stadiums. But those stadiums are done and now the jobs have dried up. I wouldn’t really call this a long-term solution. And an economic based on remittances is never the most stable one.

With increased population of people those people need to stay somewhere correct? That’s where you see the large increase of informal houses and settlements and shanty towns close to the cities. In Cape Town one judge declared a process of beautification so that the city would look nicer for the World Cup and issued a court order to remove people from those settlements and relocate them somewhere else. Beijing 2008 anyone? Problem was, relocate them where? The court order was never fully carried out because the executive branch would not enforce the ruling. Nelspruit, my secondary shopping town, and another host city of the FIFA World Cup had some controversy as well. As you know the new Mbombela stadium is a masterpiece and is a state of the art facility. But before that the planners were looking for a place to put it and were having some trouble. So several years ago they struck a deal with a local municipality and claimed they would be paid for their land and have a new school built, (current school was being used to house construction workers working on the stadium). It wasn’t until several years after the agreement was struck that the promises were fulfilled. So for a few years an entire town was removed from its lands without compensation. It wasn’t until recently that compensation had been fulfilled recently and the new school built, which itself is a state of the art facility.

With an increase of people moving to the large cities and other major population centers there will be some things that go down, namely house music, but also sex. As the World Cup creeps closer and closer human trafficking becomes an issue. Just 2 weeks ago a man was arrested because police discovered some 27 Thai women working as prostitutes in Johannesburg and he was planning to have them work during the World Cup. His only charge? Running a brothel, not human trafficking (they were traced back to a port in Durban and they were taken into the country illegally from there.)

So as you can see there are some issues indeed surrounding the tournament. I believe in the World Cup and I try my best to focus on the positives in which I do believe for the most part outweigh the negatives, but still one must think critically about all issues when it comes to anything. And when I think about some of the issues that I’ve presented here, I can only wish that things were done a differently. Don’t you think so?