World Cup decision
challenges prejudices about Africa
On the day we published last week's edition of ANC TODAY, an eminent
African delegation addressed the President and the rest of the Executive
Committee of FIFA, requesting them to accede to our request to host the
2010 Soccer World Cup. The following day millions of our people joined
in joyful celebrations to welcome the decision that was taken by the
leadership of FIFA.
We describe our delegation as eminent because of the way in which it
was composed. It included three of Africa's Nobel Peace Prize winners,
a rare occurrence about which the President of FIFA, Mr Sepp Blatter,
made important remarks. It included three of Africa's most outstanding
footballers, Roger Milla from Cameroon, Kalushi Bwalya from Zambia, and
Abedi Pele from Ghana.
It included the leadership of our Government, the South African Football
Association, our broadcasters, and leaders of our corporate sector. Others
of our people, representing various sectors of our nation, including
sport, business and civil society, accompanied it. It was also privileged
to be joined by yet other Bid Ambassadors, coming from Europe, led by
the legendary German footballer, Franz Beckenbauer.
It brought together all the diverse racial groups that constitute the
South African nation, united by the common hope and prayer that FIFA
would grant us the privilege to host one of the most prestigious of the
global sports festivals, the Soccer World Cup.
The work that was done in the years preceding the Zurich presentation
and in Zurich on May 14, as well as the celebrations on May 15, showed
how decisively we had moved away from the terrible years when our country
was painfully fractured into contending racial groups, incapable then,
of espousing a common national objective.
All these told the simple but moving story that we had made giant strides
towards building a common patriotism and a shared sense of nationhood.
It dealt a deadly blow against those who still persist in trying to use
the racial and ethnic divisions of the past to promote their interests.
They also demonstrated how much the concept and practice of African
unity and solidarity have become a material factor informing the African
mind and African practice. They confirmed the durability of the international
bonds of solidarity built during the long years of the struggle against
apartheid, and the shared desire of the peoples of the world to see South
Africa and Africa succeed in the effort to achieve the renewal of our
country and continent.
Understandably, much of the public discussion about the consequences
and reward of hosting the 2010 Soccer World Cup has focused on the economic
benefits that will accrue to our country. And naturally, the issue of
job creation has been highlighted and emphasised with great insistence.
Most unfortunately other interventions in this discussion have been
made, to speculate about who voted for South Africa and who against.
This was intended to introduce a note of bitter recrimination among us
as Africans, at the very moment when all Africa was united in celebrating
the fact that by its May 15 decision, the FIFA Executive Committee
had translated the promise to allow Africa to host the Soccer World Cup
into reality.
Both these developments, the focus on the economic benefits of hosting
the Soccer World Cup and dangerous, unnecessary guesses about how the
African members of the FIFA Executive Committee voted, have, to some
extent, served to divert us from celebrating the real significance of
the decision take by FIFA in 2001 to bring the World Cup to Africa, and
the 2004 decision to bring it to South Africa.
The true significance of these decisions lies in what we saw when we
celebrated our First Decade of Liberation, less than three weeks before
we went to Zurich, which we discussed in the last edition of this publication.
In Zurich we said "the historic decision
(FIFA) took (to give the peoples of Africa the possibility to host
the Soccer World Cup) has made
the unequivocal statement that you, the leaders of world soccer, are
firmly of the view that Africa's time has come!"
We went on to say, "through this decision,
you conveyed the message to all Africans, both on the continent and
the African Diaspora, that
you are ready and willing to accompany us on our journey of hope, and
give us the strength and stamina we need to traverse the difficult terrain
that separates us from Africa's renaissance.
"We pray that thus you will help us fully
to restore Africa's dignity, as humanity advances to the year 2010,
the end of the first decade of
the 21st century and the third millennium, as together we undertake a
journey of hope that would be crowned by the joyful festival that will
be the 2010 Soccer World Cup."
This year FIFA is celebrating its Centenary. It must surely be a matter
of historic importance that as it marks its 100 years of existence, FIFA
has, at last and for the first time, brought the World Cup to Africa.
In its report preparatory to the awarding of the bid for the 2006 World
Cup, the FIFA Technical Group said that both Germany and our country
had equal technical capacity to host the tournament.
It went on to say that the FIFA Executive Committee would have to take
a political decision to allocate the games to either one of these two
technically equal contenders. And a political decision was taken to award
the bid to Germany. Whatever our disappointment at the time, we congratulated
Germany and have ever since maintained and deepened our friendship with
Germany and the German people.
Happily, the sister African countries that also competed to host the
2010 Soccer World Cup have adopted the same attitude, and conveyed their
own congratulations to us and their pledge to work with us to ensure
that Africa hosts an excellent 2010 Soccer World Cup. We must, together,
extend our deep appreciation to the governments and peoples of Morocco,
Tunisia, Libya and Egypt for taking positions that cannot but advance
the cause of African unity, solidarity and renewal.
Africa and Africans have been victims of racism and racial arrogance
for many centuries. Throughout this long period, the notion and practice
were sustained that as Africans we were sub-human. As a consequence and
expression of this, millions were transported out of Africa and settled
in other parts of the world as slaves.
Even when slavery ended, we did not escape continued domination by others.
Our countries were seized and turned into the colonial possessions of
those who had transported us across the Atlantic as slaves. We became
important to our colonial masters only to the extent that we served their
purpose of profiting from our natural resources and our cheap labour.
All of us have now liberated ourselves from colonial and imperialist
domination. And yet our poverty and underdevelopment, born of the long
years of slavery, imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism, have
continued to condemn us to subsist in conditions of subservience.
In many respects what happened in many parts of our continent and the
African Diaspora during the post-colonial years only served to confirm
the negative images of Africa and Africans that had developed over many
centuries.
We stood out as a continent of wars, violent conflicts, permanent instability,
and endemic disregard for the right to life. The horrific genocide in
Rwanda only 10 years ago served as a stark confirmation of this.
Our behaviour communicated the message that we were incapable of establishing
successful democratic systems and guaranteeing respect for the most basic
of human rights. Our societies spawned such creatures as Idi Amin of
Uganda and Jean-Bedell Bokassa of the Central African Republic.
Circumstances conspired to tell the story that
we were incapable of even feeding ourselves and achieving social progress
through our own
efforts. The initiative that, among other things, gave birth to the famous
song "We are the world", came from artists who decided to give
us food, moved by the emaciated bodies of Africans who were dying in
their millions, simply from lack of food.
All this confirmed that we were forever condemned to survive on charity,
objects of noble pity that would forever be the wards of people of conscience,
forever condemned to be lesser human beings than those on whom we depended
to keep death from hunger at the door.
And yet it came about that the same people of conscience who could only
interact with us as our charitable benefactors, decided to join us in
the struggle to end our oppression by those who continued to entertain
the racial belief of white superiority and black inferiority. Thus was
born the world anti-apartheid movement, arguably the most powerful international
solidarity movement of the 20th century.
Its strength and sustained passion derived from universal revulsion
at the denial of the humanity of some human beings by others, simply
because of their race and colour. Its perpetuation diminished the humanity
even of those who shared the same race and colour with those who were
our oppressors.
The fact that the peoples of the world joined us in the struggle to
defeat the apartheid crime against humanity meant that at last, and in
action, all humanity had come together to assert the shared humanity
of all human beings, regardless of race or colour. The anti-apartheid
struggle constituted an historic step away from centuries of a past during
which many in the world had accepted the assertion of the sub-humanity
of Africans as a self-evident truth.
Its significance therefore extended far beyond to single purpose of
ending the system of apartheid, whether this was understood or not during
the course of our struggle. It signified the universal resolve to end
the historical definition of Africans, in word and deed, as being less
than human, a peculiar appendage of proper human society.
For this reason, all humanity has maintained
an intense interest in what we, as Africans, would do with our freedom.
The May 20, 2004 edition
of "Business Day" carries an article by Bryan Rostron, a freelance
writer. In this article, Mr Rostron criticises one Peter Hitchens, a
British journalist, in these terms:
"Eight years ago.(Hitchens stated) that
all African states had slid into corruption and lawlessness within
a few years of independence
- and boldly concluded: 'there is no reason to suppose SA will be any
different, apart from wishful thinking.' "
Mr Rostron's comments were occasioned by the
fact that Hitchens had returned to this theme, having discovered that
our government is becoming
'an increasingly unpleasant and authoritarian regime' and our country
a one-party state. He writes of "feature writers (like Hitchens
- our addition), combing SA for scare stories to confirm prejudices of
folks (or editors) back home."
The same edition of "Business Day" carries an article by Kevin
Wakeford headed "Days of playing second fiddle to the north are
over". Mr Wakeford reports on a meeting of "a group of business
leaders representing foreign companies based in SA" which he addressed,
communicating a positive image of our country.
He then reports that, "I was challenged
by a typical neo-colonial ideologue, who found my talk unrealistic
and insubordinate to global
power relations. I was duly reminded that SA is a poor country with extremely
low per capita income levels, miniscule national wealth, a growing wealth
gap, increasing unemployment, rising crime, the growing AIDS challenge
and low levels of foreign direct investment.
"I was also reminded about the proverbial
African domino that had unfailingly gravitated in a southerly direction.
We would therefore eventually
follow the misery of Zimbabwe and every nation north of our border."
Clearly, Peter Hitchens is not alone in the sport
of "combing SA
for scare stories to confirm prejudices of folks (or editors) back home"!
These are precisely the prejudices we have spoken of, born of many centuries
of racism and racial arrogance.
But the millions who participated in the struggle
against apartheid, who certainly did not include Peter Hitchens and
Kevin Wakeford's "typical
neo-colonial ideologue", pursue a different purpose in their sustained
interest in our country.
They are keen to see what we will do to demonstrate that they were right
when they decided that we are as human and any other human being. Accordingly
they hope that through our actions, we will disprove the prejudices that
continue to inspire the likes of Peter Hitchens and other neo-colonial
ideologues.
On May 15, FIFA made the historic statement that what we have done
with our freedom during the past decade has amply demonstrated that the
International Federation was right when it joined the anti-apartheid
struggle in 1976 by excluding apartheid South Africa from its ranks,
thereby joining all those throughout the world who asserted our humanity
as Africans.
Like those from the rest of the world who participated in our celebrations
of our First Decade of Liberation, by its decision, it celebrated the
fact that through our actions we had disproved the prejudices of those
who still believe that Africans are an inferior species. That is why
it made the statement that Africa's time has come!
Above all else, this is the reason that Africans everywhere rejoiced
so unreservedly at the decision that FIFA took on May 15. Or as Bryan
Rostron put it:
"The greatest benefits (of hosting the Soccer
World Cup), to a country (and continent) that has endured so much,
may rather be the intangibles
- pride, confidence, and a sense of at last playing a role on the world
stage."
We can only pray that Bryan Rostron's wishes
and ours are fulfilled when he adds "My hope is this will help raise SA out of the clichés
of much foreign (and domestic - our addition) reporting."
|
