It’s thoroughly entertaining to observe the African media wage the airwaves war against the big bad conglomerates of North America and Europe.
It seems long ago those outside of Africa have concluded the 2010 World Cup is going to be a complete disaster and so the media is quick to publish any story that fits this narrative. We heard endless rhetoric about how the games won’t be sold out, how security will scare tourists off and how the infrastructure is not up to standard of hosting an event of this level.
The hordes of journalists will come and leave and probably pollute their prose with pettiness saying it was an awful world cup. The traffic was terrible, the lines were unbearable and things were just chaotic. Hello this is Africa’s World Cup; it’s unjust to compare it to hosting in Germany or the United States. They will surely say it did not bring the economic impact that is was supposed to. And they are probably right on that matter. I just find it troubling that these will be the same journalists who will live in a bubble shuttling to and from their 4-star hotel to the stadiums and the finer restaurants South Africa has to offer. Oh perhaps they will get a guided tour of the legendary township of Soweto in some fortress like vehicle and say the have experienced the vibe of Africa. The point remains it’s a bit hollow for these journalists to hide behind the anonymity of their keyboards and chauffeurs and say the World Cup didn’t benefit the average African person when they turned a blind eye to the average African person themselves. The reality of the situation is that tickets for most of the games are sold out. The games will be played. No players will be killed. The world will still spin and people will wonder what all the fear mongering was about.
So the infrastructure is not like North America and there will be terrible traffic jams and people will feel so endangered at night that they will set up a hermitage at the hotel bar. I don’t care for these people or their opinions. Broaden your horizons. Shouldn’t people have an open mind? But undoubetedly there will be all those pictures of shacks and what not with the lavish world cup stadium in the background. You know what: that is not the point. We know Africa is very poor in comparison to the rest of the world. These photos are implying it’s wrong for a poor place to hold a sporting event like this.
What these journalists should do is step out of their bubble and go to any village in South Africa, Lesotho or anywhere else in the sub-Saharan. Undoubtedly at 4 p.m., there will be slew of kids on a bumpy pitch with little grass and some remotely round object playing football with smiles on their faces. Sure these kids probably won’t get to see a World Cup game in person, but they can feel like it is their World Cup however illogical and vapid that might seem. I like to think of football as the heart of Africa. No matter what happens to the rest of the body, the game keeps on beating smile after smile. We should celebrate that.
Simon Says 