The beautiful game has begun with flourish. South Africa and the entire continent are filled with intoxicating ecstasy, jubilant that the World Cup has finally come to Africa for the first time in its eighty year old history. For some this is South Africa's and the marginalized continent's coming out party, a proclamation to the world that Africa is on the move. For many others it is simply an opportunity to momentarily suspend the gruelling demands of daily life, of disruptive politics, destructive wars and debilitating recessions, and enjoy the world's biggest quadrennial sporting festival. For those who pay attention to Africa's hackneyed global representation, they relish the fact that the Afro-pessimists in the irredeemably racist Euroamerican rightwing press who doubted South Africa's ability to host the games have been proven utterly wrong. South Africa has put up a spectacular show in terms of facilities, organization, splendor, and sheer ear-splitting joy. The vuvuzelas scream to the world the rainbow nation's renewed confidence and possibilities. This promises to be the greatest World Cup ever in terms of viewership: FIFA predicts a cumulative viewing audience of 26.29 billion [1], an unprecedented global celebration of a single event.
I am old enough to remember that once upon a time the World Cup was out of reach for Africa and Africans. It wasn't until as recently as the 1980s that African teams began to feature regularly in the World Cup, although the first African nation to compete was Egypt in 1934, followed forty years later by the then Zaire. While the first World Cup in 1932 featured 7 teams, 16 nations competed in the second tournament in 1934, a number that was kept until 1982. When the number of teams was expanded to 24 in 1986, two African nations Cameroon and Algeria made their memorable debut. In its opening match, Cameroon held Italy to 1-1 draw and also held Peru and Poland to draws of 0-0, but failed to qualify for the second round. The Algerians fared less well, drawing with Northern Ireland 1-1 and losing to Brazil 1-0 and Spain 3-0. Cameroon continued to qualify for the subsequent world Cups, except in 2006, while Algeria did not do so again until the current World Cup.
In the 1990 World Cup, Cameroon and its legendary players like Roger Mila dazzled the world with victories over cupholders Argentina (1-0) and Romania (2-0) in the first round, and Columbia (2-1) in the second round, and they only lost to England in the quarter finals through penalty kicks. In the 1994 World Cup, Cameroon was joined by Nigeria and Morocco among the three African teams that qualified before the total number of teams was expanded to the current 32 in 1998. In that year's tournament South Africa, recently freed from the yoke of apartheid and international isolation, became one of five African teams to qualify (the others were Cameroon, Morocco, Nigeria, and Tunisia). The same number of countries made it to the 2002 World Cup, the first to be held in Asia and outside of alternating venues in Europe and the Americas. But Morocco failed to qualify while Senegal did; the latter electrified the continent by defeating France (1-0), the European and world champions in the opening match, and making it to the quarterfinals, the second African country to do so.
Save for Tunisia, Africa was represented by a new cast of nations in the 2006 World Cup, namely, Angola, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Togo. Now, in the current tournament, the continent is represented by six teams including the host South Africa. The others are the veteran team from Cameroon, and returning teams from Algeria, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria. So to echo Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's insightful commentary in today's The Guardian [2], we have a record number of ‘our boys' carrying our hopes in this year's tournament playing out in the last country on our massive continent to be freed , a country that embodies most poignantly our collective trials and tribulations from slavery and colonialism to racism and apartheid and our enduring hopes for self-determination, democracy, and development.
For many Africans across the continent and in the diaspora the World Cup represents football nationalism that transcends nationality; it evokes their Pan-African quest to belong to the world and the world to belong to them with their full dignity as human beings. In the words of Adichie, "our football nationalism, then, symbolizes a cathartic, even if fleeting, addressing of historical and political grievances. It is a platform on which to stand and say that we may not be part of the G8 who decide the fate of the world, we may always rank on the bottom of health and government and economic indexes, we may have crumbling institutions and infrastructure, but hey, we won by sheer talent and grit. And a lot of the boys started playing without shoes. Now imagine what we could do if we all had shoes - literal and metaphorical - from the beginning."
The World Cup derives its global appeal partly because it is not predictably tied to military might, economic prowess, or population size. Two of the G8 countries did not qualify--Canada and Russia, the world's largest countries in terms of land mass. Nor did many of the G20 countries including China and India, the countries with the world's biggest populations and emerging economic powerhouses. Within Africa itself, Ethiopia and Egypt did not make it besides having the second and third largest populations on the continent, respectively. On the whole, teams from West Africa and North Africa have dominated, while no team from East Africa has ever made it to the World Cup. There is no obvious economic or demographic reason why this is so. It may have to do with football traditions, training, and organization in each country.
This World Cup accelerates the globalization of African football and the Africanization of global football, in which virtuosity, playfulness, joy and technical proficiency are interwoven and valorized. From a pan-African perspective, the African presence in world football has actually been astonishing. As my African American wife remarked while watching the match between the US and England (in which they drew 1-1) this afternoon, "all these brothers, it's amazing!" Both teams sported several black players from both the historic and new African diasporas. The legendary Brazilian team, which has won the cup a record five times, has always had a strong diasporan representation, as personified in Pele, a maestro who is widely regarded as the greatest footballer of all time. There is hardly a team from Latin America, home to Africa's largest diaspora, that doesn't have players of African descent. For the Caribbean this is a given.
The same can said of many teams in Western Europe and Western Asia, also homes to millions of people of African descent. France and Saudi Arabia are good examples. The two countries boast the largest numbers of African-born migrants. The French team that won in 1998 was a mélange of the French African diaspora as it had players of Antillean, North African and West African descent. The diaspora face of the French team was amply evident in the team that played yesterday and drew 0-0 with Uruguay. Watching the Saudi Arabian team that competed in the 2006 World Cup (its fourth consecutive time since 1994), one could not fail but notice that it was predominantly black.
At one level, this is a reflection and product of the racialized marginalization of African diaspora populations. Historically, across the diaspora, peoples of African descent were excluded from mainstream public spaces and sectors. The few avenues open for the enterprising and talented ones among them were in entertainment and sports, although they were often excluded from more elitist forms of entertainment and sports. In the United States, for example, African Americans were largely absent from Hollywood and such expensive sports as tennis and golf until quite recently. Football is a working class game that requires little investment in sporting gear, so the barriers to entry are relatively low. The same can be said about basketball, baseball, American football, and field and track, unlike golf, tennis, swimming, skiing, and ice-skating in which more elaborate facilities are necessary.
Predictably, much has been written about the implications of the World Cup for South Africa and Africa as a whole. Sifting through the countless commentaries, one is struck by their predictable framing. There is the Afro-pessimist narrative in which initially it was commonly assumed South Africa would be unable to complete the facilities on time or up to ‘international' standards. When that canard was put to rest, the focus turned to fear-mongering about South African crime, corruption, disease, racial violence, and other imaginable pathologies. Some couched their South African bashing in liberal concerns about the costs of the World Cup, in new found empathy for the poor left out of the post-apartheid socio-economic dispensation.
I am always amazed at how pundits and periodicals that ordinarily do not care much about the poor in their own societies, suddenly become champions for the African poor. This is evident in the special reports on South Africa in the financial press from Bloomberg Businessweek [3] (May 17-23) to The Economist [4] (June 5-11), to The Financial Times [5] (June 4). The expedient embrace of the poor by the interlocutors of capital is captured in a story in the Financial Times entitled "Poor cry foul over World Cup in Durban" [6], and even more pithily in an article in the liberal-leaning, The Nation, provocatively titled, "'At Least Under Apartheid...' : South Africa as the World Cup Kicks Off" [7] (article also appears on The Huffington Post [8]), in which claims are made that conditions in contemporary South Africa are worse than in the dreary days of apartheid. In the rest of Africa we are familiar with this underhanded homage to colonialism and dismissal of African struggles for liberation.
Many progressive South African and African observers have also criticized South Africa's huge expenditures on the World Cup (more than $5 billion) given the country's huge backlogs of social development and racial and class disparities inherited from the historical crimes and chasms of apartheid. Quite appalling have been the evictions and relocations [9] of the poor from squatter settlements in Cape Town [10] to make room for new stadiums and clean up the country's image for the world's football tourists and television cameras. And more than three-quarters of South Africans who were polled complain that World Cup tickets are too expensive [11], echoing similar sentiments expressed in 22 other countries.
One South African commentator calls South Africa's World cup a disgrace [12]. Particularly scathing are the criticisms of Patrick Bond, a well-known South African public intellectual, against what he calls the 'World Cup Profiteers' [13] and the ‘egregious mistakes made by national and municipal governments, apparently under the thumb of the Fédération Internationale de Footbal Association (FIFA)' [14]. Even the Editor of the South African business weekly, the Financial Mail, who calls the hosting of the World Cup 'a dream fulfilled' [15] concedes, ‘those who complained that the World Cup was wasting money we didn't have had a point. We obviously had to juggle our priorities to pay for the infrastructure, and the thing has ended way over budget. We've literally handed over the country to Sepp Blatter and his cabal. They aren't the nicest of people. They will pocket all the profits. We will probably be bankrupt by the time they're done with us.'
These critiques are quite compelling. But in the hands of the Afro-pessimists, this rhetoric is wielded as one more discursive weapon to beat Africa, to put it in its place. Others point to the expected economic benefits that the country will reap from the month-long global advertising and rebranding as a tourist destination, foreign investment, and improved public infrastructure. In the words of Archbishop Tutu [16], "It's a victory not only for South Africa, but for Africa as a whole. Infrastructure development in the form of construction of stadia, improved transport system, upgraded road networks and telecommunications has been put in place to ensure a resounding success."
For many the real payback transcends pecuniary returns; it lies in the priceless possibilities of providing South Africa a transcendent moment [17] reminiscent of the demise of apartheid in 1994. Many believe this World Cup will be more unifying than the 1995 rugby World Cup [18]; that it will help create a new national imaginary, and has the potential to rekindle the apparently deferred dreams of the rainbow nation. Already, they point out, the World Cup has galvanized patriotism and national pride among South Africans across the yawning divisions of race, ethnicity, and class. The national team, Bafana Bafana, have become the unifying symbol of progress [19].
Much of the African Press [20] tends to emphasize the benefits of the tournament. Pride and anticipation overwhelm the concerns and apprehension that is the staple of the Euroamerican media. The beleaguered band of Africa's external cheerleaders and eternal optimists go even further. This is expressed eloquently in a long article in The Independent [21] bullishly entitled, "Africa Rising: A big day for football. A giant leap for a continent." It is worth quoting at some length for its unusually upbeat account of Africa rarely found in the British media:
Not far from Soccer City, the stadium which will today house the opening ceremonies of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, stands the Maponya shopping mall. There you can buy Versace sunglasses, eat sushi, smoke a £20 Havana cigar and even purchase a car from the resident Audi dealer. But this is no smart up-town white suburb of Johannesburg. This is black Soweto.
It is as potent a symbol of a changing African continent as the stadium itself, which was built in the apartheid era as a football venue for South Africa's black population. This was where Nelson Mandela addressed 100,000 ecstatic supporters soon after his release from prison as apartheid crumbled. For the past three years it has stood empty as African workers refurbished it for today's launch. But more than a football stadium is being reborn.
The image of Africa in many minds, elsewhere in the world, is of a Hopeless Continent. It is a place of disease, famine, poverty, corruption and war. There is some truth in all stereotypes but never the complete truth. A single story is a dangerous thing, as the Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie puts it. Life is composed of many overlapping stories which can be used to malign or dispossess but which can also empower and humanise. A story can demonise. Or it can repair a broken dignity.
So Africa is a tale of two continents. Or perhaps more. But the story that we in the West resist is the story of an Africa whose moment may be about to come.
Where, we might ask ourselves, does the future lie? Here in the old world of Europe, with its currency crises, national deficits, denuded natural resources, high expectations and ageing populations?
Or in Africa with its vast mineral and oil reserves, under-exploited agricultural expanses, huge potential to tap the sun, wind and water for renewable energies and biofuels - and a burgeoning population of young people eager to work for low wages and consume?
That is not mere fancy. Over the past few years economic growth in Africa has surged to more than double of that in the developed world - averaging a whopping six per cent between 2003 and 2008. Its inflation rates and budget deficits have declined. Its foreign exchange reserves have grown 30 per cent since the 1990s. And its national debts have sharply decreased.
Trade and foreign investment [22] have quadrupled since 2000. Dictatorships have largely been replaced by democracies - there are 30 proper democracies today, compared to five at the end of the Cold War. Epitomizing that was the peaceful transfer of power in Ghana, where the result could hardly have been closer.
No major new wars have begun in the last five years and, according to data from the OECD's latest African Economic Outlook reported incidents of civil tension in sub-Saharan Africa decreased by a third between 2004 and 2008.
Political stability has increased. Telecommunications, banking [23], and retailing are flourishing. Construction is booming. And investment in infrastructure and education are paving the way for as many as 200 million Africans to be rich enough to enter the market for consumer goods market by 2015.
Africa is becoming the new economic frontier....
Even The Wall Street Journal [24] echoes these sentiments and believes the World Cup offers an opportune moment for the outside world to "reassess their relations with the continent as a whole." The article proceeds:
Two reports this week, one from U.K.-based think tank Chatham House [25] and one from consultancy McKinsey & Co, do just that.
McKinsey's forecasts say sub-Sahara Africa is well-positioned to become the developing world's "next great success story" and an investment target for those seeking new markets. [Read the report here [26].]
Meanwhile, Chatham House said that many Western nations are still weighed down by perceptions of Africa as an aid recipient rather than a strategic trading partner and risk missing opportunities that China and Brazil are already tapping into. [Read the report here [27].]
Why does it matter?
As Chatham House points out, Africa accounts for 40% of the world's basic mineral resources, 10% of freshwater supplies and 15% of agriculture land. It's also about to become a larger player in the world's oil production.
The debate will of course continue about which Africa, or the various Africas, the World Cup represents and will impact the most. For me, as I suspect it may be for many Africans, the tournament will evoke Pan-African football nationalism. There is a cascading scale of my levels of support and enthusiasm. As a Southern African, my heart is first with South Africa. If they don't make it, I hope one of the West African teams do, then the Algerians. And if none of the continental African teams succeed, I will support the teams with the largest representation of diaspora Africans, preferably those from the global South. As for the teams from the global North, my heart first goes to the U.S. because I live in this country and its team has many players of African descent. I am not sure about England and France, Africa's former exploitative colonial superpowers. If the two end up in the finals, I will really have a hard time to choose. But whoever wins, to paraphrase one commentary, it will be a triumph for Africa's spirit. [28]
As I head to South Africa and Malawi later this month for my annual vacation, I expect to get even more engrossed in the frenzy of this year's Africa World Cup.
First Written June 12, 2010