Is South Africa just one big vuvuzela?

There were moments of brilliance on the pitch during the 2010 World Cup, but it was what happened off the pitch that grabbed the most attention.

The media were obsessed with the presence of Diego Maradona as he minced about like a diminutive rotund action man squeezed into a suit against his will. The Jabulani ball and its tendency to balloon into the crowd when struck from a free kick (unless by Diego Forlan) also provided for hours of discussion. The cheating from players feigning injury to more serious incidents, such as the blatant handball by Uruguay to deny Ghana a place in the semifinal, also produced much chitchat.

However, the clear winner, when it came to off-the-pitch distraction, was the vuvuzela. For the entire tournament, pundits, fans and even those with no interest in football were talking about it. Everyone had an opinion on the noisy horn. There were Facebook petitions to have it banned as well as voracious calls for its recognition as the cultural symbol of African football and, hence, for its preservation.

Credit: flowcomm / CC BY

Since the end of the World Cup, debate has continued. Several English Premiership teams have banned the vuvuzela from their grounds. At Wimbledon, there was much anxiety that someone might sully the Centre Court with a long droning honk, and it was hastily outlawed. There is also now a dispute over who owns the vuvuzela from a commercial perspective. Several companies have tried to register the trademark. Masincedane Sports, which has been producing the instrument since 2001, reached a compensation deal with the Shembe Church, in South Africa, about ownership, even though the final decision is still pending on whether Masincedane owns the trademark. The church claims that it invented the instrument in 1910 with a view to using it in religious ceremonies. The vuvuzela is, apparently, useful in driving out demons.

Practically speaking, however, the vuvuzela really belongs to the people of South Africa, and now the world. UK supermarket giant Sainsbury’s is said to have sold over 50 000 vuvuzelas. You can even buy them from online global retailer Amazon. Perhaps the reason for its success is that, in many senses, the vuvuzela is a lot like South Africa.

The vuvuzela gets noticed. It draws attention to itself. It has touched the international imagination. Just like South Africa. This is in part a result of apartheid, which captured the global consciousness for decades. But the focus on South Africa is also a result of the fact that South Africans, seemingly, like to voice their concerns. Whether talking about the demise of apartheid, the Rainbow Nation, crime, HIV/Aids or the state of the economy, we like the world to know what is going on. This is partly about being located at the southern tip of Africa, which results in a need to feel connected globally.

But it is also likely that the desire to externalise issues is deeply cultural. It is, I believe, how we, as South Africans, solve problems. This tendency has helped South Africa to deal with many historical challenges. But it has also meant that we, as South Africans, can be as much to blame for the negative coverage of our country as the international media.

We have all met the South Africans abroad who are only too willing to enlighten people about what a terrible country it now is (often with a racial subtext implying ‘now that apartheid has ended’), leaving listeners determined never to go there.

So, while verbalising our problems helped us in the past, the question is: How can we talk about real problems like wealth disparity and the relative crime problem while communicating all that is positive about South Africa at the same time? This may seem like a complex challenge, but, if a simple plastic trumpet can signal joy, exhilaration, celebration, exuberance, unity, disappointment, dismay, and alarm, then, surely, so can we.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 20 August 2010 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Give the gift of dignity, not column inches

One of the sad realities of the world is that, once a newspaper story breaks, it is impossible to stop its spread. The story of 18-year-old South African athlete Caster Semenya is a case in point.

As everyone on the planet now knows, Semenya is at the centre of a global row about whether she is, theoretically, a man or a woman. The controversy followed the revelation by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) that it was carrying out tests on Semenya shortly before the women’s 800 m race at the recent World Athletics Championships. Semenya’s dramatic winning margin, coupled with the announcement, created a media frenzy. If you type ‘Caster Semenya’ into Google, you now get over 700 000 references.

Caster Semenya, London 2012
Credit: Tab59 from Düsseldorf, Allemagne / CC BY-SA 

But the situation has been disgraceful. The IAAF, presumably for a range of good reasons, made confidential information public, breaching numerous ethical standards. The world responded by feeling it appropriate to discuss Semenya’s physical characteristics causally and in public. Even those claiming to support Semenya often made their case by referring to how she looked or acted. The more this happened, the more she became objectified.

The result is that it seems everyone has now lost perspective and the debate continues unabated, when the priority should be to try to give Semenya back her privacy – not to heighten public interest.

The real issue in this case is how, and why, the case was made public and how this has been sustained – not whether Semenya is technically a man or a woman.

It is reasonable to ask: Why did the IAAF publicly announce that it was testing someone before full results were known? We can only speculate. Was it to combat a leak? A mistake? In a BBC report, it was claimed that preliminary test results became public because a fax was sent to the wrong person. And has the IAAF done everything to protect Semenya’s privacy since the announcement and offered adequate support?

I do not think that the primary issue, at least at this stage, is the nature of the IAAF’s rules and tests of what qualifies someone as a man or a women, and what this means for participation in different races. If one participates in a sport, and it has rules of this kind, no matter how obscure or unfathomable they are, one agrees tacitly to accept them and to be judged by them.

If one thinks the rules are wrong, that is a different fight.

Gender tests of this kind have been carried out in the past. Athletes from India, Poland and Austria, besides others, have been banned from competition after being ‘found to be men’. I wonder how many people around the globe can name these athletes? Most of us cannot because, generally, it is only after a ruling has been made that any public announcement (if any) is made about an athlete’s future. Until then, the person’s private life is kept out of the public eye. Semenya herself was apparently tested in South Africa in 2007 – this never hit the headlines.

The IAAF has launched an internal inquiry into the handling of the issue. Pressure should be put on the IAAF to ensure this is not a whitewash. An understanding of how this mess happened and who was responsible, and strategies to minimise its continuing impact on Semenya are needed. The emotional damage to her by the IAAF’s actions and how this can be rectified should also be considered.

Wider than this, constant public discussion and political grandstanding should cease. I feel guilty of this myself by even writing this piece. Seems we are all perpetuating the story.

Specifically, what is needed is an immediate moratorium on speculation and discussion about the outcome of the gender tests. We should all try to give Semenya back her dignity by keeping our opinionated mouths shut about this and let her deal with the ramifications in private.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 11 September 2009. as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Contribute to Conflict Trends

The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) is presently soliciting contributions for Conflict Trends 2008, Issue 1. This General Issue will cover a range of topics related to Africa (conflict, conflict resolution, peace, security and development, politics, specific regional and/or country case-studies/analyses etc). It is a more open-ended Issue and contributors are encouraged to submit articles on any topics of interest.Articles must be 2500-3000 words in length, and the deadline for the submission of the complete article is 15 February 2008.Should you wish to submit an article for publication consideration in this issue please refer to the Guidelines for Contributors on their website.

Apology over the slave trade two centuries overdue

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in Britain, in 1807. As a result, debates are raging about what should be done and, specifically, whether the government should offer an apology.

Tony Blair has expressed "deep sorrow" for Britain's role in the slave trade and called it "profoundly shameful", but has stopped short of an official apology. Campaigners demand he goes further and that reparations are paid. But, needless to say, debates about what is to be done about slavery, especially two centuries afterwards, are complicated and emotive.

No one knows the exact number of Africans who were shipped overseas as part of the slave trade. Research puts the figures somewhere between 10-million and 28-million.

The system too was linked with wars which served as a recruiting ground for slaves, and it included deadly cross-country marches, as those captured were corralled towards harbours for export. Some estimate that a minimum of four-million people died in this way.

About 12-million slaves crossed the Atlantic or Middle Passage from Europe in slave ships alone, with a high percentage dying in dreadful conditions on the way. About 17-million slaves were exported to the Indian Ocean coast, the Middle East, and North Africa by Muslim traders too. There were also African middlemen who served as capturers and initial salespersons of slaves. This highlights the global and complex nature of the phenomena that lasted from the 1500s to the early 1900s in some countries.

That said, there is little doubt who got rich from the system, namely the Europeans. The slave trade allowed new markets to be developed, and slaves were integral to processing raw materials abroad and sparked the industrial revolution.

Cities such as London and Amsterdam were substantially built on wealth generated through trading human beings. This cumulatively created a wealth gap that persists to this day, and some argue a snowballing skills gap caused by the systematic removal of generations of the strongest and healthiest citizens from certain African countries.

But does this justify present day reparations and an apology? The main problem with reparations is the question of who should be making reparations to whom, considering all those linked directly with the system are long buried. Should the present generation of Europeans pay for the sins of their fathers' fathers' fathers? Also, not all European families were implicated in the system.

Irrespective of the slave trade, what is obvious is that structural injustice exists in the world, and this remains racialised. The enormous gap between rich and poor needs attention through debt relief and allowing better market access to developing countries, no matter how the situation came about. Where reparations and apologies are important in that they can force those who like to pretend history never happened to acknowledge it, and be a rallying point to address current social injustice.

More importantly, it is a truism that fundamental distrust exists between the haves and have-nots. This has a racial dimension too that is evident in how quickly Africans turn to issues such as slavery and colonialism to explain their current problems, and how swiftly many Europeans blame Africa’s problems on present inadequacies, such as leadership, rather than looking at historical legacies.

Apologies can be a way of building trust, a way of creating reconnection and, thus, can be instrumental in generating cooperation to overcome present inequalities.

So, as a first step, an apology is necessary because the impact of slavery remains, at the very least, in the mindsets of Africans and Europeans. The fact a debate is happening about slavery two centuries later is proof in itself of this. All means necessary are needed to shift these mindsets. So it is time those with the most power in the relationship, such as the British State and the monarchy, bite the bullet and, at a bare minimum, make an official statement.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 13 April 2007 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Charity presents one-dimensional view of Africa

I am now an official survivor of the unmitigated blitzkrieg people in the UK call Red Nose Day. I suffered the relentless onslaught of weeping celebrities begging me to part with my cash to help starved Africans. I just managed to stomach the general public going berserk for a day, colouring their hair red and jamming 17 fat cross-dressers into a Mini Cooper, all in the name of charity.

But, despite the absurdity of it, Comic Relief's Red Nose Day works. The charity extravaganza and telethon that happens every two years have raised more than £337-million since 1985, with 60% going to causes in Africa. That said, there is also something about this feel-good frenzy and media juggernaut that is Red Nose Day that makes me feel just a little uncomfortable. Am I the only one who feels the bitter irony of engaging in a pie-eating contest to raise money for the starving?

I do not want to be a party pooper or discourage philanthropy, but how much thought is really going into this type of giving? I have no doubt that those working at Comic Relief have a sophisticated strategy for selecting projects and sustaining them. Their Website convincingly describes the long-term impact the money makes. But is there similar strategic thinking when it comes to the general public?

The media machine behind Comic Relief, although successful at getting donations and sensitising the public to the plight of individuals in dreadful circumstances, also distances us from the bigger picture. The average public donor is sold a package, complete with red nose, hair gel and funny fundraising ideas, with no thinking required whatsoever. The message is simple: watch the TV insert about the plight of Africans, see what a difference Comic Relief makes, feel emotionally moved, dial a number and, faster than you could order a pizza, your money has bought a meal for a starving child.

You would expect, after 20 years, the campaign message to be a little more sophisticated. I do not want to take a cheap shot at Comic Relief or those millions of generous people out there. I also recognise the pragmatic argument that if a zany media campaign is needed to bring in the money then so be it. But there are other issues to consider.

In an effort to present a snappy media message, there is a tendency to paint Africa as an amorphous mass. It really doesn't matter if the project being supported is in Sudan or Sierra Leone. It is all Africa - and it needs help. Media-wise, this works, but it leaves the UK public with a very one-dimensional view of Africa. It acontextualises why poverty and conflict came about it the first place. It lets governments off the hook and writes multinational companies out of the picture.

I know that Comic Relief tries to tackle this in its own way. Its educational materials for schools deal with questions of debt and fair trade. It encourages students to take a stand and write to MPs. But, sadly, this is not the public face of Comic Relief. It is a social indictment that charity has to be funky to get a public response.

Disturbingly the slick celebrity-driven marketing does not challenge the public to think about the root causes of poverty and do something more substantial than dipping into their pockets every two years.

Surely the campaign should include a focus on the need for fundamental political change to alleviate poverty and not just the importance of making an individual difference.

Comic Relief should be commended for all it has done and the world would be a better place if there was a red nose under every bed, but I only wish the whole thing was just a little more political and a lot more challenging.

To find out more on Comic Relief visit http://www.comicrelief.com

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 25 March 2005 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

African Links

I just added some new and important African links to my site on the 'Links Page'. The intention is that I will monitor these more closely over 2004....these are SADC, the African Union, and NEPAD. Let us hope we some constructive developments here in 2004 as these institutions are critical to the future of Africa and breaking down Afro-pessimism.