South Africa 2010: Field of dreams?

By the time this article is published, the fate of Bafana Bafana in the 2010 World Cup will be known. South Africa will either be destined for the second round or will be the first host nation not to make it to the knockout rounds.

Like most South Africans, I am a naive optimist and dream of seeing my team progressing deep into the tournament.

Realistically, this will not happen. But does it matter? Of course, in the biggest global tournament of them all, winning matters, but something much more significant than victory on the field is at stake for South Africa and the African continent. Since the first Europeans set off for Africa hundreds of years ago and returned home with tall tales, Africa has been embedded in the European consciousness as the dark continent.

Credit: Junior Mukeba / CC BY-SA

Colonialism not only devastated the continent economically, politically and culturally but left an idea of Africa as backward and incapable of getting its own house in order. Corrupt African leaders compounded the situation. This is where the World Cup in South Africa is important.

The World Cup may minimally contribute to South Africa’s economy and has, no doubt, created some employment, even if only temporarily, but it is in terms of image that it can have a real impact.

In a 2007 paper, in the journal Contemporary Economic Policy, Maenning and Du Plessis argue, after reviewing the impact of the 2006 World Cup on Germany, that the “public-image effects of sports events should no longer be neg- lected in cost-benefit studies of large sporting events”.

But how can image make a difference?
The World Cup highlights the dilemmas faced by many developing countries. Job creation and reducing poverty are a main priority, but selling your brand (your country) is part of building the economy in a globalised world. Poverty reduction is dependent on a strong economy.

Watching the football festivities from Europe, there is no doubt that South Africa, and the African continent to a degree, has received some positive marketing. Every day, for a month, South Africa is on television. I hope this leads to increased business and tourism.

However, I have another wish it terms of global marketing. I hope the event allows for a more nuanced view of Africa to develop and that South Africans get the confidence to embrace this. Let me explain. As I read newspaper articles about South Africa in the European press, they seem to oscillate between football, economic and political progress in South Africa, and visits by high-profile Europeans doing charity work. Implicit is often a simplistic script for what they think South Africa is about. In a nutshell, South Africa is in the initial postindependence phase but will, ultimately, go the way of other African countries. This will be characterised by corruption and civil war, with European do-gooders trying to help from afar. The World Cup offers some hope, but the big story will be when it comes to nought and the postindependence script plays itself out.

But I want the real legacy of the World Cup to challenge this. I hope the space can be found between all the vuvuzela blowing and soccer drama to see the real face of Africa, and of South Africa, in particular.

Africa is a continent that is more than war and starving babies but rather a place where deprivation and ineptitude exist alongside resilience, capability and determination. Development will never be linear on the African continent, given its history, and it is a mistake to measure South Africa and its progress within a pure Western model.

In this context, the test of the World Cup is not whether South Africa can show it is capable of hosting a world-class event, but rather that it helps South Africa realise it is not Germany and finds its own voice and path to political and economic progress.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 2 July 2010 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Is South Africa becoming boring?

This year, perhaps because I like punishment, I spent considerable time poring over the 7 800 words of South African President Thabo Mbeki’s State of the Nation address. It was not reading it, however, that was punishing, rather its central message. The text itself is a good read, filled with quotes from Shakespeare, the poet Ingrid Jonker, and a liberal smattering of the prophet Isaiah. Mbeki is eloquent and his speeches are often interesting. But what I missed this time round was the challenge and the controversy. The core message was just a little too mainstream for my anarchic brain. Remember Mbeki’s comment in 1998 that South Africa consists of two nations, one white and rich, the other black and poor. Now that got the nation talking. His challenges about ongoing racism at the national conference on racism, in 2000, and at other times too, have had similar effects. Mbeki’s message these days, if his State of the Nation speech is anything to go by, is a lot blander. He seems to think, while acknowledging challenges like corruption and poverty, that South Africa is a nation of patriots shaking off the past and happily working together in partnership on board the slow gravy train to transformation. Using Mbeki’s own words, “yesterday was another country” and South Africa is entering an “age of hope”. He feels “the years of freedom have been very good for business” and business need not fear for its financial wellbeing, as long as it is helping grow the economy. In fact, the word ‘growth’ is used a whopping 19 times in his State of the Nation speech. Mbeki also spends much time in his speech thanking the world, its brother and its former roommates for their contribution to the new South Africa, from ‘Bollywood’ actor Anil Kapoor to the millions who have tried to make a go of things since 1994. The only ones to get a lambasting are Bafana Bafana, who are singled out because they “did nothing to advertise our strengths as a winning nation” in the African Cup of Nations. Again, hardly a controversial statement, since 99% of South Africans probably agree.

Where has Mbeki the controversial gone? Although some parties criticised Mbeki for skirting issues concerning Aids, crime and corruption, they all, from the SACP to Tony Leon, liked the focus on the economy.

This I find worrying rather than encouraging. Have Mbeki’s years of being beaten by the local and international press, if he vaguely challenges the wealthy, muzzled him, or is South Africa becoming a boring middle-of-the-road sort of place, where fiscal management and interest rates are hot topics of discussion? If I can put this another way: if we substituted the words ‘Bafana Bafana’ for the England football team (who also have a knack for falling from footballing grace given half a chance), there is something decidedly Tony Blair about Mbeki’s speech.

The standard New Labour mantra works in a similar fashion: sycophantic praise for various people, excessive mention of public–private partnership and a barrage of statistics to drive home how good the ruling party has been for the country, the economy and, largely, the middle class.

That said, I do not doubt the achievements of the ANC government, given the social problems facing South Africa, and it is great that South Africa has a literate president, unlike some superpowers. But I think a good president challenges the population. Mbeki has excelled at this over the years. I know some of you reading this probably dislike him intensely for that but, as they say, you have to break eggs to make an omelette. If the president is not going to cause a hullabaloo from time to time, and particularly challenge the wealthy and the complacent, then who will?

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 17 February 2006 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Reasons to be cheerful

According to Dr Arnall, of the University of Cardiff, January 24 is the most depressing day of the year, if you live in the northern hemisphere. He supports his claim, not by speculation or anecdote, but through science, and he has an equation to prove it. His model breaks down as: (W + (D-d)) x TQ divided by M x NA, where W is weather, ) debt, ) monthly salary, T time since Christmas, Q time since failed quit attempt, M low motivational levels and NA the need to take action. If the science makes no sense to you, what he is saying is that, by January 24, if you live in the northern hemisphere, the fun of Christmas has worn off, credit-card bills are coming in, the days are cold and dark, and all those resolutions you made for the new year have been broken. In other words, you're sitting around feeling sorry for yourself because you're fat, broke, living in a rainy dreary climate and probably smoking too much.

Of course, if you live in the southern hemisphere, then certain parts of the equation are defunct, particularly the weather. In fact, the condition of 'seasonal affective disorder', or SAD, as it is fittingly known, a type of depression that follows the seasons, is more common the farther north you go. Of course, you can still be fat, broke and too hot in the summer in South Africa but, scientifically speaking, South Africans should be happy people with all the sunshine.

However, the World Database of Happiness (yes, it does exist) rates South Africa as 'a middle-of-range' place when it comes to happiness. South Africa scores 5,5 on the happiness scale, along with Kenya, Lebanon and South Korea. Denmark and Switzerland are allegedly happy places, scoring over 8. Ireland and the UK score in the high range, with 7,6 and 7,1 respectively. Zimbabwe and Moldova are among the unhappiest places on earth.

Having said that, the database also highlights inequality in responses between those reporting high and those reporting low levels of happiness. South Africa has a high inequality score, meaning that, although South Africans are, on average, moderately happy, some people are clearly much happier than others. This is not surprising, given the disparities in the country. That said, I am not convinced by the science of happiness and I take issue with Arnall's equation, because it is not culturally and contextually relevant. So let me help him out.

If he wanted an equation for happiness in Northern Ireland, it would have to go something like this: (W + (D-d)) x TQ divided by M x NA, where W is the weather (of course), D downtime of the political institutions, d monthly salary paid to politicians for not participating in the downed political institutions, T time spent complaining that someone else has got more political concessions than you, Q time passed since blaming someone else for all your problems, M low motivational levels, owing to excessive intake of chips and Guinness and NA the time wasted watching too much reality TV.

And for South Africa, happiness could be measured as (W + (D-d)) x TQ divided by M x NA, where (W) is wealth (meaning having your basic needs met, not being affluent, because we all know money cannot buy happiness), D political downtime since the last corruption scandal or the firing of a Deputy President, d monthly salary spent on replacing stolen goods, T time wasted filling in insurance forms, Q time spent braaing on the weekends, M low motivational levels, owing to losing to Australia at cricket or rugby or watching Bafana Bafana crash out of a major soccer tournament, and NA time wasted believing everything you read in newspapers and magazines.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 3 February 2006 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.