South Africa and FIFA
Friday, December 11, 2009
Since I hate soccer with a passion, I would have a deep sense of schadenfreude if South Africa were not ready for the world cup. (For those of you Natal graduates, schadenfreude is a German word: schaden means harm or damage and freude joy, so schadenfreude is pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.)
The reason for my aggressive attitude is not really that I like to see my country fail but rather that I am disappointed that a game (which I regard with distain) can be the catalyst for the government and provinces of this country to do so much in a short time to produce many things that are needed (like rapid-transit systems) and so many things not needed (like large stadiums) while nothing happens about the eternal African usual suspect problems of healthcare, accommodation, employment, crime, infrastructure, water, and so on.
The cash spent is about R9,6-billion allocated for transport projects and R8,4-billion for the construction of World Cup stadiums. A further R1,5-billion was allocated to the International Broadcast Centre, in Johannesburg, and other aspects of the country's information and communication technology infrastructure.
One wonders what would have happened if FIFA had not said that there must be stadiums for the World Cup but that crime must significantly reduce and infrastructure and employment must significantly increase for the World Cup. Well, we know the answer to that. We do have the budget to nail accommodation, employment, crime, infrastructure, water and employment but, unless we have somebody demanding that something be done about it by some specific deadline, all that happens is that politicians do nothing but talk and buy smart cars.
I think there is no doubt that some of the structures that have been built for the World Cup are quite magnificent, particularly the stadiums. But they contribute very little to our society. The Cape Town stadium will be used four times for the World Cup and thereafter . . . well, perhaps as much as the old Green Point stadium, which is to say not much at all.
Let us look to the other side: the stadiums were built on a very fast track and are a job well done. What does this tell us? If you want something built quickly and well, give it to the experts and they will do the job. The experts in this case are private-sector contractors. But if you want something messed up, then give it to a loose consortium of cadres and comrades with impeccable struggle credentials, all of whom have limited knowledge of big-project construction. The results of the latter, we have seen, are a waste of money with no specific result. But guess what - when Fifa cracks the whip, out go the comrades and in come the private-sector experts, who will get it right.
And the FIFA people have taken the form of gods. They decree that the whole of Cape Town central be blocked for the World Cup draw - and so it is. They block-book all flights between Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban, making intercity travel between these centres very difficult and expensive. They pronounce, they dictate, they pontificate. And we, in awe and amazement that such luminaries can even exist, bow down and lay out the red carpet, all in the name of the 'beautiful' but actually deadly boring game.
In all this, there is one enduring symbol of failure of the World Cup. It is in the form of the South African woman. She may be in the Tugela valley, in Limpopo province, in the Northern Cape, in the Eastern Cape . . . anywhere in this country. She walks with an erect carriage because, balanced on her head, is a 20-l plastic drum of water. She is taking water from a river to her house. The reason for this is that, wonderfully, magnificently, South Africa can spend billions of rands for the sake of entertainment but cannot get it right to bring piped water to the houses of tens of thousands of people, who will not be watching the World Cup. How much more can we fail? {#}
posted @ 9:06 AM,
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