Crafting the national team

Mpumemelo and Bliksem

As one of the opportunities (read "lean pickings") from the 2010 FIFA World Cup, crafters can make things which soccer tourists will buy. There is not a great deal of space, because FIFA has tied up the brand space so extraordinarily tightly, that really, one has to be a bit of a genius to navigate one's way to even the most megre profit out of the mega tournament.

For instance: you can't use the figures "2010" (or the word form) in relation to any or all of the following - the National flag; the words "World Cup"; or a soccer ball. Naturally the FIFA logo belongs to FIFA, and you would use it at your peril. We have heard of instances where a lollipop manufacturer made a wrapper in the form of a football, with the letters 2010 on it. FIFA sued. They have made it abundantly clear that they will tolerate absolutely no breach of the marks they have ownership over. If you could, in any way, reasonably infer that there is a relation to the tournament, they have ownership over it.

They own the words "Fan Fest" and "Fan Zone". They do not own the word "FanJol" because the Western Cape Provincial government has registered that name in its interest. (A "Jol" is a party, or a gathering where fun is happening. It is a Cape Flats word, which every South African understands. It is one of the few words in any language, which FIFA does not own!)

So, in our quest to find things which local people can benefit from, we commissioned this adult man sized wire figure, which we are calling Mpumelelo, which means "overcome" or "advance" in one of the local languages - isiXhosa, and his smaller (and as yet undressed) side-kick, Bliksem which is another local word, meaning "to anhialate", or "to destroy". It also has a playful meaning, because it is an extremely strong word - and one wouldn't necessarily take it very seriously if someone threatened to Bliksem you.

We are going to take these figures with us, to major events and to shopping malls and other public places. It is unlikely that a tourist is going to buy them - because they are pretty bulky. But they will point to the other amazing wire work talent which we have in this part of the world. Smaller figurines, dressed in the colours of all of thew participating teams; wire ear-rings, in the form of soccerballs; wire cups and saucers, with the word "CUP" in beads on the cup - (Sorry FIFA, you don't own cups!) and a host of other really imaginative items.

Hopefully, the football tourists, (who seem, from all the research, to be extremely single-minded, wanting to watch soccer, drink, eat and have a place to stay - and not much else) will be amazed by our wire crafting skills. And hopefully one or two of our wire crafters will be able to look back on the tournament and feel that they benefitted directly from it.

Football, Art and Religion

I attended the opening of an exhibition by Port Elizabeth artist, Duncan Stewart, at the Ron Belling art gallery, in the city. The exhibition was entitled “Football: a dialogue for Hope”.

From the invite, it was a bit difficult to know what to expect. On arrival, as I fought my way through the crowds to get in, I saw the Organising Committee’s Danny Jordaan and his wife, Roxanne, whom I knew from many years ago, as a theologian. It was really good to see her again. I remember the level of awe in which we all held her in the 1980s. Women theologians were, then, a rarity. Black women theologians were even rarer. Black women theologians who actually spoke to white theologians and didn’t have a rather large carrot up their rear ends, were probably singular – so I was pleased to see her again. And glad that she remembered me.

To my surprise, she was called upon to open the proceedings with a prayer. I listened closely to her careful choice of words. No “Lord”; no “father God”. Everything she said was deeply generic and inclusive.

Not so with the artist. The artist was clearly a vocal Christian of some description, who did not hesitate to tell us that he was, in some detail. He explained that this was the basis of his art and his exhibition. That is why he had entitled the exhibition “Dialogue for Hope”. He had a very strong feeling that “the Lord would be using the 2010 event to do wonderful things for South Africa”.

I raised the matter with Roxanne Jordaan. I said isn’t it a bit of a problem when there is such a heavy infusion of Christianity into an event such as this? She agreed. She explained that for that reason she had been careful to use as much inclusive language as possible in her prayer. She said that, of course, that is the place where this particular artist, whom she seemed to know fairly well, happens to be – so one should see it as that.

Now, I do wonder about this. Recently, I had the experience of a sponsor – a very large FIFA partner (which for the sake of momentary charity on my part will remain nameless) stood up on the state at a Public Viewing Area and asked the audience to please bow their heads. I thought I had heard wrong. But no, he ploughed on relentlessly. “Father God”, he continued, “We would just like to thank you for bringing us to this place, Lord, and blessing us so mightily”. At this point I was frantically calling the event organiser to shut him up and get him forcibly removed from the stage. But no, he continued – “And Jesus, I just wanna ask you to bless each and every person here tonight and to pour your Holy Spirit into their lives”. And so it continued and continued. He ended with the flourish of telling the assembled people of Plettenberg Bay that he loved each and every one of them and he prayed God would bless them powerfully. By the time I had reached the stage to physically drag him off it, if need be, he was gone.

The sheer arrogance of the man was astonishing. This was, after all, a government event. We are, thank God, a secular state. Nevertheless, he thought it appropriate to impose his peculiar form of Christian belief on the crowd, simply because he was in the kind of position of power that gave him access to the microphone.

Now I am not suggesting the same for Duncan Stewart, who seemed to me to be entirely sincere in what he was doing and entirely within his rights. The only point I am making, is that in these kinds of public spaces, there is a level of appropriateness which becomes extraordinarily difficult when a fairly overtly, and singular, religious position is brandished.

Stewart's work is fairly subtle in this regard. There are hints and flashes of Christian themes all over the place. For instance, the charcoal drawing he gave to Danny Jordaan as a gift was an aerial view of the Port Elizabeth stadium – but with a large plastic fork in the middle of it, making it look very much like an aluminium airline dinner server. The title of that work is “Feeding the Multitudes”.

Generally, Stewart’s art was not my taste. I find this kind of slightly sentimental, hidden allusion stuff, rather irritating. But there was one piece which, I have to say, blew me away. In the crush, I almost tripped over it – it was a bronze piece, lying in a corner of the staircase. No title. A street child, lying on a piece of cardboard. A discarded KFC box (I think it should have been MacDonalds, as a FIFA sponsor) and a crushed Coke can lying nearby. The child is asleep, and clutching a football. It is a brilliant piece. It is evocative. It is touching. It speaks to the very heart of the matter.

The rest, with titles like “Bafana Bafana 2040” were really, to my mind anyway, just a bit too sentimental and just a bit too obvious. But that one piece, will live with me forever. That is real art, to my mind. That is the essence of religion.

You can't eat a stadium

Whenever I turn on the radio, and the FIFA 2010 World Cup™ is being discussed, I am sure to hear someone with an opinion very similar to the title of this article.

At first glance, there is some validity to the concern. The argument goes, (or at least part of it) that one should not bother with luxuries and ‘nice-to-have’ items in our emerging economy. There are “too many poor people” they say. Their needs are for the basics, like housing, food, jobs, water and food. To expend 3 billion or more on a soccer stadium is almost like fiddling while Rome (or Cape Town, or Rustenburg!) is burning. It is, in fact, on the face of it, something quite close to obscene.

Well, it would be, if one took nothing else into consideration. Consider the journey we have come. There was a time, not too long ago, when there really was only one sport which was considered worth the government supporting. That sport was not football. It was Rugby. Rugby was the only game in town. And Rugby received billions from the government, in support. And so, if one stops to look around, it is not difficult to see that Rugby is fully resourced, and very well supported.

The fact that it is largely supported by whites is, of course, a consequence of the racializing of the game, which was something which was done quite consciously by the apartheid government, in its day. But it is very well resourced and very well supported, within an extremely narrow band. Broadening that band, is something which the game has not yet managed to achieve very well.

Soccer, on the other hand, has been up to this point, completely under-resourced. Even more than that, counter-racialised, scorned, belittled, ignored. But try as they might, it was never possible to obliterate. Soccer continued to be the game of choice for the masses of our people. And they played it on dusty streets, on sandy fields with makeshift goalposts, in schoolyards and even on slopes! Soccer, despite all the odds, continued to be the game which the majority enjoyed.

On a world scale, of course, soccer beats any other game hands down. Its popularity is vast and, as anyone who has had any dealings with the organisation will testify, FIFA operates more like a super government than a football organisation.

And so, given the opportunity of playing on this vast world canvas and to profile all the very best that Africa can offer, how could we have ignored the opportunity? How could we have folded our arms or sat on our hands when the chance to host the world’s biggest tournament came our way? And with it, the opportunity to leave a lasting legacy in all sorts of ways, but perhaps most visibly, in the mighty stadia which the tournament will leave behind for our people to enjoy forever?

In Cape Town, there are two stadia which are directly a result of the tournament. Greenpoint – the most visible and the most extravagant – and Philippi, in a "township" outside the City of Cape Town - much more modest, but no less important.

The former is almost a symbol of us coming of age as a nation. Of putting our money where our collective mouth is. Of standing up and being counted in the world of nations. That grand stadium will be used, going forward, in a hundred different ways, giving pleasure to millions of people, not only on the televisions of Europe, South America, Asia – but here, in this our home. It will be a source of pride for us all. It will be the platform for us all to stand on, in the glare of the spotlight, and be proud of being who we are and what we represent. It will be a wonderful and lasting legacy for the people of the Western Cape in 20, 40, 50 years to come. A legacy from this generation, to our children and to theirs, to mention nothing at all of the significant jobs it is creating and the food that is being placed on tables because of them.

And Philippi stadium? That too will gain from the fervour and spirit of 2010. Just because of the 2010 tournament, that stadium in the middle of an extremely poor area, will enable those children as well, to play and to excel.

Sure, they can’t eat it, but the trick for us as a nation is going to be to ensure that they eat well enough, going forward, to play in it, and to shine! We are building tomorrow. And as someone said, a long time ago, people can’t live on bread alone.

2010 World Cup Legacy - 1 year to go

I remember exactly what I was doing when the Sepp Blatter announced that South Africa would be the 2010 host for the FIFA World Cup. I was trying to get one of my children trussed up in a car-seat in a shopping centre in, Rivonia. There was no warning, but suddenly the centre erupted into screams and shouts and dancing and car hooting. Taxis started behaving like jumping castles. Vuvuzelas appeared out of nowhere and deafened innocent passers-by. Hitherto silent shops suddenly produced massive loudspeakers and made shopping an even more unpleasant experience than it already was. People were very happy, that is the truth.

Well, to be honest, mostly black people were happy. White people were either irritated, or long-suffering, or habitually sceptical. And during the past year and a half that I have been working in the 2010 environment, I would have to say that the amount of white people who, (when they discovered what I do for a living, looked pseudo-concerned and said the words “Do you think we will be ready?” compared to the number of blacks asking the same question), outnumber them by 65 to 1.

It is, of course, common cause that in South Africa, peculiarly, football is a game mostly supported by black people. This is not something germane to the game itself. It isn’t as though you need a dark skin to run up and down a soccer pitch and kick a ball into the goals. The fact that mostly blacks support and play football in this country is no accident at all. There is a social and political history behind this fact, which is to be found in the way in which one game – Rugby – was resourced, encouraged and managed by a government that wanted to maintain it for the benefit of the white race group, to the detriment of another – Football.

At schools; around the braai; on television; in church; on the farm – everywhere, white boys were encouraged to play Rugby. And when they did so, they were provided with extraordinary incentives, scholarships, prizes, prizes and laudation. It was promoted everywhere. It became part of white identify. (And I am not denying that there were extraordinarily significant black examples of rugby prowess during this time – but they did so against all the odds.)

Blacks were expected to play soccer – even encouraged to play soccer – but they were given no resources to do so. And it is this point –coming at the issue from the perspective of our skewed history, which should make the FIFA 2010 World Cup so sweet. The massive expenditure on stadia, is but one aspect of redress. It is strange to me, that some people (even today!) appear to resent them. “But couldn’t that money have been spent on housing?!” they argue, as if this is some kind of new insight. I dare say it could have been. But if it were, would we have achieved the level of international interest in the country that 2010 will bring? Would we have the massive tourism spin-off which will last for many years to come? Would we have had the infrastructure upgrades in roads, airports, railway stations that have been fast-tracked and brought forward because of the benefits of requirements and the benefits of the tournament? No, we would not. We would have houses – and believe me, I don’t want to knock houses, but that is all we would have.

There is one question, however, which I don’t know the answer to. Can we ensure that the stadia are going to be used after 2010? That is, it seems to me, a very important question and I think it is one which is going to need to be addressed long before the final whistle of the FIFA 2010 World Cup. What I do know is that the World Cup will give us better resources for football than we have ever had before. The imbalance will be well redressed ion the area of infrastructure. But the legacy, if it is to be sustained, will need to be not so much in looking outwards, to foreign nations coming to play on our soil, but amongst our own people.

In other words, it really is no good redressing the balance, if football is not properly resourced; if coaches are not adequately trained; if clubs are not encouraged and schools do not have basic facilities. The next step beyond building stadia, is building capacity. If we are serious and as single-minded about this as we have been about building infrastructure, the results will be staggering. It is not too difficult to show that young people in sport are less likely to participate in any number of available forms of anti-social behaviour. In a phrase coined by the Department in which I work – “A child in sport is a child out of court”. That needs to be the legacy of 2010, if anything is.