Why this is an ‘African’ World Cup

The biggest football bonanza is already underway and the excitement is just beginning to rise. The opening match between the hosts and Mexico was not a disappointment at all. The Vuvuzelas never went silent from the time people entered the cocking pot styled stadium. So many pessimists thought that South Africa could not handle an event of this magnitude. Well now all that is in the past because it has happened and the games are going on smoothly. There is no choice but to agree with Shakira that it is time for Africa. To stem the controversies surrounding the hosting of the games, FIFA temporarily adopted a rotation method that saw Asia and Africa also getting a chance to enjoy the limelight. This World Cup is of profound socio-political significance to the African continent. Due to the apartheid policy that favoured the minority whites at the expense of the native blacks who are also the majority, the divide between the two groups grew so big and unsustainable. After sometime, the world started recognising the injustice embedded in the apartheid policy and isolated South Africa especially from the international sports events. With the defeat of apartheid in 1994, the world embraced a new ‘rainbow’ nation. Soon after, the country hosted and even won the 1995 Rugby World Cup. The Cricket World Cup also later came to South Africa. Although, rugby and cricket are still largely considered ‘white’ games, huge strides in the reducing the racial divide were made when these games came to South Africa. The winning rugby team had a black man, Chester Williams and the cricket team also had Makhaya Ntini also a black man. The symbolic act of Nelson Mandela wearing the captain’s Springboks jersey even became a subject of a book and a great movie Invictus where Morgan Freeman did justice to the character of Madiba. The hosting of the rugby and cricket masterpieces was not seen by many as an ‘African’ event since the games still have little presence outside South Africa. Apart from Zimbabwe and to a small extent Kenya, there is no other African country that can claim to be a cricket nation. African Rugby tournaments always exclude South Africa which is rightly known to be in a different league. The recent final of the Safaricom Rugby Sevens was between Kenya and the Emerging (junior) Springboks team. It is games like rugby and cricket that give South Africans a reason to push their xenophobic arguments of not being part of Africa. Cricket and Rubgy give South Africans an air of exclusivity that makes them feel more comfortable around the Brits, Aussies and New Zealanders. Like English, football is the most recognisable global sport and so South Africa cannot in any way own it. In fact on the African continent, the game is more rooted in West Africa and North Africa than in South Africa. The apartheid era drew the blacks to football while the whites continued playing ‘their’ rugby and cricket. Many writers and journalists who have nurtured an image of Africa as a dark (read black) continent have unknowingly helped the larger black African population to own the World Cup. The current South African football team is dominantly black with only one white player. In media circles Africa means black and black means Africa. So the Rugby and Cricket World Cups were simply that and not African in hue. When asked of any five African top players, the possibility of having only blacks is so high. Even the football commercials about Africa are always featuring Roger Milla, Michael Essien or Samuel Eto’o. By the way if another capable country like Egypt or Morocco had hosted the event, it would probably have been seen as an ‘Arab’ World Cup. The game of football in Africa is seen in black lenses and that also explains the opposition and negative media coverage that has accompanied it. The insinuation being that the black Africans are having the football bonanza while the cricket and rugby were in the hands of the (more organised) whites. The mainstream media has not yet embraced the fact that Africa is not one homogenous entity but a land that has whites in South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Kenya, Asians in East Africa and Arabs in the North and so many diverse cultures. After all, it is actually the cradle of man. ssenyonga@gmail.com