SOUTH AFRICA 2010: Waiting for the World Cup soccer Achille Mbembe (pictured) is Professor of History and Political Science at the University Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (South Africa, a country which hosts the football World Cup this year). He also teaches at Duke University in the United States. His next book, Critique of negro , highly anticipated and which promises to stir the conscience on the issue "negro" will be published in Paris this year. Until that great moment he has sent us the exclusive text that follows, a look which the fairness and intellectual foresight confirm its current status as a leading thinker on the African continent.
The kickoff of the next football World Cup will take place in less than a hundred days Soccer City (pictured) in the large afropolitaine metropolis of Johannesburg, not far from where formerly randlords exploited the gold mines of the Witwatersrand. In this modern stadium with a capacity of 90,000 seats and whose architecture reminds one "African calabash," South Africa will teach the world something of its potential power. In return, the world will learn - at least we hope - something the capacity of Africa - or at least its better organized nation - to be held up to humanity.
This "thing of joy ' what football
To achieve this goal, it took many obstacles overcome, and the race is far from complete. The decision to hold the tournament in Africa has never won a universal membership. As always when it comes to the region, the beast lurking in the thicket, was quick to raise their heads. Arguing sometimes of "carelessness African generic" extraordinary crime rates, of rampant violence and insecurity, even the prevalence of AIDS, some quarters of the right and the extreme right in England, Holland, Australia and Germany have been firing on all cylinders. Not hesitating to use the most stupid prejudices, or even a campaign of misinformation, they have actively campaigned to be removed from this country the privilege of hosting the event. Incidentally, they will be able to instill enough fear and doubt in the minds of the most fearful and hesitant. The image of Africa South has been somewhat tarnished. The economic recession thereon, we must now revise downward the number of visitors expected for this four-year appointment.
At three months the deadline, all indications yet - except in cases of force majeure - the first mega-event of its kind to be held on African soil will be a memorable success. Certainly South Africa is neither China nor South Korea nor Japan. But it is not a "country African plain. " Economic powerhouse of the continent, it has modern infrastructure, strong institutions, a free press, a highly diverse middle class and well educated, intellectual elite and cosmopolitan industrial - and, when need of a remarkable political, know-how marvelous and enormous reserves of pride and national dignity that symbolizes the tutelary figure of Nelson Mandela.
All these resources have been mobilized not only in the context of the campaign to obtain the right to host the World Cup, but also during the preparation phase that ends soon. Already, each passing day, the fervor is rising. The senses thrive. Stripped of arguments, the last local skeptics lay down their arms and rally to the cause. Gradually, the whole country goes into the mouth of the imagination and anticipation. One sees already the sounds of the streets in June-July, colors, gestures and colors, the buzzing of stages, the clarity of balls and popular festivities. This winter - Southern Hemisphere forces - something in trade with the immensity of the world will happen in this country. This "thing of joy" is football arrives - in all its ubiquity. And here, many people who want to be, alive, witnesses to this great moment of joy.
Porn expenditure
New international airports were built. This is the case of King Shaka in Durban. Several others have been colossal work of extension. This is the case of Oliver Tambo in Johannesburg and Cape Town International Airport. Both are now able to manage hundreds of daily flights. Overall, the airport services in South Africa provide more than 120,000 flights throughout the tournament. Officially, about 450 000 visitors are expected. This figure will undoubtedly lowered.
All stages (with the exception of Mbombela where grass should be planted again) are ready. In some cases, only mini-embellishment work remains to be done - extremely difficult and delicate task. Finishing work includes, inter alia, the construction of parking lots, installing thousands of surveillance cameras for crowd control, electrification of streets and avenues, boulevards extending for transport in common. In Johannesburg, the headquarters of the media will be received on May 19. On its own, it covers an area of 4000 square meters. Nearly 30,000 journalists rushed from all corners of the globe are preparing to hit the country. The "nerve center" - which will go live broadcasts of the globe - will be operational before mid-April.
Pikitup, the company responsible for the road has deployed about 3,000 officers cleanliness. The fast train (Gautrain) which connects the airport to Sandton Oliver Tambo (business district) will be operational from the month of May nearly 40,000 policemen will provide security during the games. In the background, the rapid action force of the South African army is training hard and ready to respond to any possible terrorist attack. Approximately 50 000 volunteers of all races and ethnicities were recruited. Some will attend the opening ceremony. They begin their training in the coming days. The South African Breweries would expect to run about 30.34 million milliliters of beer in a month, more than 100,000 hectoliters more than usual. About three million tickets, it remains only a half-million in sales. Much has been bought by Citizens and residents of South Africa.
At Johannesburg, many public places have been selected for the Festival of the Fans (FanFest). This is particularly true of large parks in the poverty belts that are Diepsloot, Ivory Park, Orlando West, Rose Park, Kremetart, Thokoza, Joubert, Diepkloof, Bezuidenhout, James Orange and James and Ethel Gray. In Kensington, Rhodes Park will host a "Pan-African Village" which will be organized many cultural activities. Before the end of April, 200,000 new trees have been planted in a city which already has nearly 6 million. Hundreds of thousands of South African flags were made and an assortment of items and goods whose makarapas , picturesque kind of helmet often with huge horn rimmed glasses and highly prized by fans of local clubs. It is even vuvuzela , plastic trumpets which sound monotonous and boring, typical of a bee or mosquito, is capable of an upset over eardrum.'s Dance World Cup, the Diski - not drawn from a mixture of local traditions (including kwaito) and the overall black culture - already raging on the airwaves , television, or in the street.
Grouped mostly in Gauteng province, the training camps for the qualified teams are also ready. According to recent polls, a large majority of South Africans (85%) are convinced that the country will meet the challenge and that the World Cup will be a success. But only 55% of them rely on the national team, Bafana Bafana. Its ranking in the global hierarchy is somewhat mediocre. Knowing this, the South Africans do not expect any miracles. But the absence of miracle does not prevent them to participate in what will undoubtedly be a monumental carnival.
What does this huge mess?
As a mega-show, the World Cup is primarily an event sport and commercial whose big profits is accounted for by FIFA. Organizing country if not the trophy back, at least symbolic huge profits and, alternatively, economic. If there are losses, taxpayers pay his slate and it may occasionally be salty. The total cost of the operation of South Africa is likely to exceed 4 billion dollars at a time when the government seeks to negotiate with the World Bank a loan of 3.5 billion dollars to finance new generation capacity electrical energy.
Given the challenges of mass poverty, inequality and unemployment, homelessness and access to basic social services, some ask if such an enterprise can be morally justified. Instead of this pornography of expenditure, with its baroque-pop stage, her pure flesh technological infrastructure, its metallised fabrics facelift kitsch, would it not better to invest in the urgent, which here resembles so closely in the future - the fight against rampant crime, the renovation of a health system in decline, the reform of an education system which only produce illiterate, the huge urban regeneration devoid of urbanity, a roof, a job as precarious as it is, drinking water, enough to stand and walk with dignity?
In a country threatened by the fever of "base materialism", where the ANC (the ruling) slowly succumbs the lure of kleptocracy and libidinous design of power and where many people only dream of drinking, whether all this stuff makes sense not only an economic and political. It is also about aesthetics.
The government has spent over 2 and a half billion dollars in roads, airports and other services. Tens of thousands of unemployed were enrolled in limited-term jobs in various sites. All these investments will stimulate the economy and their effects will be felt far beyond the event itself. That's the economic answer. Policy response - the World Cup will serve to stoke the desire of South African common future, and the rest of the world, the nation will experience expansion symbolic.
But it lacks the aesthetic response is to say a great idea that could give this project some Pharaonic cultural thickness; an Idea able to summarize and reveal, to the country itself and the world, singing nine of his potential. We know the vibrational properties of football. But they hardly compensate for the lack of imagination. The weak link in all this wasted energy is the lack of idea, the fact that for a month, there will be no equivalent cultural worthy of that name at this mammoth of matter. For the opening ceremony, there will be nothing like the techno-sublime offered by Beijing during the last Olympics - a mixture of Confucianism and postmodernism entirely oriented towards the future and to mark the accession to power ; centuries of the Empire Middle.
Bogged down in commercialism, South Africa just to raise the cultural and intellectual resources that could help to reveal itself as a strength of spirit in a world now carried by the logic of enclosure.
And this aesthetic response, it may be too late now to make.
Achille Mbembe
