football and foolishness

2 completely unrelated subjects, but as i am currently shirking studying for midterms, i'll attempt to tackle both in my usual highly opinionated, kinda-sorta based on facts, and ultimately educated manner.

first, foolishness. i'm not liking some of the disturbing stories coming out of nigeria; well its not like stories out of nigeria are typically positive, but heading up to general election next year, i can't help but start feeling anxious for the country and looking out for signs of issues that might surface. 2 stupid events: 1; last week, the senate approved a 100% salary increase for government officials, including themselves of course. 100%!! give me a flippin' break. this is in a country where 70% of its citizens lay in poverty (less than $2 a day), a country where physicians, teachers, police officers, the most average (olu)joe(seph) (ngozi) slo is not being paid nearly enough to take care of his or her family. but of course, congress felt like they needed to reward themselves for all the hard work they have been doing the last 11 years (um, when was the last piece of significant legislation passed?). according to one bright official, the increase is needed to attract more qualified civil servants to political posts. give me a flippin' break (did i say that already?)! when did nigerian politicians (and most politicians around the world actually) forget that politics is about civil service; helping those that cannot help themselves and improving the lives of those who supposedly elected them. unfortunately too often the politics game is about what have i done for myself and my cronies lately. shame.

2nd event: related to cronies. an article came out about political thugs belonging to a candidate for deputy governor beating up a journalist. apparently attacks against journalist has been on the rise lately. and these thugs are employed by the politicians themselves. in case any one is disillusioned to thinking things have changed over the years in nigeria from before indepedence in 1960, you'll be happy to know that this practice of hiring thugs (official thugs) began well before independence. I was first indtroduced to this phenomenon by my late mentore, Dr. Le Vine (see previous post) who worked and studied in different parts of west africa during the spate of independence (late 50s and 60s). He told me that they were looking at some of the books (accounts) of the political parties and they kept noticing a funny line item in all of them. I believe the line item read something like OPT (not completely sure about that). after pondering what this might mean and coming up with nothing (other than "optional" perhaps), they decided to ask one of the party members. They found out the OPT stood for "Official Party Thugs". I kid you not. These were typically young men that they hired to carry out thuggish activities against other parties and individuals as a means of intimidation. and they put this expense on their books! i wonder if they got any kind of tax exemption for that?! 50 years on and the activities remains alive and vibrant. political parties still send out their thugs to intimidate journalists, other party members, and even civilians at the voting poll stations. in order to have any kind of credible elections (a goal the distinguished mr. goodluck jonathan has set out for his presidency), this issue of hiring thugs must be seriously dealt with. and please, lets stay away from amnesty. thugs must be punished, whether they are primary school thugs or football thugs or political party thugs.

speaking of football...what i really wanted to write about in this entry is football. and world cup 2010. I can FEEL it; It is HERE! I am here! I'm starting to get the feeling of a major event coming to south africa. an event i've been anticipating for the last 5 years, since the announcement was made that it would be held in south africa. apparently cape town is slow to getting excited about events like this. so when i went out today to get some pics of a city anticipating a massive and amazing event, this is all i got:

and here's a view of the stunning stadium where i will be watching at least 3 matches!

meanwhile in joburg...apparently the festive feeling has been crazy immense in joburg for a while now. why did i decide to leave joburg again??? Flags are flying everywhere, huge footballs are floating ubiqutously, signs and posters are pasted everywhere, cars are decorated to the fullest, etc. you cant even take 2 steps in the airport without being immersed in the world of football, african style. can you tell im looking forward to this??

here are some pics i was sent by a friend showing some of the excitement in joburg:

my only regret: i won't get to go to a match in what i believe is the most stunning stadium in south africa, the Moses Mabhida Stadium in lovely durban:

finally, there are some pseudo-academic work out there which describe soccer as having an added effect of bringing people together over the years. In fact, one of my favourite books is one called "How soccer explains the world". sounds funny, but the premise is undeniable. Warring and disputing countries have often come together through a soccer match; political deals have been done at football stadiums' box seats; and more importantly, individuals have come together on the pitch realising that they have more in common that their greedy political leaders would like them to believe at times. Cheesy as it may, I'm hoping that this happens with south africa and other countries during this world cup. south africa is a young democracy with lots of issues. but to see the rugby championship held in soweto township last weekend and hard core whites laughing and drinking with hard core blacks and indians and mixed people and no one worrying about differences in melanin was inspiring. the 1995 rugby world cup was inspiring in how it brought the nation together. soccer world cup 2010 has a potential to do the same, if we let it. the immediate problems in south africa may not be as visible as they were in 95 when folks expected the country to disintegrate into civil war, major issues still exist and are apparent (even if beneath the surface). football will not solve those issues, and hopefully it will also not be used to gloss over issues and sweep them even further into the carpet. the hope is that this will be a reminder that this is truly a remarkable country in africa (yes, south africa is an african country, dammit!), a rainbow country that is defined by different cultures and backgrounds and experience, and hopefully ultimately a country that embraces those differences, and more importantly celebrates those differences...together.

and to the rest of the countries, we can take a breather from the sorry state of economies, work experiences, debt crises, oil spills, political kak, for a month, before we go back to reality. Personally, I will be forgetting about the fact that i'm studying for a month, before going back to the reality of finals the week after!