So my beloved South Africans are so caught up in all this world Cup madness that it seems that amnesia is turning out to be one of the side effect.
a little bit of background if I may: South Africa is hosting the 2010 Fifa soccer World Cup which is ending on July 11. So for the past three weeks we have had days of drinking, hugging, kissing and just behaving like we are a festival somewhere in the bush, even though we are in the middle of Cape Town.The tourists are here, so we are being gracious hosts and since we do not speak much Swahili, Portuguese, Dutch, French etc drinking and screaming loudly seems to be working quite well for our international relations.
http://tinyurl.com/3axc23u
So everyone is happy and we have even brushed the xenophobia under the carpet and are calling the Ghana team, baGhana baGhana, now. You see our South African team, Bafana Bafana, bombed out in the first round so it seems we have adopted Ghana as our own, for now
This is in Stark contrast with what people have been saying in the city though. We (the media) have received reports that xenophobia violence is going to start all over again after the World Cup.
So you can see my confusion, and that of my fellow colleagues. Because on the one hand we all love each each other and on the other hand we are threatening other Africans with violence.
All the genuine and false comradie is mixed into a little cocktail glass provided by Fifa.
So now that Ghana is out of the World Cup, we love or hate them again, depending on how well your bank balance looks.
South Africa is a very Schizophrenic country. it seems.
2 comments:
The people who have to compete with the imiigrants, illegal and not, don't love those immigrants. They may love Africa as a concept and support a team and all that, but I guess when it comes down to the reality of every day life, the violence will happen again and again :(
P.S. I wrote a blog post kind of in response to yours and got some pretty weird comments. I was wondering what you thought: http://southafricanseamonkey.co.za/?p=880
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