Sounds like they may have been advertising for Heineken? I believe Budweiser, a beer that isn’t popular at all here, bought the “rights” for the World Cup. FIFA fascism ftw!
iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli
uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim
imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se
continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat
panem et circenses
Sometimes one wonders what has really changed since the Roman Empire ruled the world…
Thanks, Hard Rain, for the response.
Anyways, the point is giant state spectacles of vanity and nationalism are not what heal racial divides or what have you.
What do you think was the driving force behind the ending of apartheid? Has the racial conflict in South Africa been over-emphasized compared to all the other problems facing the country? How are race relations now?
Those poor Holland fans - usually the pretty blondes in the stands are rewarded with TV time, not booted out of the stadium.
Great game between Brazil and North Korea (Brazil won 2-1). It was nice to see some beautiful goals that weren’t headers!
You didn’t know? soccer is the civilized outlet for war-like emotions and tribalism.
Look how well it works though! Ever since televised soccer came along, Europe doesn’t even want to go to war with itself any more.
In my understanding there were two important reasons that led to the end of the apartheid:
a.) The victory in the battle of ideas. Purely in the sense of power relations there was no reason why the apartheid could not have been maintened for a decade, or two more, or even longer. However the elite of the whites itself came to recognise the legitimacy of the democratic, egalitarian, self-determination based arguments. Apartheid was not ended with some ANC battle in the physical sense, it was ended from the top down, when the existing rulers allowed it to happen and even started the process. (Kind of like the end of communism in East Europe in fact.)
b.) The end of the Cold War. This as a secondary reason. ANC was not just a left-wing anti-colonial movement, they were philosophical Marxists. That does not mean that they would have necessarily aligned SAR with the Soviet Union but the US was not going to take any chances and thus behind the curtains stood behind the regime. (In fact Mandela is big friends with Fidel Castro to this day, which has to do with Cuban-Soviet intervention in Angola on the side of MPLA against SAR and UNITA.) However once the Cold War was ended the US did not have a stake in the outcome anymore, and thus no reason to continue to support the unpopular side.
Also I think it is helpul to know that an apartheid state is not some kind of abberation. Until at least midd 19th century all states everywhere were apartheid states. Even in those states which consisted of ethnically homogenous territories, only the upper classes had access to political power, thus a de facto class based apartheid. Such states had their own set of severe problems and inhumane situations, but they were also spared some problems experienced by states built upon mayority self-determination. (You have certainly never heard of ethnic cleansing in an apartheid state, I’ll bet.)
Marko is spot-on with these two points. It’s correct that the “armed struggle” wasn’t the key factor in overturning the regime. In fact, the ANC’s transition to violence is what resulted in the white minority so easily supporting the draconian government responses in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The mass-movement of civic protests and strike actions into the 1980’s were more important because the economy was so much more vulnerable.
One point Marko leaves out which I do think is key is that SA was run as a nationalist socialist enterprise. Even though the government only had to cater for a small minority of the populace its socialist policies coupled with military interventionism across the continent had bled the country dry within a few decades. The end of the Soviet Union meant the end of the Western lifeline that had probably sustained the regime for a decade longer than it otherwise would have lasted.
He is correct about the “victory of ideas”, although I believe it had more to do with the fact that the central class of white society by the 1990’s featured millions of men who, when younger, were subjected to military conscription and “endless war” with SA’s neighbours. I believe this was one of the major reasons, along with the failing economy, that the referendum to negotiate with the ANC got a majority vote, but this is just my personal speculation.
In the end I think the choice to end apartheid had less to do with whites not “preferring” the system and more to do with the innate understanding that economic freedom and recovery had to go hand-in-hand with political freedom. You didn’t find much antipathy to the regime during the “heydays” before the wars in Africa or when the socialism seemed to be working. Once those decades had passed and people realized that maintaining the system would mean endless war and sacrifice the choice to abandon it became very easy.
Thanks for the responses, Marko and Hard Rain. While South Africa is not benefitting from the World Cup, at least it gives people like me a reason to learn more about the country.
I just watched Bafana Bafana’s unfortunate 3-0 defeat to Uruguay. Hard Rain, are you finding it enjoyable to have all the pointless flag-waving and vuvuzela-blowing diffused?
I also just finished an interesting book called Soccernomics by Simon Kuper (a British journalist) and Stefan Szymanski (a sports economist who went to Oxford). The purpose of the book is to destroy all the conventional wisdom about soccer and sports in general, and to replace the “folk myths” with concrete data and sound economic analysis. Topics include why England loses, the transfer market, discrimination, fandom, and the factors influencing success in international soccer (they are size of population, per capita GDP, and international experience).
In a chapter on fan suicides, the authors present statistics that show that suicide rates decrease in many countries in years when the national team plays in a big tournament like the World Cup or European Championship (whether or not the team performs well). They argue that soccer provides “social cohesion” and a chance for people to “pull together” and feel a “sense of belonging” to a larger community. This in turn, prevents suicide. According to the authors, “Other than sports, only war and catastrophe can create this sort of national unity.” In the week after JFK’s murder, “not one suicide was reported in twenty-nine cities studied.” Also, in the days after the September 11 attacks, “the number of calls to the 1-800-SUICIDE hotline halved to about three hundred a day.”
The next chapter is titled “Happiness: Why Hosting a World Cup is Good for You.” First, the authors reveal the economic fallacy that hosting large sporting events provides an economic gain. They profile an economist named Rob Baade, who argued in a paper in 1987 that “public investment in stadiums does not provide a good return for taxpayers.” This was a big deal, since at the time politicians constantly argued about the ecomonic benefits of stadiums, and hired economists to make ridiculous predictions about all the growth they would bring (think George W. Bush and the Texas Rangers). Gradually, the fallacy became common knowledge as economists accepted what Austrians had been showing for decades. It’s just a huge broken window fallacy and misallocation of resources.
But do the Soccernomics authors condemn the whole scheme after demonstrating how damaging it is? No, of course not. They are soccer fans, so they then try to calculate all the “happiness” that the host nation acquires from the magic that is soccer. They write:
"It turns out that hosting doesn’t make you rich, but it does make you happy. This begs a question. If countries want to host soccer tournaments (and American cities want to host major league teams) as part of their pursuit of happiness, why don’t they just say so? Why bother clothing the arguments in bogus economics?
The answer is that it took politicians a long time to discover the language of happiness. Until very recently, European politicians talked mostly about money…But it gradually became clear that in rich countries, more money didn’t make people happier."
GREAT!!! Now as politicians destroy our economies and regulate our lives, at least they will explain how happy it makes everyone! If only the authors had read the words of Boetie which have been quoted already on this thread. Sports have become a means of state control and power, and all the “happiness” rhetoric just keeps the charade going.
Unfortunately, the authors decide that South Africa probably won’t be able to make up for its economic loss from hosting the cup with an equal gain in happiness. They conclude: “The World Cup will keep a lot of South Africans in shacks.”
Other interesting conclusions from the book:
Norway is the country that loves soccer the most. Apparently, there are sports facilities everywhere there since it is a “right” to be able to play sports.
Iraq is the most over-achieving country in soccer. They played really well in the Middle East and Asia during the years of Saddam’s rule.
England is actually an over-achieving country despite all of their bad press. Even though England invented soccer, the sport grew the most in Western Europe where there was dense network of soccer knowledge. Being an island, England was initially cut off from the network, and were stuck in their “old ways” for too long.
The future soccer powers are the United States, Japan, and China. These are countries with money, lots of people, and a lot to gain from European soccer expertise.
They still are. They still think that passing the ball 40 meters every time is the way to play.
@Caley McKibbin
All the evidence you need is that they still have players like Heskey in their first XI.
Believe it or not, being able to play sports, in this case football, contributes a lot to peoples lives. And not just health.
“Get out Fifa mafia!” crowds chanted, their ranks swelled by stewards involved in clashes with riot police on Sunday. [Link]
Personally, I’m anticipating a widespread and violent backlash across the country once this tournament ends…
Believe it or not, being able to play sports, in this case football, contributes a lot to peoples lives. And not just health.
I believe it. Sports have contributed a great deal to my own life. I just don’t think it should be considered a right.
They still are. They still think that passing the ball 40 meters every time is the way to play.
Yeah, but at least they are very good at all those 40 meter passes. Rooney is an especially incredible long-distance passer - I enjoy watching him pass just as much as watching him score goals! Unfortunately, it’s the short, quick passes that win games. But then again, Spain just put on a passing clinic and still lost to Switzerland! That’s soccer…
“Problems and Conflicts” swept under the rug…
Soccer officially announces it is gay.
regards, onebornfree
LOL, thanks scineram!
USA vs. England lego reenactment
USA robbed of victory by the referee - tie Slovenia 2-2. Alexi Lalas calls it a “disgrace.”
Yes, the USA were robbed. At least England got stuck with a draw against Algeria. Come on, Americans! 