“Who will be the Winners in 2010”? – Dr Ashwin Desai

By Thandanani Mhlanga (FJP reporter)

Okay, so there I was at Game stores, surrounded by every race known to the southern hemisphere. A very rare moment indeed – this is Nelspruit after all – a place where at the time the winds of change hadn’t fully reached yet. But there we were (washing detergent forgotten) glued to the different screens at the electronics department… All of us waiting for one announcement: to find out which country would be given the honour of hosting the 2010 Football World Cup. As the announcement was made, race, differences and plastic bags were tossed aside for a celebratory moment I haven’t seen since.  

Many made plans about how they’d use this rare opportunity to make money and maybe even become rich. Most celebrated the wealth of entertainment that would come to South Africa, the rare opportunities to meet celebrities and the boost to our economy. With the prospect of life-altering fortune and wealth for the country, it seemed like it couldn’t come soon enough.  

But weren’t we a bit naïve? 

I found that out when I attended one of the Winter School debates where Ashwin Desai was speaking on “Who will be the winners in 2010?”  He used the upcoming World Cup as a metaphor for the not-so-great implications of globalisation. 

We’ve all been impacted by it. We watch live soccer matches and award shows and  with the phenomena of internet and related technologies, you could chat face-to-face to a friend in Tokyo while sipping cocoa at a pub in Durban. The truth of it is that the world is getting smaller and smaller, and nowhere is it more evident than in soccer. 

I can’t recall ever seeing men, and women nowadays, so animated than when Manchester United or Real Madrid are playing a live match on TV. It’s the foundation for many a social life. Never mind that we’re hemispheres apart, globalisation has made people feel that they can relate to anyone from across the world. The bonds of nationalism are slowly fading. But at what cost? 

According to Desai the deteriorating standard of South African soccer is partly globalisation’s fault. Our players are recruited in their teens and sold off before they can help develop their home-grown teams. 

The promise of 2010

Then there’s the shattered 2010 dream that promised riches for many and jobs for masses. Desai pointed to the loss that ordinary South Africans have suffered with their taxes being used to build sometimes unnecessary stadiums, which  we’ll probably have no use for after 2010. We can’t even comfort ourselves with the knowledge that many underprivileged people got jobs. According to Desai, most are jobless since the completion of some of these stadiums. The truth of the matter is the only person who’ll profit from the world cup is FIFA.  

We aren’t reading about this in our newspapers because, quite frankly, the illusion is too tempting. How will 2010 really make a difference to a township family headed by a single mother? We listen to what we’re fed not realising that we’re pawns in FIFA and their allies’ profit-making machine. 

Even nationalism is so yesterday… our soccer team is so shameful that we make jokes about it with our mates while drinking a toast to our favourite English teams. The very same teams that poach our players before we can even get our hands on them – with the result that we cannot build a  strong enough squad.  

Desai calls it ‘Europe worship mentality’, which basically sees locals taking anything European as gospel without question. We leave ourselves to be exploited with no chance to grow in the name of globalization. 

The debate was basically aimed at creating an open discussion, using soccer as a metaphor, about the inequality that makes small countries losers in the globalisation era. Take our crumbling clothing sector. China yearly dumps clothes worth billions of rands on our shores. These clothes are then sold at such a cheap price that our local manufacturers can’t compete.  

Desai suggested that as Africans we use 2010 and the media attention it will draw to South Africa as a catalyst for protest. This protest should be aimed at confronting the fraud in large organisations that leads to inequality, and which is aided by globalisation. As the media we need to get real and start telling people the truth – all that’s Europe… so ain’t gold.