RAVE: The Cup Runneth Over (and Out)

The 2010 football World Cup comes to an end today. South Africa has done itself proud. It has showcased a (mostly) well run and well-regarded World Cup. As I always knew it would. Perhaps now a few less Americans will think we all live in huts without electricity (well, a few million amongst us actually do, but that's a whole other issue) and walk on dirt roads alongside herds of antelope, lions and elephants.

The month has gone by quickly, it must be said. And, whilst there were some great goals and a (very few) great matches, I must admit that I'm actually quite happy that this whole event is finally coming to an end.

For the following, I am most grateful:

• No more vuvuzelas
• No more being a FIFAdom. Now we can just be corrupt, South African style
• No more of those tiresome and endless countdowns
• No more overpaid, over-pampered and overrated football 'stars'
• No more of those garish yellow shirts worn by locals 'supporting our boys' every Friday
• No more ersatz patriotism
• No more flags, flags, flags everywhere...and I mean everywhere
• No more South Africans feeling 'proudly African' (whilst being the most xenophobic Africans on the continent)
• No more vuvuzelas
• No more yucky, gut-churning local adverts with 'rousing', viva South Africa themes
• No more Shakira warbling that horrible 'Waka Waka' song 
• No more the words '2010' having so much (too much) meaning for an entire nation
• No more bloody World Cup
• Did I mention no more vuvuzelas?

For all these reasons, and more, I am grateful.

Now on to the post-Cup revelations and scandals and national depression. It may be a bumpy ride.

RANT: Suffer the Pink Dolphin

I read a news item today that upset me very much. Brazilian authorities have reported that the fabled Amazon river dolphin or 'pink dolphin' (owing to its distinctive pinkish hue) is being hunted and slaughtered in such huge numbers, that it runs the risk of being wiped out. As it is, for now it's the last of the remaining river dolphin species in the world.

I remember seeing a beautifully made film back in 1987 called "Where the River Runs Deep" in which the pink river dolphin of the Amazon plays a pivotal and mystical role in the film's narrative. I remember so well being awed and really moved by the unique beauty of this dolphin in that film. It somehow fed into my vivid imagination all the primordial allure and vast, vast lushness of the Amazon, a place, almost another world, of magical and wonderful creatures like pink dolphins.

And now this.

The reports state that these beautiful dolphins are being washed up on the shores of the Amazon River and its tributaries in record numbers and that, if this continues, the dolphin species will be wiped out. The dolphins have been clearly cut up, gutted and otherwize eviscerated. A great and natural way to die, of course.

And the culprits? Fishermen along the river are almost certainly the culprits, according to authorities. Since they're mostly likely to be Roman Catholics, it is my fervent wish that there is indeed a hell for them where they rot and get eaten away every single day for eternity by a swarm of the most voracious piranhas. The ignorant bastards.

Why kill these beautiful, unique animals? It's at times like these that my despair and disgust at the human (mis)condition and its treatment of animals knows no bounds.

The pink dolphins are known to be very gentle and extremely curious animals, coming up close to boats and the river shore, inquisitive at humans and their activities. The stupid things. No wonder they get slaughtered with such impunity. 'Gentle' and 'curious' just doesn't cut it on a planet savaged and ravaged by homo sapiens. Don't they know this by now, the silly pink things, swimming so blithely in the murky waters of the Amazon? Clearly not.

I also blame Brazil for this. Some undoubtedly great work continues to done by tireless Brazilian environmentalists and conservation specialists in their vast country. But I am getting very weary of the argument by successive Brazilian governments that its territory is so 'vast' that it cannot protect all its natural environment and the habitats therein. For example, this is a nation that sees fit to have a total of just five agents who are tasked with protecting wildlife in an area of the Amazon jungle twice the size of Texas. That's hardly a convincing commitment to the protection of species like the pink dolphin from a nation that has now (I believe) the world's eighth-largest economy.

But, of course, the pink dolphins must play fifty-third fiddle (never mind 'second fiddle') to the needs of the millions of desperately poor Brazilians in one of the countries with the hugest gulfs between the rich and the poor in the world.

Yes, of course that makes sense. Always the needs of humans come first. As it should be, correct?

Yet, as humans keep coming first (and second and third and fourth and fifth and...), and other species keep coming a literal last to our whims and neverending 'crises of the day', one must wonder: why is it then that the state of this planet just keeps getting worse and worse? Perhaps the equation needs to be re-looked at, no?

The slaughter of the pink dolphin is not just a blight on the biodiversity of the Amazon or a blight on Brazil for that matter. It is a blight on all of us. A reminder - yet again and for the umpteenth time - that by consistently placing ourselves so imperiously over other species with whom we share this planet, we are losing the battle not only for the very survival of this planet. but the battle for our very selves.

Do you get the point?

RANT: Old News...And The Gulf Keeps Dying

The Gulf oil spill is dying in the news. What made headline news every single day just a month ago is now less and less in all the media.

BP should be breathing a little easier these days. Goody for them.

It may have 'died' somewhat as a news item, but the animal species keep on dying in the Gulf. For a sobering and depressing daily tally on the amount of species that have died or could die due to being drenched in oil, visit the excellent website: http://dailydeadbirds.com/. It's a one-page website that just gives the tallies. As of yesterday, the death toll for seabirds was 1 682, dead sea turtles numbered 452 and dead mammals (dolphins, porpoises, etc) was at 57.

One can only shudder at just what the numbers must be for dead fish.

82 days since the spill and the creatures keep dying.

Creatures at our mercy. Can you imagine being that much at our mercy?

The oil keeps spilling and spilling and the excuses by BP become more and more insufferable, more corporate greenwash. Even if now it's considered less newsworthy.

And that's the paradox of our modern media-saturated information age. Yes, we know more and we know it quicker and in so much greater detail. But it too can slip from our collective memory as quickly as it assaulted us when it first 'broke' as a news item.

Is it precisely because we get so bombarded by the 24/7/365 media,  like some endless News Item Loop From Hell, that we seem to get so switched off so suddenly? Moving on like herds of restless antelope to greener fields of breaking news heaped on the lives, fortunes and misfortunes of others? It certainly seems that way.

Perhaps we just don't want to keep hearing the same old, bad news. Perhaps we need our bad news to be as fresh and as unique as possible, before that too becomes stale and, well, boring? Because heaven knows good news just doesn't sell as well as the bad, the ugly and the horrific. Maybe it's always been that way.

But there's something very unsettling about the way we are in this regard.

Not to mention fickle. This fickle species called humanity that (thinks it) rules the world as it spews pollution and toxicity wherever it goes. And decides what makes news on a whim based on its own sense of self-importance. And this is replicated again and again after every single 'environmental disaster'. Which, by the way, is inevitably because of our own short-sighted greed or stupidity.

All I can say is thank goodness that the sea turtles and dolphins and seabirds of the Gulf of Mexico don't get to watch just how unimportant a news item they've become on TV.

Do you get my point?

RANT: King Shaka Would've Wept

South Africa has fared commendably well in hosting the 2010 World Cup. Our FIFAdom has done the world's biggest football showcase proud (not to mention the money-grabbing FIFA capos and local elite, of course).

But there have been some major gaffes along the way. The Bavaria beer mini skirted Dutch lasses come to mind. But few things about this World Cup have infuriated me more than the debacle that occurred at King Shaka International Airport in Durban on Wednesday night. Okay, the infernal vuvuzela has infuriated me more, but this comes damn close.

It was the night that Spain were playing Germany in the semi-finals of the Cup at the Durban stadium. So, naturally, the airport was quite busy with flights coming in and out. So busy that three aircraft, two from Johannesburg and one from Cape Town, were forced to return to their departure airports because there were no parking bays available.

Yip, that's right, a purpose-built spanking brand new airport which cost R6.8-billion (almost a billion US dollars) and dubbing itself 'International' just couldn't cope with a few extra domestic flights. So much for planning, guys.

The kind of planning that would have made the famous Zulu warrior, King Shaka, roar with anger. Or weep in shame.

But it gets better. The actual reason given by the Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) as to why the three planes had to return was because...wait for it, because it's jaw-dropping stuff... there were simply too many 'VIP' jets on the tarmac that refused to budge.

What?!

That's right. A bunch of VIP jets had supposedly parked willy-nilly all over the tarmac (as one would expect at an international airport during an international event) AND, better still, flatly refused to budge when asked to do so by air traffic control.

As a result, 700 people were left stranded back in Johannesburg and Cape Town. And many of them were football fans who had spent small fortunes on flights and tickets to attend the semi-final in Durban.

Have you ever heard such outrageous crap in all your life?!

Let's consider:

1. Since when does an airport authority and traffic control get told what to do by any airplane or any pilot sitting on any tarmac at any airport?
2. What happened to that trusted, ages-old stalwart which is absolutely mandatory for any flight anywhere in the world, namely a flight plan? You know - the one that allows a flight to take off from one place so that it may actually land at its pre-scheduled destination? Barring inclement weather or security issues or some type of emergency, why else should an aircraft not land at its destination?
3. A fleet of jets belonging to a bunch of self-important VIP tossers who are too arrogant and self-important to shift on a tarmac is not an emergency.
4. Would these same aircraft pilots for these Very Very Important People dare to pull such a stunt at an airport in Europe? Or the United States? Or most other countries for that matter? No, of course they wouldn't dare. But this is Africa - so to hell with us and our silly little aviation needs and rules.
5. Who exactly are these 'Very Important People' who can have their jets do as they please at an airport and have ACSA running around like headless chickens and making the most appallingly stupid excuses to these passengers and the South African public the next day? I want to see a list of these pompous, arrogant schmucks.
6. If this isn't a superb example of just how elitist and 'VIP'-whored this World Cup (and the world in general these days) has become, then I don't know what is.
7. Is it any surprise that some of these pesky little VIP jets belonged to FIFA? Enough said.

On their website's homepage, ACSA has a press release entitled "ACSA claries the King Shaka International Airport congestion". I think they meant to say clarifies. Ahem.

And that word "congestion" does rather rankle.

The latest travesty is that, after much outcry by passengers and the media alike, ACSA has now deigned to reimburse those passengers who had the Trip From Hell that night. BUT, let it be known, only those people who can prove that they had tickets for the game that night and were intending to attend. So to hell with those other suckers that night on those three aircraft who just happened to be flying to Durban for whatever other (clearly totally irrelevant) reasons. They lose all their money. That does make sense.

ACSA has been nothing short of an embarrassment. This entire debacle has been nothing short of an embarrassment.

The capitulation to those who consider themselves above the law and, of course, the rest of us is beyond embarrassing. It's disgusting in its blatant and feudalistic elitism.

So much for having an 'equal and fair' playing ground for all fans at this year's FIFA(dom) World Cup.

Do you get my point?

RAVE (OF SORTS): My Point Is Made

A few days ago I ranted on this blog about how sick and tired I was of how South Africans were now suddenly supposed to be all 'pro-African' and all 'pro-Ghana', the last remaining team at the time in the World Cup. The constant harping on about how this was 'Africa's World Cup' annoys me no end. I found it all so unncessary, given that I, for one, have nothing in common with Ghana or any other African nation for that matter.

What even irked me more, and I stated it in said post, was the sheer hypocrisy of many South Africans to be suddenly so 'pro-Africa' given the enormous levels of xenophobic violence against African immigrants that this country has seen in the past few years.

I was told today that on the radio the reports are coming out that this country could be on the verge of another of these xenophobia-fueled riots and violence. It was said that African immigrants in black townships like Alexandra, Diepsloot and many others around the country are bracing themselves for all-out attacks by local blacks wanting them out.

How dare locals think that they can attack, maim and even kill foreign immigrants because they're perceived to be 'taking our jobs' or 'causing crime in this country' or, most ridiculously of all, 'taking our women'. It's the classic case of xenophobic nonsense the world over.

They're not taking your jobs - they're just more hardworking than you. In my experience, South Africans are not always the most industrious, competent or hardworking people I've met.

The crime excuse is so laughable as to be downright stupid. This has always been a crime-ridden country, even during the schizphrenic police state it was in the apartheid era. It is true that Nigerian and Zimbabwean and Egyptian, etc, crime cartels have done very well in this country. But that hardly excuses the fact that much of our crime is indeed very homegrown. As it has always been.

And if you want to keep blaming the foreign criminals for being here, then blame Mandela. We have him to thank for flinging this country's borders wide open to the rest of Africa after 1994.

See how the blame game can get tricky...?

As for foreigners taking local women, I'm actually not at all surprised. Many of the men from West and Central Africa are a darn sight taller, better built and better-looking than the local men. All power to the local women if they do run off with other African men - they just have damn good taste.

I believe a Zimbabwean man who lives in Alexandra in Johannesburg was interviewed and said he was genuinely scared about the prospect of being attacked again. He said he'd lived here ten years, was law-abiding, had taken work from no one as he worked for himself, and had certainly never stolen anyone's woman. I have met countless Zimbabweans just like him - hardworking, polite, usually well-educated and trying to make an honest buck in a bloody hard, unforgiving country.

Except this time he said it would be different - this time, he said, he and others will fight back.

As they absolutely should.

I was utterly embarrassed and ashamed as a South African citizen when all of these xenophobic attacks erupted two years ago. Which is why I never shut up at the time telling every other South African just how disgusting it all was and how outraged I was - and that included classrooms full of students and delegates I was training or facilitating. I've never encountered so much hushed silence and palpable shame (and disdain at me too, let it be said) in all my time as a professional.

This country has a barbaric and racist past that few other countries can match, and it was horrific to see it rear its ugly head again. And this time, black-on-black racism. I can only hope it won't do so again.

Which is why I feel vindicated in my contempt for South Africans bleating on about how 'African' they are and how much they 'love' and support other African teams. It's hypocrisy of the kind only a warped society like this can muster.

I may be vindicated - but it's hollow vindication indeed.

RAVE: How the 'Mighty' Do Fall

I came across an excellent article today on Yahoo: http://g.sports.yahoo.com/soccer/world-cup/news/world-cup-anti-stars-shine-for-semifinalists--fbintl_ro-antistars070410.html

Entitled "World Cup anti-stars shine for semifinalists" it's an interesting review of just how the 'big stars' of football have failed at this World Cup. And just how well relative 'non-stars' are doing, particularly for the four remaining sides - Uruguay, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands.

Boy, have the 'big boys' been a let down. Being a supporter of Portugal has meant having to wince and put up with the antics of Christiano Ronaldo. To say he under-performed for Portugal is a bit like saying Tony Hayward has underperformed as CEO of BP. This 'star' is the most well-paid footballer on the planet. Yeah, we really saw that during his four matches for Portugal.

As Portuguese comedian Herman Jose jested, "Ronaldo is amazingly consistent when he plays for Portugal...he plays badly every time." How true!

The English team were another brilliant case in point - comprised mainly of a bunch of overpaid, overrated prima donas, they did poorly too. Head prima donna was that pudgy fatso, Wayne Rooney. It amazes me how the English media fawn all over that boorish yob every time there's an international competition. 

As for the French team - what a disgrace. Again - prima donnas.

Even Argentina's Lionel Messi, whom I genuinely like as a player (and unassuming, unpretentious) person, had a lackluster time, failing to even score a goal for his country. Kaka for Brazil hardly shone either.

Yet the top players for Germany and Uruguay are hardly in the same league of 'super stardom'. Yes, Klose and a few other of the German players are very well known to football lovers, but hardly the household names of a Ronaldo or Rooney. Ditto the same for most of the Dutch team. And whilst some of the Spanish players are indeed superstars, they're somehow not in that super-league either. And, to be honest, Spain have hardly wowed me with their performances to date. 

Why I love all of this is because I am so AGAINST what these superstar football players earn in the first place. This World Cup has been the comeuppance of the CELEBRITY FOOTBALL STAR - hurrah! The game has become so ridiculously inflated and rich, so brand-conscious uber alles, that some of these 'top' players, good as they might be, become so overpaid, so over-feted ,that, in the end, they start to believe all that crap. And, in the process, they become overrated.

Why the hell should you care about playing well for your country when you are a young multi(multi)-millionaire with millions more in the pipeline in sponsorship deals, other endorsements and a celebrity lifestyle to match? Who the hell cares when that anthem sounds, right? Why the hell indeed.

So we are now left with four teams in the World Cup comprised mainly of just excellent football stars who have proven that they are, above all else, not only talented but proud to play for their nations and their fans. As, until recently, it always was. As it always should be. 

If anything, this trend will be one of the long-lasting legacies of the 2010 World Cup.

How the 'mighty' do fall. Sometimes, that is indeed a good thing.

RANT: Support Who?!

It's been a World Cup that has disappointed me with all of my most favourite teams now out and annoyed me to hell and back with the emergence of the omnipresent vuvuzela.

It's also been a World Cup that has irked me because of all the ersatz patriotism that has abounded, as I ranted about in a recent post. It's an extension of this issue that brings me to my latest rant:

Why the hell is it that all of us in South Africa were automatically expected to support Ghana?! The newspapers and media were rife with headlines booming how 'Ghana was Africa's last hope' in the quarter-finals and how 'all South Africans were now behind the Black Stars (the team of Ghana)' and the like.

According to whom were all these sweeping generalizations being made?

I certainly was not supporting Ghana or any other African country for that matter. And why should I?

Perhaps it's because of the constant bleating by the South African organizers that this was to be "Africa's World Cup". Really? So then why the hell did we have to fork out all the money for all the revamped and new stadia? Where was the money from Nigeria or Ghana or Egypt or Burkina Faso for all that it took to make this the quite successful World Cup it has been? Nowhere.

Mandela, Tutu, Mbeki, Zuma, Blatter - all of them must take the blame for having bleated on and on and on about how this was "Africa's big chance" to show the rest of the world what we were capable of. What utter nonsense.

Shame on the likes of Mandela and Tutu for not realizing that you build your own national identity on who you are as a proud nation, not how you perceive yourself amongst 52 other nations.

Even the opening ceremony was decimated with tiresome song after song from other parts of Africa, nearly all of which were downright awful, and an utter disgrace when one considers that South Africa has some of the most fantastic and diverse music on the African continent. It was ridiculous.

Let's get this straight, once and for all: This was a South African World Cup organized for the large part by South Africans with the type of infrastructure and logistics that only South Africa could pull off on this continent - or at least the sub-Saharan part thereof. All this crapola about it being 'African' was just a media, marketing and political construct to bring a sense of 'ethnicity' and, perversely, 'authenticity' to an event which FIFA had the cheek to also dub 'an African tournament for the world'. No, it was a South African tournament for the world.

It's as if South Africa could never be 'authentic' enough by just being itself - one nation at the tip of the African continent made up of a gazillion different races, ethnicities, languages, creeds, etc. A unique nation in Africa, quite possibly in the world. Was that not enough for us to celebrate and share with the world? Oh no, we had to keep looking northwards and making ourselves and the rest of the world believe that all of Africa was in this together. No, it bloody well was not.

It's all part of this tiresome nation-building nonsense that one has to endure in this country. This country that, after so many years in the political and cultural wilderness due to apartheid, is now trying so hard to endear itself to the rest of Africa and, by proxy, the rest of the world. It's all so put on and so utterly unconvincing to an insider such as myself.

And let me tell you why: because Africa is not one huge homogeneous continent, whatever Sepp Blatter and the world's media might like to think. This is as fractured and as divided and as brother-hating a continent as any other. Just look at all the wars and divisions that still persist on this continent. Just look at what an inept joke the Organisation for African Unity (OAU) continues to be. And need I remind South Africans and all the Africans living in this country of the heinous and horrific attacks that took place against African immigrants just two years ago by the very locals who now fly the Ghanaian flag at football matches because we are all African brothers.

And if there is indeed so much African brotherly love in this country, then why is it that the South African Police Service (SAPS) announced just three days ago that there would be swift police action against any locals who harassed, taunted or otherwise victimized or discriminated against any African immigrants living in this country.

Time and time again in my dealings with immigrants in this country from Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Mozambique, Angola, the DRC and other African nations I have asked how they find living here. Inevitably, after a long pause or roll of the eyes, I am politely told that they mostly dislike (even hate) living in this country, primarily because of the extreme xenophobia and racism they encounter every single day - NOT from white South Africans but, time and time again when asked, from black South Africans.

So much for the African brotherhood.

This is not an anti-Africa diatribe. This is anti-hypocrisy and anti-political correctness diatribe. The hypocrisy of a nation that is mostly unwelcoming, even violent, to other Africans and yet gets all hyper-emotional about the last African team standing in the World Cup. The political correctness of our local media and that of the international media in supporting the 'African' (read: poor, exploited, corrupt, disadvantaged) team. Even the English media told all their readers and listeners to 'get behind Ghana' after their own appalling and overrated national team were ousted? Why? Is it because they're from a 'poor black country' that happens to speak English?

And how utterly patronizing to assume that an entire continent would support a single team! As if Algeria is identical to Guinea which is identical to Zimbabwe. It's like shouting that Germans and Serbians and Portuguese must support Italy just because the latter is European! The hell they will! Or that Venezuelans and Chileans and Bolivians should be ecstatic if Brazil or Argentina were to win. Yeah, right! And why the hell should they? Just because they're all on the same continent? Europeans wouldn't do it, nor would Latin Americans or Asians - so why the hell should that utterly silly double-standard be applied to an entire continent of a billion, incredibly diverse and polyglot people like Africa?

Is Africa really that desperate for identity and a sense of self? Or is it just the imposition of how a frankly racist world media, that hasn't a blinking clue of the historical, political and cultural realities of Africa, feels Africa should feel about itself? A self-perpetuating myth that, amazingly, so many Africans it seems have swallowed in full themselves and regurgitate back to a patronizing and self-important politically correct world?

It's modern racist neo-colonialism at its worst. And Africa seemingly buys it hook, line and sinker.

What the hell do I have in common with Ghana? Why must I feel all 'African' just because of where I was born or happen to live? I'm of European and Latin descent and Roman Catholic-born. I had more in common, culturally and otherwize, with Uruguay that night. And I was overjoyed when they beat a rough-playing, dirty Ghanaian side. Thrilled. And I know a lot of that joy surfaced because I resented being made to feel that I should somehow support Ghana just because they're from the same continent as the country in which I live. To hell with that nonsense. Viva Uruguay!

And I did wonder: what if the last African team in the competition had been Algeria? Would there have been quite the same fervour to support another African team in this country? Hmmm, interesting point that.

Ghana didn't deserve it. Ghana was not robbed. Ghana did well enough, but went far enough. Ghana were just the latest poster boys in the patronizing political correctness that grips the world every time we have one of these events. It could have been Cameroon or Cote d'Ivoire or Nigeria. They're all African after all. All black (well, mostly). All the same, right?

And so the last remaining African team is out of the World Cup. And I am glad for it, even if the rabid African-biased hypocrisy in this country's national media continues. Less talk about this mythic, delusional 'African dream' would be a relief. Let the underdog now be a small South American nation of just three million people that happens to play better football. And deserve it more.

At this World Cup hosted, paid for and run by South Africa. A huge risk and a self-belief that belongs to South Africa. Not Africa.

Thank you very bloody much.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Ersatz Patriotism

In just over a week the 2010 World Cup will come to an end in South Africa. To be brutally honest, thank goodness.

Not only has the football been mostly far from scintillating, but both the teams I was supporting, Italy and Portugal, are out. And deserve to be out, by the way. So now I'm left with supporting Argentina - who I do believe deserve it, have played mostly well and, well, Argentina under Maradona would just be a terrific winner. The only other team remaining that I can remotely support are Germany - and they're up against Argentina in a quarter-final. Typical.

It's also been a World Cup for me blighted by the worst gift South Africa has given to the world since apartheid - that wretched vuvuzela.

But I think another thing that has so irked me about this World Cup is all the rampant patriotism that I've seen around the country and had to endure for the last few months, and especially in the last few weeks. It has been an absolute overdose.

 Flags, flags, flags everywhere. Even I (half-hearted) got into it by buying a huge Portuguese flag for my mom (fat lot of good that did) and even wore an Italy bracelet and scarf given to me by said mom (even bigger fat lot of good...). I was even given a small Italian flag to have fluttering from my car. I guess that's where my I drew the line.

I used to love flags - now I bloody hate them.

Why is that? I really can't say. I'm not feeling particularly Scrooge-esque these days. I really did try and get into it all. After all, I've always enjoyed the World Cup. Perhaps it's because it seemed somehow so forced for me to get into that, that for others to be doing it just seemed silly and trite. Who knows, perhaps that is Scrooge-esque of me.

Maybe it was just too much damn build-up to this World Cup in this country. Billboards, electronic signs and newspapers kept us on a breathless daily countdown to the opening day as if our very lives depended on it. For months every Friday leading up to the World Cup many locals would get all togged up in the national soccer shirt of South Africa. Never mind that the garish yellow and green strip is kitsch and ugly beyond belief. I know that for me it was one of most utterly annoying little 'traditions' in living memory. It just annoyed the hell out of me to see all of this money being spent on crappy, ugly FIFAdom shirts in a country with nearly 40% unemployment, an utterly crap and corrupt government and one one of the most racially fractured populations on the planet.

And we got flooded with an endless stream of advert after advert of how 'just how immensely proud we are to be hosts of the 2010 World Cup', all set to the most searingly rousing (read: painful) and tear-inducing music and images. It was enough to make one puke. I nearly did on a few occasions.

Yeah, yeah, we were the hosts, but it seemed a put-on - too much effort for a nation with an entirely schizophrenic and divided national character.

I can't wait to be back to a Friday when I don't have to be assaulted by all those awful canary yellow shirts.

Even today I nearly burst out laughing when I walked into my local video store and, it being a Friday, all the employees had their yellow South Africa football shirts on! Puh-leeze! South Africa didn't even make it through the first round and got eliminated from the tournament over a week ago, for crying out loud!

It's all so unconvincing. It's ersatz patriotism.

Perhaps upon reflection I can surmise that my antipathy to all this ersatz flag-waving paraphernalia has to do with the world in which we live. A world that seems more corporate and less 'national' than ever. A world where national governments seem more inept than ever and more willing to kowtow to corporatist fascism and global finance. A world where over-pampered, overrated and overly arrogant prima donnas like Christiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and that Frenchman Anelka can't even play well enough for their own countries to even justify why they earn such obscene amounts of money for just kicking a ball around.

When I consider all that, I guess all this flag-waving and chest-thumping just seems hollow and puerile. Unconvincing. Ersatz.

So for now I'll watch a few of the remaining games and hope that Argentina goes on to win. And quietly hide my Italian flag away, of course.

And I'll reflect upon a time when flags and national anthems and all that really did stir something inside me during the World Cup or any like event. And wonder why now it all seems so much like pantomime.

Do you get my point?

RANT OR RAVE?: Whaling, Where to Next?

I simply do not not know whether to be happy or not that happy with the outcome of the recent International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting held in Agadir, Morocco.

There was much nervousness and angst amongst environmental campaigners and countries like Australia, New Zealand, most of the EU and an entire Latin American bloc that the 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling would be overturned. And right they were to be afraid. The tide is turning in favour of those who want a return to all-out commercial whaling, even with 'quotas' in place, bizarre and outrageous as that might sound.

Thirty different meetings were held over more than two days worth of negotiations. On the one hand, environmental organizations like Greenpeace and activist groups like Avaaz declared that their missions  to protest at the IWC talks had been a success. Avaaz, an excellent online activist group, had been able to obtain 1.2-million online signatures (of which I signed and forwarded to many others) in a petition they claim was heard loud and clear in Agadir. It was a tremendous effort and Avaaz deserve all credit for their tenacity in obtaining so many online supporters.

On the other hand, Japan, whaling bastards par excellence, looked decidedly upbeat and with good reason: there has been no moratorium on whaling in the frigid Southern Ocean, where Japanese whaling vessels do most of their massacres. The Japanese claim their culling of whales is for 'scientific purposes', a preposterous pack of lies that fools no one, and thanks to a stupid loophole in the 1986 compromise to ban annual quotas of whale slaughter. They may have wanted a lifting on the ban of whaling for 'non-scientific' purposes and the return of the annual quotas that existed prior to 1986 at this meeting. But the annual slaughter of whales in the Southern Ocean will continue unabated next year - yet again.

So, Japan were hardly big losers after all. Right?

The other two nations in the 'Whaling Axis of Evil', Iceland and Norway, also get to keep their refusal to recognize the 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling. Those two Scandinavian nations are thought to export most of their whale meat to Japan - which is farcical, given that Japan itself has 'mountains of stockpiles of whale meat' already, as according to Greenpeace Japan.

So much for the moral rectitude and 'high ethics' ordinarily attributed to Norway and Iceland. Bloody hypocrites. Shame on them and their people for allowing this slaughter.

And now South Korea wants to have the right to join in on the blood-drenched fun with the Whaling Axis of Evil nations! Jesus wept.

Scandals were rife both prior to and at the Agadir meeting. In the weeks leading up to the critical vote, the media was rife with reports of undercover journalists gathering hard evidence that delegates from poorer nations had been bribed by the Japanese with everything from development 'loans' to free holidays and paid flights to even prostitutes at their hotels. Then at the meeting there was outrage when only governmental delegates were allowed and the doors promptly closed to all NGOs and other observers.

Yet again, an international organization conducts its affairs behind closed doors and in huge secrecy. One can only wonder why.

The IWC is so rife with allegations of corruption and ineptitude it makes FIFA look like the International Red Cross. It's known that the Whaling Axis of Evil nations wield inordinate power in the IWC, particularly the Land of the Rising Sun. Why are countries like Canada no longer members? Why did they leave? And why the hell are some of the IWC member nations landlocked countries (most of them European nations, by the way, and including Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and Switzerland, as well as other counties without coastlines like Mali and Mongolia)?!

According to Morocco's Agence Maghreb Arabe Presse, "Although it failed to reach a compromise, the meeting of Agadir was described by several participating delegations as a “success” and a “historical turning point”, as the organization remained committed to its mission despite the fundamental disagreements between its members."

Hmmmm, success to whom? Is a stalemate and a firm retention of the current status quo (which still allows hundreds of whales to be slaughtered by Japan, Iceland and Norway) really such a huge success? Perhaps it is success in this day and age of high cynicism (by the Japanese) and downright hypocrisy (read: Iceland and Norway) on the issue of whaling.

Perhaps the likes of Greenpeace and Avaaz can take some comfort in a job well done in protesting a possible lifting on the ban and roll up their sleeves to fight this battle all over again another day. When up against the likes of Japan and Norway, perhaps that is indeed a victory - for now.

And so the species considered to be amongst the most evolved and intelligent on Earth continue to be at the mercy of homo sapiens. A species that has peacefully roamed the great oceans and seas for millenia and which communicate in complex sonar language at the mercy of a species that kills its own, declares war on its own and devastates all that surrounds it.

Pity the whales, to be at the mercy of such a species.


And these are the fights that must still be fought in the second decade of the 21st century?
 
Should this be a rant or a rave? I remain unsure...
 
Do you get my point?

REFLECTION - Half the Year - Gone!

Today is July 1st and that means six months of this year have already passed. That is half the year - GONE!

It's been quite a year thus far. On the personal front I've become more proactive and committed to my writing, of which this blog has been an important part. My career seems somewhat blah and even stale on the one hand, and yet numerous new potential avenues seem to have opened as well for me. All good.

For me, it has also been important because:

• Due to my blog I have started reading and coming across so many other blogs - it's terrific to know there are so many progressive and downright pissed off people out there! WE NEED MORE!
• I finally started watching stations like Russia Today and Al Jazeera a lot more - all for the better.
• I re-read Naomi Klein's "No Logo" & "The Shock Doctrine" and was even more impressed second (third, fourth, fifth, sixth...) time around - what an amazing woman.
• I have Andrew Jennings and his brilliant book "Foul!" to thank for exposing FIFA for the putrid, corrupt organization it is - and verifying why I've always disliked Herr Blatter so much.
• I stumbled upon a genius rabble rouser and ex-Wall Street stockbroker on Russia Today by the name of Max Keiser - he and his guests have opened my eyes and mind to so many issues about finance, markets and all the scandals thereof - HAIL MAX! MAX FOR PRESIDENT!
• I now have such a better understanding of finance, global markets and the current financial crisis when compared to even six months ago - again, thanks Max!
• If sustainability is really about the economic, the social and the ecological, then I am a better informed and more savvy person and professional these days...

On the international scene it has been something else. A run through of some of the main events of this year to date:

• The Haiti earthquake - what an awful tragedy.
• The sinking of the Sea Shepherds' vessel The Ady Gil by bastard Japanese whalers.
• The Icelandic financial crisis and referendum on how to pay back the UK & Netherlands.
• The continuing global financial crisis - it just aint getting better yet.
• The ever-growing machinations of financial terrorists, especially the likes of the infamous Goldman Sachs.
• Did I mention financial terrorism?
• The near-bankruptcy of Greece and all the social unrest in the streets of Athens, the IMF loan, etc.
• The looming sovereign debt crises in countries like Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, the UK, Romania, and a host of others.
• The euro under attack - and revealing (yet again) how fractured the EU really is.
• Obama a bigger and bigger disappointment (more to others than to me, let it be said - always knew he'd disappoint).
• China not exactly 'saving the world' with its economy - *delicious snicker*
• The ongoing fiascos that are the Iraq and Afghanistan 'wars'.
• The Israeli attack of the aid ship to Gaza - Israel at it yet again - a rogue state to the hilt.
• The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico - an epic environmental disaster.
• The BP oil spill - talk about bad press & a PR disaster for a huge corporation - goooooooood
• The whaling vote in Agadir, Morocco - not a total victory for those of us in the anti-whaling lobby, but a stalemate is better than losing to Japan, Iceland and Norway - shame on them.
• The ongoing international impasse over climate change - what a SHAME.
• The 2010 World Cup - well done so far, South Africa, even if you did introduce the world to that horror, the vuvuzela!
• Iran, North Korea vs South Korea, Niger on the brink, the Polish government wiped out, Kyrgyzstan imploding, Belgium fracturing, that coalition in the UK, China's endless mining disasters, the G20 farce in Toronto, the Russian 'spy' scandal...it goes on and on and on...

I can only hope the rest of the year gets better on the international scene...

Here's taking a long, deeeeeeep breath...