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?