SA Post World Cup
You may have noticed the WC in South Africa was a roaring success. I believe it was, although some might have not noticed it through the vuvuzelas, which I love incidentally.
I was among a group of South Africans that absolutely without doubt expected the WC to be fantastic, I am in some circles naïve, in others stupid, in still others I am a lefty pinko liberal black lover. However in some circles I am just a normal guy who has faith in a Country that has succesfully run numerous large sporting events.
The tone of this article is more the post-orgasmic chill that is descending, or not, in South Africa. Its an interesting time to be here.
There are a number of things that lead you to believe that its all gone to “kak” again. Such as the traffic nightmare returning, ALL roadworks were paused for the WC so that there was as little traffic as possible. Julius Malema has started talking again, He being the leader of the ANC Youth League, and quite possibly the dumbest human being to be in any sort of public awareness, I included Paris Hilton here... her and her marijuana.
More important to me is the Obsession South Africans have with Being Proud of the country. It really is an obsession. We have this insistence on telling everyone that we had a great conversation at the Licensing board, the Traffic Police Station and Home Affairs. There is a tangible desire to since the WC that we keep everything going in that direction, from the smallest thing all the way up to govt. That is not always easy, what with the govt. suddenly post WC trying to get some sort of censorship on the press.
But there are other things, for instance LEADSA which is an initiative created by a corporation that, despite my disregard for all things “positive” created by corporates, is a great initiative, whereby they encourage every South Africa to “Lead” South Africa by their behaviour. Just today I saw a BillBoard that said “Fight Corruption Dont Bribe Traffic Police” which on the face of it is quite comical, but actually its a pretty cool thing to say and to get people to think about. Every South African has bribed a cop at some stage, whether we were a little pissed on the way home and slipped a 20 into his/her hand or whether it was a cop being unreasonable and there being no way to get out of a possible dangerous situation.
There is the other side of things that is great for South African Football. Every South African supports an English Team, for me it is... for my sins, Liverpool. But most are getting their act together and are finding a local team, I do speak more for the whiteys like myself regarding local teams as most Black South Africas do have a team already. My best mate here, who is a German, and I are finding our local team to support, to buy tickets Merchandise and to therefore support the team. These things all make a difference. So hopefully with a few thousand more supporters SA Football will gain a little money and will help our national team up a few more rungs in the international ladder. Which I certainly believe we deserve to be.
