words by Raffaella Delle Donne
I am a 32-year old female writer, activist and cultural commentator. Like all South Africans, I have an opinion about my country hosting the next Fifa Soccer World Cup. Actually if the truth be told, it‘s a little more complicated than that. I think what I hate most about South Africa hosting one of the biggest sporting events in the world is that it fuels the conflict between the idealist-activist and the cynical-writer that are housemates in the backroom of my brain.
The idealist romanticizes soccer as a grassroots, people sport that has been relegated to the sidelines for far too long and especially in South Africa. Soccer is the sport of revolutionaries like CheGuevara and cultural icons like Bob Marley. It is a truly African sport. It‘s dynamic, colourful, flamboyant and sexy well that‘s if you‘re not counting football hooligans. When I was in Soweto last year, every single boy I spoke to wants to be a soccer player when they grow up, so the idealist in me believes that the world cup has the potential to shine a spotlight on soccer as it tentatively steps out of the shadows of Rugby. (Yes that is Rugby with a capital R.) But then the cynicalanarchist snaps her out of her daydream. Wake up sister, FIFA is the G8 of the sports world. You want evidence? They‘ve already started throwing their weight around. Thanks to them, what would have been the Athlone stadium, deep in the heart of the Cape Flats ghetto, is now in Greenpoint, complete with a sea-view. We wouldn‘t want millions of people around the world thinking there are poor people in SA now, do we?
And when it comes to merchandising, the long arm of the law just got longer. Every street-vendor, and crafter hoping to make their cut from World Cup merchandising is under the watchful eye of the Patent Police. And that sister is with a capital P. As I said, I have an opinion about us hosting the next Fifa Soccer World Cup. But unlike most South Africans, my opinions are mutable, ambiguous and contradictory much like the country I live in. This is what I can bring to the project, because I SEEhearTASTEsmellFEEL soccer. There is a Yoruba saying that goes, the outsider or uninitiated usually sees through the nose. The splendour of this sensory metaphor lies, like most things in Africa, in its contradiction. The literal meaning plays with the issue of insider/outsider – the nuances of the unfamiliar, and of course, the strange. But read it again. This time, out loud. Savour each and every word. Roll them around in your mouth – spit them out and let their meaning bounce off the walls and reverberate into your consciousness.
What they are also saying is that understanding and knowing, here on the southernmosttip of Africa, is all about the senses. Who feels it, knows it. For the insider, the initiated, African soccer is an assault on the senses. Soccer is the TASTE of salty summer sweat on your lips as you HEAR the crowd chant: “Laduuuuuuma!”
It‘s the SMELL of freshly cut grass on your local pitch and the SIGHT of stadium under construction silhouetted against the twilight african sky. Here, in Africa, we see, hear, taste, smell but, above all, FEEL soccer.
