Raining On South Africa's Parade

I am surely in a minority position. In my take on the appropriateness of a country like South Africa spending a whopping six billion dollars to host the World Cup of Soccer. Does it make sense for a country that hasn't the required resources to bring a huge portion of its population out of poverty, to spend so recklessly on a series of games? Does it make sense for a country that boasts the world's most worrisome crime rate to invite the world to celebrate with it?

This is a country beset with all the evils and ills that HIV and AIDS brings to the world, a country with huge numbers of orphans, children whose parents have died from HIV/AIDS, and whose grandmothers are desperately attempting to raise those children to maturity. This is a country battling endemic diseases like malaria and dread water-borne diseases, where people are unable to treat water to make it potable, because they haven't the elemental, inexpensive resources to do so.

This is a country whose president, Jacob Zuma, succeeded an earlier president, Thabo Mbeki, both of whom proved to be incompetently unaware of the causes of HIV/AIDS, unaware of its source, and avoidance. A current president, moreover, whose own over-heated sexual adventures leads him to the rape of an HIV-positive young woman who trusted him, and who 'protected' himself against infection by showering post-rape.

But then, human creatures living in a world of distorted and disturbing realities will seek some mode of comfort and for many, partying appeals as a method by which the ills of the world can be temporarily overlooked. And world-scale sport events represent partying on a grand scale. These sport events also represent contestants as combatants in a kind of surrogate war. Competitive sport events are as close to primal tugs of war as it is possible to get.

These are feel-good events shared by all who view them, who cheer on the adept sport professionalism of their favourite teams, representing their own countries or those most admired for the proficiency of their soccer players, reminiscent in a way of the 'sport' practised in ancient Rome when gladiators met their death through fierce competitive hand-to-hand combat with both humans and carnivorous animals.

We consider ourselves infinitely more refined, far less barbarous than in those days. A blatant misapprehension of reality if there ever was one. Yet people infected with the competitive, celebratory aspects of competitive sports like the World Cup of Soccer report high levels of boisterous self-satisfaction and collective happiness when such events occur. Even when, on the rare occasion, such competitive matches have been known to lead to actual war.

There exists some extremely interesting human dynamics that surface during these games. In 1930s Germany, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels issued an edict to the German national soccer team that they should perform only when it was obvious that they could achieve victory. A modern variant of that mind-set is that of North Korea which will broadcast only games where its team wins.

Unbelievably, in countries whose national soccer teams participate in the World Cup of Soccer, the rate of suicide declines. People are generally so embroiled in the excitement and the nationalistic fervour of such events that their own personal trials and tribulations are temporarily set aside in favour of cheering on their team. It has been estimated that during the games in South Africa, 1000 European lives will be saved through fewer suicide attempts.

In Chile, church officials have devised a World Cup prayer, beseeching God "always to grant fair play in football and life as a whole so that we may ... reach the eternal goal of eternal life in Him."

Mind boggling? You betcha.