Blowing down walls with vuvuzelas

The smell of sausage is in the air, a significant number of men, women and children are strutting around with vuvuzelas in their hands; some are clad in Bafana Bafana t-shirts despite it being three days after South Africa’s three-nil drubbing by Uruguay. In the midst of a chilling breeze, the pulsating strumming of Concord Nkabinde and the evocatively mellow voice and energetic acrobatic passionate choreographic moves of Zolani Mahola of Freshlyground sends a mass of bodies into overzealous grooving, swinging. There is thunderous foot-stomping, upbeat hands-clapping, and a crazy medley of ululations and whistles. I am chatting in a mix of Sesotho and isiXhosa to two soul-brothers that I have just met when a soulful sister greets me, enquiring when the Spoken Word show is taking place. ‘I saw it on Facebook,’ she says in Zulu, as she moves into the gyrating, jumping and cheering crowd, and Zolani Mahola leaves the crowds in stitches with her love stories before belting out more soul rocking, booty-shaking funky tunes, igniting the crowd to spontaneously and enthusiastically sing along: ‘lala lalala lala la la lala…’ The scene is not Long Street or Waterfront in Cape Town, Moses Mabhida Stadium or Ushaka Marine in Durban, Mary Fitzgerald Square, and Soccercity or in Johannesburg or any of the major popular spots in Bloemfontein, Kimberley, Nelspruit and Mafikeng. It is Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of World Cultures) in Berlin, Germany and the occasion is the Cup of Cultures.

The Cup of Cultures atmosphere and the whole vibe in South Africa – where South Africans of all backgrounds, Africans from other countries and soccer lovers from around the globe are converging around their love of football, their support of Bafana Bafana and their solidarity with South Africa as the first African country to host the FIFA Soccer World Cup – provides a symbolic and inspirational signature of the possibilities for the development of national, continental and international identities rooted in the acknowledgement and the celebration of diversity as well as the interconnectedness of humanity and the universality of human experiences.

The converging of a myriad of flags, national anthems, songs and faces in one space and the adoption and utilisation of one instrument – the vuvuzela – by the international football community at the World Cup to sing and hum the screams and dreams of the divergent peoples of the world make it a bit easier for people who are often afraid to launch out of ethnocentric and narrowly constructed perceptions of being and belonging to perceive and dream of a sense of ‘nationhood’, ‘world community’, ‘national unity’, ‘continental unity’ and ‘international fellowship of humanity’ that transcends and demolishes the arbitrary walls and borders and barricades constructed around race, ethnicity, class, gender, religion and geopolitics.

But developing a pro-humanist and dynamic sense of being and belonging requires an open acknowledgement of the fact that the ‘one nation’ and ‘one world’ image projected by host countries and the world community of nations during and at world sport events does not reflect the everyday reality in that specific country and in the world. It is only when we accept ‘one people’ and ‘one world community’ as an ideal and a work-in-project or rather as a political and socio-cultural program that still need to be fully imagined, constructed, developed; and one that does not necessarily lead to a monolithic identity, that we can make tremendous progress in creating harmony out of plurality and building unity in diversity rather than creating discord out of difference and making conflict out of dissent.

This means that we cannot expect a one-off event like the World Cup to work like a magic wand and spontaneously heal the divisions and tensions of the past and the present. Transformation and transfiguration of attitudes and structures of social stratification and various forms of discriminations that have been entrenched for centuries cannot happen in a minute like a cup of cappuccino or a bowl of instant soup.

Beyond international sporting and cultural events there is a need to channel our energies, focus our minds, and invest our resources as individuals, communities, civil societies, progressive governments and responsible corporate citizens to vigorous and on-going programmes that promote the exploration of innovative and creative solutions, techniques and ethics and etiquettes of managing diversity in a variety of social settings.

Among others, this should take the form of continuous and intensive advocacy, training and education on diversity, Peace and Anti-Racism Education( PARE) programmes, multicultural/cross-cultural local and international arts and sports programmes and international arts, sports, academic, political and economic exchange programmes geared towards the construction and development of pro-humanist, pro-human rights, pro-equity, pro-justice notions of identity, nationhood and international community. Most importantly, the initiatives referred to here will not yield much results in the absence of serious attempts at policies and programmes addressing the structural, institutional and mindset /attitudinal dynamics that entrench and perpetuate poverty, inequality and socioeconomic, gender and environmental injustice upon which various forms of discriminations are grounded.

The fact of the matter is that people’s perception of themselves and others as well as their real capability is impacted upon heavily by the allocation and redistribution of power and resources in society, their living and working conditions, their income, livelihood and social capital; their access and utilisation of services and amenities and the quality of the amenities and services at their disposal.

It is therefore difficult to do away with complexes of inferiority and superiority in a society in which a certain sector of society lives under subhuman, squalid conditions and extreme poverty whilst another lives in opulence and extreme comfort.

When the structural arrangements are such that in statistical terms the disparities and social and power relations reflect a partnership between race, class and gender, it is not possible to build a truly anti-racist, non-racial, anti-sexist, non-sexist, humane society and therefore a heavy task to build an enduring and tangible sense of oneness and unity in diversity.

If our policies and programmes, practices and values as governments, communities and civil society organisations promote equitable allocation of power and resources, reduce inequalities and imbalances in income, livelihood, capability and on the quality of health, education, public transport and housing, we would have created the material and practical conditions in which it is much easier for complexes of inferiority and superiority, and therefore discriminative attitudes to be effectively challenged and destroyed. This was well captured by Stephen Bantu Biko when he said: ‘Integration cannot be imposed or worked for, it will automatically happen, when all doors of prejudice have been closed.’

This is not to say that we should wait until structural and institutional inequities and socioeconomic imbalances and inequalities have been addressed for us to embark on the project of building a unifying sense of South Africaness, Africaness and international community. We have to use moments like the World Soccer Cup and events such as the World Cup of Cultures not only to point out the glaring inequalities and injustices in society even within the World Cup itself such as the ruthless eviction and forceful removal of hawkers, displaced children, the homeless and refugees, the assault on our environment through the emission of huge footprints of carbon dioxide, and the marginalisation of local business and the informal sector by big capital and FIFA in collusion with the bigwigs of local football and the local political elites.

We also must and should use these events to highlight the ample and abundant possibilities and potentialities for the creation of an anti-racist, non-racial, participatory democratic and truly egalitarian, humane and peaceful society, where colour, gender and social standing does not define the worth of an individual in society. Cross-cultural, transnational and international sporting and cultural events are useful in promoting greater understanding that though there is always more than one conceptual and practical frame of reference, there are always sufficient common experiences, fears and dreams to build a universal culture of unity-in-diversity grounded on shared notions of peace and justice.

The more people interact, share stories and histories and are exposed to the human side of each others’ histories, it is the more they learn points of commonality and how much they can learn and benefit from each others’ stories, histories and from the manner in which they read and interpolate these histories and reconstruct these experiences.

These thoughts are racing in my mind as I walk through the colourful Berlin Gay Parade (an estimated 250,000 people and 50 floats carrying dancers waving though the centre of the city under the motto of ‘Normal is different’), and fellow poet and cultural worker Napo Masheane joyously shouts: ‘Hey, my friend, we are walking on the wall.’ We saw the wall yesterday but today we are right in front of the graffiti.

Thinking of stories of individuals who risked their lives and dared the infamous death strip to be with their beloved and loved ones, remembering East Germany artists who chose exile to free their creativity from bureaucratic strictures, the similarities between the experiences of the German people who were divided by the barrier of ideology and of the South African people who were divided by the barrier of colour become striking.

Listening to one of our hosts narrating how (though she was too young to understand the other implications of the Berlin wall and its fall) she was besides herself with excitement at the time of its fall to learn of relatives who had been barred from her family for decades and how ecstatic she was to meet her cousins, takes me back to the euphoric scenes of the freeing of prisoners, unbanning of the liberation movement, the returning exiles, and later the emotional moments of the returning and reburial of the remains of some of those who were buried in exile and others secretly buried at mine-dumps and in the bushes by Apartheid police.

Her account of how after centuries of being ashamed to fly their country’s banner as a result of stigma attached to it due to the ignoble Nazi past, Germans relearned attachment to the national flag when they hosted the World Cup and became much more happier to hoist the flag in the 2010, with scores of ‘German Vuvuzelas’ in every house, evoked in us the jubilant scenes of merry-making at SA’s re-entrance into international sport in the 90s, the patriotic fervour during the rugby cup and the jubilation of winning the Rugby World Cup CAF respectively.

Our host also recounted to us of that because of the huge numbers of people of Turkish descent in Germany, there was a tense situation at one moment in the country when Germany was going to play Turkey in a soccer match, but the clobbering of Germany by Turkey in the game was followed by scenes of native Germans joining German of Turkish origin in the celebrations rather than by the outbreak of violent clashes. This reminds us of the concern normally raised in South Africa about white South African citizens who seldom attend a football match between local clubs but will fill the stadium to the rafters when Manchester United plays any of the SA clubs, rooting for the Red Devils, to boot it all.

At the same time our observation of how the Haus der Kulturen de Welt in Germany sought to build on the patriotism and the global solidarity spirit of the World Cup by organising the Cup of Cultures alongside public viewing of matches during every Soccer World Cup, reminds us of how as soon as the rugby cup was over South Africans returned to the racial and ethnic cocoons; with most soccer matches predominately being attended by blacks, occasional scenes of the hoisting of the apartheid flag at rugby matches , and several acts of racial violence and discrimination such as the disgraceful and shameful incidents at the University of Free State where Afrikaner male-students urinated on meat and gave it to a group of black elderly women to eat, and filmed and distributed the DVD of them eating this.

Now that the FIFA World Cup with all its contradictions has made it possible for vuvuzelas to blow at a Rugby match in Soweto (Orlando Stadium) and for John and Gugu from Houghton to do diski dance, blow the vuvuzela, sing Shosholoza and move like a wave of flag alongside Jabulani and Joyce from Alexandra, it is the time for real, hard, painful work on the ground to start…the work of reconstructing and revolutionising the mindset of the people, instituting genuine public participation and accountable and transparent governance; and transforming the socioeconomic structures and equalising access and the quality of housing, education, health, public transport, sporting and arts amenities, water and sanitation.

Since governments can hardly be trusted with this kind of project, this requires more commitment from communities, civil society organisations and other progressive forces operating outside parliament to put more energies and resources in social activism and cultural activism, creative education and progressive literature and arts rooted in the quest for global social, political, economic, gender and environmental justice.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Mphutlane wa Bofelo is a South African cultural worker and social critic. He featured in the Spokenword component of the 2010 Cup of Cultures at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin.
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