/ 5 January 2010

World Cup fires SA’s dreams of riches and identity

A strange thing happens after you’ve been an expat for a while. You start feeling for your adopted country, if not pride, then at least an unconscious affinity. It’s like looking out for your hometown football team’s result every week, even though you say you don’t really care.

I spent Christmas away from South Africa, in the United States, where affairs in Pretoria are not exactly big news. Driving around the snowbound woods of upstate New York, or dining in the majestic commuter cathedral of Grand Central Station, I recalled John Lennon’s observation: “If I’d lived in Roman times, I’d have lived in Rome. Where else? Today, America is the Roman empire, and New York is Rome itself. New York is the centre of the earth.” Which makes Johannesburg, presumably, somewhere between Carthage and Pluto.

But South Africa hopes the centre of gravity is about to shift, at least in terms of soft power. In this country, mention “Twenty-ten” and you’re not talking about a mere year; it is shorthand for the football World Cup finals, to be hosted by South Africa from mid-June to mid-July. Never before has Africa staged a football World Cup or Olympic games.

Politicians speak of the World Cup in the same breath as the victory over racial apartheid 16 years ago. Jacob Zuma, the president, said in his new year’s address that this is “the most important year in our country since 1994”. He described the football tournament as “the greatest marketing opportunity of our time”.

An editorial in the Sunday Times proclaimed: “The year 2010 is in many ways going to define who we are and what we want to be. The eyes of the world will be on us and we will be scrutinised to see whether we are worthy of a place among the world’s leading nations.”

On Twitter, someone opined hopefully: “In 2010 South Africa becomes the centre of the world. The Americans will not be impressed.”

But “Twenty-ten” itself, this monumental, epochal year to end all years, arrived last week with more of a miaow than a roar.

Johannesburg, or Jozi, has been erecting banners that describe itself as a “world-class city”. New Year’s Eve, however, suggested it still has some way to go.

Yes, there was the annual carnival in Newtown, with stilt-walkers, musicians and dancers playing to a football theme. But it was all over by three in the afternoon. The rains came and restaurants were closing their doors. Local listings guides revealed a few parties here and there, but no evident focal point to join merry throngs in counting down to midnight.

Sydney had its usual orgy of fireworks on the harbour bridge. London would put on a supernova explosion around the Eye. New York would unleash fire and confetti in Times Square. Johannesburg had Mary Fitzgerald Square. “It was just me, myself and I, and the cameraman partying out from the early evening here,” said a desperate-looking Jody Jacobs of e.tv’s 24-hour news channel. “People were expecting a big party on the square but obviously that’s not happening here tonight.”

Jacobs interviewed a couple of would-be partygoers wearing South African national football shirts. “I came all this way and it’s quiet here,” one complained from among a noisy crowd. “I need some party now!”

Another said: “I was expecting to party. We’re so disappointed. South Africa, come on! I have decided to leave this place because there’s no party. I want to party. I want to welcome 2010.”

In past years the square has hosted a new year’s concert, but it had been cancelled this time because the city no longer had the money.

People were out on the streets in Hillbrow, a notoriously rough inner city area. A baby was hit on the head with a brick just before midnight and is in a critical condition.

But most apparently saw in the new year at home, which is how they’ll spend most of the next 365 evenings here. Johannesburg is that kind of city: its residents generally drive to shopping malls, work out in gyms rather than risk jogging the mean streets and hunker down at night behind high walls and electrified fences. Many restaurants, galleries and theatres shut down altogether over Christmas and new year.

Perhaps there will be a better, more cohesive sense of occasion when the World Cup arrives six months from now. Perhaps South Africa will indeed become the centre of the world. But any nation that stakes its self-worth on a sporting event might be in trouble, although of course the link between on-field success and politics is a favourite saw.

British prime minister Harold Wilson’s defeat in the 1970 general election has been blamed on England’s exit from the World Cup a few days earlier.

It would certainly be dangerous to think of the World Cup as a magic bullet. In a new book, Soccernomics, Stefan Szymanski and Simon Kuper argue that the link between hosting a World Cup and national regeneration is a myth. The authors say that the revenue generated in South Africa will not be enough to cover the costs of building new stadiums, likely to become white elephants once the party is over.

Money that could have been spent on bringing water and electricity to impoverished townships, they argue, will instead go on first-class flights and hotels for foreign guests.

When the World Cup draw was held last month in Cape Town, I watched on TV like millions of other people around the world and felt not quite local and not quite foreign. Zuma appeared on stage and I could imagine many international viewers asking, “Who’s that guy?” Here in South Africa, that guy is “our” guy, though maybe not quite “my” guy. – guardian.co.uk