One year on

This month marks a year since South Africa hosted the FIFA World Cup, and it has been a very interesting month, although totally unlike June 2010. Last June 11, South Africa was absolutely electric with the excitement of the Bafana Bafana vs. Mexico kick-off match. I had my Bafana Bafana jersey on, my vuvuzela and South African flag in hand, and was generally running amok at the Melrose Arch fan park. The drive to the fan park had been unreal, every car was draped in the South African flag, drivers were blowing their vuvuzelas between gear changes and Japanese tourists kept taking pictures of a friend and I dancing in her convertible during stand-still traffic. It was an indescribable day.

One year on, June 11 was marked by the funeral of anti-Apartheid struggle icon Albertina Sisulu. South Africa was devastated and the nation was in mourning. I had been in Soweto that morning, not far from where the service at Orlando Stadium was to take place, and it was unusually subdued, with tangible sadness hanging in the air. President Zuma had granted MaSisulu a full State funeral, which was fitting for a lady he described as being “wise and wonderful” and one of the last of a “dedicated, committed and illustrious generation of leaders.”

Several foreign dignitaries were present, notably former President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, who had housed the ANC in exile in Lusaka during the anti-Apartheid struggle, as well as numerous ANC dignitaries and members of the Sisulu family. The packed stadium repeatedly rose in song, the somber funeral tunes accompanied by the slow swaying of mourners and the undulation of ANC flags. One couldn’t help but feel that everyone was not just mourning the passing of MaSisulu, they were also mourning the ending of an era in South Africa. Madiba and his generation of ANC leaders have been the rudder and anchor of South Africans for so long and the thought of them no longer being there to guide us is almost too much to comprehend.

Madiba’s wife, Graca Machel, read a message from Madiba, who had said that he could not bear the pain of attending MaSisulu’s funeral in person. His words to MaSisulu were heart-wrenching. “Your children and grandchildren came to inform me of your passing away and instead of me comforting them in this hour of loss and grief, they had to comfort and console me. It is difficult to describe the pain and sadness in my heart as I bid goodbye to a dear friend and comrade, a sister with whom I shared so much over a lifetime.You are so much more than a comrade; you are part of my being – you and Walter. I want to express my deep gratitude to you.” This coming from a man who, despite living an unbelievably difficult life, is now practically the only survivor of his era of leaders and comrades.

In his eulogy, President Zuma said that the Sisulu name has become synonymous with the struggle for freedom, justice, human rights and human dignity, and that we were “laying to rest a stalwart and mother of the nation, who combined resilience and fortitude in fighting colonial oppression and Apartheid, with compassion for the poor and downtrodden.” What an apt description of an incredible woman. The service at Orlando Stadium was a deeply moving and beautiful send off to MaSisulu, who was finally laid to rest alongside her husband, Walter Sisulu. I only hope that I may learn from MaSisulu’s example to care more and to fight more for my fellow human beings.

Two days later, a Zimbabwean man was stoned to death in Polokwane, “the city of love”. Oh, the irony. This followed numerous incidents of intimation of Zimbabweans in Polokwane, where Zimbabweans have repeatedly been attacked and assaulted, their homes and stores damaged and burnt and their possessions and goods stolen. The hateful xenophobia in Polokwane is reminiscent of that which broke out throughout South Africa in 2008 when a Mozambiquan man was burnt to death. Several people have since been arrested for the violence in Polokwane, including an ANC councillor who is believed to have led most, if not all, of the attacks against Zimbabweans.

I just cannot begin to understand what could drive people to stone someone to death. It must be one of the most cruel and violent ways to kill someone, and it sickens me people would do that to someone for no other reason than because he is a Zimbabwean. A year ago, South Africa was welcoming foreigners with open arms, but it appears that such tolerance was maintained for little longer than the duration of the World Cup.

Last week Julius Malema got a second term as President of the ANC Youth League. All I have to say about that is “shoot me in the face”. Now.

Finally, after a difficult month thus far, we have the pleasure of hosting Michelle Obama and her two daughters, who are on a tour of South Africa. Today they’re visiting the Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto, which is pretty cool as Youth Day was on 16 June. It’s been 35 years since the Soweto Uprising, when Pieterson was killed by police during student protests against Afrikaans being introduced as the medium of instruction in Sowetan schools. He was only 12 years old. The bravery of those school kids in 1976 totally astounds me.

The theme of Michelle Obama’s tour seems to be the inspiration of woman and youth. I can’t think of anything more fitting for South Africa right now than the inspiration and empowerment of women and the youth, in a month in which we’ve celebrated the contributions of Albertina Sisulu and the brave children of 1976 to the betterment of South Africa.

Go Warriors, go, go Warriors!

I’m not much of a soccer fan. Unless it’s the World Cup, I get surprised when people get excited for a soccer match. Sometimes I say that to avid soccer fans… and then I say “kidding!” really quickly, even though I’m not really kidding at all. Everyone knows that as long as you say “kidding” afterwards, you can say pretty much anything to people and they can’t do anything about it. But the key is to say it straight after the insult, before people get too angry and try to kill you and stuff.

That said, I’ve started warming up to soccer a bit in recent years. It probably has a lot to do with South Africa hosting the World Cup last year and the fact that I’ve come to associate the game with a free license to be unruly, which I’m always game for. It’s also partly because I find it funny when people try to express their deep and undying love for soccer because I just can’t relate. And I also find it funny when people cry when their team loses, which seems to happen more with soccer than with any other game. I don’t laugh at people crying though, because even saying “kidding” in those circumstances wouldn’t stop them from killing you. I learnt that lesson the hard way in the 2006 World Cup when a couple of my English guy friends cried when England got eliminated. After that, my rule of thumb became: if there are tears, don’t laugh.

Dramatic Zimbabwean commentary on soccer is another reason why I’ve begun to like soccer. It makes it so much more entertaining. Robson Sharuko often writes soccer opinions, and his stuff clearly doesn’t get edited as his pieces often run to five full A4 pages of rambling. In 7.5 font. With no spaces between paragraphs. But what he says is pretty awesome. Actually, no, it’s the way he says it that is pretty awesome, it’s definitely the manner and not content. He wrote about the recent Zimbabwe Warriors vs. Mali Eagles game in Harare, which not many people were even aware was being played, but you would swear that it was the game of the decade… nay, of the century.

Robson starts off describing the tension at Rufaro Stadium, “I began to doubt the mission, when the clock hit the 85th minute mark, and the silence inside the stadium began to speak volumes about the emotional trauma that was crushing the spirits of everyone in the stands. Only five minutes remained, in regulation time, and the brave Eagles of Mali, having been given a way back into the match through a goal as soft as the cheeks of a newly-born baby, were holding on comfortably for a point that would effectively close the door for us. The scoreboard doesn’t lie, and it read Zimbabwe 1, Mali 1, and the clock wasn’t lying too and, as true as the fact that this was a winter’s afternoon in the capital, there were only five minutes left in regulation time.”

Then he recaps the Warrior’s play during the game, praising the Khama Billiat, who he calls Khamaldinho (*eye roll*), who has apparently become a star at Ajax Cape Town, as well as the Warrior’s efforts over the last few years, mentioning a few of their highlights, but mainly complaining about how match officials, “for all the tragedy of wrongness” and “for all the tragedy of its fatal consequences” on the Warriors’ campaigns, always mistakenly blow against the Warriors. He lambasts basically every ref who has ever blown against the Warriors, in particular the ref who, in the Zimbabwe vs. Guinea game two years ago, disallowed a headed goal from the Warriors “for reasons so strange the rules that were being used by the pathetic referee could only have been borrowed from Mars for use in that one and only game”.

With his ref tirade over, he returns to the game at hand and continues, “So here we were, five minutes to go, and still failing in our mission and you could see the door closing on our hopes of making it to the 2012 Nations Cup finals, you could see all the dreams turning into a nightmare, you could see the ugly post-mortem that would follow and how characters were going to be assassinated. But something stood out for me at that moment. The fans, I realised, were not leaving the stadium. No one was abandoning the Warriors, even when it was clear that time was no longer friendly to our cause, and an estimated 35 000 people inside the old stadium stayed rooted to their seats believing that something would happen.”

Robson’s excitement must have then got a little much for him, as he says, “It was as if we were all bound by our fate that we would win this game, no matter how cruel time was playing games with our chances, and so we waited, and hoped, like those people trapped on the Titanic waiting, and hoping for, help.” Yes, the Titanic. Robson reckons that the Warriors’ supporters were suffering in the same way as those waiting to be rescued from the sunken Titanic. #toomuch.

“”Fifteen hundred people went into the sea when Titanic sank from under us,” the elderly Rose said as she narrated her incredible tale at sea in that mega movie. “THERE WERE TWENTY BOATS FLOATING NEARBY AND ONLY ONE CAME BACK. ONE! SIX (PEOPLE) WERE SAVED FROM THE WATER, MYSELF INCLUDED. SIX . . . OUT OF FIFTEEN HUNDRED. AFTERWARDS, THE SEVEN HUNDRED PEOPLE IN THE BOATS HAD NOTHING TO DO BUT WAIT. WAIT TO DIE, WAIT TO LIVE, WAIT FOR AN ABSOLUTION THAT WOULD NEVER COME.” She could have been talking about us at Rufaro on Sunday.” Hmmm, I don’t know man, I just think that it’s awkward comparing waiting for regulation time to finish in a Warriors game to dying in the freezing ocean after slamming into an iceberg. And I also think that it’s awkward that he felt the need to write all of that in capital letters. But maybe I’m just being a hater, considering that I wasn’t actually there at Rufaro and all. Maybe times were, in fact, that desperate.

Obviously, with such a ridiculous narration of the game, it could only be that the Warriors pulled ahead of Mali in those dying moments. “With time up on the clock, it happened and – just like Agent Sawu heading home a last-gasp goal to help the Dream Team beat Cameroon 1-0 at the National Sports Stadium – Musona was there to convert that penalty and give us a win that our performance deserved and which this special group of supporters deserved. Sometimes, good guys can also come first.” Ah, bless, what a happy ending. Well done Warriors, you made us proud. And, with such riveting commentary, how can I not begin to love the beautiful game?

90 years of gaffing

I’m far from being a royal family fanatic, and generally think that it’s a medieval institution that does nothing but spend tax payers money and boost England’s morale every 10 years or so when there is a royal wedding or something.  But Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh and the Queen’s husband, is awesome. He says amazingly inappropriate things and, not only does he appear to never learn his lesson, he doesn’t seem to give a stuff about what people think. It’s his 90th birthday today, which is pretty impressive, so here a few of the gaffes he’s come up with over the years:

• The man who invented the red carpet needed his head examined.
  • Said while about to disembark on state visit to Brazil, November 1968.

• You have mosquitoes. I have the Press.
  • Said in a conversation with the matron of a hospital while on a tour of the Caribbean, 1966.

• It seems to me that it’s the best way of wasting money that I know of. I don’t think investments on the moon pay a very high dividend.
  • On the U.S. Apollo program, press conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil, November 1968.

• How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?
  • Said to a driving instructor in Scotland.

• If you stay here much longer, you’ll all be slitty-eyed.
  • Said in 1986 to a group of British students in China.

• You are a woman, aren’t you?
  • After accepting a gift from a Kenyan woman.

• If it has four legs and is not a chair, has wings and is not an aeroplane, or swims and is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.

• You managed not to get eaten then?
  • Said to a British student in Papua New Guinea.

• People usually say that after a fire it is water damage that is the worst. We are still trying to dry out Windsor Castle.
  • Said on a visit to Lockerbie in 1993 to a man who lived in a road where eleven people had been killed by wreckage from the Pan Am jumbo jet.

• Deaf? If you are near there, no wonder you are deaf.
  • Said to a group of deaf children standing next to a Jamaican steel drum band.

• Do you still throw spears at each other?
  • Said in 2002 to an Indigenous Australian businessman.

• You can’t have been here that long — you haven’t got a pot belly.
  • Said to a Briton in Budapest, Hungary.

• Aren’t most of you descended from pirates?
  • Said in 1994 to an inhabitant of the Cayman Islands.

• Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed. (In 1981, in reference to the economic recession.)

• Ah good, there’s so many over there you feel they breed them just to put in orphanages.
  • Said while presenting a Duke of Edinburgh Award to a student. When informed that the young man was going to help out in Romania for six months, he asked if the student was going to help the Romanian orphans and was told that he was not.

• A gun is no more dangerous than a cricket bat in the hands of a madman.

• I just wonder what it would be like to be reincarnated in an animal whose species had been so reduced in numbers than it was in danger of extinction. What would be its feelings toward the human species whose population explosion had denied it somewhere to exist… I must confess that I am tempted to ask for reincarnation as a particularly deadly virus.
  • Foreword to Fleur Cowles, If I Were an Animal (William Morrow).

• Do you know they’re now producing eating dogs for the anorexics?
  • Said in 2002 to a blind, wheelchair-bound woman who was accompanied by her guide dog.

• [That fuse box] It looks as if it was put in by an Indian.
  • Whilst on a tour of a factory in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1999 Prince Philip pointed out a fuse box that looked quite old.

• How can you tell the difference between them?
  • Said to United States President Barack Obama after being told that Obama had met with The Chinese and Russian ambassadors along with David Cameron.

• There’s a lot of your family in tonight
  • Said in November 2009 to a Mr Patel at a reception for 400 British Indian businessmen at Buckingham Palace.

• “Oh, what, a strip club?”
  • Said in response to Elizabeth Rendle, a 24-year-old, who, when introduced to the prince, said that she worked as a barmaid in a nightclub.

And my personal favourite…

• Well, you’ll never fly in it, you’re too fat to be an astronaut.
  • Said at the University of Salford to a 13-year-old aspiring astronaut, who was wishing to fly the NOVA rocket.

I imagine he’s caused much offence and many tears over the years, and not just for the fat kid whose dreams were dashed. Prince Philip is just too awkward, but the royal family would be deathly boring without him.

“Dear gentle reader, without deliberately abusing you…”

Zimbabwean envoy to Australia, Ambassador Jacqueline Zwambila (from MDC-T) is back in the news again this week. She’s apparently embroiled in a nasty labour dispute with another MDC-T official, Mr Felix Machiridza, whom she reportedly lured to Canberra to work for her.  In short, it is claimed that she promised him much but, after he failed to submit to her seduction, she would call him to her room at night to serve her drinks while she was half naked, or “half-na ked” (as the Herald put it) and, at times, ordered him to “clean up used condoms from her son’s bedroom”. Machiridza also claims that the Ambassador made him live in the garage because he refused to occupy a bedroom on the same floor as hers. Please note, it’s not like she was making him share a bedroom with her, just a bedroom on the same floor. It sounds like Machiridza is a real pain in the neck.

Machiridza claims he approached MDC-T to complain about the Ambassador’s behaviour, but they told him to keep quiet about it. Then he went to the Australian Human Rights Commission for assistance, but they also blew him off, citing diplomatic immunity and stuff. To cut a long story short, Machiridza has since been fired by the Ambassador, but continues to live at her residence in Canberra. It didn’t specify whether he was still in the garage or had sucked up having to occupy a bedroom on the same floor as the Ambassador. Either way, it’s weird that he continues to hang out there. And, presumably, the Ambassador continues to follow her son’s sex life and condom usage closely. Which is even weirder.

But this isn’t nearly as juicy as the Ambassador’s epic meltdown last last year, which is her real claim to fame. Apparently, in a fit of anger, and after accusing three embassy officials of leaking information to the Herald, she stripped down to her undergarments. The three embassy officials, who no doubt wanted to blind themselves with a stick after seeing what they saw, lodged official complaints with the Zimbabwean government, who immediately recalled the Ambassador and the complaining officials back to Harare to try to understand what the hell had gone down in Canberra. I wasn’t as concerned about what had actually happened as I was about the fact that the Ambassador thought stripping was an appropriate reaction to anger, especially in a “professional” environment. The Ambassador claimed that she had been “provoked”. Provoked? Huh?

Anyway, some guy used Ambassador Zwambila’s stripping outburst, as well as adultery committed by another MDC-T official, Toendepi Shonhe, who he describes as being a philandering DG, as the basis for an opinion article entitled “Hail the party of Sexellence!” that he wrote for the Herald. It’s hilarious. He is obviously a loyal ZANU-PF supporter, with an accompanying hatred for MDC-T and a love for flamboyant writing. I’ll share some of his thoughts with you, in his own words, and in the order in which he wrote them, lest I inadvertently add any sense to them. For those not familiar with Harare, the author’s use of “the Avenues” is in reference to the area in Harare infamous for countless prostitutes, our “red-light district” as you will… except without any red lights. Or any lights at all really.

The author, who doesn’t actually name himself, but provides a sombre passport-style photo of himself half asleep, starts off with, “A man who brings home a maggot-infested log must not be surprised when lizards pay him a visit, goes yet an adage from Nhamoyebond Village, aptly captured by Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe. Assembling a political entity with rogue elements must not surprise MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai whose party is hogging the limelight with issues relating to the undergarment and the loins. From nudist ambassador to sexcapade director general and subordinate information officer, to be precise … does that not signal the dearth of morality at Harvest House, where there is a bumper harvest of thorns for Tsvangirai? What a national indelicacy!

In my instalment last week I talked about Ambassador Jacqueline Zwambila who had done a strip-tease by allegedly stripping to her undergarments in front of male embassy staff yonder in Australia. If one was shocked by the Australian incident, then the recent one in which director general Toendepi Shonde, from the same party that gave us Zwambila, bedded someone’s wife who happens to work for the same party and ended up beating up the poor hubby, should equally be shocking. And one thing is clear: the MDC-T at least from what we are seeing is a party of “SEXexcellence”” … Dude, my whole thing is that if you’re going to be clever and merge “sex” and “excellence”, then actually merge them, don’t just write them close together. “Sexexcellence” just sounds stupid.

The author continues, “Let us start with Zwambila. She played the Avenues in a bizarre fit of rage as she confronted embassy staff she accused of leaking a link to a damning website on which she brazenly claimed that sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the European Union did not affect the country at all. My foot! Even a stripper from the Avenues feels the impact of the sanctions but this villager will not be tempted to draw further comparison between the sisters, one in Canberra and several others in the Avenues.

Dear gentle reader, without deliberately abusing you, have you heard about the village idiot who fouls the communal well, where everyone drinks, including himself or herself? My late father, Ephraim Guvamombe, a revered teacher for 41 years, having graduated from Kutama College in 1959, would have put it this way: “Never teach a pig to sing because you annoy the pig and worse still, it has no vocal chords for such lyrics. It will not sing.” What? I genuinely don’t understand what either of these sayings has to do with the current situation. At all. Or what the second one even means, but anyway. I must admit, though, that “Dear gentle reader, without deliberately abusing you…” is one of the most awesome things I’ve read in a while.

Then he says a bunch of things that really are too lame to recount, basically refering to some guy called Charles Beatle (who the author prefers to call Beetle “because the man is dung beetle”) who MDC-T seems to have hired to be their think-tank because Tsvangirai, Biti and Makoni have no brains of their own, blah, blah, British, blah, blah, enemies, blah, blah, Zimbabwe will never be a colony again. It’s  very tedious.

Finally, he ends off with, “We know the camel’s misdeed in that fable and we will not be fooled… All right-thinking Zimbabweans should be vigilant and unsheathe their swords to drive out the camels. At the same time those of us harbouring the camels, in their warped benevolence, should probably expect some blows to fall in their way, if they do not get off. For now, this villager will return to his roots in Guruve for more wisdom”.

Now, I seriously can’t work out what he was trying to say. Or who the camels are supposed to refer to. Or what wisdom he finds in Guruve. A fellow reader basically summed up the whole article with his comment of “What exactly are you saying?”, while another said, “grammar 5/10; spelling 10/10 (windows assistance); sentence construction 3/10; originality and style 1/10 only you know your father; content 1/10.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

new barnacle in the Presidents Club

It’s going to be an interesting week for the barnacles in the Presidents Club. Yes, barnacles. Hard-shelled encrusters which, once attached to a hard surface, are near impossible to remove no matter how hard anyone tries. In fact, truth be told, they almost seem to thrive on people’s unsuccessful efforts to yank them off. And, as with barnacles and hard surfaces, so with some presidents and power. Usually, the Presidents Club is reserved only for presidents of countries, but hey, Sepp Blatter is basically the President of the World, so we’ll make an exception.

There are growing calls for the FIFA presidential elections, scheduled for today, to be postponed amid FIFA’s ongoing bribery scandal. I reckon that they’re only beginning to brush the surface of the dodginess that has gone down in FIFA, with estimates that about 10 out of the 24 or so FIFA executives have been accused of corruption in the last few months alone. If you were surprised when Russia and Qatar won their bids to host the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups respectively, you weren’t alone (and if you were surprised that Russia and Qatar even played football, then at least I wasn’t alone). At the time, the reps from Nigeria and Tahiti were suspended for allegedly trying to sell their votes, but that really was just the start of it. Turns out that money can buy you anything, including a FIFA World Cup, and FIFA’s top brass, in short, appears to have sold the 2022 FIFA World Cup to Qatar.

To throw an additional spanner in the works, in the run-up to today’s election, Mohamed bin Hammam (the Asian football chief), who was the only candidate opposing Sepp’s re-election as FIFA president, and Jack Warner (a FIFA vice president) have both been provisionally suspended from all soccer-related activities pending an inquiry into allegations that they paid Caribbean soccer leaders $40 000 each to back bin Hammam’s bid to become FIFA president. The decision was taken by FIFA’s ethics committee on Sunday and has left many people wondering whether, perhaps, Sepp bought the ethics committee off. That would be so ironic, yet not even vaguely surprising… it’s FIFA after all, bribery is the normal order of business.

You see, the longer that Sepp sticks around, the more noticeable it becomes that he has barnacle tendencies, as well as having a lot in common with a number of dictators presidents, which is why he’s becoming the new barnacle in the Presidents Club. For example, Sepp is clearly not stepping down any time soon, regardless of how much opposition he may face, much like the Leader and Guide of the Revolution a.k.a. Brother Leader a.k.a. The Colonel a.k.a. The King of Kings (or is it The Lord of Lords? I forget). So too, the King of Syria, King Abdullah II of Jordan, President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen and President Ismail Omar Guelleh of Djibouti. Oh, and how could I forget, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

Sepp actually has quite a lot in common with Mugabe, come to think of it, especially considering that he’s the only candidate in today’s elections. He’s basically running against himself, which is strangely reminiscent of Zimbabwe’s 2008 presidential elections. In order to really live the election up in true barnacle fashion, he should make people go through the tedious process of casting their votes, and, after the votes have been counted, he should declare himself the winner and throw huge celebration parties (and pretend as though the election was a real close call and that his victory was a surprise). That would be totally Mugabe and totally barnacle.

Sepp is running for his fourth term, despite the fact that he’s getting on in years (and, as Gareth Cliff pointed out, he has been FIFA president since the early 1800’s and is basically a dwarf… although the dwarf thing might be beside the point). The actual problem is that his tenure as FIFA president has been characterised by bribery, corruption and general crookedness, which will continue unabated for the next 4 years under his unhelpful watch. He seems to feel nothing about the shoddy and embarrassing state of FIFA’s affairs and reputation, in fact, on Monday he responded to questioning by reporters by insisting that there is no crisis at FIFA. Crisis? What crisis? Denial. Totally Thabo Mbeki-ish.

It seems unlikely that today’s elections are going to be postponed – they need at least 75% of the 208 voting bodies to support a call for postponement, and those in the know reckon that’s not going to happen. So we’ve got Sepp for a while longer, in fact, for the foreseeable future as he’s really got himself deeply burrowed into FIFA, like a true barnacle should. With his tenure secure, perhaps Sepp can finally start working on getting a cool nickname or something. “President of the World” has a nice ring to it, and it certainly trumps Gaddafi’s aspirations of becoming President of the United States of Africa, but maybe something along the lines of North Korea’s Kim Jong-il’s “Supreme Leader” or Turkmenistan’s Turkmenbashi The Great and Powerful would work. Maybe we should send him a list of suggestions.