<font size="5"><center>
South Africa set to bask
in World Cup spotlight</font size><font size="4">
Booed, boycotted and excluded
from international competition during apartheid,
South Africa will play host to the biggest sporting event of all</font size></center>
South African football fans sing the national Anthem
during a friendly match against Colombia at Soccer
City Stadium in Soweto on May 27, 2010. Before
every South African football match, fans and players
put their hands on their chest and with serious faces
belt out the national anthem. But mid-song some
keep quiet or fumble the words. ALEXANDER JOE /
AFP-GETTY IMAGES
Miami Herald
By MICHELLE KAUFMAN
mkaufman@MiamiHerald.com
Sunday, June 6, 2010
``Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear.'' -- Alan Paton.
Much has changed in South Africa since Paton wrote those words in his famous 1948 novel Cry, the Beloved Country. His main character, the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo, would be delighted. In fact, he might even celebrate the progress by blowing into a ``vuvuzela,'' the long plastic trumpet used by South African soccer fans.
Apartheid was abolished in 1990, following worldwide condemnation of the racist policy. Civil rights leader Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison, won the country's first multi-racial democratic election in 1994.
And this week, the eyes of nearly a billion television viewers will turn to South Africa as it stages the 2010 World Cup, the biggest sports show on Earth and first ever held on African soil. The tournament, June 11 to July 11, promises to be a defining moment, a chance for the once-fractured nation to reshape images and dispel stereotypes.
``Ke Nako!'' is the tournament motto. Translation: It's Time!
A country and continent associated by Westerners with famine, disease, brutality, poverty, and crime has been entrusted with the quadrennial 32-team soccer tournament. More than 350,000 visitors are expected. Organizers, politicians and the South African people are eager to show another side of their country -- modern airports and roads, state-of-the-art stadiums, posh hotels and restaurants, wineries, safaris, and shopping malls. They want to promote tourism and commerce.
Surely, they will put on their best face. Televised games from Cape Town will feature Table Mountain as a scenic backdrop, not the Cape Flats, a drug- and gang-infested area of the city.
South African organizers are determined to prove they can, indeed, pull off a global event, despite what the skeptics think. They have promised to curtail crime, provide adequate transportation and lodging, and fill stadiums in nine cities.
South Africa spent $3.7 billion on improvements to its infrastructure, everything from upgrading airports to lighting highways to building five new stadiums and improving five others. More than 40,000 police officers and unmanned surveillance planes have been mobilized to patrol one of the most crime-ridden countries in the world. There are 50 reported murders a day in South Africa, the same rate as the United States, which has six times the population.
<font size="3">U.S. TICKET BUYERS</font size>
After a sluggish start, ticket sales are booming. As of Wednesday, 95 percent of the 2.8 million available tickets had been sold -- similar to what Germany sold four years earlier. More than 130,000 tickets were sold in the United States, second only to the host nation.
``All the world is focused on South Africa,'' said Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA, the world soccer governing body. ``And all the world will look at what happened in the African continent when, finally, there was an organization called FIFA that said `We trust Africa. We trust South Africa with such a big competition.' ''
South Africa hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup, a politically significant event that inspired the recent movie Invictus. The nation's rugby team had been embraced mostly by the white resistance, but newly elected Mandela got behind the team and presented the trophy wearing its jersey. That was a big moment. This World Cup can have far greater impact, as it will be viewed all over the globe.
``This is a very important step in Nelson Mandela's long walk to freedom,'' said Dr. Richard Grant, a University of Miami geography professor who is in South Africa this summer studying the country's urban reconstruction. ``It is particularly significant for the black community, which has always embraced soccer. The fact that all the country, even the elite white, is so excited about the World Cup is a symbol of unification.''
<font size="3">SHOW THE WORLD</font size>
The newly constructed stadium in Durban features a 350-foot-high arch that begins with two legs on one side and comes together as one on the other, a tribute to the idea of a singular South Africa.
``For all of Africa, this is a chance to show the world that, `Yes, you can trust us to pull off a big project and you can do business here,' '' Grant said. ``The perception of Africans is like that of Latin Americans, that they are laid back and can't meet deadlines with German or Japanese precision. This is their chance to show a different side of Africa.''
This event, Grant said, ``will confirm to South Africans that they are accepted in the international community.'' It will shed a light of hope and possibility on a country that is typically shrouded in despair.
ESPN announcer Martin Tyler has covered every World Cup since 1978. He said this one is special. ``People from all over the world mingling in a country where apartheid kept people apart for so long while the world sat back in horror -- that is a poignant, tears-in-your-eyes kind of story. To think that 16 years after the political change they'd be hosting this event after having been excluded for so long is a brilliant part of this tournament.
``I think the sights and sounds will speak for themselves.''
The event is expected to provide a boost to the development of African soccer. In 1990, the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon reached the quarterfinals, proving an African team could play with the big boys. African players such as the Ivory Coast's Didier Drogba, who plays for Chelsea in the English Premier League, and Cameroon's Samuel Eto'o, who plays for Inter in Italy, are now among the most respected players in the world.
<font size="3">NO LONGER BANNED</font size>
South Africa, Algeria, Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Cameroon are the six African teams that qualified for the World Cup and all will have the home-field advantage.
The World Cup is also a long-awaited celebration for South African athletes, who for so long were excluded from international competition.
Andrew Burrow, the 1987 NCAA tennis champion from the University of Miami, knows how it felt. He was among the half-dozen South Africans on the UM team at that time. He remembers black students picketing outside matches on campus, and some of the protests getting so heated that police had to be called.
``It was tough to be a South African athlete at that time because a lot of us were liberal and saw beyond the apartheid boundaries, but we were boycotted and booed anyway,'' he said. ``I, for one, completely disagreed with the government policy. But you'd tell people you were from South Africa, and you got strange looks. I had many black friends at UM. Alonzo Highsmith, the football player, was a good friend of mine. I remember one time he told me, `If anyone gives you a really hard time, you call me and I'll set them straight.' ''
<font size="3">A CATALYST</font size>
Burrow, 46, now runs a tennis center at a resort in Georgia. He is ``thrilled'' the world will get to see the new South Africa.
``When I was growing up, soccer was a sport played mostly by blacks on dusty fields, but so much has changed,'' he said. ``Just like the rugby cup, this World Cup will unite the black and white in South Africa and change perceptions all over the world.''
Dr. Donald Spivey, a UM history professor, agreed. ``The general consensus about Africa is that it's awash in HIV and poverty and crime, that everything is wrong and bad. Now, the images on TV will show that there's more to Africa. The positives will be publicized for a change, and that is one of the great things about sport, that it can be such a catalyst for change.''
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/06/1665783/south-africa-set-to-bask-in-world.html
South Africa set to bask
in World Cup spotlight</font size><font size="4">
Booed, boycotted and excluded
from international competition during apartheid,
South Africa will play host to the biggest sporting event of all</font size></center>
South African football fans sing the national Anthem
during a friendly match against Colombia at Soccer
City Stadium in Soweto on May 27, 2010. Before
every South African football match, fans and players
put their hands on their chest and with serious faces
belt out the national anthem. But mid-song some
keep quiet or fumble the words. ALEXANDER JOE /
AFP-GETTY IMAGES
Miami Herald
By MICHELLE KAUFMAN
mkaufman@MiamiHerald.com
Sunday, June 6, 2010
``Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear.'' -- Alan Paton.
Much has changed in South Africa since Paton wrote those words in his famous 1948 novel Cry, the Beloved Country. His main character, the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo, would be delighted. In fact, he might even celebrate the progress by blowing into a ``vuvuzela,'' the long plastic trumpet used by South African soccer fans.
Apartheid was abolished in 1990, following worldwide condemnation of the racist policy. Civil rights leader Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison, won the country's first multi-racial democratic election in 1994.
And this week, the eyes of nearly a billion television viewers will turn to South Africa as it stages the 2010 World Cup, the biggest sports show on Earth and first ever held on African soil. The tournament, June 11 to July 11, promises to be a defining moment, a chance for the once-fractured nation to reshape images and dispel stereotypes.
``Ke Nako!'' is the tournament motto. Translation: It's Time!
A country and continent associated by Westerners with famine, disease, brutality, poverty, and crime has been entrusted with the quadrennial 32-team soccer tournament. More than 350,000 visitors are expected. Organizers, politicians and the South African people are eager to show another side of their country -- modern airports and roads, state-of-the-art stadiums, posh hotels and restaurants, wineries, safaris, and shopping malls. They want to promote tourism and commerce.
Surely, they will put on their best face. Televised games from Cape Town will feature Table Mountain as a scenic backdrop, not the Cape Flats, a drug- and gang-infested area of the city.
South African organizers are determined to prove they can, indeed, pull off a global event, despite what the skeptics think. They have promised to curtail crime, provide adequate transportation and lodging, and fill stadiums in nine cities.
South Africa spent $3.7 billion on improvements to its infrastructure, everything from upgrading airports to lighting highways to building five new stadiums and improving five others. More than 40,000 police officers and unmanned surveillance planes have been mobilized to patrol one of the most crime-ridden countries in the world. There are 50 reported murders a day in South Africa, the same rate as the United States, which has six times the population.
<font size="3">U.S. TICKET BUYERS</font size>
After a sluggish start, ticket sales are booming. As of Wednesday, 95 percent of the 2.8 million available tickets had been sold -- similar to what Germany sold four years earlier. More than 130,000 tickets were sold in the United States, second only to the host nation.
``All the world is focused on South Africa,'' said Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA, the world soccer governing body. ``And all the world will look at what happened in the African continent when, finally, there was an organization called FIFA that said `We trust Africa. We trust South Africa with such a big competition.' ''
South Africa hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup, a politically significant event that inspired the recent movie Invictus. The nation's rugby team had been embraced mostly by the white resistance, but newly elected Mandela got behind the team and presented the trophy wearing its jersey. That was a big moment. This World Cup can have far greater impact, as it will be viewed all over the globe.
``This is a very important step in Nelson Mandela's long walk to freedom,'' said Dr. Richard Grant, a University of Miami geography professor who is in South Africa this summer studying the country's urban reconstruction. ``It is particularly significant for the black community, which has always embraced soccer. The fact that all the country, even the elite white, is so excited about the World Cup is a symbol of unification.''
<font size="3">SHOW THE WORLD</font size>
The newly constructed stadium in Durban features a 350-foot-high arch that begins with two legs on one side and comes together as one on the other, a tribute to the idea of a singular South Africa.
``For all of Africa, this is a chance to show the world that, `Yes, you can trust us to pull off a big project and you can do business here,' '' Grant said. ``The perception of Africans is like that of Latin Americans, that they are laid back and can't meet deadlines with German or Japanese precision. This is their chance to show a different side of Africa.''
This event, Grant said, ``will confirm to South Africans that they are accepted in the international community.'' It will shed a light of hope and possibility on a country that is typically shrouded in despair.
ESPN announcer Martin Tyler has covered every World Cup since 1978. He said this one is special. ``People from all over the world mingling in a country where apartheid kept people apart for so long while the world sat back in horror -- that is a poignant, tears-in-your-eyes kind of story. To think that 16 years after the political change they'd be hosting this event after having been excluded for so long is a brilliant part of this tournament.
``I think the sights and sounds will speak for themselves.''
The event is expected to provide a boost to the development of African soccer. In 1990, the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon reached the quarterfinals, proving an African team could play with the big boys. African players such as the Ivory Coast's Didier Drogba, who plays for Chelsea in the English Premier League, and Cameroon's Samuel Eto'o, who plays for Inter in Italy, are now among the most respected players in the world.
<font size="3">NO LONGER BANNED</font size>
South Africa, Algeria, Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Cameroon are the six African teams that qualified for the World Cup and all will have the home-field advantage.
The World Cup is also a long-awaited celebration for South African athletes, who for so long were excluded from international competition.
Andrew Burrow, the 1987 NCAA tennis champion from the University of Miami, knows how it felt. He was among the half-dozen South Africans on the UM team at that time. He remembers black students picketing outside matches on campus, and some of the protests getting so heated that police had to be called.
``It was tough to be a South African athlete at that time because a lot of us were liberal and saw beyond the apartheid boundaries, but we were boycotted and booed anyway,'' he said. ``I, for one, completely disagreed with the government policy. But you'd tell people you were from South Africa, and you got strange looks. I had many black friends at UM. Alonzo Highsmith, the football player, was a good friend of mine. I remember one time he told me, `If anyone gives you a really hard time, you call me and I'll set them straight.' ''
<font size="3">A CATALYST</font size>
Burrow, 46, now runs a tennis center at a resort in Georgia. He is ``thrilled'' the world will get to see the new South Africa.
``When I was growing up, soccer was a sport played mostly by blacks on dusty fields, but so much has changed,'' he said. ``Just like the rugby cup, this World Cup will unite the black and white in South Africa and change perceptions all over the world.''
Dr. Donald Spivey, a UM history professor, agreed. ``The general consensus about Africa is that it's awash in HIV and poverty and crime, that everything is wrong and bad. Now, the images on TV will show that there's more to Africa. The positives will be publicized for a change, and that is one of the great things about sport, that it can be such a catalyst for change.''
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/06/1665783/south-africa-set-to-bask-in-world.html
