The importance of "15 minutes of fame"

2004-05-17
One of the biggest cultural phenomenons in this world is sports. Without a doubt the greatest sport is football. In every part of the world people play this simple, but so complex game – “the greenfield’s chess”. Sports in general and football especially have an almost magical power to bring people together and unite them.

A couple of days back it was decided that an African nation, South Africa, will host the 2010 World Cup of football. It is very interesting to analyze what this “15 minutes of fame” will mean to not just South Africa as a nation, but the African continent as a whole. Will the rest of the world change their picture of this “poor and HIV/AIDS-polluted” continent and do more to help? The aim of this essay is to discuss in what ways a sport like football can help the globalization process.

In an article (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/
0,6903,1217840,00.html) published the 16th of May in The Observer International the writers Alex Duvall Smith and Liz McGregor are reporting from Johannesburg. “’Fifa made the right decision. Let’s all go out and celebrate,’ declared a jubilant President Thabo Mbeki at the ceremony in Zurich, as he raised a glass of champagne before a huge crowd of singing, dancing fans and, for those in Africa watching on televisions and listening on radios, kicked off the biggest collective party since the first democratic elections 10 years ago”.

Yes, it is a decision worth to celebrate. For a country with huge problems, involving poverty, HIV/AIDS, violence and criminality, this can be the turning point that makes South Africa a role model for all the nations on the African continent. Now the leading people of South Africa really have to do something about all the major problems within the country, because they probably do not want the rest of the world to get a bad image of South Africa.

No, it is not as easy as a finger-flick. Therefore it is heart warming to read in the Observer-article that the government is aware of the fact that it is hard work the forthcoming six years that counts, if the country wants to see long lasting improvements around for example the racism issues . The authors writes: “Mbeki and Mandela argued that the awarding of the World Cup would help cement the economic and social gains made in the country since the end of apartheid and further bridge the gap between the wealthy white minority and poor black majority”.

The list of countries hosting large sport events in a successful way is long. The whole society is affected in an overwhelming positive direction. I would be a hypercritical person if I said that everything becomes better, but almost everything does, indeed. The economic upswing for the hosting nation is a consequence of such things as tourism and foreign investments for a much longer period of time than the four weeks the games are played. And when we know how much economics influence democracy, we understand why South Africa now is facing an important period of globalization.

An African nation has never hosted a sport event as big as the one South Africa is hosting in 2010. Everything is therefore new and a huge challenge. The criticism against “a poor African nation” hosting a sport event of this size is based on voices saying that the continent “lacks important knowledge about how to build and organize large sport events”. Yes, it is true, but how can the African continent ever get that important knowledge if they never getting the opportunity? One time is always the first time and we should never call them “failures” (not “winners” either) before we have seen what they have accomplished.

But the importance of “15 minutes of fame” can not be underestimated in this case. The whole world, billion of eyes, will be focused on the greatest sport event of all. South Africa will not be stupid enough to not show the world that it is a good and reliable country on a good and reliable continent. Hopefully they will also not be stupid enough to hide all the problems away that are a big part of the everyday life, but instead will take the opportunity to show the world that Africa needs help and that it is in the whole world’s interest to solve them.

In the centre of this essay are football and South Africa. Football is a cultural phenomenon that not seldom is building bridges between totally different countries and religions. Taking football as an example for “a tool” that can build these bridges, are not understandable for all of us. Sports and football are many times seen as something the cat has dragged in, simply not cultural fine enough. But no one can deny the large amount of people who are interested in football and are following the World Cup. Football interests the five year old kid as well as his grandmother, the rich as well as the poor, and brings out tears of both joyfulness and sadness.

That is also why South Africa and the African continent should use the World Cup 2010 as a tool in the globalization process. Now when the focus will be on South Africa, the whole African continent should take the chance to use that power of penetration to rip the blinders of the people of the world off. I can not say that the chance will not come back. But at that point it can be too late!


Dan W Boter
danbor02@student.umu.se