Forget the grand events and focus on fixing plight of the poor
IHATE to rain on people’s parades, but I’m not about to join in the frenzied excitement to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games. It’s yet another costly distraction that sticks in the craw. This country has bigger fish to fry.
A bevy of well-fed empty suits stood up this week to congratulate themselves on winning the right to host the games. In fact, it is misleading to say Durban won the bid. Durban came to the organisers’ rescue. After Edmonton pulled out, there were no other takers.
The Canadian city’s bid chairman, Reg Milley, said economic reasons were behind the withdrawal. “It would not be right to move forward with our bid when cuts are being made in our communities to programmes like education and health.”
I guess Durban, and South Africa for that matter, has no such worries. The millions of unemployed, the homeless and the destitute are just a figment of someone’s imagination. As the breast-beating was going on in Durban, Stats SA revealed that GDP had contracted by 1.3% in the second quarter. That, too, I suppose, can be ignored. Small potatoes, that.
Why a free South Africa should want to belong to something called the Commonwealth, a colonial anachronism, still beats me. Maybe taking tea with the queen would look good on somebody’s CV.
It’s interesting that Durban is back in vogue — not eThekwini, the name favoured by our new rulers.
The games, we’re told, will begin on July 18 2022, Nelson Mandela’s birthday. Whenever the great man’s name is invoked, smell a rat. Be on your guard. A bitter pill is being sugar-coated.
But when are we going to get over this hosting binge? It’s like an addiction. There’s obviously money to be made in these ventures by the politically connected. These things often end up costing more than original estimates.
Nobody can point to any benefit to the country, other than the white elephants that have to be maintained at huge expense to the state.
We were hardly out of the starting blocks as a democracy when we hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup, and duly won it. The following year we stepped in to host the Africa Cup of Nations, and again triumphed. Our chests bulged and our heads became even bigger. We wanted more. Everything.
Inelegant slogans such as “Madiba magic” only made us believe that nothing was impossible or unattainable. Brand magicians had a catchline for it: “Alive with possibility.” It fed into our belief that freedom is just that: getting everything for free. No wonder corruption became endemic. It feeds off an insatiable need for instant gratification — cutting corners, or getting things you don’t deserve by any means.
The successful hosting of those two events in the years immediately after emancipation emboldened us to broaden our vistas, to want bigger things. In the process we fell victim to shysters. Bidding for the 2004 Olympic Games, we relied heavily on the support of the African delegates who took our bribes and went off to vote for Athens. We were left licking our wounds.
We still ended up with egg on our face even where we succeeded. The 2010 Soccer World Cup was a roaring success, but South Africa is now embroiled in the Fifa bribery scandal.
Athletics officials are hinting at bidding for the 2024 Olympic Games. In other words, the country will be expected to host another major event two years after the Commonwealth Games.
Brazil should offer a salient lesson for South Africa. A few years ago, amid the so-called Lula moment, Brazil made bids for the 2014 Soccer World Cup and 2016 Olympics. As fate would have it, it got both. The World Cup revelry last year was held amid widespread public discontent. The event led to social dislocation, and the once-vibrant economy is now in a recession. And Brazil still has to fulfil its Olympics commitment next year.
We often mistake the so-called accomplishments as a sign of our agility or shrewdness on the world stage. We boldly stumble in where the more astute fear to tread. And the consequences of our naivety often come back to bite us.
Examples abound. Think of the corruption of the arms deal and the thousands of jobs that were promised in offsets that didn’t materialise; voting for a UN resolution to bomb Libya and then denouncing the outcome; signing the Rome Statute and then allowing Omar al-Bashir into the country. Throw in the e-tolls debacle for good measure.
There’s a phrase that has become popular with our politicians: “We punch above our weight.” We’re the first African country to host this or that. All this counts for nothing if many of our people go to bed on empty stomachs.
Our goal, our salvation, lies in dealing with the misery in our midst. Proper schools, hospitals, a secure environment and an economy that creates jobs— that is the role of a responsible government. Not forever lying in wait for something to host.