Citizens don’t want these political fakes

Where were you when British commentator Jim Beglin, screamed those immortal words: “Tshabalalaaa! Goal, Bafana Bafana! Goal for South Africa. Goal for all Africa. Jabulela , rejoice!” I am sure many of us can remember it like it was yesterday. Sixteen years from that iconic moment, South Africa has qualified for a World Cup. The opening match will once again be between Mexico and South Africa. A lot in our country, continent and world has changed since then. We might have thought of the World Cup as the Football World Cup as we entered the 2010 tournament but by the end of it, many of us understood that it was actually the Fifa World Cup, not football. There is a difference. Fifa, much like the South African Football Association, might give the illusion of a public institution but it is a private association focused on itself, not the public or the well-being of football. Today, as Europeans baulk at the ticket prices for the matches in the 2026 World Cup, the truth is that, as South Africans, we learnt the hard way, when we hosted the tournament. Many of us could not afford the tickets and had no idea how to get tickets for any of the major matches. We were just happy when Fifa allowed us to pay for the privilege of watching matches that were not too high on the totem pole. But in 2010, like many across the world, we seemed to have a government that was a lot more receptive. Although we were hosting matches and they were being broadcast on commercial and public television, public fan parks were set up across the country. I recall that even the much-maligned Emfuleni Local Municipality in the Vaal, established fan parks in Sebokeng and Sharpeville so that every 2010 World Cup game could be watched by the poor. There was no sponsorship by businesses or brewery companies; it was just government taking the initiative to ensure that the people got to enjoy the fruits of freedom and democracy. Did you know that in Britain the European Champions League final is usually broadcast free-to-air? Not this year though. TNT Sports chose not to broadcast the final free-to-air, despite English club Arsenal contesting it against Paris Saint-Germain. Today, fan parks are commercial ventures, not public spaces. Just like we allowed Fifa to privatise and own football, so too have we basically outsourced and privatised everything else in our world. Think about it, especially in countries in the Global South. Education, health, security and even housing seem to have become more accessible privately compared to public alternatives, albeit at a financial cost. We need to start saying the quiet matter aloud and square up to the truth: we have essentially outsourced politics and government. An iconic tune from the 2010 World Cup was Somali Canadian K’naan’s song Wavin’ Flag . Coca-Cola used it as it’s theme song and basically sanitised it. Its original lyrics are a call to arms and admission of the cynicism that Africans view politics and the calls for political change. K’naan wrote and sang: So many wars, settlin’ scores/ Bringin’ us promises, leavin’ us poor/ I heard them say: “Love is the way/ Love is the answer,”/ that’s what they say/ But look how they treat us, make us believers/ We fight their battles, then they deceive us. It’s the line, “We fight their battles, then they deceive is”, that is dripping with cynicism. Many across the South created grassroots movements that were morally-centred and people-led to successfully fight colonialism and apartheid but for some reason or another, we cannot seem to create similar movements for change when leaders go backwards and take us with them. Yet, we allow the consistent privatisation of not just government services but both government and the political process. To be elected as part of leadership or a candidate of a political party, you must have money and connections — basically the principles that govern unbridled capitalism. Attempts to create an alternative to the expectant demise of the ANC, is the South African Communist Party convening a conference of the Left (CoL). To the SACP’s credit, it threw the net far and wide and did its level best to get as many of the marginalised voices who did not support domestic capital into one tent. The truth is though that while the build-up to the CoL was taking place and then convened, most South Africans were more concerned about whether Orlando Pirates would be able to unseat the eight-year reign of Mamelodi Sundowns, hopeful that Sundowns could capture the CAF Champions League in the second leg in Morocco and how rugby teams, the Stormers, Bulls and Lions, would fare in the URC quarter-final matches. Even after the CoL declaration, the bigger story was Bafana Bafana not having all their visas sorted out to travel to the World Cup. As K’naan sang: “We fight their battles, then they deceive us.” It does seem that South Africans have lear