Winners and Losers - SA after the World Cup
July 12, 2010
Who Really Won in South Africa?
By WILLIAM C. RHODEN
From his office inside Holy Cross Anglican Church in Soweto, Father Steve Morero has seen the tour buses come and go by the hundreds.
From the beginning of the World Cup last month to its conclusion Sunday, Morero, the rector since 2006, has helped celebrate South Africa’s historic moment.
On May 30, Morero hosted Soccer Sunday and on Sunday his church hosted Thanksgiving Sunday to give thanks for the World Cup and all the good the event has brought to South Africa and to Soweto.
At one level the World Cup has been a short-term boon. Tourists emptied out of the tour buses, made purchases from street merchants and visited the Hector Pieterson Museum situated across the street from Holy Cross. They got back on the buses to return to their hotels in suburbs with high walls, confident that they saw the real Soweto.
“I live on the other side of Soweto and I haven’t seen a tour bus yet,” Morero said.
But now that the monthlong circus has left town, the hard questions that were raised by community activists before the World Cup are back: Who won? Who lost?
The event has generally been hailed as a great success, with talk now turning to a South African Olympics as a possibility. New stadiums were constructed along with new roads leading to the stadiums, construction that helped create thousands of jobs. But is South Africa - and a majority of South Africans - better off than before the World Cup came to town?
“How much of the profit FIFA makes will be left to develop the poor communities?” Morero said. “I do not think it is going to move the ball forward. There has been a concern from the community over who profits from the World Cup.”
Morero, who has served in Soweto for 18 years, described bed and breakfast owners who were promised they would get guests and other business owners who were promised additional revenue from increased traffic. According to Morero, neither materialized. “There are mixed feelings. You have this great event, but is it helping to elevate poverty?”
My overriding question upon arriving in South Africa at the outset of the World Cup was: “Who has the power?”
Apartheid’s imprint can been seen throughout South Africa. The economic engine is being driven by white South Africans; some black Africans have climbed aboard.
Morero, 51, has watched the evolution; in some ways the World Cup was a convenient - and eye-opening - opportunity to examine how far things have and have not come since the end of apartheid.
“Politically I think the power is now in the hands of the ANC,” he said. “But you can’t have the political power without all other power, and the first is economic power. I think it’s still in the hands of the white people, and let me add, in the hands of the Afrikaners.”
As is almost always the case when these sports circuses come to town, expectations exceed reality. And while the World Cup here was viewed as a success on many levels, some felt the event would take a huge bite out of poverty.
“The poor were hoping to get a piece out of this big cake,” Morero said. “Unfortunately, it’s like having 10 people - eight of whom are poor. The two will take 90 percent and give the poor the 10 percent to share.”
Morero quoted what a friend had said during the apartheid era: “If you have 10 black people who are hungry, the Afrikaners will give you a meal for one person. You’ll start fighting among each other for the small piece instead of saying, ‘Hey guys, wait, let’s not eat this piece; let’s go and fight this guy who is not giving us enough.’ “
The great fight facing South Africans is how to refocus and redefine the struggle for liberation after the dragon that represented their oppression - apartheid - was slain.
“What we need now is not a theology of liberation, although the struggle is not over yet,” Morero said. “What we need now is the theology of restoration.”
He quoted from the Book of Nehemiah, which tells the story of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.
“He realized that the wall had fallen and he said to the people: ‘We can’t keep on blaming people who broke the wall, we need to raise the wall and do something about it.’ I think that is where we are,” Morero said. “That’s what we need. The theology of restoring our people. It’s a big challenge for us as a church.”
There is a South African concept, Ubuntu, that describes an approach to life that is characterized by selflessness, sharing, unity and respect. Morero fears the concept, vital for successful collective action, is slipping away.
“I’m afraid that we can no longer talk about that concept of Ubuntu in Soweto because we are slowly adopting the individualistic kind of living,” he said. “Because a small few have too many resources, it has shifted the focus of the masses of people to basic survival.”
In the wake of a successful World Cup, the theology of restoration, of whether those resources will be spread among the masses, looms large as so does the question: Who won and who lost?
E-mail:wcr@nytimes.com
Who Really Won in South Africa?
Who Really Won in South Africa?
By WILLIAM C. RHODEN
From his office inside Holy Cross Anglican Church in Soweto, Father Steve Morero has seen the tour buses come and go by the hundreds.
From the beginning of the World Cup last month to its conclusion Sunday, Morero, the rector since 2006, has helped celebrate South Africa’s historic moment.
On May 30, Morero hosted Soccer Sunday and on Sunday his church hosted Thanksgiving Sunday to give thanks for the World Cup and all the good the event has brought to South Africa and to Soweto.
At one level the World Cup has been a short-term boon. Tourists emptied out of the tour buses, made purchases from street merchants and visited the Hector Pieterson Museum situated across the street from Holy Cross. They got back on the buses to return to their hotels in suburbs with high walls, confident that they saw the real Soweto.
“I live on the other side of Soweto and I haven’t seen a tour bus yet,” Morero said.
But now that the monthlong circus has left town, the hard questions that were raised by community activists before the World Cup are back: Who won? Who lost?
The event has generally been hailed as a great success, with talk now turning to a South African Olympics as a possibility. New stadiums were constructed along with new roads leading to the stadiums, construction that helped create thousands of jobs. But is South Africa - and a majority of South Africans - better off than before the World Cup came to town?
“How much of the profit FIFA makes will be left to develop the poor communities?” Morero said. “I do not think it is going to move the ball forward. There has been a concern from the community over who profits from the World Cup.”
Morero, who has served in Soweto for 18 years, described bed and breakfast owners who were promised they would get guests and other business owners who were promised additional revenue from increased traffic. According to Morero, neither materialized. “There are mixed feelings. You have this great event, but is it helping to elevate poverty?”
My overriding question upon arriving in South Africa at the outset of the World Cup was: “Who has the power?”
Apartheid’s imprint can been seen throughout South Africa. The economic engine is being driven by white South Africans; some black Africans have climbed aboard.
Morero, 51, has watched the evolution; in some ways the World Cup was a convenient - and eye-opening - opportunity to examine how far things have and have not come since the end of apartheid.
“Politically I think the power is now in the hands of the ANC,” he said. “But you can’t have the political power without all other power, and the first is economic power. I think it’s still in the hands of the white people, and let me add, in the hands of the Afrikaners.”
As is almost always the case when these sports circuses come to town, expectations exceed reality. And while the World Cup here was viewed as a success on many levels, some felt the event would take a huge bite out of poverty.
“The poor were hoping to get a piece out of this big cake,” Morero said. “Unfortunately, it’s like having 10 people - eight of whom are poor. The two will take 90 percent and give the poor the 10 percent to share.”
Morero quoted what a friend had said during the apartheid era: “If you have 10 black people who are hungry, the Afrikaners will give you a meal for one person. You’ll start fighting among each other for the small piece instead of saying, ‘Hey guys, wait, let’s not eat this piece; let’s go and fight this guy who is not giving us enough.’ “
The great fight facing South Africans is how to refocus and redefine the struggle for liberation after the dragon that represented their oppression - apartheid - was slain.
“What we need now is not a theology of liberation, although the struggle is not over yet,” Morero said. “What we need now is the theology of restoration.”
He quoted from the Book of Nehemiah, which tells the story of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.
“He realized that the wall had fallen and he said to the people: ‘We can’t keep on blaming people who broke the wall, we need to raise the wall and do something about it.’ I think that is where we are,” Morero said. “That’s what we need. The theology of restoring our people. It’s a big challenge for us as a church.”
There is a South African concept, Ubuntu, that describes an approach to life that is characterized by selflessness, sharing, unity and respect. Morero fears the concept, vital for successful collective action, is slipping away.
“I’m afraid that we can no longer talk about that concept of Ubuntu in Soweto because we are slowly adopting the individualistic kind of living,” he said. “Because a small few have too many resources, it has shifted the focus of the masses of people to basic survival.”
In the wake of a successful World Cup, the theology of restoration, of whether those resources will be spread among the masses, looms large as so does the question: Who won and who lost?
E-mail:wcr@nytimes.com
Who Really Won in South Africa?