Where Football is Not Everything: Brazil vs. Cameroon

Growing up, I had the impression that football (soccer) was greatly cherished in Brazil. Whenever I heard people talk about Brazil, it was often in connection to football and the name of Pele was often mentioned. I was told how everyone, well, almost everyone in Brazil grows up playing football. That was why they were so good in that sport. Perhaps this was just stereotypical but this stereotype colored my imagination. I had come to think that if Brazilians were to choose between football and anything else, they would choose football.

However, this whole view of Brazil was shattered during the current Confederations Cup taking place in that country (the tournament ends today and Brazil are playing Spain in the final). During this game, many, many Brazilians have been demonstrating even at the same time their national team is playing. And the demonstrations were not based on their losing a game in the tournament - in fact, they have not lost a game in the tournament. Rather, they were demonstrating because they felt that the leaders of their country were spending more money on football than on health care and education, which they apparently thought deserved more attention than football.

In Cameroon, however, we have been taught that football is everything, especially when we are winning. In fact, during important international tournaments nothing else happens in the country as people become enthralled with what is going on. If the current Confederations Cup were happening in Cameroon, no one would even think of demonstrating about anything. It would be more so if Cameroon were winning. Cameroon's reputation has in large part been built around football and Roger Milla is the most popular Cameroonian around the world because of his footballing antics. When Cameroon is in a tournament, everything in the country stops. And we are not even half as good as Brazil!

Paul Biya and his people have milked every ounce of Cameroon's successful participation in football tournaments in the past thirty years he has exhausted in power. Drawing on the victories of Cameroon's national football team, Paul Biya has even said that he cannot leave office because there is no need to change a team that is winning. That was when Cameroon's team was winning. Right now, however, the team has been losing and losing big. Even with that, the great fight in the country is around football not health care or education. Brazilians may a thing or two to teach Cameroonians both about how to play football and how to set our priorities straight.

President Obama's Vacation to Africa

When you are president, you can make a vacation look like a state visit. A stop here and a stop there, a speech here and a speech there, and - voila! - we have a state visit instead of a vacation. In order to know that this is a vacation rather than a state visit, we just need to ask a couple of questions: what is Obama in Africa for? What interest of America's or Africa's does this visit serve? He made a speech in Senegal about great strides which Africa has made - perhaps he has been reading the numbers of the GDP which economists have been publishing - and another one in South Africa about Nelson Mandela. In both places, the highlights have come from the sites he visited than from the speeches he made. Perhaps he would say something substantive in Tanzania so as to make this whole thing more a vacation. Perhaps I spoke too soon; I would love to be proved wrong.

Fixing Transportation in Kinshasa, DRC

Making Music Among the Baka of Cameroon/Congo: C'est Magnifique!

Everyone is a musician. You may buy this breathtaking music here.

 

Being Gay in Africa: A Debate

After Nelson Mandela: Thoughts From My Father

When my father was alive, he used to say, sarcastically of course, that when he would be about to die, he would cut off his head and leave it with me so that his head may be giving me advice on how to conduct my life. He would say this to register his disappointment when he saw that I did not do well what he thought, based on what he had taught me, I should have done really well. Saying that he would leave his head with me when he was gone was a way of saying that I should not think he would always be around to be telling me what to do. He wanted me to grow up and learn to take initiative rather than waiting for him to tell me what to do and how to do it. He wanted me to pay attention to what he was teaching me so that when he was gone to the land of our ancestors, I would know how to conduct myself. Thus, my father imprinted in me the idea that he was not always going to be around and that I ought to know how to conduct my life in his absence.

The story of Mandela's eventual passing to the land of our ancestors and the mournfulness surrounding the whole process has led me to think of what my father used to say to me. He was intent on impressing on me that he would not live for ever. My dad passed away when he was about seventy years old and even though I was not ready to see him go, I knew that he had taught me how to be a human being. In short, he had prepared me for life after him.

Surely, Mr. Mandela has prepared South Africa for life after him. Looking at the life of Mr. Mandela, one can hardly doubt that as a leader, he has taught South Africans how to live and how to go on living after him. The whole question about what would happen to South Africa after his death brings sadness in me because the question implies that he has not taught South Africans what to do in his absence. Like me when I was growing up, South Africans seem to think that he would be around for ever to be telling them what to do. If South Africans fail to live up to the high ideals which Mr. Mandela had for had for them, that would not be because Mr. Mandela did not prepare them well. They saw  his sacrifice, his tenacity, his kindness, and his struggle for the downtrodden. One of the best ways South Africa can honor the memory of Madiba is to make sure that his vision for the country is fostered. Surely, South Africans do not want Madiba to cut off his head and live it with them as he is about to pass on to the land of our ancestors.

The Barbarism of Female Genital Mutilation in Africa

The practice of circumcising girls, otherwise known as female genital mutilation (FGM) is widespread in Africa. The issue has recently been brought to the fore by the death of a young girl in Egypt caused by this barbarous practice. Even though this practice is justified by both men and women and on both religious and non-religious grounds, the practical value of the practice is still to be proven. However, it is a fact that this practice has been killing many young girls in Africa. Practices that kill children are barbaric and should not be defended either on religious or secular grounds. The practice should simply stop.

 

That Melissa Harris-Perry Ad and African Communitarian Ethics

A short while ago, the Tulane University political science professor and host of "Melissa Harris-Perry" show on MSNBC, Melissa Harris-Perry, made an ad enjoining that the education of kids should be based on a communal understanding of children rather than an individualistic one.

After she made the ad, many critics, especially those on the right, charged her with fascism and wanting to hand over children to the government. However, her ideas directly derived from African communitarian ethics where traditionally children in a community are understood not only to belong to their parents but to the community as a whole. This has, however, never meant handing over kids to the government or a centralized system. Writing about the education of children in an African traditional community, an influential African ethicist puts the matter thus: "Children do not belong to the parents in the Euro-American sense, but also to the whole clan community. The right to education must therefore involve this community as a whole and not limit itself to the parents alone" (Benezet Bujo 2005:434). Prof. Harris-Perry was therefore suggesting that there is an element of African ethic that can inform policy debates in the United States. The argument her ad raised was actually supposed to be about the merits of an element of African traditional ethic rather than an argument about communism. Those who made it about communism did not know what they were talking about.

African Economies Reliant on Export of Primary Products

The recently released African economic report indicates that African economies are still reliant on export of primary products such as oil and timber. According to this report, remittances also make a substantial contribution to economic growth in the continent. The report however calls for a sustained focus on industrialization without abandoning the production of food, if the growth is to be sustained. Since the beginning of this year, the continent has recorded a 4.8% growth.
 

Remembering the Nigerian Highlife Legend Fatai Rolling Dollar

The death of the legendary Nigerian highlife musician, Fatai Rolling Dollar, has been reported.

 

Paul McCartney and that Lagos Album

Appearing on the Colbert Report today night Sir Paul McCartney acknowledged that he recorded one of his 1970s albums in Lagos, Nigeria. Instead of showing gratitude to the people of Lagos for the time he spent there and the money he made off the album he recorded there, he decided to remember Lagos for the cholera outbreak that apparently happened there at about the time he was there. in fact, he says that he remembers Lagos for "the disease." It is quite sad that even with such an illustrious career, Paul McCartney cannot speak well of his own achievement without speaking ill of an African city. Mr. McCartney's statement is just the latest manifestation of the distance we still have to go in our effort to reform Western negative discourses about Africa. Mr. McCartney needs to address this matter in his own imagination. 

Land Grab and the New Scramble for Africa

A dominant image about Africa, which has been sold around the World is that it is a continent of deprivation characterized by poverty, hunger and famine. However, it is little known that corporations all over the world are scrambling for land in Africa to grow crops meant to be sold around the world. This is similar to what happened during colonial times when African lands were taken to grow crops such as tea, rubber, cocoa, coffee, cotton, etc., meant for foreign markets rather than for Africans. Thus, even as many Africans pine in penury, their resources are feeding other people around the world. Talk about the sacrifice of Africa for the life of the world! Plus ca change . . . .

ESPN Commentators and the Nigeria vs. Mexico Game

Nigeria and Mexico played an international friendly game yesterday (31 May 2013) and the game was apparently accidentally shown on ESPN. I say accidentally because the program stated that ESPN was supposed to be showing women's college softball competition that is taking place in Oklahoma but due the tornado that landed in Oklahoma, the game was postponed. In its place, the Nigeria vs. Mexio friendly was shown. Now, my point is not that the game was shown by accident - ESPN had no obligation to show it at all!
My complaint is with the two commentators who handled the game. First, they could not properly pronounce many of the names of the Nigerian players. This, in itself, would not be problematic were it not that this inability to pronounce the names of Nigerian players (for they had no such problem with the names of Mexican players) appears to have resulted from lack of trying. Any sports commentator knows that one of the first things you want to do if you are going to be reporting a game on air is to take time and learn the names of the players. You may ask those who know how to pronounce the names or ask the players themselves. I have watched may soccer games in my lifetime but no where have I experienced such a disdain about pronouncing the names of players. In fact, at one point, the name of a player who scored a goal was poorly pronounced and one of the commentators did not even know what the name of that particular player was. Instead of being quiet, the one who did not know how to pronounce the name laughingly asked his colleague to pronounce it again, as they both made a joke of the name. I have seen many althletes with many funny names in America but never have I heard commentators making fun of the name of an athlete.
Further, the commentators were quite correct that the Nigerian players did not play quite well but the description of the state of the Nigerian players during that game was beyond the pale. For a background, it should be noted that one of Mexico's players was shown a red card and then sent out of the game and so Nigeria had eleven players while Mexico had ten players for much of the game. Although Mexico had ten players and Nigeria had eleven, Mexico went on to play really well and in fact scored a goal. By the way, the game ended in a 2-2 tie. However, the commentators were talking as if the fact that Mexcian players played well was unprecedent. At one point they even described the Nigerian defence as confused. Just the other day, the American soccer team played Belgium and Belgium beat America 4-2. Even though the American defence was really bad in that game, at no point did I hear the commentators say that the players were confused. I always teach my students that they are not to use language to talk about Africans which they would not use to talk about themselves.
At the end of the game, however, the commentators spoke as if the Mexican players played better than the Nigerian players, saying that the Mexicans ought to be proud about their achievement. May I take this opportunity to remind these commentators, who appeared not to be quite aware of football history, that in the 1990 World Cup Cameroon beat Argentina 1-0 when Cameroon had nine players and Argentina had eleven. Mexico, could have in fact won that game and their performance was nothing to be pround of.