Migration limbo in Mauritania - Africa - Al Jazeera English

Migration limbo in Mauritania - Africa - Al Jazeera English

World Cup drunk

I have all the symptoms of a post-World Cup hangover. It has that usual mix of emotion that accompanies the morning after the best debaucheries. But this time around it's epic. There is a little guilt, perhaps for having splurged too much, but there is also a sense of victory, the kind that you reminisce about before falling asleep at night. “We did it”, I quietly murmur to myself. But as I lie in bed reminiscing every epic second, location, face and romance (because broken hearts tend to follow me) I realize how intoxicating these last few weeks have been and how nauseous I now feel. I was World Cup drunk. I was dizzy about football and dizzy about what football had achieved in a nation as deeply divided as South Africa. We all soaked in its euphoria and its power to unify, and in the sight and sounds of desegregated stadiums and trains, buses and fan parks trembling with an omniscient “shosholoza”. It was extraordinary. However, many warned that it was too good to be true. That it couldn't possibly be real and they may very well have been right. But I on the other hand, had no intention on letting these boring realist spoil my World Cup drunk. And whilst skeptics clung to their guns, criticizing FIFA's profit and motives, as well as its pragmatism –I road the wave of excitement along with the thousands in Soccer City, Moses Mabhida, Loftus, Free State, Peter Mokaba and Ellis Park. It was all extremely enticing, perhaps, infectiously irrational. The spectacle took over my senses, my vital organs pulsed with the rhythm of the thundering crowd. My blood boiled. And in its midst the spectacle suddenly seized being real. Something dreamy had taken over. Our eyes all mirrorishly wide. The athletes turned super citizens. We hailed them triumphantly, like gods convening on Mount Olympus. In the glitter was something heroish about these godly bodies, virile and healthy. I suppose, that these are the bodies that we imagine great nations are made of. Everything about this spectacle was everything but real. A psychosis at best. The realist were right. FIFA's critics were right. But they had missed the point. The World Cup seized to be 'real' long before the stadiums, fan parks and airports rumbled. Perhaps, even before FIFA announced that South Africa would host the epic event. The event is fraught with symbolic capital, its athletes, stadiums and supporters congeal something far in excess of football. But FIFA not only knew this they banked on it, certainly FIFA's critics would not have been so naive. FIFA was not merely in the business of selling football to South Africans, that is to say, in a country where rugby and cricket take precedence. It was selling a dreamy nationalist product to the world, that of course, would have to be first, re-sold to its grassroots, but if successful, FIFA would earn record profit. And so was packaged Rainbow Nation 1.1 –economically stronger, democratic and more accountable than its predecessor. In what I hail as the most ingenious marketing campaign of this century, FIFA bought a brutishly divided South Africa so as to sell to South Africans, as well as the world a moral imaginary. And though a clever tactic South Africans will find it bares a hallmark reminiscent of the 1994, NP and ANC brokering that sold to the international community, Nelson Mandela and Rainbow Nation 1.0. FIFA on the other hand is reluctant to answer any claims of meddling in post colonial spin to sell its sport. It would rather allow its official slogan “Celebrating Africa's Humanity” fill in the gaps.
My objective is not to take sides per-se, nor to recoil FIFA's excessive monopoly and earnings, or government's pragmatism. The critics will always be right. What I am trying to suggest is that though national imaginaries and spectacles such as the World Cup have their sobering limitations, and they are quite stark, severe unemployment, housing shortages, medial education, violent crime and racialism are urgent areas of 'real' need in post apartheid South Africa. On the other hand, national imaginaries have a key role in transformation and reconciliation. And as I have witness it can inspire a charismatic and distinct South African identity. The Rainbow Nation is not something we can hold in our hands, it's an idea that occupies a very powerful and potentially transformative space in the psyche of millions of South Africans and now, perhaps in the 2 billion that tuned in to watch. And if just for one second in the madness of it all it has unified us the slightest, than it achieved its purpose. I am convinced that codified in the roaring vuvuzelas and the chanting hides a message not drunk in euphoria, but painstakingly sober: “we can become better than what we are.” I was drunk and riding the wave... where were you?

W.

“Di com rom di bush”

“Di com rom di bush” is Cameroonian pidgin for “they come from the bush”. “Bush fella” is the name given to Cameroonians (and sometimes foreigners) that have returned from the West. In fact, contrary to what it might sound, coming from the 'bush' is not pejorative. In pidgin 'bush' symbolizes plenitude and wealth. That is to say, it evokes a long relationship Cameroonians have had with the tropical rainforest. Today, however for those who live in the country’s polluted economic centre, urban decay overrides all notion of bounty that the rainforest might have once congealed. Take Douala for example, a densely populated, rotting, urban-industrial island in a lush sea of rainforest. It is hard to imagine that this city is indeed the economic heartbeat of the nation —a life generator that on the inside looks polluted and sick.

In Douala, for those gifted with a developed olfactory, and I suppose, also those with an equally developed appetite; a vaguely familiar aroma may be all that is left to remind them of the 'bush'. Bush meat (roasted in the open air shelters of the quartier) is a high-end delicacy to nouveau-rich metropolitan elite. Though illegal, gourmet rainforest porcupine and macaque bear one of the few errant reminders that commercial cities like Douala are merely islands, urban specs in a much more expansive tropical sea. Although a large proportion of this metropolitan wealth bares the hallmark of tropical cocoa and rubber plantations not too far from the smoggy horizon of Douala, the bush no longer quite inhabits the psyche of Cameroonians as something that serves them. Whilst the appetite for bush meat may still be local, the 'bush' lies elsewhere. It has come to symbolize a modernity that has yet to reach Cameroonians. In the streets of Douala, perhaps even more so for those whom toil in its poverty, there is widespread sentiment that the local 'bush' has failed them. Indeed, it has failed to deliver the security and prosperity, material and immaterial they imagine in the West. As an outsider I find it puzzling but not surprising that the 'bush' has lost its significance as provider and that it has come to symbolize something entirely different.

With soaring unemployment and with the state the largest employer, nepotism and corruption in Cameroon make an already dyer situation seem bleaker. There is no obvious plenitude here and after speaking with a local barrister perhaps even less justice. He confessed to me that the sole most cardinal element in a judge’s verdict is the sum of his “token”, that is to say, his bribe. I followed barrister Makia to the local magistrate that day. He was defending a wealthy woman whose uninsured driver had accidentally killed a man along the roadside. Under the law she faced a costly compensation and even incarceration. To the court's dismay, barister Makia was unprepared. We had rushed from his practice to make an extravagant late entrance. The court proceedings had already commenced and barrister Makia was without diary, pen or his client’s portfolio. He was incoherent and in a boyish way, quite pleased with his performance. The court session lasted under ten minutes, Makia’s client was absent, his arguments were weak and the plaintive was never given the opportunity to speak. Pleasantries were exchanged between council and barister Makia. The magistrate humored by it all. The court adjourned only to postpone the ruling to a later date, that is, for the sixth time. There was no justice that day. “She will have to pay” said to me barrister Makia “we must make sure it gets settled out of court.” Indeed, proceedings cost money, the longer the delay the more costly it becomes for the plaintive and the more pressure for him or her to settle out of court at a fraction of what would be owed to them.

I myself was on the verge of exploding. I can only imagine the plaintiff's family. There was no plenitude or justice, indeed, only a sense of failure. Even for a “bush fella” like me. Barrister Makia and I ate porcupine together later that evening. My dish tasted bitter.

Note to the unlucky traveler: How not to travel.

DO NOT…

1. travel when you are already experiencing advanced sleep deprivation
2. miss your connecting flight at Heathrow Airport
3. buy the cheapest flight: that is to say, if one can avoid 4-overs and 27hrs of flying…
4. eat the “Fish Special” on Ethiopian Airlines…
5. trust your airline to deliver your luggage to your final destination
6. leave your malaria tablets in your luggage that will have been lost
7. and lastly, have your gmail account hacked when you need it the most!

rrrr...Heathrow

RRRRR..! I hate Heathrow, only four hours left before my connecting flight! Give me a few days to build ya'll a blog worth visiting. Chat to you again from Kumba, Cameroon.

W.