Some perspective, please

After the dreadful attack on the Togolese national football team, questions have been raised about the World Cup tournament in South Africa later this year. But why?

 After all, France 1998 went ahead despite the Kosovo conflict, which was occuring on the same continent.

As Danny Jordaan has pointed out, South Africa 2010 has nothing to do with the African Cup of Nations save for being held in the same year.  What happened on Friday, 3,000 kilometres away from SAFA headquarters is tragic, but it has no bearing on the World Cup.

This situation has merely highlighted the West’s blinkered view of Africa as a single troubled entity. But Angola is just one of fifty-two countries here and is as different from South Africa as Hungary is from the UK and Honduras is from the US.

So can we drop the hysteria and get a little perspective, please?

EDIT: See also here.

5 thoughts on “Some perspective, please

  1. But how could we possibly sell newspapers without beautiful headlines like that or give the nay-sayers “hope” that the world cup will actually still be played on another continent?!

    Maybe the World Cup actually being played here will help educate the rest of the world that we are not just one big (un)happy continent and that we are as diverse as places like Europe.

    It is still a problem though and these kind of incidents need to be stamped out. I said it on another blog as well that Pakistan are still trying to convince people to come back and tour them after that horrendous attack on the Sri Lankan cricket side.

    It s the kind of rubbish we don’t need
    .-= Marc´s last blog ..10 TRENDS FOR 2010 – by Dion Chang =-.

  2. I can’t quite suppress the fear that something terrible will happen during the World Cup Finals, but that’s down to the wider geopolitical situation rather than because of what’s happened in Angola. And I feel exactly the same way – even more so – about the Olympics here in the UK.

    I hope I’m wrong and the fears are nothing more than shadows that disappear when the light of day falls upon them.

    But, in any case, that’s no reason to cancel any major sporting event – that is to let fear triumph over hope, and if we ever let ourselves fall into that trap, then we really are doomed.
    .-= Ro´s last blog ..Practical Economics =-.

  3. Marc > Thre are a lot of people waiting for us to fail. That’s why it’s imperative that we succeed!

    Ro > Every big sporting event is a huge target for terrorism – and why not? You don’t get a bigger stage than the Olympics or the World Cup.

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