In Joburg, it’s that time of year again. The cyclists invaded, took over the city, banned everyone else from the road, and had their private lycra-fetish party. Here’s what I think of that.

During Holland’s first match against Denmark, the FIFascists arrested a bevy of beauties sporting little orange dresses. This prompted a promise on 22 June 2010, in one of my numerous columns on FIFA’s exploitation of South Africa during what was otherwise an excellent World Cup tournament: if Holland makes it to the final, I’ll wear an orange dress and drink Bavaria.

The specific column in which I made the commitment can be found here. There’s a selection of my columns on the subject of FIFA in my previous post. Do read them, if only for an explanation of my uncharacteristic garderobe.

Well, it is final day, and Holland is playing in a final for the first time in 32 years. Therefore, I’m making good on my promise. Here are the official photographs. Photo credits go to my friend Tony Nathan, of Nathan Studios. My thanks also to Trish Nathan for being an invaluable stylist. (Click through for larger versions.)

Go ahead, laugh. It’s all worth it just to be able to watch Oranje challenge for the 2010 World Cup.

The second parallel for FIFA president Sepp Blatter is King Leopold II of Belgium, aka Leopold of the Congo. In it, I wrap up my series on FIFA with the observation that FIFA may claim philanthropic intent, but is intent only on exploiting Africa, and its racism is very thinly veiled. FIFA’s heart of darkness.

Here’s a fairly comprehensive summary of why we should support our country and our team, but have nothing to do with the exploitation of FIFA: The Fifa conquistadors are coming!

My other columns on FIFA have been collected in a previous post: Boycott FIFA

I will have more to write concerning FIFA and Match, some of it in their own damning words.

PS. Here’s a #boycottFIFA ribbon for your Twitter avatar or Facebook profile picture.

My very first column for The Daily Maverick this year was a call to boycott FIFA. At the time, mine was a lone voice. Most people thought I was just being contrarian. I wasn’t. I really am incensed at the cavalier manner in which FIFA treats South Africans, and the way in which the government not only lets them get away with it, but aids and abets their plunder with special laws. As we got closer to the FIFA World Cup South Africa, more headlines began to appear in the mainstream media, documenting the real cost to South Africa — a developing nation that needs all the resources it can muster — of FIFA’s heavy-handed approach, special privileges, and allegations of corruption.

Boycott FIFA explains why I’m doing so, and that this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t enjoy the football, support our national team, or welcome our foreign visitors.

A few weeks later, an idea was floated to extort money from bars and restaurants who show the football. Because no court would sanction such a law, it was quickly scaled back to cover only venues that didn’t already have a liquor licence. Still, at R50 000 for a licence to serve liquor while showing the football on TV, it’s outright extortion. This was my initial reaction: Really, boycott the FIFA farce.

While everyone was getting shrill about the late Eugene Terre’blanche and young Julius Malema, it occurred to me that even if marketing was the only benefit we derived from the billions we spent on the World Cup, what exactly would we be marketing? Division? Racism? Anger? While FIFA takes over, we fight.

Among the reasons for objecting to FIFA’s presence in South Africa is the fact that local businesses, who were supposed to benefit from this expensive shindig, are not only being excluded, but are being unfairly accused of price gouging. The only people ripping off foreigners are FIFA and its exclusive marketing partner, Match Services. Only, the foreigners won’t know this, and they’ll blame us. Who is ripping off whom?

These are among the many reasons why South Africans should avoid supporting FIFA and its sponsors. They are exploiting a country that can ill afford it. Instead, support anyone who isn’t associated with FIFA. Help them turn this economic disaster into an opportunity, however small it may be.

Update: I’ve just created a Twitter ribbon (or “twibbon”) for your avatar, and a Facebook sticker for your profile pic. Show your displeasure with FIFA’s exploitation of South Africa. Get your #boycottfifa twibbon now.

One consequence of speaking to people in the tourism industry is an acute appreciation for exactly how badly FIFA and its marketing partner, Match, are exploiting South Africans, and giving South Africa a bad reputation for international guests into the bargain. Here’s the column: Who’s ripping off whom?

It’s almost time for the 2008 Olympics, and the Chinese authorities are making sure their coming out party is as green as possible. And what does environmentalism entail? Draconian restrictions, of course. The Communist Party of China no doubt can relate to the greens’ penchant for fascist measures to save the rest of us from ourselves.

In a bid to pacify the environmental tyrants of the occident, the communist tyrants of the orient have instituted a ban on cars. Beijing residents will be limited to driving only every other day, with the aim of halving the usual 3.3 million cars on the road. Additional restrictions will shut down (and even move out of the city) many major factories.

BEIJING (Reuters) — Beijing will introduce “odd-even” traffic restrictions for two months from July 20 to help ease congestion and reduce pollution during the Olympics and Paralympics, officials said on Friday.

Authorities hope the regulations will take 45 percent of the city’s 3.29 million cars off the road and reduce emissions from vehicles by 63 percent, officials told a news conference.

[…] Those affected by the ban will be compensated by not having to pay road or vehicle taxes for three month, costing the city about 1.3 billion yuan ($189 million).

Violators would be punished “according to relevant national and local regulations” and lose the compensation.

Only 70 percent of government-owned cars will be included in the scheme.

And if you’re sufficiently poor to have an older, high-emissions car (of the kind Britain’s PM, Gordon Brown, unapologetically wants to use as an excuse to super-tax the working class), you don’t get to drive it at all.

Over at the Huffington Post, this measure is considered a mere band-aid. One dreads to think what a real cure would look like.

And while you park your car, and close your factories, and stop smoking, and renounce your right to protest or get drunk, here’s what you shall cheer, the “spiritual civilisation bureau” decrees: “Aoyun! Jia You! Zhongguo! Jia You!”

The offically-approved cheer, complete with “civilised” gestures, is being taugh through official media and school training programmes. Note the faceless face of “civilisation”. Reports the BBC: “Li Ning, president of the Beijing Etiquette Institute, told the Beijing News that the cheer was in line with general international principles for cheering, while at the same time possessing characteristics of Chinese culture.”

Good to know we have international principles for cheering. I’ll confess I’ve been very disturbed by the uncivilised cheering I’ve come across. Granted, this involved anti-social people who even had the temerity to wear individual faces in public. Shameful. Glad they’re cracking down on that sort of thing.

Just when you thought this couldn’t get any funnier, you discover that with beautiful irony, the cheer means, “Olympics! Add oil! China! Add oil!”

Not if you have the misfortune of being a Chinese citizen in Beijing, you don’t.

Our own politicians and 2010 World Cup organisers undoubtedly have luxury box seats at the Beijing Olympics, where they’ll be learning from the masters how to please the world’s eco-fascists.

Great news for Oscar Pistorius, South African sport, and disabled athletes everywhere. The fastest guy on no legs… okay, sorry. I’ve used that line before. But the International Association of Athletics Federation’s ruling earlier this year that said the carbon fibre prosthetics he uses gave him an advantage over athletes with legs — which never did make physics sense to me — has been overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne. This raises the possibility that the Blade Runner might yet make it to the Olympic Games in Beijing, although he’d have to slice a fair bit off his current times in the sprint events to qualify. Either way, he has the letters of marque now to challenge anyone who sails across his bow.

He was fighting this battle with the mandarins when I interviewed him a year ago (and Maverick magazine took what might be the only press photo of him relaxing without his running legs on). After all this time, just having won this victory over the sport’s global ruling body is a major achievement in itself, for which Oscar deserves hearty congratulations.

That’s the ruling from the IAAF: Oscar Pistorius, the South African athlete who runs with two artificial legs and holds several paralympic world records, has an artificial advantage over able-bodied runners, and won’t be permitted to compete in this year’s Beijing Olympics. To quote:

Paralympic 400m star Oscar Pistorius has failed in his bid to compete at this year’s Olympic Games in Beijing.

The IAAF, athletics’ governing body, ruled his prosthetic limbs give him an advantage over able-bodied opponents and contravene rules on technical aids.

A scientific study revealed that Pistorius, nicknamed “Blade Runner”, used 25% less energy than able-bodied runners to run at the same speed.

The 21-year-old South African said last week he would appeal against any ban.

“I feel that it is my responsibility, on behalf of other disabled athletes, to stand firm,” he said. “I will appeal [against] this decision at the highest levels, while also continuing with my quest to race in the Paralympic Games and hopefully the Olympic Games.”

Here’s hoping he succeeds. After all, if his advantage is due to his legs, why is he leagues ahead of other runners who use the same type of legs? Methinks the able-bodied runners are scared of being upstaged. Wimps.

Update: A friend comments: “They should ban Kenyans too — they have a 25% greater lung capacity than the rest of us.” Hehe. Indeed.

Hillary is dead. Sir Edmund Hillary, that is, who conquered Mt Everest in 1953 with sherpa Tenzing Norgay. He’ll be remembered, for inspiring awe and derring-do, and being honest enough to admit: “Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.”

Sir Edmund Percival Hillary
(b) 20 July 1919, (d) 11 January 2008.
RIP.

You’ve got to be there, you know it. It’s one of the most prestigious tournaments on the golfing calendar. The Golf Tournament. It’s nice, because it’s not hosted. It’s not in aid of anything. It’s still sponsored by Coca-Cola, I think, but I suspect that it soon won’t be. So it’ll be like you and your mates down at your local club: totally unremarkable, except that you’ll be playing with Gary Player, Mark McNulty, John Bland and Vincent Tshabalala, and the proceeds go to buying drinks afterwards.

This is the farce that is (or rather, was) the annual Nelson Mandela Invitational, traditionally hosted by Gary Player. First, Desmond Tutu echoes a call by George Monidiot to boycott Gary Player because one of the many golf course he designed happens to be in Burma, and Monidiot supports a boycott of anyone who does business with Burma because he doesn’t like the Burmese junta. Granted, who does like that backward, murderous regime?

Gary Player has been good enough for the organisers for seven years running, so allegations about a business deal in Burma five years ago, or worse, his alleged support for Apartheid in the 1960s, really don’t wash. Now, suddenly, he’s a pariah? Besides, there are no sanctions against Burma, and there is disagreement over whether there should be. The course was built at a time when pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi had been released and things were looking more positive than they do today. South Africa just recently voted against a UN resolution to place pressure on the regime, citing some procedural nonsense for what really was teenage rebellion: “Yay, we’re on the Security Council now, so we’ll throw our new-found weight around by proving that we don’t have to vote for anything the US supports.”

Essentially, current events in Burma provided an opportunity for political grandstanding by a far-left fool who masquerades as a journalist, and a priest, and they jumped at the chance, stomping on Gary Player’s head in the process.

Three weeks ago, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, which owns the event, reportedly withdrew the invitation to Gary Player, despite the flimsy grounds for the boycott call.

Now, with four weeks to go to the tournament, and the player list almost complete, it’s withdrawing. Completely. And taking its name with it. So it can officially sue, someone, whoever now organises it, for hosting this site.

It’s a disgrace. It’s arrogant bullying and grandstanding. It’s politically incompetent. It’s going to cost someone a lot of money. If this disaster turns out to reflect badly on the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, it has only its trustees to thank.

Thabo Mbeki, presumably in an effort to appear even-handed, has lashed out against the nicknames of our national football teams. One of football’s big three, Jomo Sono, former coach of the national side and owner of the Jomo Cosmos club side, agrees.

They squads are fondly known among supporters as Bafana Bafana (the boys), Banyana Banyana (the girls), and for the junior team, Ama-glug-glug (in imitation of a famous advertisement by their sponsor, Sasol). Likewise, the Springbok rugby squad is often referred to as Ama-boko-boko. Even the paraplegic teams haven’t escaped the trend: they’re known as Ama-kroko-kroko. This is both funny and endearing, and has done a lot to raise their profile among sport fans.

But these names are disrespectful, Mbeki believes. This all appears to stem from the controversy around the name of the rugby Springboks. As the second story above makes clear, there’s a perception that “the national sides used to be known as the Springboks during the whites-only apartheid era which ended in 1994, but most of the teams have since adopted new monikers such as the Proteas in cricket.”

The last part is true. Only the rugby squad were excepted from the Proteas rule. But I fail to see what the Springbok emblem, colours, name or history have to do with Apartheid.

The South African rugby union side was called the Springboks long before isolation, long before Apartheid, and before even the Union was formed in 1910.

In 1906, as the programme alongside shows, they not only played as the Springboks, but delivered a Zulu-derived war cry. (Accounts differ, but the Springbok war cry may even have predated the New Zealand team’s famous Maori-inspired war dance, the Haka.)

“The public should participate in a plan where we look for new names for our national teams,” Mbeki is quoted in the article as saying on a local radio station. “I’m not saying we must call all our national teams Springboks, but we have to change the names, the emblems and the colours the teams wear, so that they can be recognised as representatives of South Africa.”

Firstly, I don’t know what name would be more recognisable than the Springbok. It’s a famous African animal, and is far better known that the pretty but relatively obscure Protea.

Second, and more importantly, the public were involved, and they decided on Amabokoboko, Bafana Bafana and Banyana Banyana. What the politicians call the teams is their own problem. Please don’t feign “consultation” and “participation” and all that tripe when you’ve just told people that the names they chose are disrespectful and insufficiently patriotic.

If they want to call all national colours “Proteas”, fine. I’d be sorry to see the Springbok symbol go, because it’s a strong rugby brand with a long history, but they’re South African colours and I guess the government that issues them gets to call them whatever they want.

But what officials don’t get to mess with is the nicknames teams get from their supporters.

On the other hand, perhaps we should ban the word “Bucs”. Bucanneers! How unoriginal. And who’s ever heard of an African side being named after French outlaws who made bacon in the Caribbean anyway? They’re Orlando Pirates, and don’t you forget it. Anyone — especially Amakhosi — who calls them Bucs should get a fine, or perhaps an hour or two in the stocks outside the stadium. Speaking of Amakhosi, they aren’t. They’re Kaizer Chiefs. Besides, honkeys confuse it with Ezenkosi, and that makes Jomo cross.

Look people. It’s simple. You’re being disrespectful and unpatriotic, and The Honourable State President Mr Thabo Mbeki says so. He’d have wagged his finger, if he could, but he was speaking on radio.