Birthday wishes 101

There is something about waking up on the morning of your birthday. Of course, you are older and then you get reminded about all sorts of things – about how long you have been about and around, where you’ve got it right, where you have been atrocious and where you could have tinkered a little more for better effect. I am a year older today and although I like to think that my birthday or similar anniversaries isn’t overtly special, I am not entirely convinced about that thought. However, I do know that I don’t like to make a party out of my birthday. And even this I am not sure, has passed through enough test to hold true for me.

That noted, it is given that, once again, I’m not blowing out any candle lights on a birthday cake this time around. But at least I am entitled to some birthday wishes. So, dear granter of wishes, here we go again this year. Firstly though, I suspect that some of my wishes from last year were not exactly granted, not because they were ludicrous or outlandish but because the wish list was too lengthy. Therefore, I am attempting an abridged version this time.

A few days back, someone whispered to me that on this day there are certain ‘pests’ I need to get rid of through prayer and even suggested the kind of prayer I should say. I was told that there is no better occasion than today to pray against my enemies, both known and imagined. So I woke up this morning to the rhythm of Durella’s Enemies song. But far from being gifted at marking down any enemies, plus, I am incredibly incapable of imagination when it comes to such issues, I only hummed along enthusiastically to the bridge where the song goes: ko si bi won se le se ma si k’ole m’ole …. (no translation please, go learn your own Yoruba). I didn’t bother with the enemies are many in my life, part.

Talking about enemies, well, in this case pesky well-wishers, dear wish granter, I still have an issue from last year’s wish. Those meddlesome characters are still on my case with regards to the issue of me getting married. It irritates me to think that some of them are, like I pointed out last time out, ‘unattached’ geriatrics compared to me who is just one score and a few years old. Yet these busy bodies fear as they claim, for me that my not being ‘attached’, to their knowledge, is an indication that something is horribly wrong. Dear giver of wife, I didn’t plan to talk about this subject again this year, but I’m glad to ask this all the same. Please, you know that girl, no not the broomstick thin girl, and certainly not that gaunt, plain-looking, bimbo either. You know the one I am talking about, abi? That one with the lips, no not the thick-lipped knocked-kneed one who seems to walk with both feet almost together, I mean not the one with those eyes, those almost perpetually expressionless eyes. I am talking here not about the one who ogles at me each time she sets eyes on me. God forbid, not that plump one, as she likes to be called, who seems like she’s been around for seven lifetimes. Yeah, not that one with a jackal’s laughter, the one who walks with the grace, well, the grace of a kangaroo and has an IQ as high as a room’s temperature in winter. I am not referring to the clunky, clumsy, butter-fingered, traipsing, talkative, curvaceous one, you know, the one with the temperament of a rabid cat – that withdrawn-murderous-withdrawn-murderous temperament. The girl I actually mean here is that one, not the squat, spontaneous but freaky and preternatural one with that dollish look. OK dear provider, since I promised to make this an abridged version, I trust you know the girl I’m talking about here, the one I have been eyeing for God knows how long now. She knows herself and might even read this. So, to keep things abridged, she could even volunteer herself to you to help fill in the blank spaces. Suffice to say that she is the one I have identified for a wife. At least it’s an improvement from last year.

Staying with ‘abridged’, let me lump all the other wishes together because I do not think they allow for any abridgment (I hope to God that that word exists in the English language). I trust you to see some of them through at least.

One more thing, please, not that I am gloating or being insensitive here, but dear mighty one thank you for fulfilling at least one of my wishes from last year, the one about a change in the shape and orientation of our president. But the only problem is that I am afraid that the president you have given us as a substitute still seems to me like an amoeba - his shape or even shade defies my definition and description.

And before I go please, I’m still hoping to take that vacation not to ritzy Sun City, not to decadent Las Vegas, not to breath-stopping Dubai and not to idyllic Riyadh or scenic Milan or Paris, but to somewhere beyond the clouds above, although maybe not in an aeroplane or some space machine. But may no fate willfully misunderstand me and snatch me away forever.

Hip! Hip!! Hip!!!

2010 random memories

The 2010 FIFA World Cup is now just the stuff of memory, with only stocktaking left to be done. Records were set and broken both on and off the pitch - there was a new winner of the golden trophy for the first time since 1998 and the second time in 32 years (since Argentina won it in 1978). A European country won it for the first time outside Europe on the eighth attempt. And for the first time, the final match of the tournament did not involve any of Argentina, Brazil, Italy or Germany. For many, South Africa has indeed put up a show with memories to keep for a lifetime. So while we obviously will remember the vuvuzela, Paul the psychic octopus, the farcical French team, etc, here are a few more things also worth remembering from World Cup 2010.

A dirty beautiful game

One of the most enduring images from the 2002 World Cup is the sight of Brazil’s Rivaldo clutching his face in mock-agony after an opponent kicked a ball that clearly hit Rivaldo’s knees back to the Brazilian player who was about to take a corner kick. Throughout the 2010 World Cup there were similar ridiculous instances of players showing utter disrespect to the game and their own fellow professionals by feigning victims of foul play. It was not limited to only the European and South American players as Ivory Coast’s Kader Keita showed in the group stage match with Brazil by throwing himself down with the force of a small boy tossed off with a swing of an angry elephant’s trunk.

The Chileans did it very well against Switzerland while Spain’s Juan Capdevilla got a Portuguese player sent off by half getting up after a clash with the player only to sneak a look in the referee’s direction and then go down clutching his face. And as was blatant in the final match between Spain and Holland, the Spanish managed to get to the final of the tournament as perhaps the most fouled team and the team with the least number of cautions simply by outwitting all of their opponents in the game of dirty tricks.

Even Brazil, the team from the land of jogo bonito riled a few people by resorting to ‘teasing’ football to the disrespect of their opponents in the 3-1 win over the Ivory Coast.

Pantomime villain

Many players or even coaches qualify for this accolade. Luis Suarez of Uruguay comes to mind, as do perhaps Ivory Coast’s Keita, Nigeria’s Sani Kaita, or maybe even the Uruguayan officials in charge of the match between England and Germany. Holland’s Mark van Bommel also deserves a mention. But somehow, Brazil’s Felipe Melo deserves it more. Having failed in his job of keeping the creative players in the Holland team quiet as he repeatedly gave the ball away needlessly and mistimed several tackles in their quarterfinals encounter, Melo then went from bad to worse by inadvertently nodding the ball into his own net to bring the scores to 1-1 early in the second half. As if that was not enough, he also lost the ball from which a cross was delivered for Wesley Schneider to nod into the Brazilian net for 2-1 to the Dutch. To cap his villainy, a little afterwards, Melo inexplicably jabbed his studs into the midriff of Dutch winger, Arjen Robben after clumsily losing the ball to Robben in the first place. Of course, Melo got his matching others, and so also did Brazil’s hope of a sixth world cup triumph.

Fine margins

It was not the most exciting World Cup ever but South Africa 2010 certainly provided fans with more than its own fair share of edge-of-the-seat moments. There were several what-if, if-only and it-could-have moments that got many mouths hissing, teeth gnashing and a few hearts beating a little faster – the moments and decisions which, if scripted some other way, would perhaps have altered the fate of some of the participating teams and maybe even the destination of the trophy. There was the Frank Lampard ‘ghost-goal’, as there was Asemoah Gyan’s last minute penalty miss against Uruguay as well as Diego Forlan’s last-kick-against-the-bar act against Germany. Many people will also remember Yakubu Aiyegbeni’s ‘fair play’ miss in front of an open Korean net.

But in terms of a single game, the margins were much finer in the quarterfinal encounter between Spain and Paraguay. First Paraguay’s Nelson Valdez’s goal was wrongly disallowed in the first half and then came the crazy 95 seconds of two missed penalty kicks in the second half - Uruguay’s Oscar Cardozo missed a penalty only for Spain’s David Villa to ‘draw’ a penalty from a Paraguayan defender less than a minute later. Xabi Alonso missed the the penalty after being ordered to retake initial successful attempt. Even when the goal eventually came for Spain, Andres Iniesta had to hit the right woodwork first only for Villa’s follow-up to come off both woodworks before trickling over the line.

A triumph for the basics

If the world cup taught us anything, it is the fact when all is said and done, the simple things often bring forth the richest rewards. Football matches have often turned on the blunder or skill of one individual player but it is still a team sport in which long term plan, team work, individual and collective hardwork, experience as well as youth, desire, technique and simplicity of approach have often led to success. The 2010 World Cup emphasized this even more for all to see. With prima donnas like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Ricardo Kaka, Didier Drogba, Wayne Rooney and the rest of his air-castle ‘world class’ England team mates all failing to ignite the occasion, the tournament proved that the game is a sport in which team work matters more than star quality, where hardwork triumphs over weekly wages, where technique surpasses media hype.

The tournament proved to us all that division of labour and identification of the simple often negligible details looms larger than gong ho approach to issues, that desire to win doesn’t even begin with turning up for a match. This is why the teams which won more hearts at the tournament where the likes of New Zealand, Uruguay, Spain, Germany, Holland, Ghana, Paraguay, Slovenia, Slovakia, rather than England France, Brazil, Portugal, Nigeria, Italy, etc. For these reasons players like Thomas Mueller, Forlan, Bastian Sweinsteigger, Iniesta, Carles Puyol and Vincent Enyeanma won more plaudits than Rooney and co could dream of.

Moment of the tournament

Decisive moments in the 2010 World Cup were by the truckload – Suarez ruining Africa, albeit Ghanaian hopes with his hands, Siphiwe Tshabala thumping that opening goal into the Mexican net on June 11, Holland knocking out pre-tournament mega-favourites, England’s dreams unraveling in six sick second half minutes against Germany and so on. But I rate the moment when Uruguay’s Sebastian Abreu’s ‘Panenka’ penalty kick nestled in the net during the shootout against Ghana in the quarterfinal as moment of the tournament. Ghana had given many Africans and romantics elsewhere candy joy all the way to that stage and even after Suarez stopped that ‘goal’ from being and Gyan missed the penalty, something somehow in millions of heart still echoed the “it’s time for Africa” line from Shakira’s Waka Waka song in prayer and optimism that it was written in the stars for an African team to get to the semifinal of the World Cup this time. But that cheeky, nonchalant kick by Abreu finally rested those prayers, slumping millions of shoulders, drawing litres of tears and causing a few heart attacks in the process. That single kick was as ludicrous and audacious as it was fatal, literally, in its impact.

This small-minded notion… amuse yourselves, please

Permit me to – before someone else does it on my behalf– say that I occasionally get caught up in the wave of new ideas such that my behavior could easily bother on that of an obsessed, simple-minded nit-wit. I can sometimes be terribly guilty of buying into certain ideas especially of intellectual nature when such ideas originate from one of the people I really like – celebrity or civilian – without having the patience or guts to critique the idea enough before embracing it. You can call that naivety, call it intellectual laziness or follow follow in Nigerianese.

So, here I am writing yet another article based on an issue raised by acclaimed Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It is again about the “single story” as inspired by the brilliant “The Danger of the Single Story,” a speech delivered by Adichie in the UK last year. The FIFA World Cup is of course the most dominant event on the airwaves at the moment, particularly in Africa where the tournament is being staged for the first time. Being an avid sports follower, especially football (I support Arsenal, follow Rafael Nadal, Maria Sharapova and the Williams sisters, the Super Falcons, Super Sport United, Chicago Bulls, etc) I have, like millions across the world, been following the ongoing fiesta in South Africa. And I like the fact that Africans have greeted the tournament with great fervor, but I‘ve also got a few issues with the extent to which people, especially other Africans, see the event as an African affair as opposed being merely a South-Africa-hosted tournament.

Maybe it’s something to do with my being chronically incapable of thinking optimistically or less cynically about issues such as this, but I don’t exactly see why SA hosting the world cup can be construed as Africa’s party. Yes, a few countries, notably, some of South Africa’s neighbours in Southern Africa may benefit from the tourism throwback that come with SA being host, but isn’t that where it all ends as far as the event being an African affair goes? The tournament may be coming to the continent for the first time ever, but in my opinion, the way people across the continent seem to ‘hug’ the whole thing as a triumph for Africa smacks of a poverty of ambition and a disguised reminder of just why the continent remains underdeveloped, with or without the effects of colonialism. Considering the fact that it required some form of rotational principle for an African nation to secure the hosting right for the tournament in the first place, all the “Africa” talk about the world cup seems to hint at our tacit agreement with the continent’s place in world issues is perceived to be. It seems that somehow, we acknowledge that very little is due the continent or that Africa does not deserve so much from the rest of the world in whatever sphere. Therefore, we are eagerly ready to lap up what little crumbs and pieces we can get occasionally. Ever heard of Europe’s World Cup, North America’s World Cup, etc?

Even in 2002 when the same event was hosted for the first time on Asian soil (Japan and South Korea) who recalls the media or political angle tagging it in any form as an Asian extravaganza? Perhaps, the rest of Asia (especially Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Malaysia, China, the UAE) were (unlike Nigeria for instance, with its hundreds of politicians going to SA to “celebrate with our brother”) more preoccupied with thinking of how to ensure that one of them would be the next Asian host of the tournament. But ironically, using the current state of affairs as a vista, even if the World Cup or perhaps the Olympics was to be ceded to Africa in 10 or 15 years, how many countries on the continent apart from SA - and with the possible(?) inclusion of Egypt or Tunisia - seem to have the football structures (administration, well-run football leagues et al) and the national economies to host it?

Severally, I have heard people in Nigeria say that the reason SA is doing better economically and in terms of infrastructure than most other African countries is the presence of the white (European) population in the country. This, some argue, made it possible for SA to win the hosting rights in 2004. I don’t know what the thinking is across the rest of Africa. But sadly, this argument is in itself worrying because in the final analysis, it is a tacit admission of the inferiority of the black man to the white man mainly based on the colour of the skin and all that comes with it. It must be pointed out that there is nothing wrong in being second best. But there is certainly something wrong with being second best to whoever by miles. Unfortunately, this is what the African continent seems to always labour to be (distant second best) to the rest of the world, in ideology, technology and what have you in spite of the well-documented achievements of pan-African and anti-colonial activities on the continent. To take a leaf from Adichie, that is just a case of ‘make others think of you as small over and over again, and they will believe you are small.’ Otherwise put, ‘think petty all the time and you become petty.’

As a Nigerian, it is for the same reason that I am disturbed that Ghana rather than Nigeria has reached the quarterfinals of this year’s tournament. And for that I refuse to revel in the Black Stars’ achievements so far not because I am a spoilsport or bad belle as they say in Nigeria. I simply do not see the all-for-one-and-one-for-all scenario in the whole thing. The Black Stars’ stellar display is a Ghana thing so Ghanaians, not Nigerians, should shout their voices coarse in the name of patriotism. Nigerians would be better off picking a few lessons from South Africa as hosts and the Ghana national team. Same goes for the rest of the continent.

So even if all six African teams participating at this year’s World Cup had failed to make it past the first round of the tournament it would have been an indictment on those nations’ footballing principles and structures – just as it still is that only Ghana managed to make it beyond that stage. And however Ghana’s participation at the world cup ends this year, make no mistakes about it, history will record the name ‘Ghana’ and not ‘Africa’, ‘West Africa’ or ‘Nigeria’s neighbour’. As they say, “Let every man learn to answer to his own surname.”