And so it ends

For a month we've had the soccer World Cup, and last night it ended. In some ways we're sorry. As far as the matches themselves were concerned, we watched them all on TV, so it might just as well have been anywhere else in the world. We did try to get tickets to the Serbia-Ghana match in the local stadium at Loftus Versfeld, but the online booking system kept saying that there were no tickets available, though when we watched it on TV, there did seem to be some empty seats -- perhaps those were the more expensive ones.

But even so, it had an effect on local life, and now that it is over we'll miss it. We'll miss meeting foreign teams and fans in shopping malls. One of the advertising slogans was "Feel it - it is here" and it was. There was a palpable air of excitement. And it also became the subject of jokes. The World Cup is usually held in the northern hemisphere, but here it was midwinter, and some fans in Polokwane (normally one of the warmer towns in South Africa) carried a sign saying "Feel it -- it is cold". A local radio station commented on a news report that 46000 sex workers would be converging on South Africa for the World Cup, said "Feel them -- they are here."

People drove around with flags on their cars, and yes, they probably wasted a bit of petrol, but they also were conversation starters with strangers in the street, the newspaper sellers, the garage attendants, "Who will win?" and when South Africa was out, "Who do you hope will win?" It broke through the urban reserve, and made people more friendly. And it was good to see two teams that had never won it before in the final.

Our neighbourhood crime watch predicted an increase of crime durung the World Cup, as police were redeployed to match venues. But the police who were left seemed to be extra-vigilant, patrolling more, and actually there seemed to be less crime than usual during this period. There were warnings of child abductions by human traffickers, but there didn't seem to be a great increase in those either.

The dire predictions in the overseas press (especially the British) about how disastrous it would be were never fulfilled. Some British newspapers produced an "expert" who predicted earthquakes in Durban and Cape Town during the World Cup, even though no part of South Africa lies in a major earthquake zone. In fact the 2012 Olympic Games in London are more likely to be disrupted by volcanoes. The London Daily Mail in particular appended to every report of crime in South Africa the observation that South Africa was to be the host of the 2010 World Cup. Well, there were no earthquakes, and no terrorist bombs wiping out Spanish and Dutch royalty and other VIPs at the final.

Among the high points was the referee from Uzbekistan, who reffed the opening match. Kudos to him. Among the low points was Uruguay's cheating to reach the semi-finals. We listened to the 3rd/4th place playoff on the radio as our son was watching a movie on TV, and the booing when Suarez (Uruguay's cheater in chief) got the ball was audible above the droning of the vuvuzelas. Among the entertaining diversions was Paul the Octopus's uncannily accurate predictions of the results of the last few matches, which coincided with the feast of St Euphemia the Martyr and so provided material for my sermon on Sunday morning.

The opening and closing ceremonies seemed pretty good as such things go, but then we've had experience of such things before, having hosted the rugger World Cup an 1995 and the African Cup of Nations soccer tournament in 1996, both of which we won, and temporarily, at least, they helped to foster a sense of national unity. Those for the cricket world cup a few years ago were also quite memorable, even though we didn't win that time. And for this World Cup they were at least as good as the extravaganza put on at Beijing for the Olympic Games two years ago, without going on for too long.

At the closing ceremony I first became aware of the World Cup theme song, "Waka Waka", sung by Shakira (whom I'd never heard of). The song that I associate with the World Cup is the Coca Cola advertising song, "When I get older, I will be stronger", which seemed to be much more prominent, and probably shows just how commercial the whole thing is.

And here are some assessments of the World Cup by foreign journalists, some positive, some negative, noting that the core of the World Cup is big business.

Celizic: World Cup well worth the cost for South Africa:

Despite dire predictions, the stadiums were finished on time, the infrastructure improvements got done, security was leakproof and, other than some minor hearing loss, no one got hurt.

Spain won the Cup for the first time, the final was an entertaining — more so for all the fouls — match, an octopus became the Edgar Cayce of soccer psychics and the folks who keep track of such things say that as many as a billion people watched the final match.

Yeah, South Africa needs a lot of improvements in a lot of areas, just like most other countries in the world. Yeah, there are other places the reported $4 billion it took to build all the new stadiums could have been spent.

But this was money spent on an event that riveted South Africa’s attention for years and consumed it for a summer. It was money that made people feel good about themselves and their nation. It brought people from all over the world to a place they otherwise never would have visited. For the past month, I’m sure, life was pretty exciting in South Africa.

And, on the minus side: Bye South Africa, thanks for being had by us - The Irish Times - Mon, Jul 12, 2010:

And the corporate partners know how to use the muscle. In the World Cup zone you can only use an ATM if you have a Visa card. McDonalds are everywhere. This column attended a domestic league match here during a working visit eight years ago and the walk to the stadium was a long ramble and graze through a never-ending line of street vendors. For the World Cup, that particular flavour of Africa has been disappeared. Sponsors’ tents are the only thing selling anything within the commercial exclusion zone around the grounds.

The humourless nature of this pin-striped Mafia pervades everything. The heavy-handed treatment of the brewer Bavaria Beer for its amusing skirmishes was no surprise to those who had watched the local budget airline, Kulula, suffer the threat of legal action for using the mildly amusing slogan “the unofficial national carrier of you know what”. Even the acts which opened and closed the tournament to such high visibility were bought in from a international promoter with just a token smidgin of African music thrown in.

But even being aware of that, I think the positives outweighed the negatives. And some of the positives were apparent even before the opening match. Loftus Versveld rugby stadium in Pretoria needed to be prepared for the World Cup, so the Super-14 rugby matches were transferred to Orlando Stadium in Soweto, 50 miles away. The supporters of the Blue Bulls, the Pretoria rugby team, are largely Afrikaans-speaking, and twenty years ago most of them would have been supporters of the National Party. And what took place was a minor transformation.

Our transformation challenge: The Blue Bulls show the way! - South Africa - The Good News:

“Transformation is first about behaviour and second about attitude,” a sweaty, vuvuzela-blowing, horns-in-hard-hat Blue Bulls supporter said as he offered me a Captain and Coke in a shebeen deep in Orlando West. “I used to think it was the other way around, but crossing the boerewors curtain, coming to Soweto and watching die Bulle, my manne, wen has changed my life forever” he enthused.

“And if they’d lost?” I innocently enquired.

“Ag, voetsek man!” he laughed.

But therein lies the rub. But for the change of venue 60 000 Bulls supporters would not have made it to the semi-final and the final in Soweto. They would have played at Loftus and their attitude would have stayed north of the curtain.

When residents of the still largely white suburbs of Pretoria braaied on the streets with residents of the still overwhelmingly black Soweto, something has changed, and some of the wounds inflicted by apartheid are beginning to heal.

Where was that again?

I knew that many Americans had a poor knowledge of geography -- perhaps they don't teach it in school -- but I didn't realise it was this bad.

No wonder they haven't found Osama bin Laden after looking for more than 8 years.



Hat-tip to whoever sent this in an e-mail to my wife at work.

I gather that WGN9 is a broadcast station in Chicago.

'Near-riot' in the sky as fans miss World Cup semifinal

Several planes carrying fans to the World Cup semi-final in Durban last night were delayed because of congestion at Durban's brand-new King Shaka airport. Now the Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) is saying (according to this report) that they will not compensate fans who missed the match.

'Near-riot' in the sky as delayed flyers miss World Cup semifinal | Football | guardian.co.uk:

ACSA said problems arose because some VIP planes, which were supposed to land at King Shaka airport and later park at an old airport some 40 miles away, would not move. 'The congestion problem was caused by some private airplanes [which] refused to move ... after landing, therefore blocking landing space for other planes,' airports chief Monhla Hlahla told 702 Radio. 'Priority had to be given to VIPs who were caught up in the situation. We had too many flights wanting to land and at some point we had to instruct them to turn back.' The company insisted passengers would not be reimbursed.

The airport opened just two months ago, and remember what was said then:

FIFA.com - King Shaka airport ready to bring World to SA:

The newly constructed King Shaka International Airport in Durban came out with flying colours during a trial exercise on Thursday.

The mass trial at the airport in La Mercy involved the participation of an estimated 800 “fake passengers” and 300 staff members as part of the last leg of rigorous checks to ensure its preparedness ahead of its big day on 1 May, when it becomes operational.

“This trial has shown that King Shaka International is more than ready on all operations at the airport from landing and passenger/luggage transfer to safety and security, as well as road infrastructure, traffic around the airport, car rental and retail facilities and readiness of our personnel,” said it’s General Manager, Terence Delomoney.

The trial sees the culmination of the Operational Readiness and Transfer Program (ORAT) and it shows that King Shaka International Airport is now 100 per cent functional ahead of its official opening and of the 2010 FIFA World Cup™.

Spokesmen for ACSA have blamed the congestion on pilots of VIP jets who they said refused to park their aircraft where they were told to.

If that is so, then ACSA should name them and shame them

• Name the pilots.
• Name the owners of the aircraft
• Name the "VIPs" who flew aboard them.

If they are rich enough to fly around in private jets, they are rich enough to compensate the fans who missed the match because of their selfish behaviour.

So let's hear it from ACSA -- who were they?

World cup: hospitality and chauvinism

The World Cup is more than halfway over, and more than half the teams have gone home. The USA, England, the top teams from the 2006 World Cup -- France and Italy -- and many more. Ghana is the only African team left in the running, and many South Africans are supporting them.

But what will the returning teams and fans take with them when they go home? And what lasting effect will it have on South Africa?

Here's a rather nice article by an American Shari Cohen: South Africa Rolls Out the Ubuntu in Abundance:

So, if South Africa accomplishes nothing more on the playing field, it will still have won as a host country. I am a cynic, no doubt about that. And yet I have to admit, I'm a little teary just writing this because I leave for home next weekend and I will be leaving a little piece of myself here in South Africa. I just hope I have learned enough to bring back a little piece of Ubuntu to my homeland, where perhaps with a little caring and a little water, it will take root as naturally as it does here, in the cradle of civilization. It's funny, many people in America still ask me, 'are the people in Africa very primitive?' Yes, I know, amazing someone could ask that but they do. And when they do, I usually explain that living in a mud hut does not make one primitive, however, allowing kids to sell drugs to other kids and engage in drive-by killings -- isn't that primitive behavior? I think it is. When I think of Ubuntu and my recent experiences here, I think America has much to learn from Africa in general, in terms of living as a larger village; and as human beings who are all interconnected with each other, each of us having an affect on our brothers and sisters.

And remember, just two years ago there was xenophobic violence in many cities in South Africa, where people attacked foreigners. So perhaps the World Cup, and the welcome it encouraged us to give to foreign visitors, might make us a little more welcoming, and we can hope that the ubuntu won't disappear after the final.

And this will probably also be remembered as the World Cup of the vuvuzela.

But an e-mail has been going around pointing out that it is not so new. The vuvuzela has been annoying people since 1660!

The Coded Message of the Vuvuzela

Some love them, some hate them, but the 2010 soccer World Cup will probably be remembered as the World Cup that introduced the vuvuzela to the world. Our daughter, who used to be a crazy soccer fan before she went to study in Greece, watched the opening match, when South Africa drew against Mexico, and phoned afterwards to say she wanted a vuvuzela. We sent her one. She also thought it would be a useful thing for when her neighbours hold rowdy parties that go on till 4:00 am -- if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

But my blogging friend and former colleague at the University of South Africa Missiology Department has looked below the surface, to discover the unsuspected depths -- Tinyiko Sam Maluleke's Blog: The Coded Message of the Vuvuzela:

The sooner we will wake up to the fact that the Vuvuzela sound depicts a refusal by the working classes to entertain the middle and upper classes, the better. Vuvuzela blowing denotes a refusal not an inability to sing. It is an option for harmonic noise of a special kind rather than harmonic music of the familiar kind. It is assertiveness designed to impact and to solicit reaction – even if that reaction is the insertion of ear plugs, the switching of TV channels, or the technological and artificial screening out of the Vuvuzela sound during match broadcasts.

And now we are on the brink of the do-or-die match against France. If Bafana Bafana don't win convincingly, it's our last match of this World Cup. And it's rather sad to see how negative the media have been about it -- reporting that World Cup merchandise hasn't been selling so well since South Africa lost to Uruguay (who were aided by the ref and the linesman). The reason for the drop-off in the sale of merchandise is more easily explained by the fact that the competition is nearly halfway through, and those who were going to buy green-haired leopard dolls and the like have probably bought them all already. But if Serbia could beat Germany after losing to Ghana, surely South Africa can beat France.

And then there is the makarapa, the decorated miners' helmets popularised by Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates fans. If anything, they are even more a working-class symbol than the vuvuzela. I wonder if Tinyiko will decode the message of that?

Eighteen years ago we went to the unrevamped Socceer City stadium (without the fancy roof it has now) to watch Kaizer Chiefs play Crystal Palace, and Orlando Pirates played Mbabane Highlanders. It was the first international club match since South Africa had been readmitted to international football, so we were sporting Chiefs fan kit, yellow flags and caps (not the hard hats, though). And we found ourselves sitting among the Pirates supporters on the opposite side of the stadium. It would be unwise to sit there wearing Chiefs colours the following week, when there was a derby between the two. In the Crystal Palace beat Kaizer Chiefs 3-2, and the Bucs beat the Highlanders.

There were no vuvuzelas then, and the makarapas were just plain old miners' helmets and as it got dark, we could see the Chiefs supporters, on the other side of the stadium, turning on the headlamps, quite an impressive sight. We also did quite a lot of passive smoking, as the ganja fumes wafted among the spectators. I wonder if that happened at the World Cup, and if the suppliers paid advertising fees to FIFA?

Football fever and winter chills

Winter arrived today, with snow in several parts of the country. They say it's the first winter World Cup for several years. We watched Italy playing Paraguay last night, in Cape Town, in pouring rain. Cape Town, having a Mediterranean climate, is in the winter rainfall area, so the Italians must have felt right at home. I'm not sure about Paraguay, though.

We live in the summer rainfall area, so no snow around here (the picture below was taken in the Eastern Cape, and someone there e-mailed it to my wife). So we had bright winter sunshine, but there was a chilly wind, and no warmth in the sun at all. So it's a good time to test our new solar geyser. And the water was warm, but not very hot. Good for a quick shower, perhaps, but not a long soaking bath.



Meanwhile, our daughter in Athens wants a vuvuzela. Apart from tootling it when South Africa scores a goal, she wants to use it when her noisy neighbours have those parties that go on till 4:00 am. She said the ones they sell in Greece have mutes in them.

And they are spreading to other sports as well. Our local rugby team, the Blue Bulls, were playing in the final of the Super Fourteen tournament, and their home ground, Loftus Versveld, has been taken over for the soccer World Cup, so they held the final in Orlando Stadium in Soweto, accompanied by the droning of the vuvuzelas.

Next thing, they'll be playing them in church. The Orthodox Church doesn't normally use instruments in worship, but in Greek churches they have a sort of droning base called ison which sometimes sounds like a swarm of angry bees, and vuvuzelas make a very similar sound. The difference between a soccer stadium and church is that in church there is also a melody that goes above the ison.

Vuvuzelas take the world by storm

Thanks to the soccer World Cup, the monotonous droning of vuvuzelas might replace singing at football matches throughout the world. According to this post, more than 1,5 million of the plastic bugles have been sold in Europe. Afrikaanse vuvuzela’s vliegen over toonbank: al 1,5 miljoen | Poundsterling: financieel nieuwsoverzicht:

Ondanks het groeiende aantal klachten over de Afrikaanse vuvuzela's zijn de toeters een verkoophit. In Europa zijn er al meer dan 1,5 miljoen verkocht.

And "vuvuzela" is one of the trending keywords on Twitter.

My suggestion: reserve vuvuzelas for applause, when a goal is scored or something like that. It would be a pity if they replaced singing altogether.

Patriotic flags increase carbon dioxide emissions

Now that the World Cup has started, just about one car in three on South African roads (including ours) is sporting a national flag, sometimes two or more, and sometimes representing more than one country. However these also have certain drawbacks -- hat-tip to Big Blue Meanie for Bongo Bongoland

BBC NEWS | Flag drag will boost fuel costs:

Patriotic drivers showing their support for England with window flags during the World Cup will pay more in fuel costs, an academic has claimed.

An average car with two flags attached burns an extra litre of fuel per hour at an average of 70mph, said Manchester University's Dr Antonio Filippone.

He also calculated that 500,000 drivers all doing the same will create 2.8m kg of carbon dioxide emissions.

The extra fuel consumption is caused by the flags creating drag.

More police on patrol during World Cup - in Hull!

The World Cup starts today, and the squawking of hadedas has been augmented by vuvuzelas as people get in the mood for the opening match this afternoon.

Some nervous souls have been concerned that with all the police being busy with crowd and traffic control there might not be enough to keep tabs on ordinary criminals far from the football grounds. But at least the good citizens of Hull need have no fears, 6000 miles away from the opening match.

BBC News - More police on patrol in Hull during World Cup:

Police are planning an increased presence in Hull during the World Cup as officers try to reduce crime and violence, the force has said.

Humberside Police said it wanted to provide 'a reassuring presence' during the tournament.

Extra officers will be on patrol around the city's pubs and bars during every England game.

A campaign for fans to alternate between alcoholic and soft drinks was also started by the force.

And remember that Hull is north of London, the venue for the 2012 Olympic Games. I hope the British "Daily Mail" is reminding its readers of that.

Spreadsheet for World Cup fans

My wife Val is a football fanatic, and also has the calculating mind in our family, and has designed a spreadsheet to keep track of the World Cup results.

If anyone is a soccer stats freak, you might like to try it. A tiny corner of it is shown below, but there is much more than that.

You enter the results of each match as it is played, and it will predict who will play who in the next found. It also keeps track of yellow and red cards, and things like that.

Don't try it unless you are really interested if both football and stats, though. It's 5 Mb, and there's nothing in it that you won't be able to find on the web or in the paper the next day

South Africa		Pts	Mexico		Pts	Uruguay		Pts	France		Pts
F	A		F	A		F	A		F	A
0	0	0
			0	0	0
						0	0	0
									0	0	0

If you would like to try it, e-mail val.hayes@gmail.com and ask for a copy. It is in MS Excell, but it also seems to work in the Open Office spreadsheet program.

Val also notes:

In 1966 when England were the home team and won the world cup their first round group consisted of

England
Mexico
Uruguay
France

is this a sign!

Volcano eruption likely to disrupt 2012 Olympic Games

If you think the disruption to transport caused by Icelandic volcanic ash in the northern British Isles this week was bad, that is nothing compared to the volcanic eruptions that are predicted to disrupt the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

A likely scenario?

About as likely is this:

Daily Star: Simply The Best 7 Days A Week :: News :: World Cup South Africa 2010: Quake Fears:

WAYNE Rooney could be shaking in his boots at the World Cup – because of fears of an earthquake.

An expert has predicted the country is almost certain to be hit by a major natural disaster.


And it could strike during this summer’s footie tournament.


Dr Chris Hartnady has singled out Durban and Cape Town as the areas most likely to be hit by a quake.

As one commentator put it, the Brit media just jumped the shark.

Legends from a small country: 'Kill a Tourist Day'

An Irish actress was grazed by a bullet while riding in a taxi in Cape Town on New Year's Eve. And the story was retold in the Brit media, intertwined with urban legends, as urban legend fundi Arthur Goldstuck tells.

Legends from a small country: 'Kill a Tourist Day':

As it is, a report the following day in the Daily Mail, by Mail on Sunday correspondent James Tapper, kicked off with this strong innuendo: 'Actress Victoria Smurfit has revealed she came within inches of death when a gunman opened fire on a taxi she was travelling in while holidaying in South Africa – the nation that will stage the World Cup in just six months.'

Mr Tapper may like to know that a man was killed with a shotgun in what police believed to be a gang fight, in London just the previous week. As far as can be ascertained, not a single newspaper anywhere in the world linked this to the fact that London would be hosting the 2012 Olympic Games. Nor did they do so when a man was stabbed to death after chasing two muggers in London the same week. Nor did they do so when schoolboys were stabbed after a gang invaded a party in London that very weekend. Barely a day goes by without a violent incident in London involving killings and stabbings, but nary a connection to London being a host city in a mere two years' time.

And now, with 2010 (that's twenty-ten, not two thouand and ten) less than 100 days away we'll probably see more such stories. Twenty-ten, of course, is not the year, but the kick-off for the World Cup. There have been some discussions about whether it is twenty-ten or two-thousand and ten, but we've heard nothing but twenty-ten for the last six years. I thought I'd better record that, because in another century or so it may be disputed. There was a rather heated discussion in the alt.usage.english newsgroup recently about whether our ancestors called 1907 "nineteen seven" or "nineteen oh seven" or something else.

So just for the record, if Blogspot is still around in 2110, the year two-thousand and nine was followed by twenty-ten, both the year and the World Cup. We didn't call it "twenty-nine" because that could be confused with "29", but twenty-ten is OK, and has been OK for six years at least.

Oh yes, and it is quite common in South Africa for people to fire guns into the air to celebrate the New Year. Stupid, yes. Dangerous, yes. But still common, though not as common as it used to be (it's even more common in Albania, I believe, I wonder what sports event they could be hosting?)

And people have been killed because of such things. A few years ago a bullet went through a corrugated iron roof and illed a baby lying asleep in its cot. It was a rather unusual calibre, and police did ballistics tests, and worked out where the shot must have been fired from, and searched houses in the vicinity, and found some guy who had a vintage rifle and admitted that yes, he had fired it into the air on New Years morn, at or around midnight. He was charged with culpable homicide, and found guilty. The story of how the police solved the case is displayed in the police museum in Pretoria, so it's probably not an urban legend.

So if you're planning to come to South Africa for the World Cup, don't worry; 2010 starts long after New Year.

Confederations Cup 2009 and World Cup 2010

South Africans have often been criticised for poor attendance at international football matches, so that there is some concern about filling the venues for the Confederations Cup later this year, which is regarded as a curtain-raiser for the World Cup next year.

But perhaps the soccer administrators should look at other sports, as well as at their own past successes. There doesn't seem to have been much difficulty in filling stadiums for the IPL cricket matches, and they aren't even really international. But there has been a lot of imaginative promotion, while the Confederations Cup has been almost kept a secret.

Never mind the IPL -- look at the Africa Cup of Nations which South Africa hosted and won in 1996.

For months before the competition, publicity was good. Kids were urged to collect cards of the players and buy books to stick them in. Bookshops like the CNA had books with a history of the competition, information about the teams taking part and the key players, and biographies of the South African squad. I haven't seen that sort of think either for the Confederations Cup or the World Cup.

In 1996 school kids, even those who were not hardened soccer fans, knew most of the SA team members, which clubs they played for, their strengths and weaknesses. They urged their parents to buy the cards and the books, and as a result the parents, even if not hardened soccer fans, also learnt something about the teams, and the SA players.

But this time round there's nothing like that. Most people don't know who is playing, where they come from, or even what the Confederations Cup is.

It's time for the soccer administrators to pull finger and get some real publicity going.

Who governs South Africa?

The furore over the refusal of a visa to the Dalai Lama and the subsequent cancellation of a peace conference being held in association with the World Cup raises some other questions.

President Kgalema Motlanthe's fatuous statement that the reason was that they did not want the Dalai Lama upstaging the World Cup must really take the prize for stupidity. If anything was calculated to draw unfavourable attention it was the refusal of a visa. If the Dalai Lama had come, he would have spoken some nice peaceful sentiments at the conference, there would have been a few photo ops, and he would have gone home. Refusing a visa produces ten times the publicity, most of it negative. After all, anyone thinking of organisaing an international conference in South Africa will now think twice about it. If speakers and participants can be arbitrarily refused visas at the last minute for such utterly flimsy reasons, it would be safer to organise conferences somewhere else.

But there's more to it than that, and more than meets the eye.

A little snippet on SAFM radio this morning said that the ANC had nothing to do with the governrment's decision to refuse the visa.

And then, from the horse's mouth, Barbara Hogan, the Minister of Health, said that the government's decision to refuse the visa was a disgrace.

Now isn't the ANC the ruling party? Isn't Barbara Hogan, as Minister of Health, a member of the ANC and a member of the government? It's not as if she's a backbencher in parliament, she's a member of the cabinet.

So if the "government" that took the decision to exclude the Dalai Lama is not the ANC government, and doesn't include members of the cabinet, then just who is the "government"?

Have we been taken over by aliens?

Perhaps aliens from a certain large country in the Far East.

As someone else said on the radio, the traditional informal South African greeting will now become obligatory for all occasions, all protocols observed:

Howzit, my China.

Outcry over Dalai Lama visa refusal

Sowetan - News:

The government has been widely condemned for refusing to allow Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to attend a 2010 World Cup peace conference in Johannesburg on Friday.

Nobel peace laureate and former president FW de Klerk and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu have both said they would boycott the event in solidarity with the Dalai Lama.

The president's excuse that the reason for South Africa refusing the visa was that it did not want 'to remove the world's attention' from the 2010 Soccer World Cup preparations is not merely lame, but a gross abuse of executive power, and is probably unconstitutional.

We are rapidly regressing to the bad old days of the Vorster regime, when, for example, Basil d'Oliveira was refused a visa to play cricket in South Africa with the MCC cricket team in 1968. That led to South Africa being isolated from world cricket for 25 years. Perhaps we need another 25 years of isolation from world soccer, since it seems we still haven't learnt the lesson.

Our constitution is supposed to guarantee freedom of religion, and I hope someone challenges this in the constitutional court.

It is sad to see that the ANC, which fought for 70 years to liberate us from oppression, has now fully internalised the image of the oppressor, as Paolo Freire puts it, and is coming more and more closely to resemble the pigs in George Orwell's Animal farm. Albert Luthuli, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo must be turning in their graves.