The 2010 World Cup in South Africa is under way. The opening ceremony has taken place at Johannesburg’s 94,000-capacity Soccer City. Thousands of fans gathered for the launch. The hosts face Mexico at 1500 BST. This year’s World Cup is the 19th staging of the event and the first time it has ever taken place on the African continent. On April 14, Jean-Sébastien Brettes, Melissa Gundlach, and Nicholas Kuhn all New Yorkers (originally from Europe & Africa) left for Africa to start “We’re Going to the World Cup!” followed by a small camera crew, making a pilgrimage down the continent from Morocco to South Africa, arriving in time to attend the 2010 World Cup. The 3-month journey takes them across 11 countries and over 5,000 miles.
The WGWC team reports from Morocco:
The time in Morocco was quite intense. We spent most of our time in Casablanca and it’s neighborhoods, where we visited what makes up the splendour of this city, including the great Mosque Hassan II, local markets, several beaches and the Medina of Casablanca. All of these places were astonishing and we were impressed by the kindness of people and their warm welcome.
Many thanks to the Moroccans we met and who befriended us. Through them, we were able to interview some key people in the Moroccan soccer world. The former doctor of the 2 greatest Moroccan clubs was one of them. He made it possible for us to attend the great derby between Raja and WAC. The atmosphere in the stadium was amazing, we could feel the passion for soccer in this wonderful country!! Unfortunately, we, were kicked out of the stadium because we wanted to shoot some footage during the game. We won’t do it again, we swear! Check out our derby experience in our short video, posting on Friday 4/30.
Click here to view the embedded video.
We also had the chance to attend a training at the Raja Club and then to hang out with Raja stars the rest of the day, sharing private moments with them. We’d like to thank all of them for their openness and candor!
One of our other destinations was one of Casablanca’s beaches where we were welcomed into several soccer games with local players. JSB was accepted right away by the kids, and thoroughly enjoyed playing his first game with the kids and the sound of the waves behind him. This too can be seen in a video posted on Wed 4/28.
Click here to view the embedded video.
In all, the WGWC team spent 11 days in Morocco. During their stay, they also had the opportunity to attend the Casablanca derby on April 26th, met the coach of the Raja Junior Team, and spend a whole day with a Moroccan soccer star. Finally, after a little over a week in Casablanca, we spent our last week-end in Marrakech where we rested a bit before leaving for the airport of Casablanca and onward to Cote d’Ivoire. A huge thank you and many hugs goes out to our gracious host, Florence Verley, for accommodating us in her beautiful home, Dar Tasmayoun.
Click here to view the embedded video.
So far, the pilgrimage has covered Morocco, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, and are currently in Cameroon. And will soon be on their way to Congo / DRC, and finally, on to South Africa. Along the way, they intend to experience the customs and cultures through the background of African soccer stars, take the pulse of “football fever”, often finding themselves in pickup games.
Next Ivory Coast. Stay tuned.
]]>The year 2009 will likely be remembered as the beginning of a more assertive phase in Chinese foreign policy, as seen in Beijing’s stance on reform of the international financial system, its massive investments in foreign countries, and in particular, its investment in and acquisition of energy and natural resource assets. At the same time, China’s progress is made in the very competitive global arms markets. Although China is far behind the leaders of conventional weapons supply, their offensive is global and it increasingly includes Africa. China sells arms to states from which it buys oil and gas or where it has gained access to explore for oil or gas (e.g. Sudan). China is also competing with the very strong role that Russia and Ukraine play in the African arms market, providing knock-offs of Russian-made weapons systems.
Military Expenditure by region (source: SIPRI Yearbook 2009, Summary)
Arms transfers to Africa can not be considered a strong weapons market by global standards, at least for now. The largest importers of weapons in Africa—South Africa and Algeria—import less than 10% of the world’s weapons. However, even small volumes of transfers of conventional weapons can have a significant impact on the region.
Militarization of Algeria, for example, plays an increasing role in recent levels of fighting there. Morocco, Algeria’s neighbor and long-term rival, embarked on a significant military modernization programme involving supplies from USA, France and Netherlands. Chad’s arms imports have reached all time high in recent years. Kenya is also a strong importer of weapons from Ukraine. In 2008, a consignment of heavy weapons was hijacked by Somali pirates while en route from Ukraine to Kenya and possibly partially ended in Southern Sudan. Furthermore, Sudan and Somalia are listed on the list of the 5 least peaceful nations on earth used for the Global Peace Index (GPI), which seeks to determine what cultural attributes and institutions are associated with states of peace.
Let’s keep our eyes on related reports published by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in Sweden. By an unfortunate correlation, Sweden, besides being associated with peace, is also a strong player in the international weapons market.
Written by Mark Bajkowski.
Mark, born in Poland, is a Jack of all trades, master of none, who lives in New York since 1979. Mark has an unusually wide range of interests and is known to relate well to the people half of his age. Since his early childhood, he felt a curious relation to Africa, which unavoidably brings up the controversial subject of multiple life experiences.
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New York street during Winter Holidays.
Seeing New York City in December must feel like being transported to another world for some Africa-born visitors when visiting it for the first time. And it is not about snow: Africans from parts of Morocco, Tunisia, Lesotho, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and South Africa might be well familiar with it. It can be more about intense commercial push supported by intense audio-visual winter holiday hoopla present all around. To some New Yorkers, especially those affected by recent global financial downturn, it may feel depressing to live daily in this commercial carnival. After all, winter holidays, besides some social side-effects, do not change peoples’ lives; on the contrary, they can make many lives more difficult by traditionally adding to the already obscene credit card debt.
Unrelated to my goodwill to contribute to the warmth of winter holidays I decided tonight to watch a documentary titled “Slavery: A Global Investigation” that presents the problem of child slave labor and a common greed that stimulates it. Then, I quickly realized that the winter holidays and the torturing of children have much more in common than I could even imagine. Let me explain.
In accordance with commerce statistics every winter holidays’ season triggers a sure increase of production of goods and their sales. One of the commodities that experience the winter holiday sale boom is cocoa – its production and sales double during that period of time. In accordance with the documentary, unsurprisingly, the price of cocoa directly affects the volume of the related slave labor. That got me interested in finding out how much exactly of relative suffering we are talking about here.
The above chart shows that the cocoa price near quadrupled in last 10 years and increased over 30% in 2008 alone; for this reason, it gets attention of child slave holders apparently interested in maximizing their profits. Occasional price drops also increase the volume of child slavery. But, you may ask, what all that have to do with Africa? Quite a lot: Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon alone supply 2/3 of world’s cocoa; therefore, the most child slaves, working specifically with cocoa beans, live in Africa. Most of the cocoa is consumed in the West: 42.7% in Europe, 23.7% in the Americas, and only 14.3% of it in Africa (2007 data).
It’s safe then to state that during the winter holidays, while we are trying to promote love for children, we are also promoting their suffering.
I seem to clearly hear the words of one of the slave laborers who spoke in the documentary. He confessed that, in spite of working with cocoa beans for years, he never tasted chocolate. When asked what message he has for people in the West who love to consume chocolate, he simply said “They are eating my flash”. He is tragically right.
I am sure that I will not be able to have any chocolate during this winter holidays because of how much suffering, I just saw, the cocoa relates to. But, more so, I wonder how we all can make sure that we do not aid exploitation and torture of children. One of the ways would be to use a local, independent inspection and certification of suppliers. But such a network carries a substantial logistical and operational cost. Are we all ready to pay for it or it should be entirely handled by large food conglomerates profiteering from cocoa? Visit Cocoa Campaign page to find out more.
An estimated 44.6 million child laborers in Asia, 23.6 million in Africa, 5.1 million in Latin America, and on other continents, are waiting for their holidays. Click this map link to see global child labor saturation. In a mean time, have happy winter holidays, if that is even possible in a wider context of things.
Written by Mark Bajkowski.
Mark, born in Poland, is a Jack of all trades, master of none, who lives in New York since 1979. Mark has an unusually wide range of interests and is known to relate well to the people half of his age. Since his early childhood, he felt a curious relation to Africa, which unavoidably brings up the controversial subject of multiple life experiences.
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Barack Obama jabs Guinea's Captain Moussa Dadis Camara
US President Barack Obama has stopped Madagascar, Guinea and Niger from receiving trade benefits for a year. Mr Obama said that each of these countries “have experienced an undemocratic transfer of power” and that they had failed to make “continual progress” in meeting US requirements for The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act. The Act was set up in 2000 ostensibly to offer tangible benefits including job creation for African countries who must adapt their economies to the free market.
The Act requires countries to show they are working towards, among other things, introducing the rule of law and political pluralism, the elimination of barriers to US trade and investment and efforts to combat corruption. However, Mauritania was re-instated to the programme. A coup took place in Mauritania last year, but an election was held his year that, although it returned the coup leader Gen Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz to power, was deemed by observers to be transparent.
Those favoring the African Growth and Opportunity Act bill see it as presenting a new opportunity for Africa in private sector trade and investment. Supporters also argued that the bill expands eligibility of African countries, increase women’s input in growth and development, and promote democracy and good governance within sub-Saharan Africa. Those opposing it cite lack of consultation with African civil society, inadequate support for debt relief initiatives, potential disruption of regional integration, and unrealistic or ill-advised eligibility standards.