drum and bassy mixxy goodness from one of South Africa’s premium DJs – the almighty Zyrex!
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Tag Archive: South Africa
This is a tale that begins back in time. In the dark and secret corner of IRC that i frequent i met this young black south african guy with musical aspirations. After hearing his shit i thought he showed promise and so provided all the advice that i could, feeling like my few tidbits of knowledge in the area and my taste for music might be advantagous. After a while he disappeared.
Today he is back and he has tuneage.
Speaking of wombles, and found through that post, there’s this on the south african world cup.
As my last post about south africa and the world cup went down so well in the comments, some of which i had to delete because they were so, um, enthusiastic i would be simply remiss to to blog this:
By Dave Zirin – March 10, 2010, Johannesburg – You see it the moment you walk off the plane: a mammoth soccer ball hanging from the ceiling of Johannesburg International Airport festooned with yellow banners that read, “2010 Let’s Go! WORLD CUP!” If you swivel your head, you see that every sponsor has joined the party – Coca Cola, Anheuser-Busch – all branded with the FIFA seal. It’s when your head dips down that you see another, less sponsored, universe. Even inside this gleaming state-of-the-art airport, men ranging in age from 16-60 ask if they can shine your shoes, carry your bags, or even walk you to a cab. It’s the informal economy fighting for breathing room amidst the smothering sponsorship. Welcome to South Africa, a remarkable place of jagged contrasts: rich and poor; black and white, immigrant and everyone else. On a normal week, it’s the dispossessed and the self-possessed fighting for elbow room. But the 2010 World Cup, which starts in 90 days, has taken these contrasts and propelled them into conflict.
The present situation in South Africa could be called “Invictus in reverse.” For those who haven’t had the pleasure, the film Invictus is about the way Nelson Mandela used sport, particularly the near all-white sport of rugby to unite the country after the fall of apartheid. The coming World Cup has in contrast, provoked the camouflage of every conflict to present the image of a united nation to the world. As Danny Jordaan, the World Cup’s lead South African organizer said, “People will see we are African. We are world-class.” Note that the concern is about what the world sees, not what South Africans see. What South Africans see, as one young man told me, is, “Football ..looting our country.” The contrasts are becoming conflicts because the government at the behest of FIFA is determined to put on a good show, no matter the social cost.
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If you want to get the womble connection you have to follow this link to the whole post.
I have friends in capetown, so i’m throwing this up to show some love. Not that there isn’t anything here that they don’t already know.
Cape Town is in a state of serious dislocation because of next summer’s football World Cup. The huge new 68,000-seater stadium at Green Point is virtually complete but there are roadworks everywhere, as the city tries to fulfil its public transport plans on time. Except that there is now no hope that it will, because it has belatedly discovered that the vaunted Bus Rapid Transit system, which was supposed to cost 1.5 billion rand, will cost close to three times as much, which the city does not have, so the whole project is being rolled back up, with unforeseeable consequences for those who want to get to the stadium for the games. In one way the cancellation of the BRT is something of a relief, since the black cab associations, seeing it as unwelcome competition, had declared war on it. This is not a metaphor: judging by their previous efforts the war would have involved petrol bombing buses, drive-by shootings and occasional hand grenades thrown into bus queues.
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The World Cup, it is everywhere said, will market South Africa around the world, create jobs and be highly beneficial to the country’s development. In fact, it will be very much for the delectation of the well-off. At least in ancient Rome the poor got to see the chariot races and gladiatorial contests, but there is little chance of the same happening here. In practice, one may be sure, it will be the new elite who will flock to the games in their Mercs and BMWs. It is quite common in South Africa for higher civil servants or mayors and councillors from poor areas to award themselves trips to the Olympics or other such international events, often taking hundreds of hangers-on with them, all paid for from the public purse. There is little doubt that the World Cup, being local, will see more of that sort of thing than ever.
EITHER/OR/BORED 