O CAN da "nossa" Globalizacao...

(...)

Angola has spent an estimated $1bn (£615m) in building four new stadiums and associated infrastructure.
The work has been almost exclusively outsourced. A Chinese company using Chinese labour has been responsible constructing four gleaming state-of-the-art venues.
They rise impressively out of the dust, but are set to stand empty for most of the year.
A UK firm has laid the pitches, the television pictures are supplied by a French company, accreditation was provided by experts from Germany, the fake shirts available on the street were made in Portugal.

[Here]

N.B.: Faltou acrescentar a directa ascendencia portuguesa do "nosso" treinador nacional, do arquitecto do "nosso" estadio nacional do "nosso" 11 de Novembro do "nosso" CAN e da "nossa" coreografa-em-chefe ex-critica do sistema, que, claramente sem saber de que terra e', coitad@, a "nossa" terra foi parar como "nossa" escrava branca kaTchokwe', comandando suas tropas de elite e 'patrioticamente' arrotando postas do "nosso" bacalhau da Noruega em perfeito 'timming' nos "nossos" midia (who said that "sex doesn't sell"?!) sobre a "nossa" cultura e as "nossas" raizes, em nome dos "nossos" ancestrais, e blasfemando 'descomplexada' e mui 'educadamente' (porra!!!) contra essa tal de "nossa" globalizacao que nao ha' meio de acabar e que so' veio aumentar os "nossos" patrocinios e corromper o "nosso" internacionalismo proletario comunista (fidelista) , o "nosso" nacional socialismo de esquerda (stalinista) e mais o "nosso" patriot(eir)ismo (chauvinista)... tudo ao som da "nossa" musica classica europeia e rematado com uma bela sessao do "nosso" ballet classico kaTchokwe' protagonizado por um par de vultos extra-terrestres caidos sabe-se la' de que progresso e, finalmente com uma boa funjada a "nossa" maneira com ingredientes supostamente importados va-se la' saber de que alem mares!
Nosso (unico) Gooooolo!!!

[Oh yes, WE can... ehehehehehehe]

(...)

Angola has spent an estimated $1bn (£615m) in building four new stadiums and associated infrastructure.
The work has been almost exclusively outsourced. A Chinese company using Chinese labour has been responsible constructing four gleaming state-of-the-art venues.
They rise impressively out of the dust, but are set to stand empty for most of the year.
A UK firm has laid the pitches, the television pictures are supplied by a French company, accreditation was provided by experts from Germany, the fake shirts available on the street were made in Portugal.

[Here]

N.B.: Faltou acrescentar a directa ascendencia portuguesa do "nosso" treinador nacional, do arquitecto do "nosso" estadio nacional do "nosso" 11 de Novembro do "nosso" CAN e da "nossa" coreografa-em-chefe ex-critica do sistema, que, claramente sem saber de que terra e', coitad@, a "nossa" terra foi parar como "nossa" escrava branca kaTchokwe', comandando suas tropas de elite e 'patrioticamente' arrotando postas do "nosso" bacalhau da Noruega em perfeito 'timming' nos "nossos" midia (who said that "sex doesn't sell"?!) sobre a "nossa" cultura e as "nossas" raizes, em nome dos "nossos" ancestrais, e blasfemando 'descomplexada' e mui 'educadamente' (porra!!!) contra essa tal de "nossa" globalizacao que nao ha' meio de acabar e que so' veio aumentar os "nossos" patrocinios e corromper o "nosso" internacionalismo proletario comunista (fidelista) , o "nosso" nacional socialismo de esquerda (stalinista) e mais o "nosso" patriot(eir)ismo (chauvinista)... tudo ao som da "nossa" musica classica europeia e rematado com uma bela sessao do "nosso" ballet classico kaTchokwe' protagonizado por um par de vultos extra-terrestres caidos sabe-se la' de que progresso e, finalmente com uma boa funjada a "nossa" maneira com ingredientes supostamente importados va-se la' saber de que alem mares!
Nosso (unico) Gooooolo!!!

[Oh yes, WE can... ehehehehehehe]

My Weku, Football & All Things African

My Weku means “My Family” in Ga (spoken in Accra, Ghana).

It is also the name of a brand new site on All Things African by Ghanaian Nii Thompson.
More than a site, it is a well-conceived project aimed at celebrating Africa across lots of areas and a première online resource for the review, analysis and promotion of African Culture in its entirety.

I am honoured to be guest-blogging there today, at Nii’s kind invitation, with my first post for this year, "2010-The Year of Afrika 50 Years On", which includes some thoughts on the CAN tournament just ended in Angola.

As I told Nii the other day, I wasn’t happy that his team, the “Black Stars”, put my own team, the “Palancas Negras”, out of the tournament earlier on, but I was hoping that they'd win it! Sorry that it wasn’t the case, as I just learned that they lost to "The Pharaohs" of Egypt in the final…

But congratulations are due all around anyway, as all attentions now move on to SA 2010!

So, you are all invited to join The African Family here.

My Weku means “My Family” in Ga (spoken in Accra, Ghana).

It is also the name of a brand new site on All Things African by Ghanaian Nii Thompson.
More than a site, it is a well-conceived project aimed at celebrating Africa across lots of areas and a première online resource for the review, analysis and promotion of African Culture in its entirety.

I am honoured to be guest-blogging there today, at Nii’s kind invitation, with my first post for this year, "2010-The Year of Afrika 50 Years On", which includes some thoughts on the CAN tournament just ended in Angola.

As I told Nii the other day, I wasn’t happy that his team, the “Black Stars”, put my own team, the “Palancas Negras”, out of the tournament earlier on, but I was hoping that they'd win it! Sorry that it wasn’t the case, as I just learned that they lost to "The Pharaohs" of Egypt in the final…

But congratulations are due all around anyway, as all attentions now move on to SA 2010!

So, you are all invited to join The African Family here.

1960-2010: “The Year of Africa” 50 Years On (I)

Here we are – in 2010!
The beginning of a new decade and of the celebration of a founding moment in History: half a century since 1960, popularly known as “The Year of Africa” – the year of independence for 17 African countries.

Angola, however, was not among them. There and then I was born amidst a host of spurring events that would lead to the 14-year long struggle for independence that ensued from the following year until 1974. Elsewhere in the region, in that year events such as the Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa were also to shape the continent’s 1960s decade.

Today, 50 years after “The Year of Africa” and on the way to the 35th anniversary of its independence from Portugal, Angola hosts an event that is also meant in some way to celebrate Africa and its achievements, in this instance in the realm of the 'king of sports': football and its Cup of African Nations (CAN).


Unfortunately, though, in an incident still reminiscent of Africa’s colonial legacy of arbitrarily drawn borders by the Europeans at the Berlin Conference , its start was stained by the saddening and indefensible event of a guerrilla attack, in Cabinda, to the participating team of Togo while in the bus on the road to their dreams of glory and victories at the stadiums so painstakingly built over the last few years for this continental event. Sad and damning.


Sad for all of us, but damning only for a faction of the FLEC (Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda) pro-independence movement. 50 years of so many bloody struggles for independence in Africa, and markedly in Angola, have surely left a number of profound lessons to be learned from for all of us. Among them, that indiscriminate, senseless bloodshed is hardly the way to achieve anything – certainly not immediate independence, self-determination or, perhaps most importantly, self-respect... But it has happened and all we have left is our deep sorrow for the team of Togo, the families of the athletes dead in the attack and their country.


Let us now hope that the CAN 2010 in Angola pursues its road to the success it deserves!

Here we are – in 2010!
The beginning of a new decade and of the celebration of a founding moment in History: half a century since 1960, popularly known as “The Year of Africa” – the year of independence for 17 African countries.

Angola, however, was not among them. There and then I was born amidst a host of spurring events that would lead to the 14-year long struggle for independence that ensued from the following year until 1974. Elsewhere in the region, in that year events such as the Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa were also to shape the continent’s 1960s decade.

Today, 50 years after “The Year of Africa” and on the way to the 35th anniversary of its independence from Portugal, Angola hosts an event that is also meant in some way to celebrate Africa and its achievements, in this instance in the realm of the 'king of sports': football and its Cup of African Nations (CAN).


Unfortunately, though, in an incident still reminiscent of Africa’s colonial legacy of arbitrarily drawn borders by the Europeans at the Berlin Conference , its start was stained by the saddening and indefensible event of a guerrilla attack, in Cabinda, to the participating team of Togo while in the bus on the road to their dreams of glory and victories at the stadiums so painstakingly built over the last few years for this continental event. Sad and damning.


Sad for all of us, but damning only for a faction of the FLEC (Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda) pro-independence movement. 50 years of so many bloody struggles for independence in Africa, and markedly in Angola, have surely left a number of profound lessons to be learned from for all of us. Among them, that indiscriminate, senseless bloodshed is hardly the way to achieve anything – certainly not immediate independence, self-determination or, perhaps most importantly, self-respect... But it has happened and all we have left is our deep sorrow for the team of Togo, the families of the athletes dead in the attack and their country.


Let us now hope that the CAN 2010 in Angola pursues its road to the success it deserves!