Now hear this: the plastic horn, which is making impossible communication between players on the football field at the World Cup, is a South African tradition – not an African one. In some many aspects of life, South Africa presents not the face of Africa but of an outlier, an exception, an unrepresentative non-tropical zone of contested African-ness. The case 0f the irritating vuvuzela is typical of how South Africa, despite the conceit that the country embodies African-ness and thus can pretend that its existential reality provides an African map in miniature, in reality provides a distorted image of tropical Africa.
That is Gregg Zachary. He is right, but my response is: give it 6 months. I’m willing to bet it becomes an Africa-wide instrument henceforth.
I call BS! the “vuvuzela” had its origins in South America in the 70s, only been widely used in ZA since the 90s and mass produced in early 00′s. it’s not an african tradition, its a worldwide tradition/instrument!
[admittedly ripped off wiki]
my view is that the vuvuzela is a lot like smoking. harmful, but enjoyed by a good number. respect is needed to those who don’t indulge but don’t complain if you find yourself in a venue that it’ll be used!
No chance. People here hate it. Some idiot blowing one yesterday in Zanzibar nearly had his head taken off by an irate papaasi.
Yes, South Africa is different in many respects from the rest of Africa, and as a South African I wholeheartedly concede that in many ways South Africans are arrogant, xenophobic and even exploitative in their economic dealings with the rest of the continent. These instances are important to acknowledge and address.
But to add the vuvuzela to that category of criticism is ridiculous. South Africa, like ANY other country hosting the world cup, is primarily desirous of reflecting its own identity in the games. Obviously, it is great, and widely acknowledged in SA that this is the first time the World Cup is in Africa, but if anyone is irritated that the vuvuzela (a massively important part of South African soccer, the most popular sport in the country) does not reflect African-ness then they need to acknowledge that it is their own narrow-mindedness that is surprised by the fact that there exist differences between African countries (although South Africa is different in many ways, Senegal is also very different in many respects to Malawi, Kenya to Gabon etc.) and it is unfair to tolerate other countries incorporating their national identities while expecting South Africa to reflect only a unified continental image.
And by the way, not all of Africa is tropical and not all of South Africa is non-tropical (see KwaZulu-Natal province). And yes, soccer players are complaining that they’re finding it difficult to adjust to vuvuzelas, but they also complained about Adidas’ new ball with fewer panels & have gotten used to that.