The Beautiful Game – by Ciarán O’Carroll

Every four years, football fans, and foes, gather together to cheer, shed tears, and no doubt drink, to one of the greatest sporting events around: the FIFA Football World Cup.

This year, this most magical of events, will be held in South Africa.

Preparations have been underway, for a number of years now, and the South African government, has lavished an estimated €1.3bn on the building of world-class venues. The most spectacular of all is apparently to be, the stadium itself.

For most men, and quite a few women, the events will be the highlight of the summer festivities 2010.

However there is one place where it will not be greeted with euphoria.
The people of Tin Can Town (or Blikkiesdorp), South Africa, are boycotting the world cup. And no it’s not because they are outraged that Henry’s handball went unpunished.

In 2008 the South African Government built Tin Can Town. It was built for an estimated €3.25m. Its sole purpose: to provide “emergency housing” for about 650 people. The re – housing took place because those people had been occupying buildings, in the way of a world cup development: The N2 Gateway Project.

As was the case with the Chinese Olympics in 2008, the poor and vulnerable locals were viciously suppressed and evicted from their homes, so that there can be an uninterrupted view of the ‘beautiful game’.

Today there are not 650 people in the settlement; there is more like 15,000. They all struggle to live, in around 3,000 wood and iron structures. More are arriving all the time. At the time of its construction city officials said the site was designed to cater for, at most, 1,667 families.

The reality of life in Tin Can Town can often be brutal. Families of six or seven people are crammed into tiny living spaces. There are no shower facilities; illnesses such as HIV and Aids are rampant. Toilets are found inside grim concrete cubicles, so small, the locked door presses against the user’s knees.

Police and Apartheid era riot vehicles are stationed permanently at the only
entrance.

The testimony from the locals is damning:


Badronessa Morris, 47, complained: “The police treat us like animals. They swear at us, pepper spray us, search us in public, even children. At 10 o’clock you must be inside”

Blikkiesdorp resident Samsam Ahmad, a Somali refugee, who has two small children fears death and cannot sleep. “We were told we’re going to get protection but our lives are in danger. Every night people knock on our doors and say they want to burn us. My children’s lives are at risk. We don’t sleep at night and don’t know how long we will stay here,” says Ahmad.

This June, down the road from where Basronessa and Samsam live, football players will be relaxing in their training resort with all weather pitches and a spa.

Henry, and that handball, is annoying. But if there is ever a reason to be angry it is because 2,500 people living with AIDS, have no medical care. Be angry because parents send their children to school starving because they can’t afford to feed them; and because people are treated like animals just for being poor.

In solidarity with the residents of Tin Can Town I’m boycotting the world cup. Injustice cannot be worldwide sporting entertainment on TV, not in China, not in South Africa, not anywhere.