Thread: Are you ready SA?

Hunting with the hounds and running with the hares, are you now? In Afrikaans: 'n draadsitter! Neither fish nor flesh. Neither Namibian nor South-African???

Does not deserve comment

My only worry is: Is Namibia ready?

I believe come 2010, we should have a bigger and stronger law enforcement arm. With the rising of crime in Namibia, we cannot afford to leave loopholes for possible crime escalation due to the flocking to RSA for 2010 worldcup unattended!!

I sincerely hope that, if there are any followers, they would be wearing a straitjacket in a nice soft cell.

SA better be ready!! What a question! It is a great privilege to be the natino chosen to host this tournament and to stuff this up would just confirm people's worst fears, prejudices and assumptions about our part of the world. So the organiser's better go absolutely out of their way that all the systems are in place and that we deliver the goods and the footballs, so to speak. Me, I'm reasonably positive but I am also still very worried about crime. Can you imagine a group of Americans or Europeans going out on the town to celebrate their team's success, say in Hilbrow without any local knowledge? I think we all nkow the result of that one but the point is that they should be able to do exactly that, weherever they are, eat least this was possible in Germany where there was very very little crime related to the tournament. Time will tell. Robbie

It's doubtful for sure SA is ready. Read this by one prominent commentator and it makes you wonder? What he says about Sa and the crime is true - I have been hijacked not once but twice, the experinces still hanting me and giving me nightmares,. Maybe I can say I'm used to it now and its part of life. But how about some visitors who take wrong turn with their hired car? SA has a responsiblity tothese people and so the talk must be more honest. I agree with Steinman that SA is not ready. This image he paitns of SA is true and we should all hope it comes to pass relatively peceafully....

We Have Just Landed in Johannesburg, We Hope You Have Enjoyed the Flight. Please Do Not Try to Collect Your Luggage.

Daniel Steinmann - 10 October 2009

Windhoek — To the world, South Africa is the African powerhouse, the only significant economy and the only meaningful place from which to enter the rest of the continent. Its superiority is overwhelmingly reflected in our otherwise dismal African statistics, in its domination on the sports field, in its markets, its infrastructure, its universities, its mines, its technology, its financial services, and in its claimed ability to host the FIFA Soccer World Cup next year.

But for us on its fringes, South Africa's dominance is often a source of minor and major irritation, not least since we are not bowled over by its appearance.

I think there is a huge amount of eyeblinding going on in our southern neighbour and former colonial master. Not even considering the shenanigans of its politicians, including the clown-like antics of its current president, I am more concerned with SA's real ability to live up to its popular image. In short, I think a large part of it is a farce.

It is a fact that South Africa is the murder capital of the world. The gruesome statistics are repeated often enough by many NGOs but one gets the impression, South Africans are blaze' over this fact and regard it as a mere inconvenience. Crime in SA is at the order of the day, not only in poor or rural areas - everywhere, especially in the suburbs. I am asking myself how are the morally sensitive First-worlders going to swallow this unpleasant reality when it starts hitting them on a daily basis.

I do not think SA is ready or able to host the soccer world cup. But more important, I do not think the world knows, or want to know, that the big lion of Africa cannot host a brass band march without a dozen people getting killed. Vicious crime on a daily basis everywhere in SA is as normal as going to the loo for your early morning pee. This hard fact will hit the soccer fans in the hardest way imaginable the moment they set foot on SA soil. I expect a severe backlash in international media, the moment the first soccer fan is robbed (I expect this on the very first day), and an even bigger outcry when the first visitor is murdered for a cellphone or a video camera. (This I expect within the first week.)

Earlier this week I spent some time at Hosea Kutako International Airport. It is always a source for reflection to count the number of arrivals and departures and to see where they are going to or coming from. Again, the statistics are skewed. By far the biggest number of flights come and go from South Africa, even more than our own local flights. And of these flights, there are about twice as many to and from Johannesburg as there are from Cape Town.

Striking a light conversation with a tour operator, I heard a very familiar lament. Of the 12 people he had to pick up, 8 arrived without their baggage. Now this has become a running joke in Namibia - South African Airways' proven ability to lose one's baggage, but it is always more than an inconvenience when you arrive in Marseilles, or London, or Frankfurt and there is no case to collect. When returning home, it is not such a big issue, except that I do not even want to try and speculate what it must cost SAA in Windhoek per month to deliver hundreds (if not thousands) of baggable items per month.

I know the airline and the SA airports company are not the same entity, but in the eyes of the flying public, for all practical intents, they are. Still talking to the same tour operator, he said he collects groups of people on average about every second week at Hosea Kutako. Those that fly in from Cape Town or Europe, normally do not have a problem with lost luggage. But those that come from Johannesburg invariably have to wait for items lost at Johannesburg International. And of the bags that do arrive, more than 80% have clearly been ransacked. There is always something missing, almost from every single piece of luggage, he said.

Talking to a Namibian Airports Company employee a little bit later, he informed me that they had a formal complaints channel with the airports company in Johannesburg, but that the number of complaints become so big, more staff had to be assigned just to handle this. No response ever came back from the SA airports company, so after a while the local airports operator simply stopped lodging complaints. It patently was a waste of time.

So, if the mighty powerful South Africa cannot control a hundred or so luggage handlers all working in a rather contained airport building, how do they ever want to convince the world that they will be able to control their many thousands of hard criminals who roam the entire country.

All possible signs indicate that the unmistakeable and clear answer to this thread is: YES, South Africa is ready. Now let the games commence and may thhe bet team win the 2010 Football World Cup! I think this will beone of the most passionate World Cups ever, and a testament to the spirit of the people of South Africa. I hope Nelson Mandela will be there to watch the opening game, although I gather that he may be too frail.

Agreed, joernHS but the world cup ain't over yet. Let's make an assessment whan all is done and dusted. I'm optimistic and hopeful, but as you know things are not entirely predictable always in our aprt of the world. Not that they are anywhere else, but slightly less so here - methinks!