United Kingdom websites are abuzz with comments from irate football fans who complain about the blowing of the Vuvuzela during matches of the Fifa World Cup in South Africa. The vast majority of these comments call for the banning of the instrument from stadiums. Sensitive British football fans (if that is not a contradiction in terms) complain about the noise, which they claim is so loud and irritating that it becomes impossible to watch a game with the sound on the television turned up.
Africans are known for their singing and dancing, some claim, but this is now all drowned out by the incessant noise from Vuvuzela’s. The background noise to the world cup has become the sound of a huge swarm of bees. This spoils the atmosphere of the football game as one can hardly hear the fans cheering and singing.
In any case, this would never have been allowed at any Football World Cup organized in Europe, so why allow it in South Africa? It is just plain rude to make such a racket when the whole world is watching. This is just not how things are done in Europe, where TV viewers are used to the atmosphere provided by the singing, chanting and shouting of the spectators. The Vuvuzela is spoiling the whole world cup for Europeans!
Now, I am not sure if I am watching the same television feed as the British, but the claim that the noise made by Vuvuzela’s at football games is so loud that it makes it impossible to watch the game on television with the sound turned on seems just plain ridiculous. At most it provides a background noise which might be monotonous but surely is not ear-splitting. So, why are so many people so upset?
Of course, the critics are entitled to express their dislike of the soundtrack to the 2010 World Cup. Let’s face it, that buzzing noise is not the most musical or attractive sound that human kind is capable of producing, and expressing a dislike for the Vuvuzela is therefore perfectly understandable. Personally I have come to love the whole Vuvuzela thing – especially the vibe it generates when one is there at the match oneself - but I understand that, like olives or blue cheese, this is an acquired taste not shared by all.
But something about the tenor of all these complaints have gotten up my nose. Maybe I am overtly sensitive or maybe I am intellectualizing something that is no more than a personal preference, but I smell more than a whiff of cultural imperialism in much of the criticism of our beloved Vuvuzela.
It seems to me what underlies much of the criticism, is a set of rather problematic assumptions.
First, much of the criticism seems to assume that the norm of what should be acceptable (and therefore permissible), must be based on what happens in Europe. “This is how we do it in Europe. We know best and always have. Therefore you must follow our example like good imperial subjects to demonstrate to us that you are also civilized and up to our standards.”
This rather blinkered and prejudiced lack of respect for difference suggests that many critics of the Vuvuzela labour under a false sense of cultural superiority. They view their cultural and social beliefs and practices as the undisputed norm to which all others must conform, without any understanding of, or respect for, the multitude of ways in which different societies and people might have chosen different ways of being in the world. This is the very essence of cultural imperialism.
Second, all the talk about Africans being such good singers and dancers and complaints that viewers are missing out on this because of the Vuvuzela, plays on a racial stereotype. It is as if, having been exposed to stereotypical images of the happy dancing and singing natives, some of the critics cannot come to grips with a very different narrative of what South Africa is all about. What they want, perhaps, is for all of us to sing and dance and smile – just like the performers in Ipi Tombi and Umoja who have been entertaining the baas in theaters in the West End for many years.
Now we have the cheek not to conform to the stereotypes they have been expecting to have confirmed. Instead, we have taken to this cheap, plastic trumpet (for better or for worse) and have made it the soundtrack to the Soccer World Cup – which is really their Soccer World Cup – and thus have shown an agency and an independence of mind and spirit which we as the erstwhile colonized are not supposed to possess.
In the process, we have taken something away from them – their World Cup experience as they want it! – and made it into something slightly different. We are not playing by the rules, which dictate that we should be grateful for having been selected to host the World Cup and we should consequently make sure that we provide a World Cup experience to Europeans as close as possible to what they are used to and what they expect.
Sadly I suspect it is not much use to point out the cultural imperialism underlying some of the criticism of the Vuvuzela. If one is so deep in denial about one’s own prejudices, and so blind to the fact that one is embedded in (and to some extent a prisoner of) a particular culture, it is difficult to accept that one’s own views and normative commitments are not universal and inherently superior truths handed down by God, but merely one of many ways of making sense of the world.
Maybe it’s better to laugh and shrug one’s shoulders – while putting some extra effort into blowing your Vuvuzela as loud as possible.
Idiots guide to Blowing the Vuvuzela: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/video/2010/jun/15/vuvuzela-an-idiots-guide
Note that Britain isn’t playing in the World Cup – England is.
@ walton
at least for now
When I have been to English football grounds, I have had to listen to misogynistic, expletive-laden songs sung by thousands, because that is the culture of watching live football in England. In South Africa, the culture involves the vuvuzela. One Englishman asked me if I was proposing that two wrongs make a right, when I suggested that they ban the rude songsd, which some find offensive, in return for which we ban the vuvuzela, which some find offensive. That is quite clearly not what I am suggesting: but if they are two wrongs, why does the eurocentric one get to prevail? And Pierre, you’re quite right – it’s just a droning in the background when you watch it on television. At the stadiums it’s different, and it’s louder, but it’s part of the atmosphere. Sky News (Eamonn Holmes) suggested that it’s impossible to concentrate on the game and play the vuvuzela simultaneously. Strange how they manage to sing songs, combined with patterns of clapping, and manage to concentrate.
Pierre, I jokingly tackled the vuvuzela issue (again) yesterday here:
http://6000.co.za/ban-the-vuvuzela/
but I (deliberately) avoided any reference to the reasoning behind the sensationalist reporting and barmy comments on the issue.
Sadly, I think you are absolutely correct in both the underlying reasons behind “Europe’s” dislike of the vuvuzela and in the futility of trying to explain those underlying reasons to them.
As I said – You want to hold the World Cup in Africa? Then have an African World Cup.
Oh – and Kirsten – I would actually disagree that it’s louder at the stadium.
Even my 71 year old mother in law who went to the Italy game with us last night was amazed at the lack of “permanent ear-damage” she sustained having heard all the fuss beforehand.
Walton, I stand corrected but I thought people in Scotland, Wales and Ireland also watch football and also read and comment on newspaper websites of English papers like the Guardian, the Independent and the Times.
Don’t know about cultural imperialism, but you sure do get stereotyped as a bit of a chump if blowing a one-note horn or doing a silly on-one-leg-then-on-the-other-leg dance is part of your culture. Could be that it’s all a racist plot to make black people look stupid.
Replace “European” with anything else (“African”, “American”, “English”, “Australian”) and the whole article still makes sense.
Regardless of what culture you were born into or embraced, because it’s yours it’s “normal”… to you, at least. Thinking that your normal is normal for humans as a whole is a sin that’s certainly not limited to the Europeans.
But besides all that, it’s a bunch of English (as in from England) people whining. That’s their national sport.
Hi Pierre,
Thanks for the fascinating read. The tenor of the objections to the vuvu have been bothering me as well.
While I’m personally not a fan, I watch soccer once every 4 years, so I don’t feel that I really have the right to complain.
It even seems to have gotten more popular since last years Confed Cup when we had a bunch of foreigners objecting. It’s almost as though people have decided to rub the faces of the complainers in it.
I know that’s why I learned to blow one.
The vuvuzela is noisy when just blown for the sake of making a noise, it is however supposed to be played to a tune.
Have the armchair idiots not heard of the mute button?
If you flick between SABC1 and DSTV the background noise is considerably higher on SABC1…..
I don’t think it is an Empire/Superiority thing, its called a whinging POM, btw I’m English, over twenty years in southern/central Africa…..
Hi Pierre
Sorry to interrupt all these tuneful riffs on the vuvuzela, but could I make a request about your quote of the week? I thought de Botton’s comments about distraction interesting and wanted to read further. Please would you include link a link to the source in future. I managed to track down this one:
http://theschooloflife.typepad.com/the_school_of_life/2010/03/alain-de-botton-on-distraction.html
Thanks
@Pierre
According to news reports (OK not exactly gospel as a source) over One MILLION Vuvuzelas have been sold in Britain at supermarkets and on e-bay.
Could it be that the good burghers in Britain are “voting with their wallets”, or put another way, the views of some overseas commentators, pundits and journalists are les than 100% representative of the views of soccer fans?
I’m afraid I don’t buy all this theorising about cultural supremacy and retrograde colonial attitudes. I live in South Africa and am happy to enjoy any sort of chanting, singing, dancing or musical instrument playing that accompanies sports matches. A good example is the band that accompanies every cricket match at St Georges Park. But the plain and simple truth is that the vuvuzela is not a musical instrument. It produces NOISE. A long ugly fart of sound. I doubt all your whinging poms would be whinging if the horns produced something harmonious instead of the cacophany that accompanies every match.
It reminds me of one of those children’s parties where a misguided parent hands out ‘party packs’ which include a whistle or buzzer or similar. The adults have to stand around trying to hold conversations while all around them mindless kids zoom around making as much noise as they can.
Most of the vuvuzela blowers are, however, adult, I believe. How many, I wonder, of them go home after the match – or after a long day in the office – crack open a beer, sit back in their lounges and chill out to a little light vuvuzela music?
Second, it is not limited to the soccer matches. I have to endure the tuneless blasts of wandering idiots passing by my window at 3am, at 4am, during breakfast, lunch and supper. Not to mention every second tv and radio advert featuring the damned things.
6000 – I think the major distinction (which I should have drawn) between the sound at the stadium and on TV is that in the stadium you tend to hear more individual bursts of sound, because of your relative proximity. However, on TV, they all tend to melt into one toneless drone. So in the stadium it is in a sense different – but both “live” and on TV, it’s part of the game.
Well said Pierre
@ Pierre:
“I smell more than a whiff of cultural imperialism in much of the criticism of our beloved Vuvuzela”
Pierre, for G-d’s sake, cut the coy understatement. The racucous buzz of opposition to our national instrument is nothing less than liberal RACISM – finish and klaar!
(Can you imagine the English objecting if the French, for example, blasted horrible noises throughout a match? Never!)
@ Mikhail
Actually yes. The English hate everything that’s not ‘theirs.’ And they really hate anything French.
The English are KNOWN for their whining. I do think they view everything that we have/do as inferior to them. No road is as good as in Europe, no train can drive around a track as good as in Europe etc etc. I have know alot of “Europeans” in cape town, and we have been labeled as backwards, to monkeys. Its very ironic. These people have a warped sense of reality.
@Frank Shearar
That is completely right. Everyones normal is different from others. But to voice a critic that is negative and prejudice based on your normal is “wrong” border line racism. The mere fact that there are different norms, just not give ANYONE the right to be little others. As Hard as it is to believe we are all ONE species of HUMAN, hence we are able to inter-breed…. We are all from this planet.
I dont really like the vuvu but I’ve come to like it during the world cup. Its good for some true south african. Why in Gods name would I want to blow the french horne, or wear a viking helmet if im south african.
What would define me as South African? FIFA came here and took over…. they are tellling people what to eat/wear sing etc. The people must have something that is loud enough to be uniquely theirs…
So my opinion to the whining english is, suck it up….
you tell’em prof!!!
Living in London, the more the Vuvuzelas are making noise and we are refusing to conform, the more I feel a sense of pride that we are showing the middle finger to the snobbish English!!
Kirsten – Yes – agree with that.
Prof
Why do blacks and whites unite when coming to condemning “Europe” and their snobbishness, but not on how we can narrow the inequalities in South Africa?…I followed the local media closely and observed that we are united in saying the “vuvuzelas are here to stay”, in fact, I suspect that some amongst us do indeed find vuvuzelas irritating but they would rather be pro-vuvu just to be anti-europe…
Spuy, I agree, there may be some vuvuzela defenders out there whose sincerity is open to question. These could be the very same liberals who presume that criticising Israel and the U.S. (pre-Obama), gives them license to remorselessly attack the ANC …
Prof: sounds to me as though you have unwittingly bordered on pulling the race card, re Europeans et al. I find the whole issue somewhat humorous, as I did Zapiro’s cartoon on the prophet, which actually I thought was Osama on the couch until told otherwise.
Two things though, I wonder how many other cups of whatever nature will now choose SA as a host, and two, what to you think the vuvu will do for reconciliation in Rugby and Cricket. Rugby I can picture, along with the fist fights, but Cricket somehow not. They might even walk off the field.
I’ve watched two games, the first with the whole kitin-ka-boddle of a family present, so I went outside and watched it through the window. The room was too small anyway. Today I was fortunately alone, turned off the sound and played Ravel’s bolero repeatedly, mixed in with a little Jimmy Hendrik and Moody Blues. That worked. Strange how the music met the mood of the match.
The fact that we respond to the comments on our national musical instrument by the Brits, shows that their cultural imperialism is actually working.
If the people in, say, Uruquay, made these sort of comments then we would not deign them a response. But when our former colonial masters talk………….
Lets grow up and do our own thing!
These comments on the Vuvuzela as being the national instrument; that’s a joke, right? People don’t actually believe that, do they? Obviously such commentators have no idea of the various and truly unique African instruments which exist, and they’re not plastic I assure you, although amazingly designed with various woods, skins, bits and pieces and creative skill. If there is a national music instrument it’s the various drums without doubt.
Have we no pride? The Vuvu is a commercial plastic toy. Its like saying the national animal is a rodent, instead of an elephant, the national bird a vulture, or that the international sports icon is a hoola hoop instead of a ball.
No wonder the world considers us petty and backward. Can you imagine a stadium filled with drummers? Now that’s African. Pity, what we have is typically for Africa, the lowest common denominator.
Sipho is wrong. We must energetically rebut RACISM wherever and whenever it arises!
I agree Fass: but much of the racism I hear is consistently against whites, both here and so called colonialists (and it appears to me South African blacks believe all whites are racists) and Europeans, westerners of any hue. Are these people aware how integrated the west is, how determined the west worked towards the ending of apartheid, how the majority admired Madiba.
Reminds me of my children at times, and I have many. No matter what you do to benefit them, they have this thing about their parents, parents being a role, fellow humans but just older through no fault of our own, that they the parents are the problem, always blaming them.
Is it 16 years plus now since 94? Teenage vibes rule here, nothing less. Get over it, the west played a major role in freeing SA. Its SA where racism is so pronounced, not the west. The colonist are all dead. Time to appreciate your brother in arms instead of all the despotic horrors many praise like Mad Bob. And what exactly did Mad Bob do for you? A little humility would seem to me to be in order.
@ Sarah Palin
The difference between the vuvuzela and musical instruments is that the vuvuzela is not a musical instrument. I feel like this is obvious… It was never intended to be ‘harmonious’ in the way of western harmony, and in fact the whole point of it is TO MAKE “NOISE”. Comparisons are pointless.
Further, just because it doesn’t sound good to some people, doesn’t mean that it isn’t good. It serves purposes which are more political, social and personal than they are musical. In fact, the vuvuzela does not serve any ‘musical’ purposes – and it was never meant to.
Pierre, thanks for another predictable dose of pc claptrap. While there may indeed be an element of European cultural imperialism prevailng, this does not necessarily mean that Europeans or the English are whiners. or that they don’t perhaps have a legitimate gripe. It seems that we are ourselves guilty of cultural jingoism by labelling anyone who comes with a different angle or slant as a whiner. We do this to the Yanks, the Zimbos and anyone else who criticizes us or who holds a different point of view.
Maybe you are just over-intellectualising the whole thing. Maybe the objections are simply because it is a mindless, discordant and disorientating racket.
Anyhow, I think it is wrong to simply try to attribute this to any sort of imperialism, cultural or otherwise. It is frankly not the Europeans’ fault. If you look at the comparative IQs of the protagonists: vuvuzela blower, 85, UCT academic, 90 (especially if said academic(s) tried to discredit Brandon Huntley), European, 130. Therefore, it is understandable why they would look on us with derision and perhaps justifiable contempt. Here we are programmed to blow the vuvuzela and build mud huts; in Europe they are programmed to build cathedrals and play proper musical instruments.
Such a pity Terence that we don’t as a country and society, seek harmony.
I will dare to introduce a measure of democratic process into the debate. Have a look at banvuvuzela.com and you will see that 81.994 people voted in favour of a ban whilst 9.125 voted against a ban. Consider that this is not a South African tournament but a global one in which 32 countries are competing and many more are involved as spectators. We are merely the hosts. Most hosts are considerate of their guests
What we are doing is ramming our “culture” down the throats of our guests and many of them do not like it. To make matters worse this particular cultural more is a mere 7 years old. What does this say for the depth of our culture.
Like Dave I watch soccer every four years and because I am one of those “cultural” philistines who does not like mindless noise I am watching far less and turning the sound off. This detracts from the experience because I enjoy informed commentary almost as much as the visual action. There are probably many like me if the above figures are anything to go by.
@Anton: By going to a website like banvuvuzela.com, isn’t it obvious that most of the visitors will be seeking to ban the vuvuzela because they were looking for a website to do just that.
I come from South Africa and all the people here have a rich heritage of playing drums and dancing, etc. However at soccer games it is a tradition to blow the horn. I wish everyone would stop bitching and want it there way. Who says your way is the right way in anycase.
Charles: go ahead, maintain your opinion. I for one won’t watch another game until the finals, and it will be on mute with chosen music my sound tract. Turn off some of the global viewers, who cares, piss off the larger community. Just another example of racist south african ignorance or any willingness to be part of the global community.
This issue in my view is doing more damage to South Africa than corruption or racism against whites. Why, because it illustrates that South Africans don’t give a hoot for the concerns of the world community. The World Cup is not African, its a global event. Ever hear of compromises between communities.
Pity, I don’t recall any independence or spirit of mind, by South Africans, including Prof. de Vos, for my cultural practice of honesty and sincere forgiveness – Radical Honesty…
Instead I was informed in no uncertain terms that South Africa does not tolerate my culture, and while dozens of lawyers will defend the cultural manhood practice of slowly torturing a bull to death… not one lawyer could be bothered with legally defending the cultural practice of Radical Honesty: brutal honesty with a commitment to sincere forgiveness.
It seems to me Prof. de Vos cultural supremacy is also only tolerant of certain cultures, those it approves of, and less tolerant of ‘european cultures’…. but gets very upset when european cultures are not so tolerant of black ones…..
And strangely, Radical Honesty is the only cultures in the world, that is truly 100% multicultural…. where blacks are encouraged to practice their culture, on a foundation of honesty, so are whites, so are liberals, so are conservatives…, all with a commitment to sincere (as opposed to fake two faced hypocrit South African) forgiveness…
@ Peter L
If they’ve sold a million vuvu’s in the UK, I think we may now have a more accurate estimate of South Africans residing in the UK
I visited the world cup in Mexico – the rattles drove me to rage. Korea was great fun – and very noisy. I was at the games in German, bored out of my skull with the “results football”. I kinda think the games here, so far, are more colourful, (much) more gracious and hospitable hosts, great atmosphere at the stadiums (unlike in Korea or Germany). And we have vuvuzelas.
The Brits are starting to gather excuses for when they, again, come off the rails before they meant to. The cold, the hotel, the ball, the vuvu’s, you name, they’ll use it. They can’t just accept that their national team is mediocre, and that the Premier League is great because of the foreign talent in action.
In Germany, a software engineer has developed a way to filter out the vuvu’s from the tv (it makes an “A” sound, easy to remove). If they wanted to broadcast without the sound, they can, easily so.
Luckily, the brits won’t last for another week or so, and than we can get on with it. Fancy that – the UK, US and Aussies out in the early rounds. Why is no one talking about how Bafana has gathered the vast majority of the South Africans as supporters?
An Afrikaans guy summed it all up for me, when we were queuing to catch a bus from Soccer City. His view (and he was a new convert to soccer) – the ANC doesn’t understand that the people have moved on, and want to be together and fix this place. Look at the energy. It pays them to not move on.
So not just the ANC who shout “racist” at the slightest hint of criticism, the whiteys do it too.
I’ve been to two games…it’s radically loud. Even with earplugs. My take on it is that it detracts from the game, not add to it. However, basically what you’re saying is that my take is wrong and yours is right. Talk about arrogance.
SA seems to have such an inferiority complex about the Brits. It’s not just them complaining you know…it’s pretty much everyone else too. Most saffers only speak english, afrikaans, xhosa, zulu, etc but if anyone speaks a Latin language, go and have a gander at their newspapers and see what is being said about the vuvuzela. The Italians, Spanish, South Americans. Same as the Brits. You just don’t know that because you can’t read their online press. To have a go at the Brits simply reveals your prejudices towards them.
Those defending the vuvuzela are not defending the vuvuzela, you are simply defending for the sake of defending. If SA fans poured a beer on the head of the person in front of them at local games, and wanted to do that at WC games, it sounds like you’d defend that as “being part of the culture.” Just to get up the nose of those condescending Euros.
The vuvuzela is obnoxiousness masquerading as culture.
For the record, I hate the vuvuzela…but my best friend is black. Shoo, work that one out all yea users of the “R” word!!
How anyone can get so worked up and claim national pride in what is simply…noise…shows a certain human de-evolution. We as South Africans have given the world….a noise…and we’re proud of it. Amazing.
@sirjay: “I for one won’t watch another game until the finals …”
Great idea! I’ll do just that, but only if Germany is in the finals; at least we might get to see some goals! My sound tracks will be Dvorak’s 9th, Beethoven’s 5th, and possibly the piano and trumpet concerto by Shostakovich. That should about cover it.
As for the vuvus, my guess is that scientific research will one day show that people’s appreciation of these ghastly instruments is in inverse proportion to the size of their IQs.
Pierre,
In some ways it is wonderful to see (almost all) South Africans getting defensive about the attacks on our Vuvuzela. However, I really wish (like most of the world cup) this ‘proudly South African’ feeling was saved for more important battles outside world cup time. This outrage would be better served at times, of what seems to be the constant racism/prejudice in SA. There seems to be more feeling about this (from certain sections of our country) than for instance the unacceptable services to the poor, toilets in Khayelitsha and the general racism one hears in day-to-day life in SA. We should save our energy for more important battles.
Moreover, I don’t think we should ever adopt a European/ British attitude of; my way is the only way, which is what we are trying to do. That is just arrogant and leads to the faults we see in those countries. If I have you for dinner, I would consider what would make you feel comfortable and then try and create an evening that you would enjoy. We are hosting the world; let’s take our guests into consideration. I am not saying we should lose our identity- that would be hard. But let’s make it enjoyable for our guests.
It is difficult to say that critics of the Vuvuzela labour under a false sense of cultural superiority – because in all honesty, it could also just be based on the fact that they make a ghastly noise. But, if the critics do, our response should not be; this is how we do it in SA, we know best. For who are we then to criticize them?
@ Charles…fair question, so I will return the complement by asking…”Who says your way is the right way in anycase”.
I think that the vuvuzela is an abomination and as a result I will watch less soccer and then with the sound turned off.
………..and by the way , I am also a South African living in the country
@ Terence Marais
Ok, so the vuvuzela is political, social and personal noise. You enjoy it then. I’d prefer not to, though. Some personal noises are best kept to oneself.
@ Sirjay
“Such a pity Terence that we don’t as a country and society, seek harmony.”
Touche. I agree absolutely.
I dread Switzerland ever winning the World Cup. How would we handle their cultural instrument – the alp horn? Scotland – the bagpipes? Australia – the didgeridoo? or Norway – the scream?
No arguments necessary. This is an African WC, and this is how we do it. ‘Nuff said. No excuses necessary. No analysis either.
Unfortunately for the blinkered Mr De Vos, Europe is culturally way ahead of Africa. Compare what Europe has achieved vs what Africa has achieved, and it is clear that Africa is culturally way behind Europe.
Of course, this is an inconvenient truth which no-one as yet has managed to refute. And neither does mr. De Vos even try.
This brings it back to the vuvuzela. What a filthy piece of rubbish that made-in-China piece of plastic is! Only an inferior culture can embrace something as hideous as that – and proclaim it to be part of their culture. As for Europe and other advanced nations that has moved beyond the creation of smoke signals and bee-buzzing sounds as means of communication, I can fully understand how this thing irritates and frustrated them.
It is taking away all the pleasure of watching the games. In fact, after last night, I am convinced that the quality of soccer during the SWC is the lowest of the last 5/6 I used to watch every game of. Of course, one has to ask the question what effect this piece of plastic filth has on the ability of the players to communicate on the field.
Isn’t it perhaps time that FIFA bans this plastic piece of filth, and hopefully with it comes the return of some spectacular soccer?
@ Mark….. despite the fact that the people who want to ban the vuvuzela outnumber those who want to keep it at a ratio of about 10:1 (check banvuvuzela.com) you are happy to risk the success of the WORLD Cup (NOT African Cup) because you believe that “no arguments are necessary”.
This captures the failure of democracy on this continent in 4 simple words.
@born2run et al!
I was at the final of the Super 14 @ orlando stadium and let me tell you that there were very few muntus!! But the blow of the VuVu was like crazy! Children, adults, etc
Fans from around the world are buyinng Vuvus like hot cakes!!
Most bitter and angry fellow white compatriots who left this country have nnothing complimetary to say about us!
Guess what we will continue making history as imperfect as we are!!
Please leave us alone and enjoy your exile and stopspewing bile on websites! The best of South Africans are left behind to make a diffs!
Spineless and unpatriotic morons can stay away we have survived until now without their support!!
There are many of us who love this country and will go the trenches to ensure we stay the course, black or white!
Check all rugby games the Vuvu is alive!
Hanba! Voor se ek!!!! If u in the UK or US, Kabul is waiting for you!!!
Currently, the only attributable success to the tournament is that the games are being played at all. As far as I am concerned, none of the peripheral activities are going very smoothly at all. You just need to read the newspaper clippings about all the issues.
And finally, the vuvuzela. Unfortunately, this SWC will not be remembered for the quality of soccer (you got to admit, the games so far have been rather ordinary – nothing spectacular). This SWC will not be remembered for the emergence of a Maradona, Pele, or a Geoff Hurst type goal in extra time.
This SWC will be remembered for that awful made-in-China plastic horn and its incessant noise.
In fact, I am quite sure that the quality of soccer on the pitch will improve if FIFA bans that damn horn. Maybe then this SWC will be remembered for what actually counts – some memorable soccer moments.
Regarding the attendance at the games. This entire SWC is akin to having a play on Broadway, but the only people who turn up to the opening night, are the actors’ own families. Yes, you can fill all the seats up theoretically, but ultimately it’s coming out of your own pocket! You can have as many rave reviews as you want, but the harsh economic facts will remain.
This SWC is a public relations and financial nightmare of the first order for South Africa. The only people really smiling is FIFA. They really stuck one to SA, and I can’t say they don’t deserve it.
Incidentally, I watched the games again today and the crowds didn’t impress me. Even the mighty Brazilian fans haven’t turned up. It’s shocking. Dozens upon dozens of empty seats in the Portugal game, and that was a surprise.
@ nkalakatha…..where do you get the idea that this is only about foreigners. Local Webnews site News 24 is running a poll right now and the votes are….AGAINST the Vuvuzela 59% and FOR the vuvuzela 41%. That is a clear majority of mostly South Africans who want a ban but I doubt that this will suit your agenda which finds its outlet through insult rather than reasoned argument.
Born2run quite rightly points out the empty seats at stadiums. Could this be a function of the awful noise.
Frankly….who cares
@ Born2Run
“Europe is culturally way ahead of Africa.”
Clearly, you are genius, steeped in comparative cultural studies. Nevertheless, I reiterate that those who oppose the Vuvuzela are, mostly, RACISTS.
@ Clara
I applaud your soundtacks. As for me, I will watch the last few minutes of the final soothed by John Cage’s Four Minutes-33 Seconds. (A Eurocentric’s guilty pleasure.)
@mikhael
It is obvious that I have uncovered an inconvenient truth. A key characteristic if an inconvenient truth is that those confronted with it are unable to counter with an intelligent response.
An oh-so-typical response is to pull out the racist card.
It is of course a card so often played by the ANC regime when confronted with criticism which they have no reply to.
But maybe you can help me, mikhael. I am looking for the African equivalent to an Einstein, a Newton, Galileo etc. Any suggestions?
And in case you struggle, maybe you can offer an opinion as to why Europe discovered Africa, and not the other way round.
Born2run – culture is defined a particular society at a particular time and place. To say some cultures is superior to others, well, that’s just your opinion. You base your cultural rating solely on intelligence which, in fact, has nothing to do with culture. Culture can, however, be colourful (African) or dull as hell (British). That does not mean one culture is better than the other. You only prefer the one to the other.
Which takes me to your opposite, Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder. Mikhail , like your sparring partner above, you’re also a discriminator. Where B2R discriminate along cultural lines you discriminate ito race. You got to ease up on the racism accusations. If you were at all interested in positive debate and tried to research a subject, you may find that many arguments can be won without using the most obvious excuse known to a black person. The race card makes you sound unprepared for positive and progressive debate and is obstructing your mind in the process of actually gaining knowledge through debates.
Back to the topic.
1. The vuvuzela is not a musical instrument – By definition, anything making a sound can be used as a musical instrument (for example the Julias Malema – ‘I kissed a boer and I liked it’ remix). But for me, it takes a time, passion, exercise and a dedication to master a musical instrument. The vuvuzela requires none of these.
2. Mikhail, the vuvu is certainly not our national instrument. It was copied from the original horn used in Mexico on the 70s. Furthermore, in terms of Point 1 (above) it is not an instrument at all.
3. I appreciate the vuvuzela. It makes noise, it drones and it leaves sore cheeks after a night behind bafana. Therefore, i like the vuvuzela. But it certainly has its place. Play it when festive, play it at sport events or at political rallies. Just stop blowing it on Sunday morning, the day after the game, because my head is thumping, my cheeks are sore and i just want some sleep.
@mili
Nowhere did I say that European culture is superior to African culture.
I said, and meant, that European culture is decades ahead of African culture, in terms of cultural, medical and scientific progression.
Will Africa ever catch up? That remains to be seen.
@ Born2Run: You have obviously been reading too much colonial historiography. If you wish, I will compile a reading list to assist your re-orientation. Also, the fact that a “truth” is “inconvenient” does not make it “true.” With respect, you appear to be a victim of the cult of truthiness.”
@ Mili: You, too, have been misled by the hegemonic discourse. The Vuvuzela has long been the instrument of choice for pastoralists all the way up the rift valley. (Read “Dreams of my Father.”)
Many thanks.
@mikhail
my first question was very simple, mikhail. I just want a couple of names, that’s all!!!
Think you can provide?
The second question requires a bit more analytical thinking. I dare you to give it a go.
Actually the Vuvuzela has taken something away … not from the hated ‘imperialists’, but from tradition-loving Africans: their rich, musically inspired soccer songs are fast becoming extinct …. you cannot sing and blow simultaneously. Fathers will teach their children to blow plastic horns while the words and music of shosholoza etc fade from cultural memory. But thats the price one pays for replacing the culture of singing with the culture of hooting.
When it comes to atmosphere the unwaveringly monotonous drone of vuvuzelas cannot compare with the stirring chants of encouragement, joyful cheers and cries of despair that aptly accompany the dance of football.
That said, the noise, though dull, does not bother me, and I could not care less what novel ‘cultures’ local fans choose to adopt. But as a musician I weep for the loss of songs that are far more unique and descriptive of the people and the cultures of Africa than a monotone plastic hooter.
What fun this “discussion” is turning out to be. It seems the Vuvuzela has become a Rorschach test that reveals much about (i) whether people have a sense of humor; (ii) are tolerant; (iii) respect diversity; (iv) suffers from internalized Afrophobia; (v) or are generally not very bright.
There are at least three different issues that many people conflate.
First, whether one likes the Vuvuzela. On this score everyone is surely entitled to their personal like or dislike. Who cares? We all have our personal likes and dislikes but in a democracy we cannot impose our personal likes on everyone.
Second, whether it should be banned because others don’t like it. It is a completely fake and rather ignorant argument to say it is intolerant not to ban it because many people hate it. In fact the opposite is true: it is intolerant to demand it be banned just because you personally do not like the sound. Respect for diversity and difference requires us to be tolerant of different practices and customs. We do not live in a homogenous world and there are many things I dislike about what many other people in other countries do, but I am not going to demand that they do as I say and if they fail to obey my orders, then turn around and claim that they are intolerant. That’s just plain stupid and illogical.
Third, the kind of arguments made by those who dislike the Vuvuzela and want it banned – which is the topic of this post – is another issue. The “do as we do and not as you do because we say you should”, argument, seems rather arrogant and intolerant to me. If one really respected diversity and difference – something who people belonging to a dominant culture often find very difficult to do because they are so used to get their way and to shut others up – is at the very heart of respect for others. Those who want to ban the Vuvu lack this respect. Finish and klaar (as Jackie Selebi would have said.) One is perfectly entitled to express dislike for the Vuvu and then to say, but I respect the traditions and customs of others so will never demand that the instrument be banned. Just like I might have very serious problems with the teachings of the Catholic Church, my respect for religious diversity will stop me demanding that the Church should be banned in South Africa.
Lastly, much of the South African anti-Vuvu view expressed above seemed to be based on an anger and hatred of the South African democracy and of majority rule. “If WE were still in charge there would have been no Vuvuzela blowing!” seems to be the underlying tone of some comments. It must be very hard to live your whole life so angry, bitter and twisted and so filled with hate for something you cannot change and you have no moral right to want to change. It’s sad. What a waste of a human life to live like that.
As for the vuvuzela being a musical instrument …. anything that makes a noise can be a musical instrument ….go and see the group called “Stomp” … and witness them making music from brooms, dustbin lids, bic lighters, and even the kitchen sink.
By definition, music requires a variation of sounds … of tone, rhythm, harmony, melody. Vuvuzelas at soccer matches are not played to make music. They are intentionally played to make perpetual monotone noise … even I can make my cello sound like the irritating drone of a vuvu-blowing crowd. Thats not music.
de Vos,
your last para refers.
Besides a while bunch of non pragmatic motherhood statements preceding your last para, it is the last para that really irks me off.
Rather than debating some of the points raised above, you chose to launch a personal attack against those that you do not agree with. But – to top it off – you play that other card (alternative to the “you are racist” card), and that is the card that some people long for the previous government.
Rather dissappointing. Indicative of how intolerate you South Africans have become to criticism. Unable to counter (or better, take it on board!) criticism, you choose to berate those who dare to challenge the sorry state of affairs in South Africa with clutches at straws and those old well-worn cards of accusing others of racism, longing for the previous government, or whatever you can conquer up to deflect attention away from you inability to counter our points.
Born@run … you are right about our reaction to criticism. Like ill-disciplined children, when told we are being irritating we immediately up the irritant-levels … a real dog-in-the-manger attitude we have.
Julius Malema typifies this. Criticise him for being racist/crass and he will redouble his efforts to be uber-racist/crass. So with the vuvu …. once it was hooted to cheer goals scored, or boo the opposition team. Now its blown with unremitting intensity, NOT to cheer/boo the soccer players, but for the sole purpose of irritating the critics.
I bet if all vuvuzela criticism were to suddenly cease, the fans would get bored with the noise and tired with the effort, and the perpetual parping would drop back to occasional punctuations of the game.
Ignore it. Let it become irrelevent, and then it will become boring to the tooters.
Pierre:
Is it you position that Vuvuzela-blowing is a fundamental right of expression, and not therefore subject to majoritarian control — except if s. 36 is satisfied?
To make the question concrete: Suppose that 67,000 people in a stadium, by show of hands, indicated overwhemingly that they did not want V’s played that particular evening. Would it be problematic for the organisers to enforce that ban?
Belle,
I agree. Unfortunately, that sort of behaviour is not conducive to the stimulation of a culture of continuous improvement.
Hence the quagmire Africa (soon to be joined by South Africa) finds itself in.
It also reminds me of the frog-in-the-pot analogy. For those remaining in South Africa, who is not familiar with this analogy, let me know and I will explain.
Pierre, your second point in today’s comment – besides it’s emotive language – doesn’t help your case one bit. It’s a straightforward appeal to moderation, and a logical fallacy. There are justifiable limits to toleration, and some respects in which we might want the world to be homogeneous. The vuvuzela may or may not be one case in which toleration is undesirable – you clearly have a position on that, but your position isn’t helped by casual insults and lazy reasoning.
@ Born2Run challenges:
“maybe you can offer an opinion as to why Europe discovered Africa, and not the other way round.”
Tough one. Mind if I get back to you in a few decades?
@Jacques
Jacques, correct. De Vos’ reaction is very typical of those confronted with inconvenient truths and incontrovertible realities: They revert to emotive language and irrational reasoning – typically leaning towards insultive and emotive language.
It typifies an inherent inability to critically reason and debate – instigated by the wors of truths – the incontrovertible reality.
I feel sorry, truly sorry, for the rose-speckeld starry eyed brigade remaining in SA. The brain-drained NuSAns (new, but yet un-improved South Africans).
@Mikhail
No need, mate. Your inability to answer is sufficient proof of my point… Africa’s cultural development lags Europe’s by many a decade.
@born2run: you and I aren’t on the same page here, sorry. PdV does not fit so neatly into your stereotype, and usually displays admirable commitment to reason and debate. On this issue, I’m less convinced, as little effort is made to separate the colonialist bleatings about the vuvuzela from other possible objections – all critics are tarred with the same brush. But please, don’t presume you are I are in agreement in general. PdV has come the closest of any defender of the vuvuzela to persuading me, and I’m just looking for more of the same, rather than a slide towards the sorts of rhetoric his opponents deploy.
Oh, for Pete’s sake everybody! Things on this blog are getting way too bitter and twisted. Let those who want to blow their vuvuzelas until their heads explode; meanwhile, turn down the volume on your TVs and hope it’s just a passing fad.
What should concern us far more is the number of deaf – sorry, “hearing-impaired” – people the SWC will produce, and how taxpayers will have to cough up yet again in the form of disability grants, or at the very least “free” hearing aids.
Born2run, sadly your confident “assertions” which you claim to be high intellectual argument, is no more than a hodgepodge of prejudices. It reflects the conventional wisdom of a certain type of person whom it is not very easy to argue with because if you point out their prejudices they scream blue murder. None is so blind as those who do not want to see because of their cultural and racial arrogance. Your truths and realities are nothing of the sort: they are merely your opinion. And I think your opinion is based on very little other than the conventional wisdom of a group whose politics I abhor because it is arrogant, ignorant but no less self assured because of that ignorance.
Jacques, no you are wrong. This is NOT, I repeat NOT about tolerance. Tolerance assumes that there is norm and that those in charge nevertheless tolerate others. Respect for diversity and difference, challenges the arrogant and oppressive view that one norm is shared by most people and should usually be adhered to by all – unless the powerful group deigns to be tolerant. Tolerance is just another kind of oppression. Respect for diversity and difference questions the very assumptions held so dearly but without any critical reflection, by those who think they belong to the dominant culture and do not even realize that they have a view. Their’s is just how life is and others must fall in with it – unless they are “tolerated”. I hate tolerance. Its patronizing and oppressive. I embrace respect for diversity and difference. But I do understand that those who has lived their lives insulated from other views and cultures and who have their own prejudices and opinions reinforced every day by colleagues and friends, find it very difficult to SEE difference, let alone to respect it.
Pierre, you should have opted to minimise your chances of being further criticized for your views by refraining from additional follow-up comment: your addendum is not very sound and suggests an inability to reason logically. The point is not about simply banning these things. In fact I believe that any one is entitled to blow it to his heart’s content. The issue is whether someone is entitled to impose it on others against their will – especially seeing that there are serious health issues here. Substitute “smoking” for blowing a vuvuzela and this should assist you. No one is stopping people from smoking; they are simply being prevented legislatively from imposing this dangerous practice on others against their will. To apply the same limitation to the vuvuzela is therefore not unreasonable. By the way, why should a ‘vela blower be exempt from the disturbance of the peace by-laws?
As Born2run has already stated, your last paragraph is really stretching credulity and is nothing more than a flight of racist fantasy on your part. I see no nexus whatsoever between people simply disliking this offensive instrument and thus being angry, bitter, racist, opposed to democracy, or whatever. Please, Pierre, surely even you can offer the reader a better standard of debate.
Pierre, no, I’m not wrong. First, because you said “In fact the opposite is true: it is intolerant to demand it be banned just because you personally do not like the sound. Respect for diversity and difference requires us to be tolerant of different practices and customs” – which seems to be about tolerance.
Second, because even on your clarification in your last comment, what I said is still not refuted. “Respect for diversity and difference” has its limits – female genital mutilation is one – which present to us areas where we would want the world to be homogenous. Your response to me is rather knee-jerk, and it seems to presume that all critics of your view *have to* fit into the stereotype of having these insulated lives, where they can’t “see difference”. That’s not the case.
de Vos,
Adding to the very valid, educated and to-thepoint comments made by Graham above – you still fail to succinctly address any of the points/questions I have made above.
Correctly stated, you fail to reason logically. In stead, you continue to choose emotive “reasoning”; something which my more illustrious friends would call the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Born2run,
While I am very against the vuvuzela, your arguments against it are so obviously racist that I would’t be suprised if you walked around all day wearing a white sheet and pointy hat. And that coming from me is quite something…see my first post above re: people who use the “R” word.
The differences between cultures is well explained by Jarred Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel. The wikipedia page gives a good run down of the theory, and for those nto interested in reading the whole thing, the intro is sufficient. It has nothing to do with race, rather it has to do with the availability of domesticalble plants and animals, many thousands of years ago, that allowed the Europeans to develop agriculture first. With organised agriculture came food surpluses and with food surpluses, the need for everyone to be involved in food gathering and preparation disaappeard. Members of the group now had time to develop other skills, and so specialization of labour appeared. With people now having time for other things, things like serious weapons could be developed, the development of writing allowed for the organisation of large groups of people…and empires.
Europeans simply got a jump start on Africans because of sheer luck, the luck of having the right crops and animals to domesticate. They tehn invaded Africa and colonised it because their more technically advanced weapons and systems of communication allowed them too.
Nothing to do with skin colour.
I particularly loved a comment left on, I think, the BBC’s website. It was suggested that a more “authentic” (whatever that means) atmosphere would be created on televised matches by recording European (note, not poxy South American, African or Asian) match noise and overlaying the horrible vuvuzela background noise on the television soundtrack. You don’t get much more parochial than that.
I’ve also been curious about the much vaunted 130 decibel measurement, as vuvuzela noise doesn’t sound that loud to me. Turns out that the sound is 130 decibels if blown at the highest possible volume AND THE VUVUZELA IS PLACED DIRECTLY AGAINST YOUR EAR. I would imagine that even a Stradivarius would endanger your hearing, not to mention your listening pleasure, if placed directly against your ear while being played.
Gawd: I’m hearing the vuvu bee swarm all the time, today I identified it first as the toaster, and then the refrigerator. Later, I was walking the gardens and kept hearing it buzzing in the my sound awareness, most noticeably in my tobacco crop, I kid you not, so I imagine others are having the same experience.
Perhaps it is the Ohm (sound of God and the Universe) of the Ayurvedic, possibly a Duban east Indian can confirm, even my toaster is now sounding like it.
What have we done to the world?
@ Pierre……shades of Zille, Zillier, Zilliest. Why do you find it necessary to insult people who disagree with your viewpoint. This dents your obvious erudition and undermines what may otherwise be valid points.
Soccer is not a big deal in my life. In other words although I would like to support Bafana Bafana I can always do something else with my time rather than watch soccer on TV and be subjected to the vuvuzela noise. I do not dislike the people blowing these things, I dislike the noise they make just as I dislike the incessant barking of the inconsiderate neighbours dog.
Allow me to be reductionist and argue against allowing the vuvuzela in the Stadiums with some random points:
1. The banvuvuzela campaign is roughly 9:1 in favour of the ban. The number of votes cast is fast approaching 100,000
2. The local News 24 poll is currently voting 59% against and 41% in favour of the vuvuzela
3. These stats suggest that those against exceed those in favour and this tends to undermine the argument of intolerance. Just who is being intolerant
4. This is not just a South African issue because many of the paying fans in the stadium and most of global TV viewers are foreigners who could not give a toss about our racial baggage.
5, By extension possibly more than half the people in the stadium who have paid large sums of money for their tickets have no say in the matter
5. This is not a long standing South African tradition or cultural issue
6. By all accounts the noise can cause irreversable long term hearing loss
7. Those who ascribe cultural and racial undertones to the debate are conflating a dislike for mindless noise with a dislike of other races and cultures. Mind boggling! In any event the empty kettles come in a variety of colours and cultures and many of the vuvuzelists are white. Have a look at the banvuvuzela signatories and you will see a cultural and racial diversity that will blow your socks off. There is a world beyond our shores
8. Advertisers have paid huge sums of money and their campaigns will probably suffer because of the large number of people who turn the sound down on their TV sets.
9. We are hosts to the entire global soccer community but we are telling many “unhappy” guests here and abroad to get stuffed
10. Does anyone honestly think that a continuous blaring noise has any redeeming features.
This is difficult to say without being insulting but your arguments are stifling in their parochialism
I am currently living in Cologne and the Vuvuzela has caused a lot of hype here as well. So much so that it has been banned in the City because poor old people (Germany has a lot of them now) were complaining.
This didn’t stop us Saffas here from using our’s during the opening game
Tonight our neighbours will again shrug their shoulders and think “scheiss auslander” but so what? FORWARD SOUTH AFRICAAAA!
The Vuvu is just a red hearing. The real issue is that FIFA has successfully ripped off SA (twice the profit for them domvr the last cup in Germany, and we will pay for it for years). Time for SAfricans to realized they’ve been had, seduced by their desires for a false confidence.
Not colonialism, rather modern day capital exploitation, and SAfricans have fallen for it, tooth and nail, as they say.
Time to realize what really makes a difference for our country and its challenges. And it isn’t the world cup.
Apologies and correction: ‘domvr’ a typo, rather it was meant to say ‘since’ the last cup in Germany.
@Anton: Those News24 poll results would probably look very different if all those “empty kettles” (such as James in Germany) had access to the internet.
@sirjay: “The vuvu is just a red hearing”. Aha! I see the vuvu virus has now entered your mind via your ears. Stop blaming the toaster.
@ Anton
You are a man of honour Anton. But I fear you are being used by those who would promote IMPERIALISM and RACISM!
Bravo to Pierre for his acute sensitivity to Eurocentric imposition.
He has really advanced the debate!
Pierre – awesome write-up, love it.
born2run: bro the moors conquered spain in the 8th century so i think it’s safe2say africa discovered europe first
but you know
git along with your racist self it’s a party up in hating-africans land
Before the World Cup arrived, we were so concerned with showing the world that we could do it, successfully host an event of this magnitude. Now that it is here, we’re telling the world to go and stuff themselves if they don’t like our noise. The mind boggles.
And this is to both the vuvu supporters and detractors…we are all over cyberspace giving our two cents worth regarding the vuvuzelas…where was all this passion and fire when FIFA bent us over and shafted us? It would have been nice if we could have shouted as loudly over something of real importance.
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
June 16, 2010 at 14:29 pm
Europe discovered Africa.
Africa did not discover Europe – it may be reasonable to conclude that Europe remains undiscovered.
Will history reveal if the North America, South America, Asia or Australia discover Europe?
But here’s a question for you – who discovered Earth?
The Sun?
The Moon?
@ sirjay jonson
“The World Cup is not African”
this world cup is indeed african, even septimus blatterius says so
advice: turn on the sound (sabc 1), enjoy, live it, and become a real african
(or, just go home already ["the west", which you so fondly refer to], which is where you recent comments seem to be heading to anyhow)
Take away the swagger, the culture, the arrogance of the Brits and others and face reality. Vuvuzela cacophony is noisy, loud and annoying. The fact that other countries have caught on make it even more useless. How do you tell from that monotone who is rooting for whom? How do players tell the difference?
How about putting some melody on that ‘adorable’ thing?
I say the vuvuzela now be adapted to a mournful dirge. Perhaps the trumpet parts in one of Handel’s funeral marches. But to convey grief the vuvuzela must be blown very softly and with exquisite restraint.
@ MDF……I am quite capable of thinking for myself and have no time for colonialists and racists. However, this debate is not about colonialism and racism it is about the disregard for the wellbeing of others. I will not impose my considerate silence on you and simply ask that you keep your noise to yourself. How does that make me colonialsit, racist, intolerant, etc.
I do not believe that Pierre is trying to advance the debate. He is trying to stifle it by using his erudution as an intellectual battering ram.
I think that James in Germany exemplifies the pro vuvuzela camp with his disdain and contempt for the wellbeing of the elderly. He also helps to strengthen the arguments against the vuvuzela
When my wife was in Europe two weeks ago a man actually wanted to give her money to buy him a “soccer trumpet”, just in case it was sold out by the time he arrived to support his team. I get the idea that the soccer fans she met there all wanted vuvuzelas to take to the matches.
Chris says:
June 17, 2010 at 9:52 am
Hey Chris,
born2run will be astonished to hear that Africa has finally discovered Europe – post pics of the historical flag planting.
It’s also amazing that Europe has just invented the soccer trumpet too.
@ anton kleinschmidt
The meaning of intolerance is the inability or unwillingness to bear or endure.
Intolerance is something I miss in the world today. So many people like you suffer from this problem. I say, tolerate the Vuvuzela. Why, even enjoy it’s cacophony for now. It’s part of the World Cup, it’s part of South Africa and I believe that it is bringing much needed relief to our racially influenced South African society. When the WC is over, the Vuvu will disappear from the streets and all will be well again.
WHEN UK supermarket group Sainsbury’s announced it would increase trade with Africa, few thought this meant they would add vuvuzelas to their product line.
Spokesperson for the group, Thomas Knorpp, said so far they have sold 40000 vuvuzelas, at £2 (about R22) each.
“We figured that it was going to be part of the World Cup given that it is such a traditional instrument for South Africa. We have sold over 40000 since May 19. We were confident enough that they would do well.”
http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1152157
@ Pierre: Well said. Well said indeed.
This WC was lacking some of that good old fashioned Western v Africa appeal that I have been waiting for and I guess that it has finally found it – the vuvuzela. It was only a matter of time before those people across the blue water complained. Poor sensitive souls.
But a quick question from an avid football fan:
Why are the flares, drums and chants of the South American fans not banned on television? Why are the racist chants of Italian football fans not taken followed closely and banned as well? Why are the sexist chants of English football fans not followed up?
Hmmm….I guess it is because they add to the atmosphere of the game. Nothing like a good loud, racist, sexist soccer match.
http://remythequill.blogspot.com/2010/06/world-cup-diary-day-3-5.html
I see the Vuvu as a cultural weapon, rather than instrument.
Don’t civilian ships have sound cannons to deal with Somali pirates? I love tooting mine every so often, but left it at home when I went to the CT stadium. The din is terrible, unmusical and hurts the ears. Remy, can’t say I agree with you – the vuvu is in an entirely different league to a few drummers and some sexist songs. Its loud, truly loud and tuneless, which you probably can’t say of the songs you refer to.
Steven Friedman in this morning’s Business Day sums up rather nicely why I am a bit irritated by some of the comments to this post. It seems to stem from exactly the kind of liberalism he describes as follows:
“[This liberalism] is less a political philosophy than an exclusive club. It assumes that all wisdom was born in Europe and North America and that the truth is kept alive here by the mainly white suburban middle classes, who alone know what is best for the rest. It is far more interested in what political philosopher CB MacPherson called “possessive individualism” — the right of people of property to hold on to what they believe to be rightfully theirs — than in building a free and just society.This strain of liberalism is intolerant of all views but its own and its adherents, ironically, share many of the attitudes of Stalinist Marxists — only they know the truth and to disagree is not to hold a different opinion but to be plain wrong. Inevitably, its view is usually communicated in a sneer designed to show superiority and so it does more to antagonise than to persuade. This strain is destined, for obvious reasons, to wield little influence over our future — a prospect that perversely pleases those who espouse it as it confirms their belief that they are surrounded by Philistines.”
Pierre, I think you and Friedman have it exactly wrong.
It is said (by whom, I forget), that the spirit of liberty is “not too sure that it is right.” That is the spirit you and Friedman appear to commend.
But I think that it is this wishy-washy, sometimes masochistic species of liberalism that is to be condemned. As Stanley Fish points out, liberalism, like the competing ideologies, is ultimately also a kind of a faith. For liberals to pretend that they do not hold a set of principles to be self-evidently true is to be either philosophically naive or deceitful.
@ Pierre….dare I suggest that what “sums up rather nicely why I am a bit irritated by some of the comments to this post” is your inability to concede that you might just be wrong. Most of the time you get it right but now and then you back the wrong horse. It is always bad form, particularly in the realm of academia, to resort to personal attack rather than refute counter argument.
In the final analysis, this debate is not about liberal (or its alternatives) philosophy, it is about a mindless noise making device and nothing you can do will change that. Not even a sustained intellectual tantrum.
The blog cries racism, comments cry racism whilst typing stereotypical and offensive comments about the English. Given it’s far from being just the English that have problems with the noise perhaps these people should look a little closer to home before pitifully claiming the race card.
It’s an awful noise that induces a headache in me. If it was a more tuneful noise we wouldn’t have a problem and to suggest otherwise and that’s racist is incredibly precious and shows a need for you to grow up. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t make them racist.
Finally – some broadcasters anticipated this problem and did something about it, the british one’s didn’t hence until you actually hear it how we are, how on earth can you judge how intrusive it is.
And just to repeat, some of the casually racist using this as an excuse to bash the English when it’s far from just the British who have a problem with it shows this article isn’t about the vuvu it’s about chips on shoulders.
Yes, leave the Vuvu alone – it is a tool for the creation of a just society, nothing less.
Anna, to the extent you are a newcomer, your ignorance is to be forgiven.
But please be advised that we embrace substantial, not formal equality.
The upshot, in this context, is that the oppressed and marginalised are not capable of racism, to the extent that their expression or conduct is directed against those who were/are guilty of inflicting oppression and marginalisation.
Hope this clarifies things.
Good commentary all around. South Africans shouldn’t need to worry about what the rest of the world thinks about them if they don’t care about the consequences of not doing so. That some Europeans are eurocentric (gasp!) isn’t that surprising and, judging from the SA response, there is a similar valuation of South African culture (and a bit of an inferiority complex?). Personally, i find these things a successfully commercialized product. Part of any successful product is making it seem natural/necessary–i’d say they’ve succeeded. Apparently SA culture embraces cheaply produced, highly annoying plastic trumpets. Since this is the face SA has chosen to show the world, we might as well get over it and move on.
Oh, and Africans did discover Europe. Where do you think people came from mate? All this talk of cultural superiority of Europe is disgusting, especially when so ill-informed.
I have now read Steven Friedmans article in Business Day and it was a well conceived tribute to one of this countries intellectual giants, van Zyl Slabbert. In my opinion Pierre has taken an small excerpt from the Friedman article and used it in a completely inappropriate context to justify a facile argument in favour of a plastic noise-maker.
I thought the quote was apropos, with regard to many comments here. What I’m not liking, again, is the lack of nuance, balance, and self-awareness. Friedman says “Inevitably, its view is usually communicated in a sneer designed to show superiority and so it does more to antagonise than to persuade”, and that reminds me of PvD’s labelling of critics as “stupid”, “illogical” and “rather ignorant”. Friedman is right, but we can extend the points made more broadly, and realise that they can apply to some arguments *for* the vuvuzela too, where those arguments sometimes treat all opposing views as coming from the bad sort of liberalism described by Friedman.
Here, one can make an argument that the vuvuzela represents a commodification of culture, and that some defenders of it are falling into a “give poor people something to make a loud noise with, and now they have a voice” sort of nonsense. It’s not obvious that the vuvuzela is a strike for liberalism of any noble sort, or that defenses of it aren’t sometimes rather Orientalist.
It remains true, and I’m with PvD in this regard, that most opposition to the vuvuzela is emblematic of a kind of cultural imperialism. But most does not mean all, and we do debate no service through tainting all criticism with these slurs.
Jacques, your points are well made.
There is a fine line between the kind of multi-cultural embrace (not tolerance, I emphasise, but affirming “embrace”), that Pierre has here championed, on the one hand, and a patronising cultural relativism, on the other hand.
We have had similar debates re affirmative action on this blog. Pierre has validly argued that “standards” are not objective, but are socially constructed — and can therefore be manipulated by those who benefit from the status quo. But you do not need to be a defender of entrenched privilege to worry that this is a train of thought that leads quickly to the bigotry of lowered expectations, and all its associated ills.
“In this country,never, never and never again shall there be the oppression of one by another” Nelson Mandela
The lamenting of this vuvuzela is certainly cultural imperialism and oppression of the highest order
Thank You for a wonderful and much needed response to the wave of international lamenting of our World Cup. For years in all spheres, Africa has been the underdog and the success of this World Cup is angering those who wish to see us remain underdogs, underachievers and servants of the world who conform to their culture and way of living. But no more! Africa is now ready to decide its own fuure and define its own way of doing things. If u don’t like the vuvuzela I’ll kindly direct you to O.R. Tambo to take the next flight back home.
Viva Mzansi!
In a separate blog dealing with this article an anonymous blogger named Saffer makes the following comment…
“Oh the Irony …..
Actually, the assault of a thousand vuvuzelas arguably fits the definition of ‘Cultural Imperialism’.”
Wish I had thought of saying that.
South African Vuvuzela Philharmonic Angered By Soccer Games Breaking Out During Concerts
June 17, 2010 | ISSUE 46•24
JOHANNESBURG—Members of the South Africa Vuvuzela Philharmonic Orchestra, widely considered to be among the best large-scale monotonic wind instrument ensembles in the world, told reporters Friday they were furious over the recent outbreaks of international soccer matches during their traditional outdoor concerts.
“I cannot imagine what is getting into these football teams that they would suddenly begin full-scale international competition just when we are beginning our 2010 concert series,” said Dr. Stefan Coetzee, the Philharmonic’s program and concert director. “It is disrespectful to the performers, it is disrespectful to the music itself, and by extension, it is disrespectful to the great nation of South Africa.”
Spontaneous high-caliber soccer games have thus far plagued every orchestral vuvuzela performance of the season, which opened June 11 at Cape Town Stadium. As musicians took their places in the stands and began warming up for the evening’s performance of lighter pieces by post-minimalist composers, they noticed the audience was not sitting in its traditional place in the stadium’s central area.
As the Philharmonic learned later, its only spectators were the national football sides of France and Uruguay, who played to a 0-0 tie as the frustrated vuvuzela virtuosi played a full program of concerti written for the distinctive straight plastic horn.
“A virtually empty house is highly unusual in a vuvuzela-mad nation such as South Africa,” said first-chair vuvuzela player Moses Mtegume, who is known as the “Father of the Vuvuzela” and considered a national treasure. “And because concerts are held in the round—the better to appreciate the sonorous tonality of the massed instruments—a performer gets a sense of the crowd early.”
“It doesn’t even seem like these football players are paying attention to us,” Mtegume added. “In fact, I would go so far as to say they are trying to ignore us.”
The following days, during which a string of large-scale vuvuzela performances were held, saw the unusual events repeat in Johnnesburg, Durban, Pretoria, and Port Elizabeth as audience after audience was driven away by FIFA national football teams. As a result, the South Africa Vuvzela Philharmonic, which is supported solely by money from ticket sales, has suffered staggering losses financially. And the musicians, many of whom trained for years and underwent a harrowing audition process to earn one of the orchestra’s 50,000 seats, said the biggest blow was to their professional pride.
“Do you know how difficult it is to get everyone situated, tuned, and focused for a vuvuzela concert?” said Julliard-trained vuvuzelist Donald Frederick Gordon, a noted soloist and renowned performer whose boyhood dream of playing vuvuzela in every stadium in South Africa is now at risk. “These brash, inconsiderate outbursts of impromptu athletics have made us a laughingstock of the international music community. We have already had cancellations from the Vienna Boy’s Choir and guest director Seiji Ozawa, who no doubt fear for their reputation should the Philharmonic continue to be mocked by these incongruous sportsmen.”
In order to save its concert season, the orchestra has scheduled a special benefit concert for July 11 at Johannesburg’s Soccer City Stadium. The orchestra will be accompanied by 8,000 special guest vuvuzela players from Ghana and the Ivory Coast, and the concert program will include the debut of new single-tone compositions by Philip Glass, Arvo Pärt, and vuvuzela fan Mark Mothersbaugh.
The musicians said they are thrilled to be performing in the nation’s most prominent stadium, which is capable of holding up to 12,500 standing concertgoers in its grassy central section.
“This will be a vuvuzela tour de force the likes of which the world has never seen,” Dr. Coetzee said. “We are very close to an agreement with Placido Domingo, who we’re confident will show us how the greatest living tenor sings the B-flat-below-middle-C that makes the vuvuzela so magical. It will truly be a night for the ages, with, we hope, no sign of football rivals battling it out for global supremacy where the audience should be.”
“We’ve already sold a couple dozen tickets to people in Brazil and Argentina,” Dr. Coetzee added. “Mark my words, on July 11, the eyes and ears of the world will be on South Africa.”
More Sports News
Jacques, I think anyone who read my original post and subsequent comments carefully would be hard-pressed to find any evidence that I equated ALL criticism of the Vuvuzela with this kind of attitude. I continuously talk of “some” criticism and “some” responses. What I find objectionable is that some (again not all) people completely missed the point of the article, and made this into a straight forward argument about whether the Vuvu is good or bad and did so in a sneering and sometimes racist tone. When I called out these commentators because of this rather emotional, prejudiced and completely uninformed response, they run around and say I play the race card, attack them, am intolerant etc. But some things are worth exposing and attacking. Racism, prejudice and a snide and arrogant dismissal of everything that does not conform to one’s rather jaundiced and hateful view is in need of exposure and warrants criticism.
But for everyone, once more: you should make a distinction between three things (as I did in the post). First whether one likes the Vuvuzela and thinks its good or bad. (I like it but accept that some other’s don’t – cep la vie). Second, whether one should – if one dislikes it – call for it to be banned. Here I argue strongly that it should not. An example: if I criticize President Zuma, he and his most ardent supporters are surely entitled to disagree with the criticism and say why. But if they then proceed and say I should be banned from expressing my criticism because they do not like it,they are behaving appallingly. Some of those who demand a ban thus seem completely selfish and self-centered and because their view is not adhered to get rather nasty and sneering. That is not very helpful and not very in tune with a respect for diversity and difference and I am happy to call them out on this. Third, the TONE of the criticism can often suggest that more is going on than mere dislike for a sound. Very few commentators have engaged with this aspect of the post, apart from hurling invective at me (on politicsweb someone even called me a faggot for expressing this view.) Once again, when I take issue with this completely ad hominem and rather uninformed and unintellectual attack devoid of any analysis or substance and call it stupid (which it is) I am suddenly called intolerant. Must say, I find that rather rich and ironic.
You take objection to my labeling, but sometimes it is rather difficult to engage with people who shout and scream and sneer, fail to respond to what is written, launch personal attacks of dubious relevance, completely conflates arguments or misunderstands the distinction I made above. Sometimes it is hard not to label such people as stupid as it appears to be a rather apt description of what they are doing. There is a thin line between respect for others and their views on the one hand, and the legitimization of racism, hatred and just rank nastiness on the other by pretending to respect the very racism, hatred and nastiness.
But Pierre, what do you say of the suggestion that the Vuvuzela is, to use Eric Hobsbawm’s term, an “invented tradition”, or (as Jacques puts it), a commodification of culture?
Pierre, on a more practical and legal note. In view of the fact that experts have warned that 15 mins exposure to the vuvus can cause permanent impairment of hearing, whom do we sue should this happen?
Has FIFA been indemnified and if so by whom? Can The City of Cape Town be held responsible and Safa or even the LOC and the Central Government?
Surely all the cultural and other arguments are irrelevant once there is expert opinion that they are a health hazard and they SHOULD be banned by both the organisers and authorities. I am in no way culturally or otherwise opposed to them and I have my own “Bulle” vuvu that I got in Orlando . Unfortunately I had earache for days after the Orlando game and I still have earache after attending Tuesday’s match between Portugal and Ivory Coast.
Surely the authorities have a DUTY TO PROTECT the players, employees and spectators who attend the matches. My suggestion would be an oranised group of vuvu blowers at each match seated in one area . That would prevent people from blowing the vuvus into each others ears and we can still enjoy the special vibe.
@ SC
The rather convenient allegations about our traditional instrument injuring our ears strikes me as another instance of western so-called “science” being used as a pretext to suppress African practices.
Frankly, SC, your proposal that vulvuzela players be segregated is worthy of the Separate Amenities Act. I propose instead that whites who do not relish the sound of the Vuvuzela be housed in special sound-proof basements well beneath the stadium, equipped with closed-circuit televisions!
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
June 18, 2010 at 12:03 pm
“Frankly, SC, your proposal that vulvuzela players be segregated is worthy of the Separate Amenities Act. I propose instead that whites who do not relish the sound of the Vuvuzela be housed in special sound-proof basements well beneath the stadium, equipped with closed-circuit televisions!”
There’s a simpler way.
Stick your fingers into your ears.
Michael, are not most if not all traditions invented? Do we not live in a world in which almost everything is being commodified (from the Flag to religion)? These are more general criticisms of modern life I would think, so its not directly relevant for the argument I made.
SC, I would imagine anyone who wants ti sue will have a problem due to the “violent not fit iniuria” principle which states one cannot normally sue for damages if one has voluntary accepted the known risk involved in an activity.
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder – As long as the sub-pitch viewing room for whites is free of the ghastly honing from your traditional instrument I’m sure they’ll support it. While we’re busy with stadia ‘transformation’ we can also replace the medics with the Eastern Cape traditional healers and maybe get SGL Construction to put a sunroof on all stadia…
Pierre, I suppose some traditions — like plastic trumpets — are more overtly synthesised than others. (If the controversy had revolved around cowhide drums, for example, your suggestion of cultural imperialism may have carried more “resonance.”)
As for “‘violent’ non fit injuria,” I think that doctrine only has application to the infliction of actual violence, so to speak.
Pierre, you can’t seriously imply that if I purchase tickets to attend a World Cup game, that is supposed to be professionally organised , I consent to be permanently deafened by other spectators blowing on the latest plastic fad.
Attending a soccer match is not supposed to be associated with the risk of deafness.
It has to be distiguished from a rally spectator standing on a dangerous corner and being hit by a car.
As for Maggs Naidu, may I suggest Politicsweb , there you will find many other colour obsessed South Africans you can happily to trade insults with.
MD Fassbinder , Somehow I personally prefer the beautiful sound of harmonising voices , so please rather lock me up with a room full of African men singing Shosholoza or if you can only find one, Mandoza or Mahlasela will do. As for a plastic toy, developed 7 years ago, being part of our tradition , ja nee.
SC says:
June 18, 2010 at 20:06 pm
“As for Maggs Naidu, may I suggest Politicsweb , there you will find many other colour obsessed South Africans you can happily to trade insults with.”
What about my comments do you find “colour obsessed”?
If you are not able to substantiate, may I gracefully suggest that you modify my suggestion to Mr Fassbinder about sticking fingers in the ear?
@ Maggs Naidu . Sorry I attributed MD Fassbinder’s comment to you . Thank you for the suggestion , I shall certainly try that next time.
@ SC
LOL!
@ SC
It pains me deeply that your vision of African musicology embraces banal mission-school harmonies like that ol’ tourist-pleaser, “Shosholoza.”
With great respect, your comments fortify my impression that it is a sentiment of IMPERIALISM that animates your demand for soothing polyphony.
Thanks.
MD Fassbinder.Hopefully your deep pain will be relieved by the countless white kids who are making a LOUD statement against this cultural imperialism and have embraced this traditional instrument wholeheartedly.
I mistakenly attributed your comment to Maggs Naidu and unfairly referred him to Politicsweb. Try this website, but if it is not to your liking try weshouldbegratefulwewerenotchasedintothesea.co.za
SC, thank you for the recommendations. I, too, draw hope from Ms Krog’s tireless gratitude.
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
June 19, 2010 at 10:33 am
“SC, thank you for the recommendations”.
I guess that you will not be as grateful on my suggestions on what you can do with your vuvuzela.
Maggs, on the contrary , haven’t you noticed that I have been blowing my vuvuzela from the wrong end?
@ SC,
My evil plan was to transform our resident Dworky to our resident ducky!
That would be quite a sight, Dwork with his fingers in his ears and a made-in-China tail.
Pierre, I suspect Aspden had his tongue firmly in his cheek in his FT piece defending the Vuvuzela. Phillip Glass is a “popular” contemporary composer only in the sense that Thomas Pynchon is a “popular” contemporary novelist.
A performance of Glass at the Lincoln Center could easily attract more than 200 people – of whom an unnerving percentage will be Julliard graduate students.
… the most balanced view on the vuvuzela ‘culture’ I have read to date:
http://www.thedailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2010-06-16-blow-the-vuvuzela-and-blow-the-cultural-argument
Interesting debate. I think most of you miss de Vos’ main point, that is, the fact that Vuvuzelas are ‘different’ but at the same time cannot be encapsulated within a pre-packaged idea of ‘difference’ such as african tribal drumming or brazilian bikini samba. The point about commodification of culture is, to some extent, pointless. Every tradition is invented, there is no ‘genuine’ culture. Vuvuzela are now part of south african football culture and many people see them – as weird as it could sound – as both instruments of unity and of resilience against cultural prejudice.
Probably a more interesting point to debate could be the fact the their main defender is Sepp Blatter (whilst Danny Jordaan, at the beginning of the WC, was clearly hinting at the possibility of them being banned). Now, the fact that FIFA appears as the most uncompromising defender of vuvuzela unsettles me. Are they playing the card of cultural relativism, showing how they are respectful of South African culture to the point of challenging the Western moaning – only to provide a smokescreen to the way they are preventing locals from freely expressing their opinions as well as legitimately gaining from the WC? I guess this question has been so far missed
@ Psylo
“Every tradition is invented, there is no ‘genuine’ culture”
You overstate the case. We all understand that purportedly venerable traditions are refracted through a contemporary lens – and that some “traditions” are entirely synthetic But we also understand that a reed hut has more continuity with the past than a Blackberry. (Eric Hobsbawm himself did not claim that all traditions were “invented.”)
But I agree with your second para.
Hi,
I firmly believe that every tradition is invented and there is no such thing as ‘genuine’ tradition. This does not mean resorting to relativism, though. I agree with you that a reed hut has more continuity than a blackberry. The point is, certain traditions (or you can call them practices, narrations, habits) can become crystallised because of different reasons and, through time, gain an appearance of immutability, for instance because it is very old, it is widely shared, it has a special aura (for instance the case of religious traditions). There are more or less stable, more or less solid, older or younger traditions – true. Every one of them, though, is invented – a process whereby a certain habit is ritualised, formalised, sometimes forbidden and so on. I agree that this is not fully Hobsbawm’s point . The point is, tradition are both invented and real, the fact that they are not ‘genuine’ or ‘true’ – as I, post-structuralistically, do not believe in such occurences – does not imply that they are not real, powerful and solid.
Anyway, apart from this compelling but slightly off-the-topic debate, it is important to see, in the case of Vuvuzela, to what extent the label of tradition has been placed because of a reaction – which, paradoxically, united south africans and FIFA – against a supposedly imperialistic statement by Westerners, and to what extent it was already perceived an established tradition of south african (football) culture. Is not FIFA being as patronising as those who would like South Africa to be all about dancing and singing – by defending unconditionally Vuvuzelas in the name of ‘tradition’, ‘culture’ or whatever?
whatever one’s view on the vuvu, this is really hilarious:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-Ln_rqPpPk
@Anton Kleinschmidt: To ram the own culture into the throats of others, as you call it, is exactly what Europeans normally do. Now it’s South Africa’s turn to do so. My German fellow citizen just complain about the noise of vuvuzelas because they don’t know it, they are not accustomed to it. If something happens what Germans usually don’t do than it’s bad in their opinion.
They complain — another German hobby — the hole day about the World Cup. They say one cannot hear a murmur if a player miss the goal, one cannot hear the rejoicing if a team make a goal, one cannot hear this and that… That would destroy the atmosphere. That’s not soccer. Actually the have to say: That’s not the soccer we like. You guys have to organize a soccer what we want to have…
The WC takes just four weeks. Enjoy it!
Considering there are people who profess to be from different cultures in this discussion about culture, might it be a good idea to clarify whether we are all using the same definition for culture? otherwise we may be comparing apples to pears, and be totally clueless we ain’t talking about the same thing.
In my culture: Radical Honesty, what I consider to be our culture, is our code of conduct; our truth and forgiveness social contract; we have a code of conduct that we use to come to agreement and to settle disagreements or misunderstandings. with this code of communication conduct we are able to resolve any disagreement or misunderstanding and consequently our other cultural differences are very easily resolved, becuase we all practice the same communication code of conduct.
what do other people consider their ‘culture’?
@ White Refugee
I have adopted the culture of UBUNTU, an authentic indigenous discourse that that has for time immemorial employed the Vuvuzela in elaborate rituals designed to foster communal solidarity.
Thanks.
Mikhail,
What does ‘ubuntu’ mean to you? Because if you read ubuntu literature, it means many things to different people?
Your answer is extremely vague and ambiguous and unless you clarify what you mean by your abstract terminology; I have not a clue whether I am interpreting you correctly.
Your answer also does not define what you mean by culture; so I am still very unclear what the concept of ‘culture’ means to you personally.
i would love to hear during the world cup games in sth africa ,some heart felt chanting,singing,clapping,rhythmic drumming -whatever,from the naturally musically/rhythmically superior african crowd.you have the best singing voices in the world and you represent with a montone kids toy!?
Vuvus are an insult to your superior musically gifted culture.
The complusive,sheep like Vuvu owners r so emotionally immature its embarrassing .Its like 5 yr olds pumped on sugar at a birthday party with those whistle paper blowers!
A Vuvu with holes in it would be better ( like flute)-now theres a marketers dream.
Sth african musicians must be mortified by this autistic behaviour of their people!
frm disappointed musician from spain
m.osbourne- i am new to this site/net love yr astute,acerbic comments esp.the vuvu philharmonic- was classic-kudos.you have a great gift of entertaining/humor.And other people here,lighten up, stop been so neurotic about imperialism etc.
The most annoying aspect of this World Cup has been the blanket calls of “cultural imperialism” in order to defend the indefensible, in so doing defenders of the vuvuzela miss almost ALL of the important points.
No one is against YOU expressing YOUR culture, we simply would like ALL cultures to be given the chance to be heard. In that regard blowing a 128 decibel monotone instrument drowns out EVERYONES culture but YOUR OWN.
Such action is not only incredibly rude and might I add culturally insensitive, but as the host such behavior is shocking as is the rather generalizing and quite frankly racist defenses offered by vuvuzela supporters..
I am of Anglo Saxon ethnicity , yet born and raised in Hong Kong, while spending my adult years living in South America, but you know what? I don’t like the vuvuzela either, what does that do to your shockingly naiive and insulting analysis? Some kind of latent European centric world view?
I would like to hear the drums of Korea and Brazil, the chants of England and Germany and all the other unique noises of other cultures… but I cant, so as to safeguard ONE culture.. isn’t the irony dumbfounding?
And yes singing and dancing are vital parts of South African culture, unless I’m a victim of some kind of vast conspiracy over the last 15 years of watching SA rugby, but who cares about that right I’m sure you speak for ALL South Africans who even if they wanted to sing or dance, are equally subjugated beneath the din of the vuvuzela, like it or not.
Unless your taking the rather ridiculous position that South African culture begins and stops at a $0.45 plastic horn made in China, you could pick a method of expression that allows us ALL to participate and showcase the MYRIAD of cultures out there.
Would the host nation be capable of just a minimal standard of politeness?
Ok, I’m not English, British or European (and it should be noted that there is a big difference between British and European anyway), but the vuvuzela drone, is to me like waking up under a swarm of wasps in the tropics. And yes, I can back that up because it’s something I’ve actually done before.
It’s definitely not racism on my part, just my acoustic sensitivity. It seems like a helluva lot of fun if you’re part of it, but like a beginners bagpipe convention, is probably more fun for participants than spectators.
Having said all that, I personally think it’s really rude for visitors to suggest another country suppresses it’s expression of excitement and celebration for the benefit of those visitors. What people should be doing, is asking for commentary to be recorded seperately from the background noise. There’s no real reason why the commentators need to have the background sound going (though only very good commentators can make up for the loss of atmosphere). Alternatively, maybe broadcasts can include both grandstand and commentator sound, but reduce the former a little.
My 5cents worth….