CHIPOLOPOLO: a POLITICAL and SOCIAL HISTORY of FOOTBALL (SOCCER) in ZAMBIA, 1940S – 1994
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CHIPOLOPOLO: A POLITICAL AND SOCIAL HISTORY OF FOOTBALL (SOCCER) IN ZAMBIA, 1940s – 1994 By Decius Chipande A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of History-Doctor of Philosophy 2015 ABSTRACT CHIPOLOPOLO: A POLITICAL AND SOCIAL HISTORY OF FOOTBALL (SOCCER) IN ZAMBIA, 1940s-1994 By Decius Chipande This dissertation explores the complex relationships between football, culture, and politics in Zambia, from the Second World War through the aftermath of the first multiparty elections of the postcolonial era. It reconstructs the rise and development of African football clubs, competitions, players, and personalities, and connects the everyday lives of ordinary people to broader shifts in colonial and postcolonial political history. The main primary sources for this study are Zambian government records, local newspapers and magaZines, and doZens of oral intervieWs and informal conversations I recorded in Zambia With former players, administrators, journalists, and fans. The research reveals how football Was used as a tool for social control and propaganda. As the economic heartland of Zambia, the Copperbelt looms large throughout this story. Beginning in the late colonial period, football boomed in this industrial region as miners and other African Wage-earning Workers quickly made the British game their own. They did so not only by acquiring sporting skills, but also by forging new loyalties and identities that nurtured, directly and indirectly, the broader anti-colonial struggle for self-determination. Football took on a nation-building function after independence in 1964. Under President Kenneth Kaunda, a former player and referee, and his UNIP ruling party, the government invested considerable economic and political capital into the Football Association of Zambia, school sport, domestic clubs, and the national team. Kaunda’s one- party state embraced football as a means to create consent and support for its ideology of “African humanism,” to consolidate poWer and authority, and gain international visibility and prestige. Following the nationaliZation of the mines and other sectors of the economy, in the 1970s and 1980s parastatal companies and the armed forces played a vital role in groWing the game despite a Worsening economic crisis. The government’s gradual WithdraWal from sport after the implementation of Structural Adjustment Programs brought the domestic game to its knees, and may have contributed to the Gabon air disaster of April 1993 in Which the entire national team perished. This dissertation takes the cultural agency of Zambians seriously. It explores the impact of radio and the press, fan groups, and the inclusion of spiritual beliefs and practices, such as magic and sorcery. In so doing, this study also sheds light on the tensions produced by fierce rivalries between different clubs and competing notions of masculinity among miners, bakaboyi (domestic Workers), and civil servants in urban communities. The gendered dynamics of sport meant that Women fans struggled for inclusion in an overWhelmingly male domain; but female fans Were neither unusual nor passive and some channeled their passion for football into founding the first Women’s clubs and leagues. As the first scholarly history of association football in Zambia, this Work makes at least three contributions to national and African historiography. First, it expands on the neW revisionist history concerned With moving beyond UNIP- and Kaunda-centered nationalist readings of the past. Second, it demonstrates the value of seeing football as a cultural space in which power is contested and where individual, community, and institutional identities come to life. Finally, this study uncovers neW documentary and oral evidence that deepen our understanding of sport’s capacity to both shape and symboliZe social change in an African nation’s colonial and postcolonial past. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In my mother tongue of Chitonga, there is an idiomatic expression that states: “munwe omwe taujayi njina,” meaning one finger is not enough to kill lice. This stresses humility and the need to depend on other people for one to succeed in any undertaking. I would like to express my gratefulness to the many people and institutions that supported me throughout my PhD studies. I Would first like to thank my PhD adviser, Professor Peter Alegi, for his immeasurable support of my studies at MSU from the beginning to the end, but mostly for his priceless mentoring and knoWledge in the social history of soccer. I am grateful to my advisory committee: Professors Walter HaWthorne, David Bailey, James Pritchett and John Metzler. I would also like to especially thank Dr. Bala Saho, Dr. Walima Kalusa, Dr. Davies Banda, Dr. Chris Bolsmann, Duncan Money, Leonard Koloko, Chewe Nkonde, Kelvin KamfWa, Pelle Kvalsund, Dr. Michelle Powell Kvalsund and my colleagues in the Department of History at Michigan State University LiZ Timbs, AndreW Barsom and Adrienne Tyrey. The FIFA João Havelange Research Scholarship and the MSU Department of History made it financially possible for me to spend eighteen months conducting research in Zambia. There, I benefited from the assistance of many people. On the Zambian Copperbelt, AsWell MWenya and his Wife and Brian Mayeya Welcomed me; I spent a long time in their homes While visiting nearby Copperbelt toWns and researching in the Mining and Industrial Archives in Ndola. I am very grateful to everyone I interviewed for generously sharing their soccer experiences and memories With me. I Would like to particularly thank John Ginger Pensulo, Dickson MakWaZa, Joseph MWansa, Simataa Simataa, Daniel Kaoma iv and Leonard Koloko, Whom I regularly phoned to ask folloW-up questions and from Whom I gained great insights on Zambian sports and society. I would also like to thank the members of staff at the National Archives of Zambia in Lusaka and at the Mining and Industrial Archive in Ndola for their very kind assistance with my research. Lastly, I Would like to thank my family, particularly my Wife Brenda, who unselfishly supported the outlandish idea of resigning my job to embark on this long journey overseas, leaving her with the responsibility of supporting our children. I dedicate this dissertation to her and to my daughters Chimuka, Naboombe and TWalumba, Whose lives I disrupted and who have endured my absence for four years. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES…………………….…………………………………………………………………………....……….viii LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………………..…………………………….ix KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS…………………………………………………………………………………………….…xi INTRODUCTION: LEISURE, REVISIONIST HISTORY AND FOOTBALL IN ZAMBIA……………….1 BACKGROUND……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 3 SOURCES AND METHODOLOGY…………………………...……………………………………………….5 LEISURE STUDIES IN ZAMBIA: A BRIEF OVERVIEW…………………………….………….......13 THE NEW REVISIONIST HISTORY OF ZAMBIA……………….……………………………………18 CONTEXTUALIZING FOOTBALL IN AFRICAN HISTORY………………………………………..25 CHAPTER OUTLINE……………………………………………………………………………………………34 CHAPTER 1: FOOTBALL AND SOCIAL CHANGE ON THE COPPERBELT, 1940s-1960s...........39 AFRICAN WELFARE PROJECTS ON THE COPPERBELT……………………………...…………42 THE COPPERBELT AFRICAN FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION: GROWTH AND CHANGE…52 SUPPORTERS CLUBS ON THE COPPERBELT………………………………………………………..64 INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL ON THE COPPERBELT…………………………………...………70 CHAPTER 2: DERACIALIZING FOOTBALL, FROM THE 1950s TO INDEPENDENCE…………...78 THE COLOR BAR IN NORTHERN RHODESIA……………………………………………...………...80 FOOTBALL AND THE CENTRAL AFRICAN FEDERATION……………………………...………84 THE NONRACIAL NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE…………………….………………………....90 EMERGENCE OF ROAN UNITED FOOTBALL CLUB…………………………..…………………...96 RACE AND CLASS IN THE NFL’S CITY OF LUSAKA FOOTBALL CLUB....................…….101 FOOTBALL AND THE ZAMBIAN NATION…………………………………………………………. 105 UFULU (FREEDOM) FOOTBALL TOURNAMENTS……………………………………………….107 CHAPTER 3: KAUNDA’S ONE PARTY-STATE: FOOTBALL AND POSTCOLONIAL POLITICS IN THE 1970s……………………………………………………………………………………….......…114 THE UNIP AND THE DRIVE TO CONTROL FOOTBALL………………………………..………116 SCHOOL SPORT AND INTERNATIONAL LINKS…………………………………………………..123 AFRICAN HUMANISM, POPULIST LEADERSHIP, AND THE 1974 AFRICAN CUP OF NATIONS…………………………………………………………………………..…………..……..129 FOOTBALL POLITICS AND THE STATE: THE DISSOLUTION OF FAZ AND THE NFL…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..135 ZAMBIANIZATION: THE CASE OF THE NATIONAL TEAM COACH……………………….140 CHAPTER 4: PARASTATAL CORPORATIONS’ PATRONAGE OF FOOTBALL IN THE 1970s AND 1980s ……………………………………………………………………………………………………....150 KAUNDA’S NATIONALIZATION OF THE MINES……………………………………...………….152 THE MINING SECTOR’S SPONSORSHIP OF SPORT, 1964-1984…………………………...155 vi ZAMBIA RAILWAYS’ KABWE WARRIORS……………………………………………………….....160 ZAMBIA ARMY FOOTBALL CLUB…………………………………………...………………………….163 FOOTBALL’S FINANCIAL CRISIS DURING THE KAUNDA ERA……………………...……...168 ZCCM FOOTBALL PATRONAGE 1984-1993………………………………………………….........173 SUCCESS ON THE GLOBAL STAGE: ZAMBIA’S 1988 OLYMPIC TEAM…………………..177 ZCCM AND THE RISE OF PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL………………...………………………181 CHAPTER 5: THE POPULARIZATION OF FOOTBALL: MASS MEDIA AND FAN CULTURE...189 THE MEDIA AND THE POPULARIZATION OF FOOTBALL…………………………………...190 FAN CULTURE ON THE COPPERBELT………………………...……………………………………..196 CITY OF LUSAKA AND LUSAKA TIGERS’ FANS……………………...……………………………202 FEMALE FANS AND WOMEN’S TEAMS IN A GENDERED FOOTBALL CULTURE ..…204 CHEERING THE NATION: FROM BOLA-BOLA TO CHIPOLOPOLO SOCCER FANS ASSOCIATION………………………………………………………………………………………