“This Time for Africa”: FIFA, Politics, and South Africa's Struggle for Human Rights Taylor Henley Duke Immerse: Freedom
“This Time for Africa”: FIFA, Politics, and South Africa’s Struggle for Human Rights Taylor Henley Duke Immerse: Freedom Struggles in the 20th Century Professors Chafe and Shapiro April 22, 2013 Henley 1 When you fall get up, oh oh If you fall get up, eh eh Tsamina mina zangalewa Cuz this is Africa Tsamina mina, eh eh Waka waka, eh eh Tsamina mina zangalewa This time for Africa In 2010, for the first time in the history of organized international soccer, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) held its quadrennial World Cup on the continent of Africa. “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa),” the official song of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, reflects the enthusiasm of the entire continent as the world’s most anticipated sports tournament catapulted South Africa to the world soccer stage. Behind the song’s cheery façade, however, lay the implicit acknowledgement of decades of struggle for black liberation. Forty-nine years after South Africa’s first suspension from FIFA for its discriminatory practices, thirty-five years after FIFA formally expelled South Africa following the deadly Soweto uprising, eighteen years after FIFA formally readmitted South Africa, and sixteen years after South Africa’s first democratic elections, the world was finally officially recognizing South Africa—and the rest of the continent—as a major player in the politics of international soccer. The struggle for integration of South African soccer is a microcosmic representation of the overarching struggle for human rights in apartheid South Africa. The conflict between the pro-apartheid and race-segregated Football Association of Southern Africa (FASA) and the anti- apartheid and non-racial South African Soccer Federation (SASF) parallels, and in some cases Henley 2 precedes, that of the apartheid government and leading anti-apartheid political organizations.
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