"Feel it . . . it is here!"

One hears this slogan these days on South African radio. What "it" is, or that which we are implored to "feel" is, of course, the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament.

The coming of the World Cup to South Africa is not without controversy. Indeed, articles posted on this very website in recent days and weeks have outlined several good reasons for South Africans not to embrace the hype of 2010--not to "feel it." Jonathan Jansen, for example, writes that he "will not wear a yellow jersey on Friday"; it is for him one representation of a "being for" something which is always violently "against" something else. Similarly, Allen Goddard eschews the call to "fly the flag" in preparation for the World Cup. His rationale is thoroughly biblical: standing in the tradition of Jesus and the Hebrew prophets, Christians must reject all vows of allegiance to powers other than God. In the course of his larger argument, Goddard introduces a theme which Brian Konkol has explicated in another essay: the economic injustices inherent in hosting the tournament.

I accept as my own the basic philosophical and theological premises outlined by Jansen and Goddard, and cannot deny the sad case as outlined by Konkol. Yet I add to the discussion two vignettes of personal experience and one question, especially pertaining to economic considerations.

Several weeks ago, as we walked through the streets of the township where we worship, a group of young men commented, "Is it the World Cup already?; we like to see you here!" This group of people, undoubtedly classified by outsiders as the poor, who indeed will not likely reap any material benefits from the tournament, nevertheless own the idea of hosting foreigners in their country. Perhaps the single greatest assurance of dignity for Africans--the essential characteristic of being human according to the Psalmist ("crowned with glory and honor") (Ps. 8)--is their capacity to host, to throw a party to which the world is invited.

Last week, while stopped at a red light, the voice of the young man driving the car beside mine came through my window: "feel it!" He spoke those words because he, a black man, and I, a white, were both wearing Bafana Bafana jerseys. We exchanged smiles and thumbs up. In the interest of doing my small part to support unity in a still deeply-divided society, my wife and I had decided to purchase one for my birthday. To me it is money well-spent.

So, yes, the international, corporate powers that put on the World Cup do not care for the poor. Perhaps they even impede the poor's actual ability to host the event. Yet we might ask whether our preoccupations with material considerations is the flip-side of a deficiency to appreciate as genuinely real those benefits which are invisible--or at least hidden from our eyes. That is a question.