I’m exhausted by the end of the World Cup. Today’s game was anticlimactic (almost as much as the last final in ’06) and I felt deflated when the Orange lost, I’m down. I didn’t cheer all day.
I’d watched most of the games (and won’t watch any more till 2014) and the great athletic moments seem long ago now: the defeat of the Brazilians by Sneijder’s beautiful goals, the German thumping of the Argentinians with a multicultural team, and the magical goal by Asamoah Gyan in extra time when Ghana defeated the U.S. Today Arjen Robben couldn’t do what Gyan did with a similar ball. It’s deflating.
That said, there are great political things to savor from the World Cup. The two big winners were South Africa and Spain, and both countries emerged from long and desperate periods of history to this triumphant moment.
The Spain of For Whom the Bell Tolls and Pan’s Labyrinth gave way to the Spain of Almodovar. I think ESPN’s Roberto Martinez even referred to the long tyrannical sleep of Spain in his comments after the match, how the win helps to bury that past.
Of course, Nelson Mandela was there in Johannesburg today. And however messed-up a place South Africa is (and whatever they did to Soweto to build Soccer City) the country seems to have done a great job with the tournament.
The death of apartheid was never so clear to me as it was today, when I saw so many South Africans wearing orange, honoring the long connection with the Dutch– some of which history was very grim indeed.
I thought about Israel, of course. I thought that this terrible period in the history of Israel and Palestine can come to an end, peacefully, with justice; and that people can quickly move on from it. They can embrace one another and imagine a different future, connected positively, not brutally.
I know that seems a long ways off. But Israelis must have glimpsed some of what I saw today, and wondered when they will be welcomed on the world stage. And the way is clear; it is freedom and representation for the Palestinians.
