Comment Cver Africans Sport

Beckenbauer’s comment over Africans spot


THERE is a possibility that there would be an outcry by some Africans over what former German national team manager, Franz Beckenbauer is quoted to have said two days ago over Africans in relation to South Africa’s preparations for the 2010 World Cup. In this article, Staff Writer, ATTILIO TAGALILE, however, argues that instead of complaining, it is time Africans made self-searching with a view to correcting their mistakes. Read on.

Former Germany’s World Cup winning coach, Franz Beckenbauer was yesterday quoted by a number of print media in the country as saying that South Africa’s slow pace in preparing for the 2010 World Cup had nothing to do with the country, but rather with what he described as African problems.

“People are working against rather than with each other,” Beckenbauer is further quoted to have said.

According to the sports story, the German’s living legend’s (he won the World Cup twice as player and skipper in 1974 and as a team manager in 1990) comments comes barely a few days after the President of the world football governing body, Fifa, Sepp Blatter, had announced his plans to travel to South Africa.

According to the Fifa president, he would, during his visit to South Africa not only meet President Thabo Mbeki, but also talk with lawmakers in the that country with the express purpose of urging them to speed up the country’s preparation for hosting the World Cup come the year 2010.

The historic nature of the 2010 World Cup is that it would be the first time that prestigious soccer tournament would be held in Africa.

We all remember how angry Africa was when it missed the opportunity of hosting this year’s World Cup which was held in Germany just by one vote!

However, after seeing the writing on the wall, Blatter was quick to promise that come 2010, he would ensure that Africa was given the opportunity of hosting World Cup.

The Fifa president’s promise has come to pass and come 2010 the World Cup would be held not only in Africa, but barely 4,000 kilometres from Tanzania!

It is not however, the aim of this article to discuss sports, and in particular, football. The objective is to discuss Becknebauer’s statement on Africans.

It is quite possible the German’s statement, especially that beat about “working against rather than with each other” may be taken by many Africans as a statement in bad taste.

That the whitemen are once again at it! However, it is time we Africans, and in particular, Tanzanians started looking at such criticism positively.

As rightly noted by Beckenbauer, South Africa is not a problem. The really issue is what he called African problem.

What the German soccer legend has said about what is going on in South Africa in relation to the preparation of the World Cup is unfortunately not confined to that country per se.

It is a problem that cuts across the continent among Africans. It is a problem of attitude and lack of seriousness, problems that have become the bane of the continent.

It is therefore no wonder our continent has sometimes been described as No hurry in Africa.

We know of no other continent that has been given such names. Yet, we are ourselves to blame for failing to live up to people’s expectations.

The tragedy of this African problem, is that it is more pronounced among the very people who are supposed to lead us!

In fact Beckenabauer said what he said on Africans in South Africa simply because that country is supposed to be working hard and very fast to prepare stadiums for the forthcoming historic soccer tournament.

Otherwise the same problem that Beckenbauer has referred to is prevalent in many other African countries.

Whatever projects we are supposed to implement whether locally or foreign funded, there are always problems unless such projects are supervised directly by a foreigner whose country has donated the fund.

One finds such problem right here in Tanzania. Most of the foreign funded and foreign supervised projects were not only completed in time, but lasted longer.

Take roads as a case in point. The Ali Hassan Mwinyi dual carriageway and even the Mandela Exrpessway have lasted longer despite being neglected in terms of maintenance simply because they were built and supervised by foreigners.

However, engineers and technicians were not foreigners, but our own people, Tanzanians!

But take a look at locally built and supervised road and you don’t need to be an engineer to discover engineering problems!

Yet when local contractors are sidelined in preference for foreign contractors on account of their seriousness, there is always a hue and cry.

Since the last government, efforts have been made to ensure that some of the small construction works are given to our own local contractors.

The objective of the decision was very good, to empower our own engineers so that in future we may not need foreigners to build our own roads.

The question is to what extent have our local contractors carried out their work professionally?

How long are the roads they have been involved in, in terms of construction, going to last?

Last year a number of roads were built in the country and continue to. The question is how long are such roads going to last in terms of durability?

The question here is how serious are our local engineers when it comes to building and supervising private and government funds projects?

The foregoing question is not only confined to engineers, but also to all other kinds of professionals, ranging from journalists and to doctors from lawyers to accountants.

In short, how serious are Tanzanian professionals when it comes to discharging duties in their respective fields?

Are we capable of finishing our projects on schedule and in accordance with international standards?

The truth is most of us cannot despite being armed with various certificates, diplomas and degrees.

The problem has nothing to do with whether or not we are sub-standard in our professional training, far from it.

In fact some of our experts are known to have done so well in their professional studies abroad, beating their hosts, but when they returned home they failed to live to the academic and professional performance for a variety of reasons which include, among others, what Beckenabauer describes as the African problem.

Let us look around among ourselves. How much time do we spend back-biting one another instead of concentrating on the work before us?

How much time do we spend undermining our fellow colleagues in our respective work places simply because their performance is better than ours, they are more knowledgeable than us?

A few months ago, President Jakaya Kikwete during one of his working visits abroad criticized some Tanzanians of being selfish.

He said some of them came across international jobs which can be filled in by fellow Tanzanians, some of them their own friends back home, but do nothing to encourage them to apply for such jobs.

The president’s example-cum-criticism is just one of many examples Beckenbauer is referring to as working against rather than with each other.

What is more disgusting is that the same people who spend hours on end working against rather than with each other are always in the fore-frong in blaming African woes on colonialism and neo-colonialism!

What these fellow Africans forget is that if only they could work with each other, it would be very easy to deal with whoever wants to undermine our African countries, singly and jointly.

At the moment we have a very big problem in Darfur, in Sudan. And President George W. Bush two days ago described it as nothing, but genocide.

And because African leaders through the African Union (AU) have failed miserably in dealing with the problem because of their divided loyalty with the Sudanese government of General Omar al Bashir, the United Nations Security Council now wants to send UN troops to the area to stop the on going genocide.

The question African leaders ought be asking themselves is for how long are they going to be helped to solving their problems by countries from outside the continent?

If we cannot solve our own problems, and mostly in our own individual countries, is their any justification for complaining when the Beckenbauers criticize us for our selfishness?

Just look around, even at home, in Tanzania, you would not fail to find that we cannot escape being criticized by foreigners from outside the continent for our lack of seriousness literally in everything.

It is time we took Beckenbauer’s criticism that is not only directed to Africans in South Africa but to the entire continent we put our acts together before it is too late.

In fact, Africans in South Africa can at least be forgiven for whatever mistakes they are presently making.

After all they have had democratic government for not more than 13 years. What about us who have been independent for over 40 years. Do we have anything to write home about?

Ends.