Zukiswa Wanner

I have said this before and I say it again, I am a bad loser. I am that who was friends with her high school crush for years and gave him tips on how to get other girls because she didn’t want to risk telling him how she felt in case she got rejected. I am also that girl who never cut a CD because I feared never winning a SAMA (OK, I am lying there. Truth is, I can’t carry a tune to save my life. In fact, when I sing in the shower, my neighbours throw eggs at my bathroom window then yell at me when I come outside for wasting their eggs in a recession year). But folks, yesterday was different.

Yesterday I did not just morph into a good loser.

I slept a happy one, thanks to Google and Bafana Bafana.

The way it happened was crazy. Well okay, not that crazy if you are an artist. I was googling myself (see why I qualified that last statement?) and seeing what new stuff there might be on me. What do I come across but me on some South African fashionista website on Worst Dressed Celebrities for 2008. I have never been so HAPPY in my life. I started making a flurry of phone calls to all and sundry and even sent a text to my mother Down Under (‘Mom, I’ve done it. I made a list’, she did not quite get it when she called me later and asked ‘what list?’ but I will put it down to a generation gap). For fans of O Mag SA, remember that blue dress with a deep pink belt and yours truly cheekily licking a matching lollipop inside it in the November 2008 issue? That is what I made the list for. I will tell you why I was not fazed. I did not choose the dress, some other fashionista stylist for O Mag did but even better than that, I will tell you why I was happy. Dude, the website called me, a humble writer, a no-one, and Hintsa’s mom, A CELEBRITY, I mean yay, get me outta here. Are they serious? Awesome. Now bring on the invites for this celebrity to the real cool parties!

Then in the evening I watched Bafana play against Brazil. I am beginning to think the reason why soccer is known as the Beautiful Game may very well have been a prophecy of the way Bafana Bafana played last night. That match was, no other way to put it, beautiful. I admit that in the first few minutes of the first half I was a bit nervous but when I saw our boys taking the ball to the Brazilians, I almost cried tears of joy – and I was sober as a judge (well not a certain Pretoria judge obviously. More like the Chief Justice on a Monday morning at Constitutional Court). Was Kaka even in that field?  Robinho? Because Bafana danced circles around the Samba Boys. Sure we did not score but there were more shots on target than off from the South African side. At half time my son was so elated that he played the vuvuzela until the boys came back to play.

What disturbing the peace, the neighbours started it!

By the 75t^h minute, Hintsa had fallen asleep and so when that free kick from 21 metres to goal happened in the 87^th minute which led to Brazil’s salvation, he was already in dreamland. I told him this morning that we won and since he stayed up late and did not go to crèche today, he has blown the vuvuzela a couple of times in celebration already. Sure we didn’t win, but it felt like we did. There was no loathing for any of the Bafana players from me, in fact, the only thing I felt like doing was hugging our despondent goalie Itumeleng Khune and Steven who I am sure I saw shedding a tear or two to let them know, ‘it’s alright boys. You did well.’

I have no doubt that if yesterday’s game is the type that Bafana bring to the World Cup next year from their first match, we have an excellent chance of going very far. So to Tumi, Steve-o, Teko, Boooooooth, Masilela, Gaxa,  Siyabonga, Benson, Bernard Parker, Mphela, and Captain, our Captain Mokoena – you wore the green and gold well and one Jozi girl is proud of you.

And oh Sepp Blatter and your FIFA dudes, we won’t let you down. Sure, our Bafana are out but we will still cheer the finalists on Sunday. Who to cheer for? I am a sucker for the underdog myself. No. Not the US. I am thinking Brazil?

Huh? Brazil underdogs in soccer? OK, maybe not but they are underdogs everywhere else against the US. Explain? OK, here it is:

·        The US is the sole superpower and Brazil is a developing nation. I am South African, it makes more sense to support a fellow NAM, G20 and IBSA member. Besides, they have green and gold in their uniform.

·        Sure, Lula is cool but the US has Obama! That makes the US top dawgs anyway you want to look at it.

·         And then if you can speak a few of the Southern African languages you have to really understand how much the Brazilians are underdogs. The team has players with names that end in NHO and this is pronounced  ‘nyo’ and one called Kaka….any way you look at it that alone qualifies them for our support…aren’t their names sad enough?

So go Brazil, at least one girl is with you all the way. Well, at least till you take on Bafana at the semis next year!

So on Saturday I was at the only black-owned bookstore in town, Xarra Books, for the launch of the Miriam Tladi Reading and Book Club (for those who don’t know who she is, she is a doyenne of South African literature, author of such books as Between Two Worlds and Amandla and one of the funniest people I know with her marvellous self-effacing humour). I had no intention of watching soccer because I tend to think myself an amateur coach when watching the game and get a little too vocal for my companions’ears. Seeing my friend Marcia put paid to that as the suggestion of a drink at Sophiatown soon led to another drink and eventually, watching the game with five other friends in tow. I am a bad loser. So I had decided, and loudly vocalised it, that I was not going to support the SA Home Team (Bafana Bafana), in their battle against Spain because I didn’t want to support a losing team, to my mates’ annoyance.

All my good intentions of being a good host to the Spanish and supporting what I was certain was the better team were however laid to rest the moment the national anthem played. I found myself together with most of the restaurant patrons singing Nkosi Sikelel’a lustfully and cheering loudly (or louder than the next person) when the anthem ended. Good sportsmanship, support for the better team, whatever intentions had led me to claim that I would support Spain were firmly set aside as I watched the game and supported the boys in gold and green as though my own son was in Bloem and on the field from kick-off.

I clapped enthusiastically when the goalie saved what looked certain to be a Spanish goal, yelled to Bernard Parker to move forward with the ball even though he could not hear me, and would have stuck my tongue out at the Spanish threesome who were sitting a few tables from us with glee in a ‘so-there’ fashion if Bafana had scored.

By the end of the first half and with the score at zero-zero, I was loving Teko, Parker, Matthew Bloom, Macbeth (who I was certain was jinxed not to score by his parents. Didn’t they read Shakespeare? Didn’t they know what happened to the chap they decided to name their child after?), Steven, and the rest of the Bafana 11 almost as much as I love my four year old. If they had walked in Sophiatown at that moment, I would happily have bought them all a few rounds with money I did not have.

Then in early second half, there was a penalty against Bafana less than 20 metres from goal.

The whole of Sophiatown held its breath as the Spanish player took the shot, and all of us shouted with glee when our wonderful and loveable goalie dove into left corner of the goal and SAVED!!!! It was a beautiful moment. It was a moment filled with elation and much hugging at our table and surrounding tables. And it was to be the final bright light before darkness.

Less than a minute later, Spain scored and gloom fell on all of us.

But soccer fans have got to be the most glass-half-full optimists you can ever come across. Knowing what we know of Bafana, that they too tend to get dejected as soon as the other team scores before they have, we should have been realistic and looked on it as a loss. But we all kept hoping. And hoping. And hoping.

Maybe the boys would score?

Maybe there would be some miracle?

Maybe one of our better sangomas from Limpopo had worked some good muti to ensure our boys will surprise us and the country with a victory over the Spanish?

It wasn’t to be.

The Spanish team scored again putting paid any hope of us winning or equalising. As though we weren’t feeling depressed enough, the commentator kept mentioning how Spain had not lost a game in 35 matches. Gee thanks dude, want us to commit mass suicide?

By then I was really hating the Bafana players. I was so certain that if I had been on that field, I would have worked it somehow that we would have scored a goal (I can’t play soccer to save my life but the possibilities are endless when you are watching something on screen). It was then I started thinking perhaps the person who coined the phrase ‘thin line between love and hate’ must have been a soccer fan. How else could I explain the love I felt for the boys less than an hour earlier with the resentment I now harboured for them?

I was no longer looking to Bafana to win or equalise, there was not enough time left for that, but I kept hoping that somehow they would at least sink one in and salvage national pride.

There was a glimmer of hope a little while before the final whistle and I stood up and shouted with many other patrons but nothing doing. The goal was offside. We went back to being depressed. And Martin our server seemed to be really taking his time bringing the drinks – just when we needed it most. Or maybe we were gulping the drinks down too fast to drown our sorrows and he could not keep up?

The game ended. Bafana had lost 2-0. It looked like we were not going through to the semi-finals of the Confederations Cup. And this in our own land. Eish!

But salvation came from an unlikely source.

Our rugby nemesis and the country that ensured that we didn’t host World Cup 2006 by refusing to cast a vote, New Zealand, held Iraq to a goalless draw ensuring that we got through on aggregate (in essence by the skin of our teeth).

Thank you New Zealand.

All is forgiven for any curses and tackles you may have thrown at our players during rugby. You are forgiven for 2006 too, we were not really that keen to host it.  And all that sheep-shagging stuff that people say about you guys, I never believed it for a second.

Now if only we could get Macbeth Sibaya to Credo Mutwa before the next game so he can be cleansed of the bad luck that comes with his name!

In January this year I had a rather heated debate with a writer friend of mine. We had both read somewhere that another writer whose literary skills I am in awe of (although she is a year younger than me which is a serious blow to my fragile writer’s ego) had just been given an award of half a million dollars for her contribution to literature etc etc. The writer friend (henceforth known as David – because that is his actual first name) thought that the prize was too much. I thought it was too little. I thought of this conversation this morning as I was looking at my inbox and noted that, at the Cape Town Book Fair, I will be on a panel discussing the Importance of Literary Prizes to the Book Industry.
Let me first highlight though that in a contemporary South Africa full of brilliant writers, I have never personally been a recipient of any literary prizes. It does not mean that I do not think that there are not important though – and that I wish they had much much more money.
And here I come back to my debate with Dave. It is my contention that writers are so used to mediocre literary prizes of sums such as $10,000, or even less as some of the literary prizes in South Africa and the world show that we have become scared of becoming RICH (yes, I said that vulgar R word) as artists. I contend that writing as an art form will never be appreciated despite its great importance in the artistic field until writers and the book industry start advocating for it through worthwhile literary prizes. Moreover, we will never be able to corner a sufficient market of the arts industry and the public that buy into the arts if we always think of ourselves as the second (and poorer ‘though intellectually superior’ as we like to say of ourselves in the privacy of writers’ circles) cousins of actors and singers in the world of art.
So am I advocating that writers become greedy? Not at all. All I am advocating is that we start being appreciated for the important role we play in society and in the arts and that the recognition comes financially in our lifetime. The man who penned the one book that my soon-to-be four year old son enjoys the most died broke. I am talking of Alexandre Dumas – he of Three Musketeers fame. Centuries later, writers are still dying with nothing to their name and everyone seems to think this is somehow expected, that it is OKAY. The whole ‘poverty with dignity’ crap and writing as a ‘noble art’. You will have to forgive me David and anyone who thinks like him if I am not buying it. If one chooses to be an artist activist I think that’s quite okay but it doesn’t mean that we have to starve in the process – and I think Bono will agree with me on this one?. And literary prizes should reflect that.
Hands up those who remember the classic line in Casablanca, ‘here’s looking at you, kid.’ And I bet y’all know who spoke those words too. I was not even born when Humphrey Bogart first uttered those words on screen to millions of movie-watching public but they remain ingrained in my head and are a reminder of his genius. But how many people actually know the name of the writer who penned the words? And how much recognition did that writer get from the industry, what are his children or grandchildren benefiting from his estate today?
I have known writers to take five, sometimes even ten years to write a book. A really good book. How do we justify mediocre literary prizes of paltry amounts like R35 000 for a work that has taken ten (or even two) years to produce? Excuse me but that is the amount that some personal assistants take home at the end of ONE month. I realize that the major reason for this is because the book buying public is much smaller than say, the movie-watching public, but there too, everyone seems to forget that movies are made because of brilliant dialogue done by, uhhm, those artists known as WRITERS. Wouldn’t it have been something if the writers of Tsotsi had got as much recognition as Presley and Terry and been given an award for it? Sure, we know it comes from an Athol Fugard play but surely there were other writers in the bringing of the play to screen? Did Fugard himself even get enough recognition for it? Ask any ten kids in the street today and you will be hard pressed to find three who know that Tsotsi was a literary work before it became an Oscar winning movie.
I fear that so long as we don’t have one worthwhile literary award-ceremony, say, the SAMAs for writers (we already have the SALA’s – they are just tucked in the middle of one or two newspapers somewhere) where the national broadcaster does its bit (writers are taxpayers too) and hypes what everyone is wearing and which book or screenplay should have been more deserving, literature will always be on the backburner of the arts industry, writers will always be the brokest of artists, and writers in trying to explain this phenomenon will continue saying such stupid statements like ‘we are in Africa, black people don’t read.’ Perhaps they don’t. But if reading and writing as an art form was made sexy, then more people might just be encouraged to read.
So no David. Good literature comes down the ages and US$500 000 cannot even begin to show enough appreciation for the amount of work that writers put in their work. A century from now, children will still be quoting Ms. Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun. That type of writing is priceless. But if we must put a price or a prize on it, let’s make it worthwhile.