Category Archives: Text

Lisbon over 40C

The thermometer of the attic apartment reads 40.3C. The act of reading the temperature of the tiny digital display no doubt causes more drops of sweat to roll down my forehead. Its almost August in Lisbon and with temperatures like this when no one dares to move too quickly as a matter of health, it is no wonder the entire nation is always several steps behind much of the European Union.

Hours later, when the merciless sun has finally passed behind one of the city’s seven hills, I make my way to the cozy restaurant with wifi, where I always hold court when I am in town. I’m greeted by one of Lisbon’s busiest and kindest restaurant owner-entrepeneurs, my good friend David. He reminds me to make myself at home and I ask how is business, with my best “businesslike” tone. “Really really good actually”, he tells me with an air of satisfaction, “It has already been a great summer business wise.” David looks up motioning towards the upper floors of the building which he rents to tourists for several years now. He clears a few tables and chit-chats with various costumers in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English, before he finally pulls up a chair to ask me about my journeys and get up to speed with my offline life.

Outside the night air is still hot and people move slowly through the beloved streets of the Bairro Alto. They love to talk about how bad the economy is here, they being my fellow Portuguese citizens. Yet when I look around, I see people everywhere, walking, eating, photographing, talking business on the phone, opening up another bizarre pseudo-clothing shop-bar-club.

Alas I love Lisbon and I was once an urban anthropologist in this town, my hours of study were between 11pm and 6am. But now I am an outsider, observing and enjoying still, but out of touch with what is what for the people of this proud city. Then again, I was probably always an outsider.

Photo in the Bica (Lisbon) from the Archive (2006)

Vishwas Satgar on The World Cup

Not the World Cup in Rwanda photo by flickr member kigaliwire

Amidst my recent rush to dig for information about what effect world cups and high profile soccer tournaments have on nations, I almost missed a very valuable voice on a recent edition of Radio Open Source.

Who is Vishwas Satgar, I’ll use Chris’s description over at ROS:

Vishwas Satgar is a labor lawyer and leftwing activist, an insurgent ex-Secretary of the South African Communist Party who’s way out of alliance with the ANC on the uplift politics of the World Cup.

In this interesting interview, Satgar talks about the democratic deficit of this World Cup for his country.  He gets into the struggles that have intensified in the time leading up to the tournament, by social movements demanding the state meet long promised needs.  Specifically he talks about marches for Quality of Education, HIV-AIDS, and anti-privatization – among others, all which have held demonstrations during this high profile event.

Apparently at this very moment there is a national newspaper in South Africa that has gone to court to demand the government be transparent about the total cost of the World Cup. The total might turn out, when the information is finally released, to be around 5 billion dollars.  Beyond that, many cities including Johannesburg went way over budget and have spent themselves into massive debt.

There is much more to talk about and be heard in this interview, I recommend you give it a listen of you’re at all concerned about this topic of what does this tournament DO to or for a country.

The Costs of Cups

Aveiro Stadium, Photo by flickr member moacirpdsp

It is surely an unpopular topic when so much national pride seems to be placed on large international soccer tournaments, but while everyone is high-fiving each other or fuming about their team being eliminated, there is a tremendous cost for all this fanfare.  Who bares this cost? How much is it? Why is it so expensive?

Few are brave enough to ask these questions, to question such a loved and long-running tradition is surely a risky dinner conversation.  In an era where sustainability is so vital to the future of our existence on this planet, fans don’t seem to care if this applies in the context of the sports. But what if they knew the truth about their beautiful game?

In a future post I will get into South Africa and Germany, the current and most recent host of the World Cup. But since I have a personal connection to the Portuguese republic, I’d like to take you back their massive soccer tournament Euro2004.  In this case, not to go back to the highlights of what player did what unbelievable thing, but to go back to what was built, invested, loaned, and promised then as compared to how things are now.

Let’s do it by the numbers:

  • 6 cities, 6 new stadiums
  • Total cost of 6 projects – 445 million euros.
  • Total cost of these stadiums to these cities annually 19.9 million euros.
  • City of Leiria pays 5 million per year in interest alone
  • Aveiro, a city with around 73,600 inhabitants, has a new stadium with a capacity of 30,000.
  • Mayor of Aveiro once suggested blowing up their stadium, which costs 4 million per year in loans and maintenance.
  • Algarve’s stadium, capacity 30,000+ costing over 3.1 million annually, does not have a team in the 1st division of Portugal’s national soccer league.
  • Cities of Leiria, Aveiro, and Faro are all hoping to sell their stadiums.
  • The city of Braga is now expanding their previously expanded stadium in hopes of qualifying for a Spain-Portugal World Cup Bid.  They pay 6 million euros in loans annually

Ok so that wasn’t just by the numbers.  Because beyond the numbers, both the lack of use of these massive structures, and the tremendous cost burden for municipalities who openly want to rid themselves of these problems, indicates that when all is said and done the beautiful game has a financially crippling effect.

Yet the big name sponsors and FIFA would like you to ignore the man behind the curtain. Ignore the elephant in the room. Relax and enjoy the game, everything is fine.

Next up: Germany 2006, perhaps a better case?

Yours, Not Mine

Scrolling and clicking around the social networks on the 4th of July, you see alot of well wishes and people in the US getting together to celebrate. As a kid there were some years, when I wasn’t in Portugal, that I would of course enjoy the festivities on this day.  However now as an adult, I know more about what this day means, and instead of celebrating, I return to the words of Frederick Douglass, “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine.”

They Renamed Pretoria

The plane ride from Amsterdam to Vienna is more of hop than a flight. You’re up, you get a drink and a snack, you look out the window – you’re there.  Yet even in that short time, I found myself engaged in a thought provoking conversation last week on the plane, with a young South African sitting to my left.

What particularly sparks my attention are the details that, even as a socially conscious and worldly journalist, I have missed over the years.  One that will not come as a surprise to most of you as it has been true for several years now, they renamed Pretoria – a fact I was not aware of.  Though the complete name change is still being discussed in some levels of government in South Africa, my new friend informed me that in her home town now known as Tshwane, most signs and official markers have all been changed already.

I didn’t have to ask her why they changed it. Thinking about it for a moment I realized the name Pretoria, even for me an outsider, makes me think of the apartheid era. Specifically I always loved the film Biko, about Stephen Biko’s life, and the depictions of police and Pretoria from that film are indeed prevalent in my head. Beyond that, when I think of former Portuguese colonies like Luanda in Angola (formerly Nova Lisboa) and Maputo in Mozambique (formerly Lourenço Marques), I understand the concept in the context of breaking with traditions and gruesome reminders from colonial times.  So although I hadn’t heard Pretoria was renamed, I immediately did the math in my head and understood what was happening.

It was my seat companion that brought up the issue that inspired this post, when she expressed great frustration at the renaming.  Not because she had some deep seated love for the name Pretoria or for the Apartheid era, but because for this young South African of Afrikaner decent (if I may add with no disrespect intended), the time, energy, and resources dedicated to the process of renaming cities like Pretoria could have better improved the nation by helping to address poverty and the needs of the most vulnerable people of the nation.  Instead they spend huge sums of money and hold endless discussions, all to change a name of a city.

Looking back and forth between this very articulate person and the clouds outside, I was reminded of that great scene in Clint Eastwood’s Film Invictus (about Mandela’s intial time as the new president of South Africa and the end of apartheid).  In this specific scene there is a meeting of the new sports commission about changing the colors and name of the South African rugby team. Rugby having been the sport synonymous with those in power during apartheid. Without going into the extended version of what happened, nor to ruin a powerful scene in the film, just as the new commission is going to approve of a motion to change the name and change the colors of a team that was so important to many white South Africans, Mandela begged them not to.  He felt rugby could be changed from a symbol of division to a symbol of unity.

Mandela has been out of the presidency for a long time and I haven’t read his comments about the Pretoria name change. Maybe it isn’t fair to compare them and indeed the name should go away like Salisbury in Zimbabwe and Leopoldville in Congo. Or maybe the creative and unifying spirit that Mandela brought is gone now, and his fear of people playing politics with symbols and names has come true.

When Theres No More Belgium

Over the past 10 years, besides regularly visiting friends and family, I have taken countless train rides through and around Belgium.  Looking out the window from the quiet and comfortable SNCB trains at the beautiful green fields that stretch as far as the eye can see. Not quite as perfect and manicured as the Netherlands, not quite as spacious as France, no one could argue that in any part of Belgium there is great beauty to be seen and experienced.  This beauty extends beyond a nice looking bit of scenery, as this small nation is in many ways the heart of Europe, multicultural and multilingual, having overcome a sad history of wars and conflicts to build a country that at the very least, has achieved a quality of life for the average person that other people throughout the world can only dream of.

Problems? Sure they’ve got a fine list of economic, social, and political problems. Some that seem to get worse (like the national debt), some that are just made to sound worse by leaders who benefit from fear, anger, or some other form of rabid regional patriotism.

Even with these problems, the nation is still has a long list of successes and virtues, that would be the envy of pretty much any other continent on the planet.  Take any sector, from health to agriculture, to science and beyond, you’ll find plenty of achievements in Belgium.

Despite all this, we still sit ever closer to what seems like the break up of the nation. With every passing election, it feels like a loud majority have forgotten what a great place they live in, and all that they have in common with their neighbors.  Instead they believe the solution to all their problems will come with the end of Belgium. Putting an end to one of the most unique and beautiful nations the world has ever known.