Not exactly what the marketing rep had in mind
Is Fifa presiding over the running of a two-tierstyle police state in South Africa? Who on earth allowed them to do this? Every day on the BBC’s world cup commentary we get to hear about the indissoluble relation between football and freedom, how football was so important to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and how professional football embodies all that is good in this troubled world: team spirit, fair play, discipline, hard work, perversely inflated salaries, temper tantrums from grown men, child prostitution…oh sorry, I switched over to TF1 for a moment there. I even had the pleasure of watching former player, moralist, and BBC commentator Alan Shearer, without a hint of incredulity, ask a township resident if hosting the world cup was equal the overthrow of Apartheid.
Now we learn of the special world cup courts that have been convened by the South African ministry of justice at Fifa’s request to deal with such horrible crimes as “ambush marketing”, fans finding their way into team locker rooms and calmly asking the players to play a little better, local residents taking small sundries from VIP boxes. It seems these courts are also operating on an unofficial two-tier system. If you happen to be from a country where an embassy official will get on the phone and explain that the Netherlands (for example) will not take kindly to its nationals being locked up for wearing orange dresses, you’ve got a good chance of posting bail and having to pay only a small fine for your poor choice of colour. If you are a poor local who has nicked a few bottles from the VIP area the punishment is apparently likely to be somewhat harsher.
As the Guardian reports:
With the exception of the Dutch causes célèbres, a typical case features a Soweto man who stole two cans of Coke, two mini cans of soda water, and one mini can of lemonade from a Soccer City corporate hospitality lounge. He admitted guilt and paid a fine. Elsewhere, a pair of tourists who assaulted a local were fined £1,350 between them, while another Joburg resident who stole a few bottles of alcohol from Soccer City had his bail opposed and remains in custody, presumably lacking an irate foreign minister to intervene on his behalf.
In a country in which many residents feel the wheels of justice turn at a glacial pace, if at all, the speed of the World Cup courts was initially welcomed. But as more details emerge of their cost, and the nature of crimes being tried, some have predictably begun to ask whether time might not be better spent bringing more serious matters to court. For largely petty offences, the harsh sentences being handed down have a distinctly showy quality to them. At the weekend, the National Prosecuting Authority was forced to insist it was possible to mount a fair trial in 24 hours.
Though we need not worry too much about the fate of the young dutch women who committed the terrible crime of wearing orange dresses, it is their case that seems to involve the most egregious and worrying development vis-a-vis mutations of the rule of law in order to best serve the private commercial interests of large corporate entities. They will be tried under the special ’2010 Fifa World Cup South Africa Special Measures Act. The women in orange are accused of contravening two sections of this law, namely the parts that prohibit “unauthorised commercial activities inside an exclusion zone” [i.e. wearing orange dresses and attracting attention by cheering and singing] and “enter[ing] into a designated area while in unauthorised possession of a commercial object” [an unmarked orange dress].’
This is a mutation of the name of the Law that goes beyond the pale, the beautiful game has been tarninshed by a logic that “groups all forms of life under the perilous form of industrial productivity” (that is a line from Jan Patocka’s working notes, published in L’Europe après l’Europe - just so you don’t think I’m straying too far off topic).
