This Vanity Fair article is about how Soccer showed the way to peace in the Ivory Coast. It’s an amazing read. Didier Drogba shows us that sometimes one person can make a huge difference.
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I was in Cote d’Ivoire during the coup a few years ago.
Abidjan would have to be one of the only cities in the world where kids can play football in the street with the sound of mortar fire in the background. At that time the main problem for the people was that roads were blocked so the movement of food into the city was difficult. Still an amazing countriy I can recommend to anyone. Especially the replica of St Peters Basilica in the capital Yamasoukoro.
I sent this article to my Ivorian friend here in France- he laughed a bit and told me this is so Disney. Unfortunately, this conflict seems to have a few more years left in it.
The story I get from him is that a week ago, the Prime Minister was attacked in his plane (while landing) – the adversary launched three rockets at his plane – and destroyed everything BUT the target, apparently.
This conflict (and others, like between IC and France) are symptoms of deeper causes, and are harder to solve than one might think. This fellow was kicked out of his country because he’d married a white woman. They were expelled just after their son’s 4th birthday party, and deported with one backpack of belongings each.
T.S. Eliot fan, hm? Well, even if this couldn’t resolve the conflict completely (how nice that would have been, so much bloodshed ended so easily…), it is yet another striking reminder that many of these “conflicts” and wars are being fought between people who are basically the same. In all my idealism and ignorance, I will ask: Isn’t there something that could stay their anger long enough that we may sit down and talk about all of this rationally? And in the face of greed that stymies compromise, is not the greatest success for all the resolution of an issue? The article may be a work of fiction, but it reflects the hope that something so horrendous can one day be resolved, or even avoided, as everyone realizes were only fighting ourselves.
Oh goodness, I know that all sounds so trite and idealistic, but…. I’m not a fan of modernism and have read one too many fantasies, so what’s to be expected? ^^;
After reading this article, I really find it interesting and amazing how something like this could happen. Still, with the attempt on the Prime Minister’s life, it seems as though the conflict isn’t completely over yet. But, it looks like peace could finally happen.
i don’t want to get into how much it is or isn’t actually affecting the situation in Ivory Coast, but it’s undeniable that it is having some kind of impact
here’s a commercial from the last World Cup (2006 – Germany)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=czLk-zCcJ50
In days like these it’s nice to know that hope can be derived from the simpler things in life.
Ananth, I sometimes feel bad for you, because your posts never seem to get as much attention as Hawk’s. :( And yes, I was first to post on the Eve Figure announcement… I feel so dirty…
See, that’s the thing. Drogba is a paid mouthpiece of the President. He’s a “rockstar” in his own right, as a soccer player – but he gets big perqs for being the public face of the President. The context – prime minister attack and all that – is simply to say the conflict is not over, by any means. (The plane, by the way, turned out to be a decoy – not in the public press, but because the PM is still alive. The thing was demolished.)
This is not just some sort of small power grab gone awry, that can be fixed by goodwill on all sides – this is a deeply tangled cultural and racial war. Reference your favorite middle-east conflict for an idea. Then add the abject poor (more so than in the middle-east) who are also serious customers – who bathe in the water cannons used to keep them out of embassies, who are almost unaffected by tear gas after dealing with the noxious chemicals of daily experience, and who climb razorwire without concern for personal injury, ’cause they _just don’t care_.
This is a world beyond our experience. It’s interesting to have a tap into it – my friend’s extended family lives there , and he gets ALL sorts of info about what’s up – and he lived there until the real fire broke out, back a few years ago. He tells me things that really don’t make it into the news here in the west – some because it seems fantastic and made-up, or because who (in the west) really cares about Côte d’Ivoire, except as a feel-good story about soccer bringing the world together.
So – Vanity Fair got rolled by a government mouthpiece, and what you see here is an efficient PR maneuver. Careful what you believe in the media, even with the best of intentions. The ONLY reason I have any idea is because I have contact with someone who knows through first- and second-hand sources.