Just leave Zakumi ALONE!

This is a tale about Zakumi the leoperd. He is an official mascot for the largest tournament on the planet. Even I, a person that would rather watch a Mama Mia weekend marathon over saying the dreaded ‘C’ word, think the little guy is C- c- cu____ …(urg!) cute…



It just makes me sick seeing how soulless companies exploit cheap and under age labour forces by making them work under appalling conditions (or so I’ve heard) for something like R20 a day to manufacture Zakumi dolls (which Fifa will sell for R360 each)! Even the local heroes in charge of COSATU have called for the South African public to boycott the c-cute little mascot saying that these should be manufactured in SA so that we locals can benefit from the money. Cosatu even go so far as to say that they WILL NOT allow these dolls to be sold in South Africa and should manufacturing contracts not be awarded to SA companies “We will stop any FIFA or World Cup related event in this City (Cape Town)”.



Way to go Cosatu! Ransoming the slice of pie you have already been given to get the rest of the pie is pure genius. This “If I can’t have EVERYTHING I want NOTHING!” attitude is really going to pay off because the world knows that without South Africa the game of soccer would be DEAD and all happiness would be sucked out of everyone’s lives initiating a set of events that would bring about the apocalypse!



…the Dumbasses…



Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not condoning the way Fifa operates or Chinese ethics. I do, however, end up with the impression that the exploited Chinese work force has kind of been sidelined in all of this. These humans are being used (yet again!) to draw attention to a matter (in this case manufacturing contracts). After the whole affair gets milked by the media I noticed that the product off all the reasoning was not “How can we improve the quality of life of an exploited group of people” but instead “Money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money MONEY!!!! CASH, dong, $$$$ money money money money money money money money…”. That’s all they care about! That’s all they EVER cared about!!! “They have it, we WANT it, screw everybody and everything else”.



In other news, South Africa received a consignment of 30 000 Chinese made Zakumi dolls. The products were made so cheaply that buyers could not resist placing an order for 70 000 more!



Also, I have tickets for the world cup (3 tickets to be precise)! I don’t particularly like soccer… and I really didn’t put much effort into getting these tickets. Heck I’m not even sure which teams I will be watching! I can truly say that I DON’T deserve these tickets. Especially when I consider how many people I know that LOVE the sport and haven’t qualified for just ONE ticket. It goes to show how badly the whole event has been organized if undeserving people like me can get tickets and rub them in the faces of those who WANT tickets. I admit, this is a huge amount of fun (for me), but it’s plain unfair...



I could go all Indian and sell them off to someone else… but I’m going to be patriotic instead.

I’ll go to all my matches, I’ll shamelessly join the crowd when they cheer and boo even though I won’t know what’s going on. I’ll buy some big yellow Niknaks man glasses and construction helmets with “sharp sharp” and “peace” scribbled onto them with black marker. I’ll make the utter most of this opportunity because I know I’ll probably be too old or dead before I get another chance to attend a soccer world cup in my country.



Here’s to Bafana Bafana, I won’t mind if you totally arse up your matches and get knocked out in the first round 'cause if one team doesn’t deserve a win, Bloody hell it’s you lot… I’ll still support you till the end though.