Of morality and brains

Just read some headlines… it seems as though 40 000 prostitutes will be entering SA for the World Cup in June this year. Let me assure you, the first thing that hit my mind after I read the title was not “I wonder why prostitutes like football so much?” No it was something else…

…more along the lines of “wait, hold on, this is South Africa, HIV/AIDS capital of the world. Why, oh why, do analysts predict such a great surge in the sexworker industry? Surely a wealthy man, rich enough to afford a lengthy stay in SA to watch his beloved home team kick a bouncy thing on a field for 80 minutes, would have a vague idea of what could happen if he… made rude with a prostitute here. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not condoning prostitution in countries with lower HIV prevalence. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I guess it’s because of my assumption that people with material wealth are also in possession of intellect (how would they accumulate said wealth without more than a handful of functioning brain-cells otherwise?). Anyone with an ounce of intellect should know that one needs to behave when one visits the HIV/Aids capital of the world.

There is a reason SA is Toxic green with a skull and crossbones on this HIV prevalence chart…

The more I think about this the less it makes sense, unless of course, these individuals had acquired riches the easy way (gambling, or selling some oil they siphoned from their back yards perhaps…). Let us do some math together to try clarifying the situation.

(EXITEMENT!).

We assume that 90% of 2010 World Cup tourists manage to get here by saving up hard earned cash (as opposed to dumb luck and easy earnings). The World Cup is predicted to bring in about 4.5 million soccer tourists. So roughly 450 000 of our soccer tourists got here the easy way (i.e. probably don’t have the intellect to realise how much at risk they are of contracting a deadly virus by using local sexworkers). Assuming one third of those are married/in a relationship and have come with their spouses (eliminating 2/3 of our 450 000 leaves us with around 150 000). I’m guessing that single men would make up about 2/3rds of what is left (call it the hypothetical football fanatic sex ratio…). So we are down to 100 000 potentials.

In terms of sexworkers (or steelworkers as spellcheck prefers to see it…): Offshore sexworkers wouldn’t bother coming here if the local sexworker industry was enough to cater for the event (so let’s say that the local prostitutes …’servicing’ tourists, number around 50 000). Media reports that the 2010 WC will also create a large amount of opportunistic sexworkers (let’s say 10 000). This leaves us with 100 000 sexworkers…

OH MY GAS! Do you realise what this means?!

If my estimations are correct, EVERY male soccer tourist (or female with a strange soccer fetish) that gets here the easy way will have an enormous horn and a teeny brain. I would steer well clear of these immoral fornicating baboons if I came across them come June.

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.