Playing the West's game
- Melissa Tandiwe Myambo
Why countries should break the crippling cycle of hosting big sporting events.
All over the developing world, metropolises are rushing to cement their status as . metropolitan centres that compete to become important hubs of cultural and economic activity in the interlinked global world. Its all part of what scholars describe as . And sport is rapidly emerging as an important way to display modernity and earn the global city mantle.
In earlier times, Western countries played host to massive events like the to cement their status as modern world cities. Non-Western countries were left to and despite their best efforts, few beyond Japan, South Korea and Singapore managed to do so.
International sporting competitions are the new Worlds Fair and can propel cities up the . Hosting the Olympic Games (in summer or winter, depending on their climate), the Commonwealth Games or a single discipline event like the FIFA World Cup offers cities prestige.
Pyeongchang County, South Korea is hosting the 2018 Winter Olympics and Tokyo will host the 2020 Summer Olympics. For globalising cities in emerging market economies, these sporting extravaganzas offer a way to demonstrate their rising geopolitical importance.
For proponents of the global city model, this is reason to celebrate. But it also illustrates the ongoing attempt by non-Western countries to compete not only in sports but economically and culturally with the former colonial powers. Who are the modernity games score-keepers? Who decides who is winning and who is losing? Who determines what counts as global and what constitutes the modern?
For the moment, the referees still seem to be primarily Western in terms of historical, geographical or philosophical orientation. The rankings after all originate from the West and are judged by Western entities. So, win or lose, it is still the Wests game. They make the rules.
When elites in emerging market economies accept the rules of todays modernity game and agree to play by them, theyre re-enacting a centuries-old in relation to the coloniser. By accepting the rules, theyve already lost the game.
Theyve lost in more than one sense. By allowing the (former) coloniser to define the field of competition, theyve conceded the ability to craft their own definition of modern and global.
Internalising the rules of the modernity game entails an acceptance of equating positive judgement with successfully adhering to Western ideals. This sounds abstract but concretely, it results in the misdirection of money that could be better spent elsewhere.
Flexing geopolitical muscle
Countries are using sporting events to illustrate their increasing geopolitical significance. There are plenty of examples.
China hosted the . India hosted the Commonwealth Games in 2010, the same year that South Africa staged FIFAs World Cup 2010. Russia will host the soccer showcase later this year and Qatar will host it in 2022.
Brazil hosted the 2014 FIFA World Cup and, two years later, the Summer Olympics.
The BRICS nations Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and other developing countries had to direct already limited resources away from important social projects to stage these expensive events.
Citizens of these countries have become of the huge costs and question the wisdom of spending national monies on a once-off spectacle.
South Africas 2010 World Cup and the same event in Brazil four years later were met with by citizens who wanted to see their countries scarce resources put to better use. Both countries have .
took place before the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics.
Governing elites in each of these instances overrode the waves of dissent with a dismissive, on with the games attitude.
Why do governments direct scarce resources to hosting games over their citizens more basic needs? Why are elites in developing countries so determined to succeed at the modernity game and make their cities global?
One line of argument is that global cities attract investment, tourism and knowledge workers which all help the economy to grow. To attract professionals, many aspiring global cities have also made large investments in . Hosting sporting events and are useful in building global cities for highly-skilled workers and high-end consumers.
But theres for the in any global city. These places tend to suffer heightened .
Global sporting events exacerbate these problems: cities poorer citizens are often , making way for new stadiums and other infrastructure.
A colonised mentality?
Instead of playing the modernity game, why dont developing countries change the rules? My research indicates that the elite obsession with catching up with the West does not result in erasing an inferiority complex vis--vis superior Western modernity. Instead, it entrenches the inferiority complex that took root through colonialism.
The Japanese philosopher argued that Japans post World War II modernisation efforts amounted to trying to catch up with the colonial master. This, he writes, represents the intensification of the master-slave relationship between the coloniser and the colonised.
The modernity game, although not modernity, originated in the West. Cities can only win if they adhere to Western standards. Yes, that adherence can be positive when it yields good infrastructure and access to clean water and services assets that benefit many people. But when the game only results in , its clearly time to change the rules.
, Research Associate, Centre for Indian Studies, 91心頭利, . This article was originally published on . Read the .