Suarez’s Hand, And The Sad Fate Of Africa

By Abdulai Aboagye

The World Cup, true to its billing, produced some excitement, celebrations,
debates, and of course heartbreaks. No other nation saw it better than Ghana .
As a nation we experienced the best and worst of the emotional roller-coasters
that is oft associated with the world cup. We went from dreaming of the final to
crying over the evil hand of Suarez. While some have called it all sorts of
names and suggested a lot of anti-Suarez panacea, this writer would like to take
a different look at the incident. This writer has been fascinated by the
attitude of the western media and their all powerful commentators on the
incident. To this date no white analyst has criticized the action of Suarez. At
best they gloat and glorify Suarez’s action as heroic. Watching Alexis Lalas on
ESPN, one could notice the apparent glowing of his disproportionate face as he
says “the Africans should get over it” because Suarez did nothing wrong. He did
nothing wrong? Maybe not according to the rules of soccer, but one expects a
reasonable human being to condemn the action of Suarez, or if anything see it as
very sensitive enough not to gloat over it, or rob it in our face.
However, the writer is not surprised because the attitude of these white media
and commentators is a microcosm of the attitude of white people towards Africans
and black people in general. To most white people Black people deserve whatever
worse comes to us and Suarez’s action was no different. The truth is, if the
same thing had happened to a supposedly white nation, all these same
commentators would have condemned it till the end of time. By this time FIFA
would have been thinking of how to introduce a new technology to solve the
problem of suarezesm. However, since it happened to a bunch of Africans nobody
cares. After all the same FIFA that apologized to England for Lampard’s
disallowed goal, and to Mexico for Tevez’s offside goal, saw no need to
apologize to Cote D’Ivoire for Luis Fanbiano’s hand goal against them.

The above attitude permeates all our dealings with white entities. The World
Bank and the IMF are typical examples. It took these institutions less than
ten years to help Europe recover from the devastation of the Second World War,
yet for over fifty years these institutions have not been able to help a single
non white nation to a second world nation. This is because it is not the
intention of these white neocolonialist institutions to help any African nation
develop. Deep down they do not see any worth in helping Africans develop. They
are always happy to hear bad news from Africa which gives them the chance to
flaunt their riches in our face and pretend to want to help only to give us
loans that will sink us deeper into the abyss of poverty while they enjoy from
our misery.

The sad part of it all is that African leaders are happy to tow the lines
created by these white folks. They are willing to accept any tag they give us.
African leaders are happy to be described as anything as long as they get a loan
or grant to “fight” that thing. For example, African leaders are happy to accept
the tag of AIDS continent as long as they will get money to”fight” AIDS. They
forget that the long term detrimental effects of such tags are far more
devastating than possibly the scourge of AIDS.

Equally annoying is the way African leaders blindly support anything white
people throw about. From Economic Recovery Programs through HIPC to WTO,
Africans and African leaders seem to be interested in following the ideas of
white people. We are more interested in shouting “global village” and “free
trade” rather than asking why we lose more than 300 billion dollars a year from
unfair trade policies. We are happy to call the World Bank and the IMF our
“development partners” without asking ourselves what they have partnered as to
develop over the years.

Just recently the GFA Chairman is reported to have thrown his support behind
the goal line technology that has been proposed as a result of Frank Lampard’s
disallowed goal. The question is, how exactly would that have solved the Suarez
problem? Maybe the GFA Chairman knows best. The writer fears that eventually all
the Africans will rally around the monotonous rhythm of goal line technology
because some white folks have suggested it. That is not to say the idea is not a
good one or that Ghana will face the same problem of Suarezsm in subsequent
World Cups, but as a nation I believe we will win some bragging rights and
relief if a new rule is introduced to curb the problem of evil hands in soccer
like Suarez’s. Therefore one would have expected Nyantakyi to fight our cause
and not just blindly follow some white ideas. It is called bringing something to
the table. Unfortunately, Nyantakyi is not alone when it comes to African
leaders blindly following white ideas to the slaughter house.

Until and unless African leaders and its people realized that no white person
genuinely wants to see Africa develop we will continue to hope that they can
help us develop. The whites will continue to pretend to want to help while they
laugh behind our backs and enjoy from our misery. Unfortunately, only Dr. Kwame
Nkrumah seems to have understood this point. And no wonder they hated him. Maybe
the Suarez hand and the attitude of our white “development partners” will open
our eyes.


God bless Africa !!!