Saturday, January 01, 2022
Corona, racism, mass murder
This Africa Cup should not take place
A comment from David Needy
Europe’s football coaches are angry because they have to park their players for the Africa Cup in Cameroon – also for fear of Corona on site. That is disrespectful, find other (ex) professionals. But what is lost in the debate is that a civil war is raging in the country and that civilians in particular are suffering.
The football clubs in Europe only let their professionals pull away, grudgingly. Usually the coaches, managers and bosses throw a critical comment afterwards and explain that one is reluctant to submit, but that there is a duty to be released. The reason for the nagging: the Africa Cup, which takes place from January 9th to February 6th in Cameroon. A country – and therefore the criticism – that is listed on the list of risk areas of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) as a high-risk area. But the ranting has the completely wrong origin: The cup has, of course, just as much a raison d’être as an EM. But the tournament in Cameroon should still not take place – because of the human rights violations there. But first things first.
“We are of course worried about our players because of the pandemic,” Rudi Völler told the “Bild” newspaper. “Nobody can currently assess how the situation is developing. We can only hope that everything will go well.” Bayer’s sports director is afraid of the Omikron variant. “It’s annoying,” he said about the Africa Cup taking place and he has to send two of his players, “but there is an obligation to be released.” Oliver Ruhnert made a similar statement about his top striker Taiwo Awoniyi, who, like eleven other Bundesliga players, has been nominated. The Union manager even imagined return scenarios “should Cameroon be classified as a virus variant area”.
“Can you imagine the riot?”
There are those Infection numbers and also the mortality rate in Cameroon by one many times less than in Germany – even if the tests on site are presumably not as stringent as in this country. In addition, the Omikron variant will very soon also be the dominant variant in the Federal Republic of Germany. Cameroon cannot become a virus variant area. The federal government has also announced that it will no longer designate any countries as virus variant areas from Tuesday. Incidentally, the RKI also classifies half of Europe as a high-risk area. Britain is even a virus variant area. A European continental tournament in one of these countries is likely to be criticized like the pandemic EM last summer, but not in the pillory like the tournament in Cameroon.
At least that is the opinion of former England striker Ian Wright. “Is there a tournament that is as little respected as the Africa Cup?” Asks the Arsenal legend in a video on Instagram. The reporting was “completely racist colored”. When the European football championship, also in the middle of the pandemic, was played in twelve countries, nobody was upset. “But Cameroon, a single country that hosts a tournament, is a problem,” said the ex-professional.
Well, of course there was criticism of the EM, which took place at the time of the rapidly expanding and dangerous Delta variant. Especially at the semifinals and the finals in London, which have been considered super-spreaders ever since. But this grinding of teeth, the nagging like Völler and Ruhnert when professionals have to be turned off, really didn’t exist. “There are players who are asked if they will be called up to their national teams,” says Wright. “Imagine an English player representing the Three Lions. Can you imagine the commotion?” It’s correct.
“Lack of respect”
Former Eintracht striker Sebastien Haller from Ivory Coast, who is now playing for Ajax Amsterdam, was actually asked that question. He told the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf that the suggestion that a player wanted to miss the tournament in order to play for his club shows “the disrespect for Africa”. Team manager Patrick Vieira from the Premier League club Crystal Palace also says “that this competition has to be respected more – because it is just as important as the European Championship”.
In fact, the African continental tournament has some of the best players in the European leagues. They are led by the Egyptian Mohamed Salah from Liverpool FC, who is currently the best player in the Premier League, the strongest league in the world. “If we love her at the club level, why can’t we love her at the international level like her colleagues on the other side of the world?” Asks ex-professional Wright accordingly.
In fact, the tournament has been causing a lot of complaints in Europe for years – precisely because the clubs have to give up some of their best players at the start of the second half of the season. So far, however, no one has criticized the national leagues and their diaries. The winter break could be extended every two years for the tournament, mainly because the Africa Cup traditionally takes place in non-round years, in which no European Championship or World Cup is held in summer. The 2022 tournament in Cameroon is an exception. It was supposed to be a year ago but was postponed for a year because of the pandemic.
Violence in Cameroon
And thus to the actually appropriate reasons for criticism of the Africa Cup in Cameroon. Reasons that Völler and Ruhnert probably did not find out about: the volatile security situation on site and one another looming humanitarian catastrophe. The West African country has been suffering from civil war since 2016, and the infrastructure and security are inadequate for an international soccer tournament. 700,000 people (out of about 6 million inhabitants) from separatist territories were forced to face government violence (the autocratic president Paul Biya ruled with a hard hand since 1982) to other parts of the country, tens of thousands more flee into exile in Nigeria or elsewhere.
Cameroon is divided into a French-speaking east and an English-speaking west. There are repeated clashes between the Cameroonian government troops and armed separatist groups in the Anglophone regions of the Francophone-dominated state. There the people want their own state, called Ambazonia. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, both parties to the conflict committed widespread human rights violations in 2020, including extrajudicial executions and mass murders in English-speaking regions. In 2021 improvised explosive devices escalated in the country.
The risk for teams and spectators is high at the Africa Cup. Germany is also partly to blame for the conflict in the country; after all, Cameroon was under German colonial rule from 1884 to 1916. After the German Reich was defeated in World War I, the Cameroonians did not get their independence. No, the League of Nations divided the country between the victorious powers France and Great Britain. In 1960 the French part finally achieved independence, in 1961 parts of the English area joined (they were not allowed to choose their own independence). Today in Cameroon it is mainly civilians who bathe the geopolitical chessboard moves of the Western powers.
A continental tournament during pandemic times is never a good idea. Corona is probably the bigger problem in Europe compared to Cameroon, in this regard the Bundesliga and Premier League wrongly and massive criticism. And if there is a European championship during Corona, there can also be an Africa Cup. Both should have the same value, players must be able to be switched off for both without any problems, luckily the colonialism is over.
But especially in civil war-torn Cameroon, the tournament should not take place – but not because of the comparatively insignificant reasons for dismissing footballers. As long as there are no serious peace talks between the government and the separatists, such an event should not take place. Above all, the Africa Cup plays into the hands of the autocrat Biya, who wants to win the country’s youth with the tournament, do sportswashing on the big stage and can distract from his offenses.
Of course, thanks to the media attention – in Germany the conflict is hardly illuminated at all – Cameroonians could possibly draw attention to the human rights violations. But the experience from China and Russia, for example, where the Olympic Games took place in 2008 and the World Cup in 2018, shows that the situation does not improve as a result of such major events. On the contrary. The civilians in Cameroon, not the football clubs in Europe, will continue to suffer even after the Africa Cup.