NO CHAW IS ONE-ONE
English is the best language when it comes to variety; the French impose strict burdens on its speakers to restrict pigeonisation or the general bastardisation or their delicate tongue. English is like linux or some program that you adapt for yourself, hence when I was in Uganda as a kid I had the following conversation when I was headboy at school, the scene was the lunch canteen and I was dishing out the lunch.
“It is one-one. So everyone can get some.” I said
“Eeeh Whati? Si you more it?”
Moring; that was a legitimate word, the act of giving more, after moring you had mored. I forgot my Ugandan English when I was in England, I gravitated towards the local dialect “broad bucks” spoken by all the old boys in the area, this lingo was slowly giving way to “mockney” or the mock cockney accent. Mockney was spoken by kids ashamed of their middle-class roots so they imitated the language of the street which is the cockney rhyming slang. This has its roots in East London when the dirty industries were located down river and out of sight; tanning of leather, fishmongers and processors, generally anything which stank. Hence undesirables found themselves in the East, they then developed their own code in order to talk freely among themselves. This code was ever-changing such as battle-cruiser for boozer or skin and blister for sister, it is kinda like sheng in Nairobi, I was fluent in 85 but when I came back in 91, all the codes had changed.
One of the easiest ice-breakers is the opposite sex, when high-level delegates meet for a tense session of negotiation they can break the ice by conversating about the days when they were young and had loads of hair and chutzpah. When sheer audacity and naivety would get them through; you know you are of a certain age when you are reminiscing about some girl several years ago and not some girl last night. There I was trying to fit in with the boys; men can go from astro-physics to talking about “chow” in seconds and when they do then you better be ready. One of the greatest obstacles to women’s advancement is the unspoken alliance among men to keep them down. Even though I consider myself a supporter of women’s right, at least for pragmatic reasons, but I can easily slip into a tirade about their faults and I would have an instant audience that agreed with me.
So as I said I was trying to fit in with the boys and the conversation wound its way inevitably to “chow” which is slang for food but a euphemism for ….. yes sex. All the boys were regaling us with their stories and the story turned to me and I had to oblige. “There was this time in Uni when I had this one-one chow.” I ventured.
“Rama, now you’re talking bullshit, you are misusing grammar. No chow is one-one, chow is by its very nature: mob, unless that is some fake chow, you Guy.” They put me in my place and I decided to stick to my regular English as spoken by Englishmen. To explain the conversation would need a blackboard and a full period.
So the language changes but the topics are the same as are the people, I had intensely deep conversations with my houseboy in Kinyarwanda; about inflation and growth, about free-trade and protectionism, about love and life. We all need a common language that will bring us together as humans but in so doing we would lose our cultures that make us unique. Even if we all spoke the same language it wouldn’t end conflict, so many warring factions speak the same tongue and have the same culture and yet they still fight. So common language and culture can tear as apart, Joy Division had a seminal hit with “Love will tear us apart” and all over the world there are examples of this in action.
ALL MOD-CONS
For all our differences, we ultimately have more in common than what sets us apart, I was moving house this week into my perfect little bachelor pad. It was really hard to find, it took some wrangling, wheeling and dealing but I got there. Estate agents are rightly despised all over the world because they are the same all over the world. They always give the impression that the houses are mansions when they are dumps, two weeks ago I was informed of this plush four-bedroom house that was worthy of an emperor, I was told the standard line “if you don’t take it then you will lose because 500 people all want it.” I asked to for an inspection but they said I had to rent it without viewing.
I took the word of an estate agent and gave up my house search, and then I went and saw it, to call it a dump would be a compliment. It had no endearing qualities, rusty iron sheets; raw untreated logs holding up the said iron sheets, luminous green wall paint, and the walls were as crooked as if a drunkard bricklayer had smoked some crack as he built it. Then the icing on the cake, no toilet just a latrine outside, and no bathroom, one just waited till it was dark and stood on the cement and hoped that peeping toms were otherwise occupied. My jaw dropped, it was all mine for $250 a month, which is a lot in Rwanda where most live on a dollar a day. The estate agent was still audacious enough to keep the pressure up to get me to secure it with 6 months rent upfront and a deposit of $1,000.
That is the problem with Rwanda, the cheek of people is amazing; they are all looking for a free lunch. Another house I saw was half built and they wanted 8 months rent to complete the structure, all I had to do was pay up and wait 4-5 months for the walls and roof to be put up and then another 4 months for the interior to be finished, in other words “build my house for me and I’ll let you live there for free.” I soon found out about a small but tidy 2-bedroom flat so I raced to secure it, as ever it had just been taken but minutes ago but the landlord asked me to leave my number, “Why leave me number if it is taken?” I took it as a sign that it was still there.
So I moved in on Monday, ending months of misery as I was nomad in various houses of those obliged to house me. I went out to buy my utensils at the cheapest Chinese shop in town and now I proudly own the finest Chinese kitsch, making my house a fire hazard to boot. It is overall a good neighbourhood but in Rwanda there is feast and famine together; I had no curtains so my living room was light up like a TV and I was entertaining gossiping passers-by. A clutch of kids stood sentry outside my door, I tactfully ignored them but soon I had to ask what they wanted. “A blessing” they said, so I asked them to come close as I would pray for them, “No! We want money or at least sweets.” I warned them that I would take them home to report them to their parents, but their parents would be even bigger beggars than their kids.
Blessing? How could kids who could barely talk be so cheeky? Now these kids are asking kindly but soon they won’t be so polite, they will be armed and dangerous with anger and guns.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Monday, April 7, 2008
Lions and Jackals
LIONS AND JACKALS
“They follow me because I am a lion and they are my Jackals” Henry VIII in ‘A Man for All Seasons’
This line is too often quoted by my mother as she starred in a play with an all-female cast; she can instantly break into long monologues stored deep in the recesses of her psyche but this line sticks out. This line underlines the perversity and addiction of power, the symbiosis between the Ruler and the ruled, the King and court, the President and the Parliament. It can be read in many ways so it is open to interpretation; I always see it as it was meant to be seen. The story of the play is about Henry and his best friend Thomas More who was also his biggest rival and objected to him splitting away from the Catholic Church. More was a serious threat to Henry so he was duly tortured and dispatched by followers of Henry who wanted to maintain the status quo. I have read so many books on power that I could found an Academy of Megalomaniacal Studies; there are many schools of thought which advocate different approaches from the Art of War, to The Prince, Das Capital, and the dreaded Mein Kampf. After reading all those books you will come to the same conclusion that power can be summed up in the saying above.
Jackals have small jaws and cannot hunt animals larger than rats but they band together and follow lions and commandeer the left-overs. Like Hyenas perform a sanitary function of clearing rotting shells, so do jackals but they are chained to the fortunes of the Lions. When the lions starve, so do they, when the lions gorge, so do they. Africans come from oral cultures that were informed by Spirits and nature that were held in a fearful balance by the protection of ancestors. Western thought has redefined our consciousness but that ancient culture is rooted deep in our sub-conscious and cannot be expunged. Socrates or Aristotle would debate in depth about various nuances but an analogy from nature cuts through all the pedantics. So the Jackals this week were the ZANU-PF leaders who saw their lion savaged in the polls; at first they went through shock, then denial, then bargaining, then anger and eventually reverted to the Neanderthal brutes that they were. The Army chiefs of staff were the most vehement disciples holding Mugabe in power; knowing they couldn’t survive without their Lion.
The Zimbabwe crisis resurrects all the polemics of history such as colonisation vs. globalisation and the question of WHY IS AFRICA SO MESSED UP? On the time-online site I found a man called Arthur from Bath who said “It all went wrong when we abolished slavery.” The news gave a forum for airing the usual racist attitudes towards Africa, using bad headlines to beat us. Forget the fact that Africa has 53 nations, only 6 have wars so 90% are peaceful, Africa has 7% growth annually, its middle-classes are growing at a faster rate than China. Yet there is a remnant of the reaction to colonialism, ZANU-PF is still the bawdy vaudeville act complete with stupid niggers rolling their eyes, tap-dancing their anti-colonial routine while reinforcing every stereotype of Africans as negatively as they can. Last week I attended a talk given by Andrew Mwenda; a journalist notorious in Uganda for opposing and exposing the government. He talked of the media bias displayed in the Western press towards Africa as they perpetuate the image of AIDS, coups, wars, famine, environmental damage and plain awfulness that exists in Africa.
How does a Zimbabwe occur? Is it just our innate stupidity or is it a deliberate act. I met a Zimbabwean at a birthday party and talked at length about it; he was ambivalent, respecting Bob for the liberation effort while decrying that he had outstayed his welcome. That is the paradox of Mugabe; he did the right thing in the wrong way for the wrong reasons at the wrong time. 160,000% inflation, starving billionaires, political oppression and yet the Zimbabweans still endure this man. The scar of history is easy to pick open whenever a leader wishes to, in African history the white man is the villain and seen as responsible for all the ills in society or more precisely the scapegoat for all our misdemeanours. All regimes begin with such hope and idealism, then they encounter opposition, then they react to counter this opposition, they crush it, and then become obsessed with their own survival.
Yoweri Museveni is the best case to highlight this; he came to power with an idealistic programme to abolish tribalism, educate his people and develop his country. Soon he was using tribalism to divide and rule his people; he was plundering and sacrificed development for personal gain. “Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely” goes the saying. In NO AFRICAN COUNTRY is there true democracy and rule of law, none what so ever. Democracy is at odds with traditional African thinking, where power is centralised in the hands of an “elected King” as the Monty Python joke goes, you don’t vote for Kings. This means that power is solidified around the president meaning he cannot leave the seat because power is addictive and the jackals won’t let him leave. Kwame Nkurumah had this situation in the 60’s; after independence he began to crush all opposition and became more Stalinist therefore squandering the goodwill he earned in the 50’s. The lion just sits back and lies in the sun all day, the females hunt, he gets the lions share, his only purpose is when a rival lion comes to take over then he must defend his pride.
Competence vs. loyalty; this is the oldest dilemma which faces leaders. Should one put a smart guy who wants the top job or a loyal idiot who won’t oppose the system? Leaders often opt for the latter; it is easy and simple. “Le’tat cest moi” said Mobutu “I am the State.” One becomes so intertwined with the state that you view yourself as one and the same. In every African country the secret state spies protect the government; they harass and arrest opposition members, the ruling party owns the economy, the Army holds sway, leaders steal with impunity. Some African nations manage to purvey a myth of freedom but it is all lies; because even if the opposition was in power then they would do the same. Our societies are not evolved enough to tolerate criticism, our institutions are not developed enough to protect individual freedoms, our people are not educated enough to know their rights and responsibilities. This makes democracy as we know it an impossibility; we can only hope for benign leaders who steal less, tolerate corruption less, have a grand vision for their nations and torture less than others.
So the Zimbabwe situation is exacerbated by the honour among thieves that is African politics. Why don’t our own leaders speak against Mugabe? Are they hoping that when their time comes that people will remain silent? “Don’t judge lest you yourself be judged” in other words if all African leaders keep quiet then all is well. Mugabe is no fool; he knows how to hang on, he can just simply refuse to acknowledge the result and Zimbabwe will carry on bleeding while we watch. But some good might come out of Mugabe, when the economy picks up then they will no longer be held hostage by white farmers. That is why I said he did the right thing in the wrong way; he confiscated the farms while giving them to his cronies and destroyed the viable farming sector without transferring it smoothly. A radical white Zimbabwean once put it perfectly “He should have just taxed the bastards off the land, like they did in UK. He didn’t have to kill the golden goose.” Africa has only had 18 years of trying to achieve true democracy, it will take time but when it comes it will be a totally different version that is suited to us and our particular needs.
“They follow me because I am a lion and they are my Jackals” Henry VIII in ‘A Man for All Seasons’
This line is too often quoted by my mother as she starred in a play with an all-female cast; she can instantly break into long monologues stored deep in the recesses of her psyche but this line sticks out. This line underlines the perversity and addiction of power, the symbiosis between the Ruler and the ruled, the King and court, the President and the Parliament. It can be read in many ways so it is open to interpretation; I always see it as it was meant to be seen. The story of the play is about Henry and his best friend Thomas More who was also his biggest rival and objected to him splitting away from the Catholic Church. More was a serious threat to Henry so he was duly tortured and dispatched by followers of Henry who wanted to maintain the status quo. I have read so many books on power that I could found an Academy of Megalomaniacal Studies; there are many schools of thought which advocate different approaches from the Art of War, to The Prince, Das Capital, and the dreaded Mein Kampf. After reading all those books you will come to the same conclusion that power can be summed up in the saying above.
Jackals have small jaws and cannot hunt animals larger than rats but they band together and follow lions and commandeer the left-overs. Like Hyenas perform a sanitary function of clearing rotting shells, so do jackals but they are chained to the fortunes of the Lions. When the lions starve, so do they, when the lions gorge, so do they. Africans come from oral cultures that were informed by Spirits and nature that were held in a fearful balance by the protection of ancestors. Western thought has redefined our consciousness but that ancient culture is rooted deep in our sub-conscious and cannot be expunged. Socrates or Aristotle would debate in depth about various nuances but an analogy from nature cuts through all the pedantics. So the Jackals this week were the ZANU-PF leaders who saw their lion savaged in the polls; at first they went through shock, then denial, then bargaining, then anger and eventually reverted to the Neanderthal brutes that they were. The Army chiefs of staff were the most vehement disciples holding Mugabe in power; knowing they couldn’t survive without their Lion.
The Zimbabwe crisis resurrects all the polemics of history such as colonisation vs. globalisation and the question of WHY IS AFRICA SO MESSED UP? On the time-online site I found a man called Arthur from Bath who said “It all went wrong when we abolished slavery.” The news gave a forum for airing the usual racist attitudes towards Africa, using bad headlines to beat us. Forget the fact that Africa has 53 nations, only 6 have wars so 90% are peaceful, Africa has 7% growth annually, its middle-classes are growing at a faster rate than China. Yet there is a remnant of the reaction to colonialism, ZANU-PF is still the bawdy vaudeville act complete with stupid niggers rolling their eyes, tap-dancing their anti-colonial routine while reinforcing every stereotype of Africans as negatively as they can. Last week I attended a talk given by Andrew Mwenda; a journalist notorious in Uganda for opposing and exposing the government. He talked of the media bias displayed in the Western press towards Africa as they perpetuate the image of AIDS, coups, wars, famine, environmental damage and plain awfulness that exists in Africa.
How does a Zimbabwe occur? Is it just our innate stupidity or is it a deliberate act. I met a Zimbabwean at a birthday party and talked at length about it; he was ambivalent, respecting Bob for the liberation effort while decrying that he had outstayed his welcome. That is the paradox of Mugabe; he did the right thing in the wrong way for the wrong reasons at the wrong time. 160,000% inflation, starving billionaires, political oppression and yet the Zimbabweans still endure this man. The scar of history is easy to pick open whenever a leader wishes to, in African history the white man is the villain and seen as responsible for all the ills in society or more precisely the scapegoat for all our misdemeanours. All regimes begin with such hope and idealism, then they encounter opposition, then they react to counter this opposition, they crush it, and then become obsessed with their own survival.
Yoweri Museveni is the best case to highlight this; he came to power with an idealistic programme to abolish tribalism, educate his people and develop his country. Soon he was using tribalism to divide and rule his people; he was plundering and sacrificed development for personal gain. “Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely” goes the saying. In NO AFRICAN COUNTRY is there true democracy and rule of law, none what so ever. Democracy is at odds with traditional African thinking, where power is centralised in the hands of an “elected King” as the Monty Python joke goes, you don’t vote for Kings. This means that power is solidified around the president meaning he cannot leave the seat because power is addictive and the jackals won’t let him leave. Kwame Nkurumah had this situation in the 60’s; after independence he began to crush all opposition and became more Stalinist therefore squandering the goodwill he earned in the 50’s. The lion just sits back and lies in the sun all day, the females hunt, he gets the lions share, his only purpose is when a rival lion comes to take over then he must defend his pride.
Competence vs. loyalty; this is the oldest dilemma which faces leaders. Should one put a smart guy who wants the top job or a loyal idiot who won’t oppose the system? Leaders often opt for the latter; it is easy and simple. “Le’tat cest moi” said Mobutu “I am the State.” One becomes so intertwined with the state that you view yourself as one and the same. In every African country the secret state spies protect the government; they harass and arrest opposition members, the ruling party owns the economy, the Army holds sway, leaders steal with impunity. Some African nations manage to purvey a myth of freedom but it is all lies; because even if the opposition was in power then they would do the same. Our societies are not evolved enough to tolerate criticism, our institutions are not developed enough to protect individual freedoms, our people are not educated enough to know their rights and responsibilities. This makes democracy as we know it an impossibility; we can only hope for benign leaders who steal less, tolerate corruption less, have a grand vision for their nations and torture less than others.
So the Zimbabwe situation is exacerbated by the honour among thieves that is African politics. Why don’t our own leaders speak against Mugabe? Are they hoping that when their time comes that people will remain silent? “Don’t judge lest you yourself be judged” in other words if all African leaders keep quiet then all is well. Mugabe is no fool; he knows how to hang on, he can just simply refuse to acknowledge the result and Zimbabwe will carry on bleeding while we watch. But some good might come out of Mugabe, when the economy picks up then they will no longer be held hostage by white farmers. That is why I said he did the right thing in the wrong way; he confiscated the farms while giving them to his cronies and destroyed the viable farming sector without transferring it smoothly. A radical white Zimbabwean once put it perfectly “He should have just taxed the bastards off the land, like they did in UK. He didn’t have to kill the golden goose.” Africa has only had 18 years of trying to achieve true democracy, it will take time but when it comes it will be a totally different version that is suited to us and our particular needs.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
STRIP HEAVEN
STRIP HEAVEN
Every year without fail I saved my £50 ($100) for a new football strip, it was always the most expensive item of clothing I owned; I would never spend $100 on a shirt even if it was Versace. It was usually exactly the same as the previous one but with a minor tweak; a line here, a swirl there, a dash of a new colour on the collar. Sometimes they would change the sponsor; like when Spurs went from Holsten to Hewlett Packard, or when Arsenal went from JVC to SEGA to O2 to Emirates. Every time that happened all fans had to buy a new strip or risk looking like a distinct tit on the terrace or road. I can’t remember when I started supporting Spurs, maybe in 1984 when I watched them win the UEFA Cup and they were the only team I knew the players by heart. I am a cynic all truth be told; I went into football swearing not to support a team but found myself deeply in love with Spurs. In the 80’s they played the best and most open football, we didn’t care what the score was, just if the goal we scored was better than all their four. As a Spurs man I have dedicated myself to a life of misery on the whole but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Most Africans prefer support a big team; Arsenal is bigger than the National team because people cry more after an Arsenal loss than at family funerals. I was once in a kabare’ watching Arsenal lose when the place was deadly silent, not a cough.
As a Spurs fan it is my duty to hate Arsenal and all their fans, in England it is proper apartheid, they stay away from each other, the are called the enemy. It is the beautiful game; Spurs had Danny Blanchflower, Jimmy Greaves, Ossie Ardiles, Glenn Hoddle, Chris Waddle, Paul Gascoigne, Teddy Sheringham, David Ginola, and so many other minor legends that make football great. I remember meeting random Spurs players; even shit players were bathed in this glow of awesomeness. Justin Edinburgh is considered by scientists to be the worst player ever, even worse than Curtis Fleming; the Pele of shit players. I watched Sky TV doing 100 goals of the season sometime in the mid 90’s and Justin Edinburgh was in all but 2 of the clips; he was even in the clips for teams he wasn’t even playing for. Saying that, if he came and sat next to me then I’d be like “Oh shit Justin Edinburgh I’m your biggest fan, can I have your autograph, please? I loved your free-kick against Colchester in the league cup in 1994, you’re one of the greatest left-backs ever, you should have played for England, that Winterburn was overrated.”
It is not that I am a hypocrite; I think Edinburgh is the worst player ever but I am a great fan because I invested so much in him; he won us an FA cup and League cup. What I am saying is there is a Justin Edinburgh for every team, a Justin Edinburgh in all of us. Justin Edinburgh’s are essential to football like small fry and plankton keep whales alive in the food chain; you need that shitty player to make the great player great. Like when Cantona flicked the ball twice over Carlton Palmer; he is still bamboozled to this day and hasn’t been able to close his mouth since. Every year I bought my strip loyally, from HOLSTEN, HEWLETT, back to HOLSTEN, THOMSON, and MANSION. Somewhere I have about 8 or 9 shirts, most people throw their shirts away or give them to Oxfam; these strips somehow end up in Africa, almost every one owns an old football strip. You can be walking down the road and spot a Wycombe Wanderers away strip from the 93-94 season, as a fan of football shirts it is great to see them having such functionality after they are discarded.
I remember walking past some Brazilian fans in London and I spotted a Cruzeiro fan and he was shocked that I knew them; I can pass any test on football strips even if the logos as covered. It is marketing that echoes through the ages the Wycombe shirt had VERCO who I thought went out of business but are still in the minds of random Africans. Cheapo polyester that itches you skin and is extremely flammable, but yours for £50 now, even more to put your player’s name and number on the back. I remember one Xmas when I couldn’t come home to see my brother; so I just sent him a Liverpool shirt with his name on the back; my only shame is that I never saw his face when he got it, I can picture it and to this day it is his best prized posession. When I got my first spurs shirt I treated it like gold; I couldn’t even bring myself to wear it, until next season when I got a new one. And these shirts end up being worn by the poorest people in the country, go to the poorest church and all the men are smart in their old football strips, it is kinda like a suit. So when fans do a carbon footprint report on football strips made cheaply in China, then transported to UK, then to Africa, they will find it is worth it to see these old strips given a place to grow old in dignity. A place where football strips can be treated with care, and loved, some football strips are really traumatised after abuse by previous owners.
It is great as you can see old names like NEC (Everton), Tandy (Liverpool), Sanderson (Sheffield Wednesday), Colmans (Norwich), Labatts (Nottingham Forest), Coors (Chelsea), even a Barnet or Shrewsbury strip can turn up and the wearer will be an unwitting fan. Sometimes it breeds loyalty, Spurs fans are as rare as unicorns in Rwanda; I thought I was all alone but recently I was watching Spurs-Man U at a local pub when I noticed another fan cheering the goal and was shocked. He just decided to support them after buying the shirt. Rwanda is 70% Arsenal (Abasenari), 20% Man U (Menchestre Unatedi) and Liverpool and Chelsea make up 9.9 of the rest. The remaining 0.1 % supports other teams so it is very rare to see someone support a team steadily. It is common to hear “Last year I was Arsenal but now I’m Chelsea, but I also support Manchester and Liverpool.” Africans are fickle, they support who they think will win, not the best team, this extends to politics where African also support whoever is more likely to win or whatever tribe. I love the colour and designs of random strips that brighten the lives of countless Africans as they proudly display loyalty to their shirts that were discarded like rags.
Every year without fail I saved my £50 ($100) for a new football strip, it was always the most expensive item of clothing I owned; I would never spend $100 on a shirt even if it was Versace. It was usually exactly the same as the previous one but with a minor tweak; a line here, a swirl there, a dash of a new colour on the collar. Sometimes they would change the sponsor; like when Spurs went from Holsten to Hewlett Packard, or when Arsenal went from JVC to SEGA to O2 to Emirates. Every time that happened all fans had to buy a new strip or risk looking like a distinct tit on the terrace or road. I can’t remember when I started supporting Spurs, maybe in 1984 when I watched them win the UEFA Cup and they were the only team I knew the players by heart. I am a cynic all truth be told; I went into football swearing not to support a team but found myself deeply in love with Spurs. In the 80’s they played the best and most open football, we didn’t care what the score was, just if the goal we scored was better than all their four. As a Spurs man I have dedicated myself to a life of misery on the whole but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Most Africans prefer support a big team; Arsenal is bigger than the National team because people cry more after an Arsenal loss than at family funerals. I was once in a kabare’ watching Arsenal lose when the place was deadly silent, not a cough.
As a Spurs fan it is my duty to hate Arsenal and all their fans, in England it is proper apartheid, they stay away from each other, the are called the enemy. It is the beautiful game; Spurs had Danny Blanchflower, Jimmy Greaves, Ossie Ardiles, Glenn Hoddle, Chris Waddle, Paul Gascoigne, Teddy Sheringham, David Ginola, and so many other minor legends that make football great. I remember meeting random Spurs players; even shit players were bathed in this glow of awesomeness. Justin Edinburgh is considered by scientists to be the worst player ever, even worse than Curtis Fleming; the Pele of shit players. I watched Sky TV doing 100 goals of the season sometime in the mid 90’s and Justin Edinburgh was in all but 2 of the clips; he was even in the clips for teams he wasn’t even playing for. Saying that, if he came and sat next to me then I’d be like “Oh shit Justin Edinburgh I’m your biggest fan, can I have your autograph, please? I loved your free-kick against Colchester in the league cup in 1994, you’re one of the greatest left-backs ever, you should have played for England, that Winterburn was overrated.”
It is not that I am a hypocrite; I think Edinburgh is the worst player ever but I am a great fan because I invested so much in him; he won us an FA cup and League cup. What I am saying is there is a Justin Edinburgh for every team, a Justin Edinburgh in all of us. Justin Edinburgh’s are essential to football like small fry and plankton keep whales alive in the food chain; you need that shitty player to make the great player great. Like when Cantona flicked the ball twice over Carlton Palmer; he is still bamboozled to this day and hasn’t been able to close his mouth since. Every year I bought my strip loyally, from HOLSTEN, HEWLETT, back to HOLSTEN, THOMSON, and MANSION. Somewhere I have about 8 or 9 shirts, most people throw their shirts away or give them to Oxfam; these strips somehow end up in Africa, almost every one owns an old football strip. You can be walking down the road and spot a Wycombe Wanderers away strip from the 93-94 season, as a fan of football shirts it is great to see them having such functionality after they are discarded.
I remember walking past some Brazilian fans in London and I spotted a Cruzeiro fan and he was shocked that I knew them; I can pass any test on football strips even if the logos as covered. It is marketing that echoes through the ages the Wycombe shirt had VERCO who I thought went out of business but are still in the minds of random Africans. Cheapo polyester that itches you skin and is extremely flammable, but yours for £50 now, even more to put your player’s name and number on the back. I remember one Xmas when I couldn’t come home to see my brother; so I just sent him a Liverpool shirt with his name on the back; my only shame is that I never saw his face when he got it, I can picture it and to this day it is his best prized posession. When I got my first spurs shirt I treated it like gold; I couldn’t even bring myself to wear it, until next season when I got a new one. And these shirts end up being worn by the poorest people in the country, go to the poorest church and all the men are smart in their old football strips, it is kinda like a suit. So when fans do a carbon footprint report on football strips made cheaply in China, then transported to UK, then to Africa, they will find it is worth it to see these old strips given a place to grow old in dignity. A place where football strips can be treated with care, and loved, some football strips are really traumatised after abuse by previous owners.
It is great as you can see old names like NEC (Everton), Tandy (Liverpool), Sanderson (Sheffield Wednesday), Colmans (Norwich), Labatts (Nottingham Forest), Coors (Chelsea), even a Barnet or Shrewsbury strip can turn up and the wearer will be an unwitting fan. Sometimes it breeds loyalty, Spurs fans are as rare as unicorns in Rwanda; I thought I was all alone but recently I was watching Spurs-Man U at a local pub when I noticed another fan cheering the goal and was shocked. He just decided to support them after buying the shirt. Rwanda is 70% Arsenal (Abasenari), 20% Man U (Menchestre Unatedi) and Liverpool and Chelsea make up 9.9 of the rest. The remaining 0.1 % supports other teams so it is very rare to see someone support a team steadily. It is common to hear “Last year I was Arsenal but now I’m Chelsea, but I also support Manchester and Liverpool.” Africans are fickle, they support who they think will win, not the best team, this extends to politics where African also support whoever is more likely to win or whatever tribe. I love the colour and designs of random strips that brighten the lives of countless Africans as they proudly display loyalty to their shirts that were discarded like rags.
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