Outcry at plans to make a comedy about Irish Famine

Irish Famine Memorial in Dublin

On 30 December, the Irish Times set off waves of outrage and disbelief when it reported that British TV station Channel 4 was commissioning a comedy set to the backdrop of the Irish Famine.

The Famine (or An Gorta Mór, as it is known in Irish), lasted from 1845 until 1852, and saw well over one million people in Ireland die from starvation and disease.

Many of them were buried without coffins, in mass pauper graves; others were left where they dropped for fear of contagion, their mouths green from the grass they ate in desperation to stay alive.

For many that died, their names and deaths were not recorded; their memory lost forever. A further one and a half million emigrated during the Famine to places like Boston, New York, Liverpool and Australia.

The Irish population dropped by 30 percent in six short years, and the political and cultural impact of the Famine can still be felt to this day. So too can the demographic impact – the Irish population has never properly recovered from the impact of the Famine, and is still lower than pre-Famine levels.

A Change.org petition calling on Channel 4 to not make the show has already reached close to 40,000 signatures.

The fight for football: Is the ’world game’ the people’s game?

The 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa began its final round of 16 on June 26. it came amid the unrelenting drone of vuvuzela horns, the knockout of big teams such as Italy and France, and street protests by local residents angry at the 40 billion rand the government has spent on the corporatised event.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s poor continue to suffer substandard housing and access to basic services.

Football, or “soccer” in Australia, is the “world game”, played by millions of people around the world and watched by hundreds of millions more. But is it truly the “people’s game”?
On its own terms, football is an often thrilling exhibition of human skill. A high quality football match commands comparisons with theatre, poetry, and - all too often - opera.

It's also excitingly unpredictable - more so than other art forms. Where else could you see Macbeth get away with fouling Duncan, eke out a nil-all draw with Malcolm, and cheat Banquo of his dreams of the crown on goal differences?

Little wonder, then, that it is so popular worldwide.

However, the game is accompanied by a series of undeniably ugly aspects. The issue of football hooliganism, especially in Europe, is well-known. Many clubs, with their tight-knit fan groups, provide a fertile breeding ground for neo-Nazi and extreme right-wing groups, such as the English Defence League. 

On an international level, support for national teams all too easily finds expression in crude racism. 

The Hidden Stories of Football in Africa

Former prisoner, Thulani Mabaso, on Robben Island football field

Feet of the Chameleon: The Story of African Football
Ian Hawkey, Anova Books, 2009.
More Than Just A Game: Football v Apartheid, The most important football story ever toldChuck Korr and Marvin Close, Harper Collins, 2008.
 

The world is in the final stages of counting down to the biggest show on earth – the football world cup in South Africa – the first time it has ever been held on the African continent. 

While billions of people prepare for the spectacle, it seems time to review a couple of recent publications that put the role of the “world game” in Africa into perspective.

The first and most recent of these is Ian Hawkey’s Feet of the Chameleon, which tracks the emergence of the game in Africa, its ongoing exploitation by the old colonial European powers hungry for talent to improve their leagues, and the role football has played in African nations winning their independence and democracy.

Through thirteen themed essays, Hawkey tracks the history of such football greats as Larbi Ben Barek – Africa’s first football superstar – and of Eusébio da Silva Ferreira, who moved from Mozambique to Portugal to become the greatest – and most fought-over – football player of his time, on a par with the Brazilian legend Pelé.

Hawkey also uncovers the role of football in African politics (and vice versa), and exposes the process of economic migration that has seen such modern greats as Emmanuel Adebayor, Didier Drogba, Michael Essien and Samuel Eto-o playing in Europe, and has seen thousands more forsake friends, family and home, dreaming of emulating them.