Africa Cup of Nations - blog

Musing on Angolan politics

by Paul Myers

Article published on the 2010-01-30 Latest update 2010-01-30 11:38 TU

Egyptian players Hosny Abd Rabo and Wael Gomaa on a bus at the airport in Benguela, on their way to Luanda for the final match on Sunday
(Photo: Reuters)

I haven’t really delved into the politics of Angola in this blog, but since I’m leaving in 46 hours 28 minutes - and you can sense I’m in no rush to leave – I feel this is the time to broach the subject of civil war and a nascent multi-party state.

I can report that democracy is wonderfully vibrant. What can I offer to illustrate this?

Benguela airport Friday afternoon: the double African champions Egypt arrive at around 3pm for a flight to Luanda, where they will take on Ghana in Sunday’s final.

The Egyptians are bidding to become the first African team to gain a hat trick of titles. Do they get star treatment? No. Do they get priority passage into Angolan airspace? Not at all.

They wait for hours and hours like the rest of us chumps for their plane. Eventually they get to their hotel in Luanda around 10pm.

The footballers – the reason why we’ve all come to the country – are subjected to the same structural incompetence.

But I was told of an incident more bizarre than the Pharaohs waiting around. The TAAG flight from Benguela to Luanda scheduled for 3pm left nearly three hours early.

It was barely a quarter full.  

The saps who had turned up for the 3pm flight did not leave Benguela until just after midnight.

I wasn’t remotely involved with this, and with 46 hours and 20 minutes left of my stay, I simply roll my eyes and wonder if the ‘nascent democracy’ exhortation is sufficient to explain away these kinds of events.

The barbarism of a 27-year civil war is something most of us will never taste. The conflict is over, but the savagery seems systemic.

And it’s infectious.

I’ve been here for nearly a month, and none of the foreigners I’ve spoken to while travelling around Lubango, Cabinda or Benguela has any intention of racing back to Angola in a hurry. Some are vehement in their condemnation.

This 27th Africa Cup of Nations was billed as a showcase: come and see football and fortune favouring the brave peacemakers.

Well, we’ve come to watch men in shorts and boots, but those of us who’ve made the long journey to Angola - and even more time consuming trips once inside - have been left short and booted.

By Friday afternoon I was feeling my usual chirpy self, having recovered from Tuesday’s all day, 80-minute flight from Lubango to Luanda.

I listened to the tale of Benguela and was downhearted. True, there were no deaths, nothing serious. But it was just another vignette highlighting the impropriety of placing the games in Angola.

I was musing on Friday morning on Mr Bad’s line from my university days, but on Saturday I recall a phrase from even before then: towards the end of my schooldays, the Specials belted out ‘Too much too young’.

It seems apt for Angola. There’s nothing wrong with the desire to develop and display maturity, but sometimes the rush can be crass.

There’s oil money to burn in Angola, and it may well fuel a brilliant social and political reconstruction. In a year, the planes might consistently take off on time. But thousands of tourists are here in January 2010 for a huge event. It’s no good telling them that the country is going to be fantastic in the future.

The irony is a Nations Cup in Angola in, say, two or four years would have been positively stunning.