Many critics are voicing their opinions concerning the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Some are predicting that the games will only be partly attended, that the stadiums are unlikely to fill. Others predict that the transportation department will not be able to handle the amount of travelers and spectators, or that the crime will frighten people, or the the stadiums will run out of beer. But in the center of this controversy currently, is none other than the Vuvuzela. The Vuvuzula is a small, plastic trumpet, blown traditionally throughout the game, much as the baseball fans in America wave big, foam fingers, and it is a South African tradition. Many of the foreign coaches, soccer players and fans have requested that the vuvuzela be banned come 2010. What is being debated now is not safety issues or availability of accommodations such as the luxury hotels Cape Town is refurbishing and redecorated, but the small trumpet and whether or not it is considered part of the culture of South Africa, or whether it is just simple a horn, a noise maker.
Some spectators in the stands of soccer games last week, complained that when many of the horns are all blown simultaneously, the noise is deafening, bordering on painful. For the people of South Africa, this has been an exciting and exhilarating sound, but it falls very harshly on foreign ears it seems. Many opponents of vuvuzela state that the sound produced by the large crowds in attendance at the games is a distraction that lasts the entire length of the game. A soccer player from Spain and a coach from the Netherlands have put in their two cents, and both desire a ban on the trumpet come World Cup time in 2010.
This could turn into a racial issue, as most of the soccer games in South Africa are considered “black” tournaments, while most of the whites attend football games, in the western sense of the game. Within South Africa, the populations have had issue with this trumpet for years. Oddly enough, one theory of the origin of the trumpets is that they were toys distributed throughout the United States, that upon unsuccessful sales, were sent to South Africa, where fans quickly picked them up and started using them during the games. Another theory states that they are based on the tradition of the horns used to call villages together for the events. Either way, this is just one more aspect of the games to be held next year in South Africa that is being debated and will be debated in the months to follow.
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