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Ghanaian supporters hung out of windows, waving flags, cheering, singing, blowing whistles. Roads were jammed as fans partied in the street. Anyone would have thought Ghana had won the world cup, yet this was the scene in South London in 2006 after Brazil knocked Ghana out of the tournament. As one passer by apparently commented – ‘If this happens when they lose, what on earth would they be like if they won?’

This year I wanted a taste of Ghanaian football. I headed to the Gold Coast Ghanaian Bar, South Norwood, for the Ghana v Serbia match (ranked No1 and No17 in the Who Should I Cheer For ratings). The atmosphere was fantastic. Everyone was in party mood. Cheering and whistle blowing was the backdrop to intermittent roars of triumph as Ghana’s Black Stars approached the goal mouth.

Suddenly the screen went blank. The patrons, who’d been tightly packed into their viewing area didn’t moan, they just scrambled their way over chairs in the rush to watch the screen outside. Cheers and whistle blowing resumed and we continued to enjoy the match. A guy closest to the screen, decided to get up and dance. There were no shouts of ‘sit down – I can’t see the screen’, everyone seemed happy in his happiness! Dance over, he sat down and everyone could see the screen again.

Until that screen went blank too. Surely this time surely people would get agitated.

But they didn’t. They danced! All I had to compare this scenario to was what I thought it would have been like had it been England playing – tutting, shouting, demands for a refund and maybe objects thrown at the screen in frustration. But the Ghanaians danced!

Their patience was rewarded. Within a couple of minutes of the screen flickering back on Ghana’s Gyan scored what was to be the winning goal. If a screen going off in the middle of a match can generate dancing and signing, imagine the reaction to Ghana’s first goal of World Cup 2010! It was electric.

I began to wonder how life would be if Ghanaians were running things. For years Ghana has been fighting privatisation of its water supply. Fighting water companies from rich countries from taking over the Ghanaian water supply because the companies would be focusing on profit not on supplying water to those who need it most. Ghana, along with other countries in the south want their own communities to manage their water. How would it be if Ghana was doing its own thing?

In England and the west we have been taught, consciously or subconsciously, that individuals have top priority and this sometimes manifests itself as having a right to be happy even at the expense of others. So it follows that a western company will see nothing wrong in going in to a country and maximising profit even at the expense of the individuals who live there. But in Ghana there seems to more of a community spirit thing going on – what is important is doing things together as a community and being happy together. In terms of supplying clean water, this wouldn’t mean maximum profit for a few – this would mean ensuring fairness for all.

This year I asked a Ghanaian supporter what on earth would have happened if Ghana had beaten Brazil instead of being knocked out by them in 2006. You know what he told me – that the crazy, exuberant, happy celebrations would have been the same – because what they were rejoicing in was even bigger than world cup football.

They were celebrating their community.

Posted in: Ghana, Serbia, Serbia-Ghana

Views expressed here are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the World Development Movement.

I am a soft touch when it comes to underdogs: I wear a badge that says: ‘I heart migrants‘; I buy the Big Issue; and I work for the World Development Movement to combat the injustice that is rife through out the world. And now I am faced with a choice between Ghana – the top dog of the underdogs according to Who Should I Cheer For?; and Serbia – the country that shot to fame in the 1990s as an international pariah. So for most people, the choice of which team to cheer for based on ‘underdog’ criteria would be simple. For me, not so simple.

But life, politics and war is never simple. Let me announce my bias: my father’s family is from Serbia, from a city called Kragujevac, which is known for a massacre of up to 5000 people in 1941 at the hands of the Nazis. My grandfather fled the country and walked across Europe with nothing but the clothes on his back.

Massacres and deeply held resentments have been prominent in the former Yugoslavia’s turbulent history for centuries and the war crimes that took place at the hands of the Serbs in the 1990s are clear to everyone. And now to the Serbs themselves, who because of the propaganda pedalled by Milosevic and the closure of independent media, did not know of the true extent of the genocidal war that was being waged in their name.

But what they did know is that they were under attack from sanctions, from NATO bombing and economic collapse. By the year 2000, Serbia was the poorest country in Europe. It was the year that I went to visit my family in Kragujevac and saw the embarrassment and anger in my cousin’s face when admitted that she had been ‘paid’ in eggs that week.

This was also the year that Milosevic was finally forced from power.  The Milosevic regime’s tactics to stay in power were violent and omnipotent, including hundreds of thousands of fake ballot papers, the arrest, detention and ‘diasppearances’ of journalists, opposition activists and judges who sympathised with the opposition. One judge was murdered when he refused to issue an arrest warrant for two opposition leaders. And the disappearance and death of Ivan Stambolic, the former Prime Minister, who turned against Milosevic and gave support to the leader of the opposition party, Vojislav Kostunica.

Kostunica was leading a shakey coalition of 18 opposition parties, and despite Milosevic’s repression, they organised election monitors, mobililsed people, and collaborated with the powerful student movement, Otpor.  After the contested election of September 2000, a month of mass strikes and one million people descended on Belgrade from across the country, including elderly  farmers on tractors and bulldozers. They broke through police lines and faced tear gas and stormed parliament forcing Milosevic’s resgination on October 5th.

The last decade has not been easy for Serbs. The chasm between the rich and the poor has widened. Although, there’s no data available in government numbers for the clever people behind whoshouldicheerfor.com to crunch, inequality has increased after the IMF imposed its usual draconian economic conditions, like privatisation of electricty, education and health care, in return for loans.

The poorest people in Serbia (and Eastern Europe) who have suffered greatly are the Roma population. Roma people are widely discriminated against, are the target of racist attacks and fail to access public services. Currently, in Serbia the situation of Roma people is particularly worrying with 30 per cent of the population living on less than $2 a day; entire communities unable to access health care, education and live in shanty towns. It’s my bet that data for the Roma population is not included in official government stats, because Roma people tend not to have birth certificates, ID or permanent addresses. If the stats for Roma people were available to us the maternal mortality, hunger and life expectancy results would be a lot worse.

So I will be cheering for Serbia: for the Roma people – the underdogs of Europe; for the Serbs who bravely and peacefully overthrew a genocidal dictator; and for my family, and all families, who are still struggling to get by.

p.s. Amnesty International is running a campaign to stop forced evictions of Roma communities in Serbia, please do get involved.

The symbol of Otpor's resistance against the Milosevic regime, it appeared in badges, stickers, posters, banners, graffiti, t-shirts and as a tattoo on my colleague, James' arm!

Posted in: Ghana, Global injustice, Serbia, Serbia-Ghana, Teams, Who am I cheering for?

Views expressed here are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the World Development Movement.