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Last night I found myself in the strange position of cheering my heart out for a Dutch team playing in South Africa – given the history of the dreadful Dutch role in apartheid that was something I would have never envisaged happening. But my cheers were really for Ghana, as Holland avenged Uruguay for knocking the wonderful Ghanaians out of the world cup with a deliberate hand ball (yes, I know I should have let go of that by now – I’m working on it).

So tonight, how the six teams (oops, seven if you include Holland) I was following are not playing – who should I cheer for? Spain or Germany.

Well, win-wise they are fairly equal – both teams having lost just one (albeit quite surprising) match each. In terms of social justice indicators they are fairly even too. Both countries give a similar amount in aid (ie for health European economies – not enough). Germany has less carbon emissions than Spain but then Spain’s inequality difference is slightly less than Germany. Hmm.

The only thing is that when Germany won their matches, they really won! Except of course when Ghana managed to limit them to only one goal – sorry, had to get that in. Otherwise it was a clear 4:1 or 4:0 hammering. I would like to say that Spain’s fabulous 50% representation of women in government was a similarly thumping victory which would have helped in my choice dilemma, but actually, Germany aren’t far behind on 46.2% and they have a female Chancellor.

So I’m still undecided. But in a world cup that saw some teams have progress because of unfair decisions and plain cheating I think I’m going to go by something my son told me. He said Spain have been the cleanest team of the world cup with only 3 yellow cards even at this stage. Having been upset at Ghana’s unjust exit (and other more major injustices around the world ranging from bankers’ greed pushing people further into poverty or the ravaging impacts of climate change suffered by people that didn’t even cause it) I think my cheering criteria should be judged by fairness and so I will celebrate with Spain’s in their clean and justified arrival at the semis.

Posted in: Germany, Spain, Spain v Germany

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

A poor developing nation exceeding expectations against an EU powerbroker replete with grotesquely paid Champions League stars.

The duty of a WSCIF? blogger should be self-evident. But I’m less a fan of William of Occam than of Adrian Monk. Why accept the obvious solution when there is a perfectly perverse and convoluted alternative just waiting to be put together?

Spain are the only team to follow in the fourth quarter-final of the 2010 World Cup; now I just need to construct a logical case.

In this age of transparency and accountability, the following interest should be declared: I am a football fan and as such hopelessly biased towards Spain. Art historians can enjoy the superficial joys of the Renaissance to their hearts’ content but Europe has never produced an aesthetic spectacle to match Xavi, Andres Iniesta and David Villa working in tandem.

Happily, this blatant conflict of interest does not require justifying propaganda. A closer inspection of the facts reveals Vincente del Bosque’s men really might be the good guys.

Paraguay is the most unequal nation in the World Cup and its low military spending belies a strong naval tradition – 34 surface vessels seems rather high for a landlocked country. Even their creditable 30.8% female representation in government is trumped by Spain, whose 50% is disconcertingly just.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Paraguayans do not even have strong colonial guilt cards to play at this point. Economic irrelevance and geographical distance ensured indifferent Spanish governance virtually from its ‘discovery’. Paraguay has since revelled in its eccentricity, exemplified by their choice of revered national hero, Francisco Solano López.

Solano López was a megalomaniac misogynist dictator who brought Paraguay to the brink of total destruction by instigating the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-70) with Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. It’s as if tomorrow Albert II of Monaco sent the troops into France, the air force to Italy and the navy to Algeria with inevitable annihilation – only to be remembered with a national holiday of celebration in his name.

This maverick approach is also evident in their current choice of President: Fernando Lugo, a former Roman Catholic bishop with little political experience. In a single week last year Lugo was the subject of three paternity suits from his time in the church but those remain his most noteworthy headlines. An ambitious redistributive agenda has been repeatedly blocked by other branches of government.

In short, while Paraguay is second in our rankings they are an enigmatic curiosity rather than irresistibly deserving of support.

Spain are not without their faults but a WSICF? ranking of eight, below only the Netherlands among European nations, is an encouraging start. The Zapatero Government is the only centre-left administration in any large EU nation and has an admirable list of legislative achievements: withdrew from troops from Iraq, legalised same-sex marriage, reformed abortion law, reduced inequality and increased Catalonian autonomy. The memory of their election victory amidst Aznar’s ‘3/11 bombing’ manipulation – a nation showing intelligence to defeat fear in a moment of crisis – seals the deal.

And so, back to the football. It shouldn’t matter, of course. In fact it doesn’t. But people come together for the World Cup like for nothing else because at its best it’s magnificent. This Spain team is football at its best and if they were also orphan-eating, gun-toting despots it would still be difficult to hide a sneaking admiration for the way they play the game.

Posted in: Paraguay, Paraguay-Spain QF, Spain

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

In the UK  and across the globe, debate, anger and  fear are raging over the austerity measures  that are being imposed to cure economic ailments. The World Cup has offered us welcome distraction from the constant scare mongering generated by governments’ PR machines that tell us the debt problem (or really any problem you can think of) must be solved by cuts, cuts, cuts. They all say tell us ‘We know what is best for you, shut your eyes, open your mouth, take the medicine it will cure all our ills. Watch the football, drink your beer, stay on the sofa there’s a good chap.’

But the World Development Movement and others don’t want you to stay on your sofa. We have campaigned for decades to stop institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank from forcing developing countries to introduce public service cuts, privatisation and reductions in government  spending. Sound familiar?

We campaign against these measures  because the evidence categorically shows that these policies hurt people in developing countries making them poorer, and the gap grows chasmic between the richest and poorest. We have been vindicated, in the late 1990s even the World Bank and IMF slowly slowly began to change their neoliberal tune.  Ok so they weren’t exactly singing the Internationale, but they introduced measures to try and provide a safety net to cushion people against the worst aspects of poverty that these policies brought. And ok it wasn’t that sucessful, but we were somewhere in the argument that more privatisation and less government spending on, let’s say schools and midwives salaries, do not in fact cure the debt crisis, do not cure poverty but do bring unemployment, more children and mothers dying in childbirth and plummeting literacy rates .

But somewhere along the line we’ve lost the argument again because those same policies are being introduced now in the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, Spain, the UK…. read behind the spin of ‘free’ schools or of ‘efficiency savings’ in the NHS and you’ll see they are the same old policies with prettier names. So our governments are singing loudly that neoliberal anthem that’s been discredited and discarded by its inventors for over a decade.

Brazil is one of the many countries that had to undergo the structural adjustment or economic shock therapy imposed by the IMF during the 1980s and 1990s. This included the economic policies described above to try to reduce its debts. Analysis from Oxfam showed the results:

• 43% of Brazilians – over 60 million people – lack the essentials of a decent life
• One in three children drop out of school without completing primary education
• 90% of sewage is untreated

Brazil now is also being hit by the economic recession, but they are still a growing economy. Having seen his country decimated by the cuts agenda in the past, President Lula does not sing from the neoliberal song book, instead   Lula wants to invest in new roads, highspeed trains and new homes for people on low incomes.

Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, the new coalition government will be bringing in austerity measures that Brazil eshews. The Guardian argued that people voted for austerity with a conscience. The argument seems to be that the coalition is softened, in a similar way to the UK, by the Dutch equivalent of the Lib Dems. Not so soft?

I can’t make predictions for the match, but my prediction for the countries that bring in austerity measures: inquality and poverty will increase. I feel like sitting on my sofa, having a beer, watching the match to forget that the next generation of kids might go to a school run by Tesco where they are trained to work for Tesco, they will live in a Tesco housing estate and they will eat Tesco food.

But I won’t – what I will do is check out No Shock Doctrine for Britain who are campaigning against the cuts, and work to force those in power and in wealth see that austerity is not the medecine that will cure us, it is the medicine that no matter how much sugar we pile on top of it will only hurt us.

Posted in: Brazil, Global injustice, Netherlands, Uncategorized, Who am I cheering for?

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

At my primary school only boys were allowed to play football. At the age of 8, I remember feeling like this was a terrible injustice, because I hated netball. My secondary school was a girls’ grammar school where all sports except football were taught, including rugby and cricket.

If I had the opportunity to play football at school, would I feel more of an affinity with the sport now? Try as I might, I can’t shake the feeling that it’s a man’s game and has very little to do with me.

In the public arena, it is still a man’s game, even if it’s changing slowly. Now, the girls at my old secondary school play in football leagues, and it’s pretty much the norm for girls to play football at school. Will this eventually lead to women’s football being as popular as men’s football? I wonder.

In 1921, women’s football was banned by the FA on the ground that “the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged.” The ban was only lifted in 1971. Women footballers had to wait until 1991 for the first Women’s World Cup.

Many international women football players have to work full time to subsidise their football careers because they don’t get paid enough. Is women’s football still sidelined and devalued because it is deemed to be “unsuitable for females”?

In the new UK coalition government, one would be forgiven for thinking that those in charge see politics as unsuitable for women. 75.5% of elected MPs are men, with only one female cabinet member. And perhaps it’s not just those in charge.

The day after the recent UK election, I had a conversation with a politically far-left-leaning man. His explanation for the lack of women in government was that “maybe it’s because women don’t want to get involved with a bunch of slimy politicians. They’re probably wise to stay out of it.”

I wonder if that’s what men in Switzerland thought during the referendum in 1959 where the majority of men voted ‘no’ to oppose women’s suffrage. And if that’s what the conservative women’s group ‘Federation of Swiss Women against Women’s Right to Vote’ were thinking.

Is women’s representation in government really just about whether women are interested in politics, just as, I ask, is the lack of coverage of women’s football really about not enough people being interested enough to watch it? Surely it’s more about a society’s lack of encouragement and commitment to equal opportunities?

Today, only 14.3% of Switzerland’s government are women. It sounds worse if you look at it in another way: 85.7% of people in government are men. It’s hardly surprising given the long struggle for women’s suffrage in Switzerland. Switzerland was the last country in Europe to grant the vote to women; women didn’t gain the right to vote in federal elections until 1971.

If politics is a dirty game and women can act as atrociously in power as men, some ask whether having more women in politics would necessarily bring about a fairer world? The president of Spain, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, is a self-avowed feminist and thinks it does matter – on  principle of fairness and equality.

“One thing that really awakens my rebellious streak is 20 centuries of one sex dominating another”, he said. “We talk of slavery, feudalism, exploitation, but the most unjust domination if that of one-half of the human race over the other.”

Zapatero was elected in 2004 in part on his promise to improve women’s position in society, in what is still a machismo culture. Now, because of a gender equality law, 50% of people in Spain’s parliament are women. It wasn’t difficult to get 50% representation, it just took political will at the top.

So, that’s why I’m cheering for Spain. My own disenfranchisement from football at school and the lack of representation by my own sex in the UK parliament means I have little interest in supporting England in the Men’s World Cup 2010. And besides, Spanish players are better looking. Oh, and a tip for those thinking of making a trip to the bookies: I have it on good authority that Spain are going to win.

Posted in: Global injustice, Matches, Spain, Switzerland, Teams

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

This match sees a couple of relative-newcomers to the World Cup. Slovakia (as an independent country) have never appeared on this stage before and New Zealand’s ‘All Whites’ (no, really) have made only one appearance (at Spain ’82) so both teams will be standing at the edge of the playground hoping that the bigger boys don’t foist an initiation ritual upon them. Realistically, both teams are competing for the second place in the group behind Italy but Slovakia, whose ranking is considerably higher than New Zealand, are much more likely to pip Paraguay to the post. So anyone who loves a football underdog should be writing NZ all over their forehead.

Both teams have combative defenders amongst their numbers with neither Martin Skrtel nor Ryan Nelson being afraid of a robust challenge if required (or if they just fancy it). Sadly, any Teesiders hoping to reacquaint themselves with former Middlesboro star Szilárd Németh will be sorely disappointed; he’s not involved in the national squad any more. (Nor are Massimo Maccarone or Alfonso Alves in the Italy or Brazil squads, come to think of it).

The WDM statistics ranks these two as the 12th and 13th most supportable teams and it is quite tough to choose between them. It is noteworthy that income is shared considerably less equitably in New Zealand and that Slovakia spends more of its national income on its military. However, the stand-out statistic, and the one that I will base my support upon, is the fact that the New Zealand government is 23.1% female. Of course, this is way short of the range within which it ought to be but this is considerably better than Slovakia is currently managing and for that reason I will be cheering Nelson and co in this match.

Posted in: New Zealand, New Zealand-Slovakia, Slovakia

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

Earlier this week at WDM we had a very interesting meeting about gender, considering how best to ensure that our practice and campaigns contributed to a post-patriarchal politics. It was intelligent, sensitive and radical.

Then we came to set a date for the next meeting; 2pm on Wednesday the 23rd of June was suggested; and all hell broke loose. Various attendees at the meeting were deeply concerned that this would cause them to miss the start of England’ s third group game, against Slovenia. Would it surprise you to learn that these attendees all belonged to the same gender?

You will be pleased, I am sure, to hear that a compromise was reached and duties to both In-ger-land and the campaigns function meeting will be met in full. But it served to illustrate that even in the most consciously progressive environments, the gender divide is alive and well.

I mention this because this match features two countries with an interesting story to tell about women in government.

Uruguay is one of only two nations in the tournament with no women in its government. Not one. Zero. This despite the fact that Uruguay achieved universal women’s suffrage 12 years before their supposedly revolutionary opponents (1932 vs 1944), not to mention before Portugal, Greece, Italy, Japan, Australia and Canada, and long before infamously backward Switzerland (1971).

France has if anything an even more troubled relationship between women and politics.

The role of women in the Revolution was critical. The Women’s March on Versailles, for example, was arguably responsible for turning the Revolution from a Cromwellian middle-class hissy fit into a working-class movement. Despite this, the first Republic never did grant women the same citizen’s rights as men, and as mentioned it took until the last years of the Second World War for Frenchwomen to get the vote.

Among the British stereotypes of France is that its culture is particularly highly gendered – many even see it as an idealised gender landscape, populated by cool, arrogant alpha-males and coquettish, impossibly stylish women. Certainly this is a stereotype that the First Family does little to dispel.

Despite this, or perhaps even because of it, France’s recent record of women in politics is, though objectively poor, no worse than its near neighbours. With women making up 17% of minsters, it matches the Brown government and outperforms the ConDem coalition by 2%. And Sarkozy himself won the Élysée by only 6% from Socialist leader Ségolène Royal.

Our own country’s politics, particularly within the Labour Party, is now raising fascinating questions about how to deal with this imbalance.

Progressives conscious of the dearth of both black people and women in senior roles are faced with the dilemma of the candidacy for London Mayor of a black woman – Oona King – whose politics arguably represent those aspects of the Labour Party that the self-same lefties find so disappointing.

Another black woman – the first in Parliament, Diane Abbott – makes history again by becoming the first black person to run for Labour leader, but it’s hard to shake the impression that her candidacy is being treated as tokenistic window-dressing by swathes of her party. Should she really be the “black woman candidate” when the fact that she is the “only left-wing candidate” seems to this author so much more important?

And the second woman ever to lead the Labour Party – though like her predecessor Margaret Beckett she is allowed a temporary appointment only – has proposed a rule change to require 50% women in the Shadow Cabinet. Spain enacted legislation stipulating the same for its ministerial posts, and as a result boasts the only 50-50 government at the World Cup.

Far from uncontroversial in feminist circles, the proposal has at least served to highlight a bigger problem than Labour’s internal elections – women’s representation in parliament is so poor that in order to make 50% sound feasible, Harman has also had to propose that the Shadow Cabinet is reduced in size. And this in the parliamentary group with more women than any other, aside from the Greens’ all-female delegation of one.

However the problem is addressed, France’s 17% record on women in government cannot be allowed to remain a perfectly respectable mid-table performance. By the time we do all this again in Brazil in 2014, I hope to see more WIGs than WAGs in the VIP boxes, and neighbouring Uruguay must at least drag itself out of the relegation zone.

Oh, and for the record, I didn’t care when the campaigns meeting was. But then I’m not English, and nationalism is a subject for another post.

Posted in: France, Uruguay, Uruguay-France

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

Group A

South Africa

The host nation has had some great results recently, including beating Guatemala 5-0. Historically, home nations always do well, with six out of the seven World Cup champions winning on home turf. However, as the lowest-ranked country to ever host a World Cup, South Africa will struggle to make it past the first round.

In the run up to the World Cup, South Africa – 15th in the Who Should I Cheer For rankings – has received criticism over large numbers of evictions of vulnerable people to make room for World Cup infrastructure. War on Want is highlighting these issues through an interactive map of Cape Town.

Mexico

The attack-minded Mexicans, with Manchester United’s recent signing Javier Hernandez and Arsenal’s Carlos Vela, are one of the group favourites. Recent losses against England and The Netherlands have disappointed, but they beat Italy 2-1 in their last match before the World Cup.

Mexico, 28th in the Who Should I Cheer For rankings, spends the least on weapons out of all the countries in the World Cup. In the WDM office we are keen on the Zapatistas – a movement of indigenous people whose ideology, Zapatismo, is a combination of libertarian socialism, anarchism and traditional Mayan thought – with at least two staff members having been to visit them before starting at WDM.

The Zapatistas are vehemently opposed to neo-liberal globalisation, particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which has forced Mexico to end its crop subsidies while not placing similar conditions on the United States. NAFTA also forced Mexico to remove a section in its constitution which guaranteed indigenous people land rights. Their website is in Spanish but works quite well with Google translate if you don’t speak it.

Uruguay

The two-time World Cup winners also have an offensive team with Diego Forlan and Luis Suarez and beat Israel 4-1 in their last match before the World Cup. Only just qualifying after 1-0 win over Costa Rica in the South American play-off match, Uruguay is a bit of a wild card in this group.

Uruguay is the 21st most supportable team in the Who Should I Cheer For rankings and is one of only two countries – Slovakia being the other one – with no women at all in government. Uruguay will forever be remembered as the first ever nation to win the World Cup in 1930.

France

Les Bleus have a great team on paper and must be group favourites. However, they only just qualified through the controversial play off match against Ireland where the referee missed Thierry Henry’s handball.

France is the 18th most supportable team on the Who Should I Cheer For rankings and comes in middle of the table across all the indicators, although we at WDM think they should be shamed for falling short of the OECD’s aid target of 0.7% of GDP.

Group B

Greece

In the Greeks’ only previous appearance at a World Cup was 1994, they lost all their matches and didn’t score a single goal. But they did go on to win the European Championships in 2004. Theo Gekas of Bayer Leverkusen was the leading scorer in the European group stages of qualifying, scoring 10 goals.

It’s difficult to think about Greece at the moment without considering its economic crisis. Last month saw large protests as people feel that the harsh austerity measures imposed by the IMF will mainly affect the poor. Greece is 30th in the Who Should I Cheer For rankings, doing particularly badly on military spending. Perhaps that should be the first thing they cut?

Argentina

2010 sees the return of Maradona as manager of the team he infamously won with as a player in 1986. But will Lionel Messi be able to show the same brilliance that he’s shown all season for Barcelona – where he scored nearly 50 goals – in the World Cup? It remains to be seen. In Argentina – the birthplace of Che Guevara – the Church of Maradona was established in 1998 and now has over 100,000 worshippers.

Nigeria

The poorest country in the World Cup in terms of GDP per person but should have a reasonable chance of getting the second place, especially with new coach Lars Lagerbäck who took Sweden to five successive tournaments 2000 to 2008. Nigeria is the largest country in Africa in terms of population size – every fifth African is Nigerian.

South Korea

South Korea, who will probably be battling it out with Nigeria for the second place in this group, had an amazing run in 2002, beating Portugal in the groups stages before knocking out Spain and Italy on the way to the semi-finals. This year’s team also looks stronger than in 2006 where they got knocked out in the group stages.

South Korea also does badly in the Who Should I Cheer For rankings when it comes to military spending, perhaps countered by the fact that the head of the UN, Ban ki-moon is from the country.

Posted in: France, Group previews, Mexico, South Africa, Uruguay

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