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From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Sun Jul 04 2010 - 01:01:58 EDT
Football lessons for Africa’s exiles
By Petina Gappah
Published: July 1 2010 22:26 | Last updated: July 1 2010 22:26
A few years ago, in a bar in my adopted home, Geneva, I looked up to find a
man looking at the book I was reading, an anthology of short stories by
women from my homeland of Zimbabwe. He was a Cameroonian football agent
living in Monaco, he said. He was particularly interested in scouting young
African players and finding them homes in European leagues.
This must be a lucrative business, I said. Indeed, he agreed, not only for
himself and the players he represented, but also for Africa. And so we
began to talk about the benefits of international football for African
development. As I watched the recent football World Cup game between Ghana
and Germany, I thought again about what he had said, and about the benefits
that foreign-based footballers can bring to Africa.
Something quite extraordinary happened on that field: two brothers,
Kevin-Prince Boateng and Jerome Boateng, stepped on to the pitch to play.
Sibling sportsmen representing their countries are not new, particularly in
tennis: the Williams sisters come of course to mind. What was so striking
about the Boatengs is that these men, born of the same father, played for
different countries – Kevin-Prince for Ghana and his younger,
half-brother for Germany.
Pique may have spurred the older Boateng’s journey to that field in
Johannesburg – he reportedly chose to play for Ghana because he felt that
Germany had not given him enough opportunities – but what is crucial is
that he had the option to play both for his country of birth and for
Germany because Ghana, like Germany, permits dual citizenship.
Beyond the razzle and the dazzle and the vuvuzela din of the tournament
this strikes me as the most telling lesson of Africa’s first World Cup.
Didier Drogba, Samuel Eto’o, Michael Essien and other African stars all
live abroad, as do many other African professionals. If the continent is to
overcome the brain drain of this emigration, African countries must find
ways to tempt them home.
The Boatengs’ story is not just one of the fluidity of identity, a
poignant theme for Africa’s diaspora in the post-colonial era. It is also
even a pointer to how Africa can use the brain drain that has so
debilitated its professional classes to its advantage.
Football is one of the most visible signs of Africa’s skills exodus: the
very best African players are quickly snapped up to play for European
leagues where they have become ubiquitous. They represent just a tiny
proportion of the skilled Africans of all trades and professions who leave
the continent. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for
Africa, about 27,000 Africans left for industrialised countries between
1960 and 1975. Now, an equivalent number leaves the continent every year.
The economic and social impact has been devastating. In the 1980s, 60 per
cent of doctors trained in Ghana left the country. Zimbabwe is a more
recent example of this crippling medical emigration. Britain’s National
Health Service employs thousands of its nurses and doctors, who are so
badly needed at home where the state is crumbling at vertiginous speed.
In many instances, these professionals and their children acquire the
citizenship of their new countries. But Zimbabwe, unlike Ghana, does not
permit dual citizenship. Thus that moment on the pitch, between two
brothers who could meet again if Ghana win the match tonight, illustrates a
larger truth about how Africa can entice back its diaspora: those African
countries with flexible notions of citizenship may be best placed to
benefit from Africa’s brain drain.
It is perhaps paradoxical to talk of benefit and the brain drain at the
same time. But the brain drain is not necessarily bad for African
countries. It is every motivated and ambitious person’s dream to compete
with the best in their field: footballers want to play in the top leagues,
students want to study at top universities, professionals want to compete
and learn from the best among their peers.
The question is how if at all can the skills gained outside the home be
redirected home. I have a group of Zimbabwean friends who are doctors in
Britain who return home every year and help out in hospitals. If these
doctors and their children can be assured of the security of multiple
citizenship – rather than having to choose between being British or being
Zimbabwean – they may well choose to do more for their homeland.
It is one thing to talk of love for one’s country, but there is also the
reality that for many professionals, developed countries offer more
opportunities than African countries.
Pelé’s famous prediction that an African team would lift the World Cup
by the end of the last century failed to come true. And in spite of the
older Boateng’s and Ghana’s valiant efforts, it is unlikely that an
African team will triumph in this tournament. But my Cameroonian agent
friend was right: the skills of foreign-based football players can help to
develop Africa, as can the skills and creativity of Africa’s other
migrant professionals. The remaining African countries that prohibit
multiple citizenship must follow the example that gave Boateng the option
to play for Ghana. They must allow for multiple citizenship so that their
émigré professionals can contribute to the development Africa so badly
needs.
The writer is a lawyer at the ACWL, an international organisation based in
Geneva and the author of ‘An Elegy for Easterly’, an award-winning
collection of stories about Zimbabwe
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