The Horn Times Newsletter, 15 July 2013
By Getahune Bekele –South Africa
“In that incredibly tense Ethiopia game, at one point …an altercation took place between a number of players on the half way line. At this point, the local fans seemed to be aggressively chanting ‘war! War!’” Soccer Laduma newspaper July 3, 2013
“It was obvious that all of us read what this guy said. We were pissed off. Just let him talk…let him talk. Let anyone speak, we must just focus on doing our job. He had his moment speaking that way about SA.” Bafana player Ricardo Nunes threatening the temperamental Ethiopian international striker Fikru Tefera for the comments he made earlier. Soccer Laduma July 3, 2013.
It all started after the blazing comets of African soccer, the mighty black lions dethroned the highly overrated Bafana by defeating them 2-1 during a world cup qualifier match played at Addis Ababa stadium in front of more than 30-thousand partisan crowd. Waa….Waa… the alarm bell sounded as Bafana goalie Itumeleng Kune misbehaved at Addis Ababa stadium.
Leading the verbal assault on the benevolent and civilized people of Ethiopia with poorly researched poisonous reporting is the soccer Laduma tabloid; the so called Africa’s biggest soccer publication.
The paper always carries stories that are dull and full of platitudes with malignant contents about Africa, a reminder of colonial era journalism where white editors used to push their respective governments agendas of ethnic disharmony and hatred.
Even today depreciating Africa, making extraneous remarks about African countries and bombarding Africa with negative images seems the only way of selling papers for most feeble minded average South African reporters.
Some are not even qualified to be called journalists but gossip mongers of portentous talent and deceptive liars.
Whenever they have to produce a piece concerning Africa, they would drag up a hotchpotch of monstrous lies to create a factious story. Then their inept editors will publish them in Toto without condensing it.
Their soullessness is beyond belief.
We all remember the unnecessarily insulting article written by highly respected South African journalist named Mathews Mpete under the title of “Back to the future” on the Daily Sun tabloid.
“Said one kid at a street corner ‘are you really from South Africa? Can I touch you?” Mr. Mpete wrote after visiting Africa’s diplomatic capital Addis Ababa. He was brutally targeting street kids of Ethiopia in his article as if there are no street kids in his own country. That sums up the Bantustan master race attitude of South African journalists.
Furthermore, what has been said and printed about the crunch world cup qualifier match against the black lions of Ethiopia was simply horrifying.
Soccer Laduma called the flight to the historic land of Abyssinia a “horror Africa trip” and “a hellish experience” for the Bafana players.
In an interview with Soccer-Laduma journalist David Minchella, a Portuguese second tier league flop and Bafana defender Ricardo Nunes who plays his trade in the unknown Slovakian league portrayed the lush and vast West African nation Cameroon as land of disease and poverty.
Speaking like a super star, the idiotic palooka defender argued that the much publicized Minyahel Teshome gaffe is God’s miracle to make South Africa Qualify for Brazil 2014 through the back door.
“God is amazing man! It’s because he saw the sacrifices we went through on our trip to Africa. He saw the sacrifice we made as a group and as individuals…there were so many obstacles in our way. It was too unfair that we must already be out of the world cup. I am definitely positive about things now.” Nunes told the July 3 issue of Soccer-Laduma.
The editors of the same paper, Peter and Clint then went on to wrongfully accuse the black lions fans of chanting ‘war! War!’ during the hotly contested match; forgetting that battle hardened Ethiopians who repeatedly smashed colonialists does not declare war on their visitors however bad they are.
In fact it was South Africans who declared an all-out war on defenseless Ethiopian and Somali refugees prior to their team’s departure sto inland Africa.
In early June 2013 residents of townships around Johannesburg invaded foreign owned shops and looted stock with barbaric savagery. In Port Elizabeth, a Boysens Park crowd drugged a young Somali shop keeper out to the main street and stoned him to death. Even after he died school kids were filmed hitting the naked corpse with concrete slab.
Despite all this, Ethiopians welcomed Bafana with open arms to Addis Ababa. Even their training session was watched by thousands of cheering spectators.
The word ‘Waa’ misinterpreted as ‘war’ by Soccer-Laduma editors was directed at the Egyptian referee when Bafana goalkeeper and captain Itumeleng Kune run to the half way line in provocative manner to complain about an altercation between star defender Aynalem Hailu and a group of South African players.
The referee should have cautioned Kune’s embarrassingly backward township behavior at least with a yellow card.
“Let them continue demonizing and belittling Africa. One thing am sure of is that FIFA is drooling in anticipation of seeing the beautiful Ethiopians in the beautiful Brazil in 2014. If that happens, thousands of Ethio-Americans and Ethio-Canadians will flock to Brazil, bringing with them the glitz and glamor associated with Ethiopia’s rich tradition and history. When the fascist ruler Meles Zenawi died we qualified for AFCON and with TPLF’s death imminent, we are going to Brazil.” An Ethiopian student based in Cape Town echoed the sentiments of millions of his country men and women in exile.
Group A is now wide open after FIFA docked Ethiopia 3 valuable points. Both South Africa and Botswana have a chance if the black lions drop points against Central African Republic in Bangui.
September 8 will be another D-Day for the rising stars of Ethiopia.
@infohorntimes
