Date: 18/08/2010
Source: Freedom Front Plus
Title: FFPlus: Mulder: Address by the leader of the FFplus, during the debate on a successful hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, National Assembly, Cape Town

Today we say thank you to those people in South Africa who dreamt that South Africa could host the Soccer World Cup. Dr. Robert Goddard, father of the American space program said: "Every dream is a joke, until the first person accomplishes it."

Yesterday, with the view on today's debate, I went through newspaper clippings of the past couple of months. It is notable that the majority of writers abroad and in South Africa prior to the start of the tournament were pessimistic and negative about South Africa's capability to host the tournament successfully. After the tournament the majority of writers were positive about the success about the tournament.

How do you recognize a pessimist? They say if you smell flowers, then he does not look where the closest garden is but looks where the closest funeral is.

Where up to 500 million television viewers watched the final game, there weren't any power outages as some had predicted there would be.

The large terrorist attack which had been predicted, had thankfully not taken place and the majority of the security and other arrangements had run smoothly.

The Gautrain operated perfectly and road traffic in the majority of our cities is faster and better after the road infrastructure had been upgraded.

If you had flown recently, you would have been impressed with how attractive and modern our airports now appear to be.

As to the precise costs and the advantages and disadvantages for South Africa, debates will be raging for a long time to come.

According to government 33 billion rand was spent on transport infrastructure, telecommunications and stadiums - while the investment in stadiums alone created an estimated 66 000 new construction jobs.

The question today is what have we learnt from the success of the tournament?
Why can we not repeat the success of the soccer tournament with the solving of all the other problems in South Africa? With the building of houses, the repair of potholes on our roads, the combating of crime. It was clear for all how crime had declined during the hosting of the tournament and how murder, robberies and farm attacks are now suddenly back after the tournament.

What was this recipe for success?

Firstly, everybody worked together enthusiastically.
There were no negative spoilers. The closest we came to that was the ANC Youth League's criticism of the Bafana-Bafana captain, their comments on farmers and the events surrounding Eugene TerreBlanche's murder which definitely frightened foreign spectators away.
All South Africans approached there tasks in a positive manner.

Secondly we utilised the best expertise which South Africa possesses to complete the stadiums on time and to improve the infrastructure.

Thirdly, politics were made subservient to the accomplishment of specific objectives and fourthly there were specific deadlines.

The result was a successful tournament, (positive reports on South Africa in overseas countries) and a feel good atmosphere among all South Africans with hope for the future.

With the quick increase in crime after the tournament, with the debate on media freedom and with ANC populism with a view on their September conference, we are busy losing it.

For the sake of our children and the future, we can not loose it.

The American president LB Johnson said: "Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose."