The power of sport and sports psychology

As the 2010 soccer world cup draws nearer, life in South Africa is changing. For one thing, huge soccer balls keep appearing in public spaces. (There is one stuck into the OR Tambo airport building, and one in the microwave tower in Pretoria/Tshwane, and those are just two examples.) Miraculously some of the road works that we have been living with for what seems like forever, are nearing completion, and the Gautrain link between OR Tambo airport and Sandton has generated a bit of excitement all of its own. Will it be completed in time? First it was no. Now it is a definite maybe. It's a huge issue. And then there's the vuvuzela controversy. The latest country to voice their complaints over this instrument is Japan (and if you are in any doubt about how strongly people feel about vuvuzelas, check out the comments at the end of the article in the link.) Clearly, vuvuzelas are potent psychological weapons, and we should not underestimate the role of psychology in sport. Just look at how the Springboks performed after the unusual rendition of the South African national anthem on Saturday.

Labels: football, rugby, Soccer World Cup, South African national anthem, sport

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Thinking of walls and what taking them down might mean

Tomorrow (9 November 2009) is the 2oth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The taking down of that wall signified the end of the separation of Germany into East and West, and for many was a physical manifestation of the end of the cold war. The fall of the wall was greeted with euphoria as the artificial divisions the wall created with their accompanying pain and hardship were done away with.

In South Africa, the Goethe Institute is marking this anniversary with a project to take down the wall around the institute. The Fall Wall project was given to architecture students at the University of Johannesburg, who were invited to submit designs for alternative borders for the institute. In security conscious South Africa, we are all too familiar with living behind high walls, and the price we pay in isolation and paranoia for this. The Fall Wall project invites us to reconsider our ideas about security, walls and what the taking down of walls might mean for us.

Can we be secure without walls around us? Will alternatives to physical barriers be as effective in keeping us safe? It's a challenging idea. One website which has recently taken up the challenge, approaching security in a different way is Crime Aware. The idea here is to share information about crime and through spreading awareness, create safer communities. Walls certainly do not stop crime; at best they are deterrents, and we pay a price for living behind them. In my book, it is certainly worth exploring other alternatives which might help create a safer and more secure society.

Labels: Berlin Wall, Fall of Berlin Wall, Fall Wall project, security, walls

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