If you are interested in remote and dangerous parts of the world, than The Soccer War would be a good book for you. Its author, Ryszard Kapuscinski, was a Polish journalist and war correspondent who got out to see the world before the communist system collapsed. In this collection of essays and dispatches, he writes about the times in Africa, Latin America, and the Mediterranean when he deliberately put himself into danger zones, sometimes almost getting killed, for the sake of reporting back to his home country, inform the communist world on what life can be like on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
The book starts on a fairly optimistic tone with one memorable essay about Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, the first Black African president to come to power in the post-colonial era. The author effectively captures the vibrant and energetic rally in which Nkrumah makes a speech. Kapuscinski then points out why post-colonial leaders were receiving so much attention in the 1960s; his take is that because of colonialism and slavery, the West effectively wiped out the history of African leadership. Post-colonialism was a time when the African people needed new heroes to reawaken their nations and lead them into the future. They had no heroes in their historical memory so they looked to the young and bold heroes of their present for inspiration.
In other essays, the author continues examining the theme of post-colonial leadership with chapters on Patrice Lumumba of Congo and Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria. In the former essay, he fears for his life as Congolese mobs search for white people to lynch after the assassination of Lumumba. In the latter essay he writes about a coup that overthrows the revolutionary administration of Ben Bella. Both subjects are handled with sympathy and understanding for the people of those respective countries. In the essay on Algeria, he explains why post-colonial politics in the Third World are so troublesome. A young ideological visionary takes power and fails to lift his country up to greatness, an endeavor that takes time and stability. But progress happens too slowly, the populations grow frustrated, and agitation begins. The new politicians’ powers get sapped and drained as he struggles to maintain order and power while others challenge his authority in the form of coups and riots. Heavy-handed governing is the result which looks like repression to the citizens, so people rebel and a downward spiral of brutality begins. Any student of post-colonial history needs to read this essay because the author so clearly and succinctly evaluates and diagnoses the problem of political stability in the Third World.
Then, in this book’s titular story, “The Soccer War”, Kapuscinski tells about his time spent in Central America when the rowdiness of two soccer games between Honduras and El Salvador sparked a war between the two nations. With a kind of courage that seems almost bafflingly suicidal, the author demands to be taken to the front line of the war in the hills along the border. At the edge of the combat he flees into the jungle and finds a medical camp. He witnesses a strange sight when the Honduran soldier watch the death of a soldier, and mourn his passing without even knowing if he is on their side or the enemy’s. In the midst of all this chaos, Kapuscinski finds nothing but the sad reality of humanity. After making it back to safety, the author addresses the cause of the war as being a result of overpopulation and wealth-inequality in El Salvador, something that could be managed with effective governing. This means the war was entirely unnecessary.
Other chapters are less about politics and more about dangerous situations Kapuscinski had gotten himself into. He almost gets executed by Belgian soldiers in Burundi, burnt to death in Nigeria, and forced to escape from Ethiopia. But like the other essays, he always addresses these situations with pathos in an attempt to understand why these things are happening. His neutrality is uncanny and he never comes across as judgmental, even in the worst of times.
Kapuscinski’s writing is bold and endlessly gripping. If you are bothered by his machismo, just remember that he made all these journeys for the sake of learning what it means to be human. His nearly fatal attraction to danger can seem naive and even stupid at times, but his writing never gets arrogant; it is almost always about the other people and not about him so much. His writing style is reminiscent of Graham Greene with a little touch of Joseph Conrad thrown in, although it must be remembered that this book was translated from Polish so the translator should get some credit here.
The Soccer War reads a lot like an anthology of short travel narratives, but instead of hearing about some tourist’s extended vacation in Europe, some outsider’s alcohol or ganja fueled meanderings, or some backpacker’s treks through the wilderness, it is all about being at the wrong place at the wrong time and being their deliberately. It is more the author’s personal statement than a reliable work of journalism or history, but the insights he gives make this an excellent introduction to the study of post-colonialism and Third World studies. Or it might just be interesting to the general reader as well. In the end, it might make you feel as though life is lived more deeply, more richly, and more meaningfully at the peripheries of the world’s populations or the margins of human experience where you may not be safe but where you will experience the strongest manifestation of your will to live.
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