The Emperor and The Soccer War: A Recurring Theme

September 22, 2007

3:15 AP.M.

.....The Emperor, another work by Ryszard Kapuscinski, deals with Haile Selassie's coup in Ethoipia. Kapuscinski was present before and after the coup occurred in Ethiopia, and his book portrays the before and after situation in the country. However, the situations are portrayed through and based on Haile Selasssie; after the coup, Kapuscinski collected accounts and information from the dictator's closest companions.

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Excerpt from The Emperor:.

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The Emperor threw an imposing reception for the meeting of the presidents. Wine and caviar were flown in from Europe specially for the occasion. At a cost of twenty-five thousand dollars, Miram Makeba was brought from Hollywood to serenade the leaders with Zulu songs after the feast. All told, more than three thousand people, divided hierarchically into upper and lower categories, were invited. Each category received invitations of a different color and chose from a different menu.

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The reception took place in the Emperor's Old Palace. The guests passed long ranks of soldiers from the Imperial Guard, armed with sabers and halberds. From atop towers, spotlit trumpeters played the Emperor's fanfare. In the galleries, theatrical troupes performed scenes from the lives of past Emperors. From the balconies, girls in folk costumes showered the guests with flowers. The sky exploded in plumes of fireworks.

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When the guests had been seated at tables in the great hall, fanfares rang out and the Emperor walked in with President Nasser of Egypt at his right hand. They formed an extraordinary pair. Nasser, a tall, stocky, imperious man, his head thrust forward with his wide jaws set into a smile, and next to him the diminutive silhouette - frail, one could almost say - of Haile Selassie, worn by the years, with his thin, expressive face, his glistening, penetrating eyes. Behind them the remaining leaders entered in pairs. The audience rose; everyone was applauding. Ovations sounded for unity and the Emperor. Then the feast began. There was one dark-skinned wiater for every four guests. Out of excitement and nervousness, things were falling from the waiters' hands. The table setting was silver, in the old Harar style. Several tons of priceless antique silver lay on those tables. Some people slipped pieces of silverware into their pockets. One sneaked a fork, the next one a spoon.

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Mountains of meat, fruit, fish, and cheese rose on the tables. Many-layered cakes dripped with sweet, colored icing. Distinguished wines spread reflected colors and invigorating aromas. The music played on, and costumed clowns did somersaults to the delight of the carefree revelers. Time passed in conversation, laughter, consumption.

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It was a splendid affair.

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During these proceedings, I needed to find a quiet place, but I didn't know where to look. I left the Great Chamber by a side door that led outside. It was a dark night, with a fine rain falling. A May rain, but a chilly one. A gentle slop led down from the door, and some distance below stood a poorly lit building without walls. A row of waiters stood in a line from the door to this building, passing dishes with leftovers from the banquet table. On those dishes a stream of bones, nibbled scraps, mashed vegetables, fish heads, and cut-away bits of meat flowed. I walked toward the building without walls, slipping on the mud and scattered bits of food.

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I noticed that something on the other side was moving, shifting, murmuring, squishing, sighing, and smacking its lips. I turned the corner to have a closer look.

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In the thick night, a crowd of barefoot beggars stood huddled together. The dishwashers working in the building threw leftovers to them. I watched the crowd devour the scraps, bones, and fish heads with laborious concentration. In the meticulous absorption of this eating there was an almost violent biological abandon -- the satisfaction of hunger in anxiety and ecstasy.From time to time the waiters would get held up, and the flow of dishes would stop. Then the crowd of beggars would relax as though someone had given them the order to stand at ease. People wiped their lips and straightened their muddy and food-stained rags. But soon the stream of dishes would start flowing again -- because up there the great hogging, with smacking of lips and slurping, was going on, too -- and the crowd would fall again to its blessed and eager labor of feeding.

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I was getting soaked, so I returned to the Great Chamber to the Imperial party. I looked at the silver and gold on the scarlet velvet, at President Kasavuba, at my neighbor, a certain Aye Mamlaye. I breathed in the scent of roses and incense, I listened to the suggestive Zulu song that Miriam Makeba was singing, I bowed to the Emperor (an absolute requirement of protocol), and I went home.

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.....In this excerpt, I see a similar theme as in The Soccer War: the splendor, luxury, and waste of the very powerful and elite while the large majority of the country struggles to survive. Kapuscinski effectively parallels the opposing themes of glutonery with starvation, and of excess with utter poverty. Through this parallel, he is able to demonstrate and emphasize the injustice of the class struggle and the paradoxes of society without blatantly condemning them.

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.....With a journalistic flare, and in the way of Charles Dickens, Kapuscinski hides his bias by presenting fiercely contrasting parallel situations. Neither in "The Soccer War" nor in "The Emperor" does he speak any bias terms; yet through this contrasting parallelism and through bitter, satirical, descriptions he demonstrates the foul, opulent nature of social inequity. He does not openly condemn the fact that just outside such opulent pary there stands a herd of faceless men, standing in "anxiety and ecstasy". We do not see the faces of the "barefoot beggars"; in fact they seem visageless, begging for the scraps and leftovers of fat, lavishly endowed men thet are ignorant of their condition. As a self respecting reporter always must do, Kapuscinski displays only the facts. He does not show more disgust or pity for the beggars than do the waiters who have seen that their entire lives. However, through contrasting the light and pomp of the party inside with the "thick night" and cold "May rain" of the oustide , Kapuscinski makes it evident that he does not approve. Inside, "mountains of meat, fruit, fish, and cheese" lie on silver adorned mantels while a $25,000 Zuni interpreter sings and dances. Through the narrow doorway, and down a slope adorned with "mud and scattered bits of food" stand the pack of hungry men. They have been eviscerated to feed the insatiable men inside, and they now anxiously devour what was ripped from them to ease the piercing pain of hunger.

....Meanwhile, The Soccer War portrays a gigantic citadel. Built for a 4 day visit of diplomatic visitors, it holds ridiculous amounts of overstock and security. Its price ranged around 20 million dollars "at a time when it was hard to buy bread in the city". This is the only direct connotation to poverty that Kapuscinski makes, but it is enough to demonstrate his point. By following up with descriptions of the lavish ten room, two bathroom suites. Now, unless the African diplomats were thinking of bringing their entire extended families with them for a four day meeting, the ten rooms are satirically extravagant. What Kapuscinski most emphasizes, however, is the security in place inside the citadel. Built like a "russian grandmother", impeding any medium or light artillery fire. For heavy artillery, they built "massive underground shelters" stocked "with enough food to last several months". And all this has been "locked up and now stands empty". Why else would such an extravagant facility need such extravagant security were it not for deep social unrest? The only thing anyone would break in there for would be to steal some of the rotting disaster provisions. Thus, once again, Kapuscinski uses subtle opposing parallels to demonstrate the strong social divisions and unnecessary excesses of lavishness. He satirically demonstrates an abandoned building large enough and well stocked enough to provide decent homes for hundreds of empoverished Accra residents. By doing this, he once again creates an image of disgust, of how the well-endowed buy and dispose while others struggle to simply buy a piece of bread; and he does it without a word of bias.

....In both works Kapuscinski demonstrates, with journalistic expository skill, his severe disgust with the opulence and waste of African high society. While their country rots of AIDS and famine they make lavish parties and build useless, immense buildindgs to lock up.