Vuvuzela For the Beautiful Game, in 2010!

I love Vuvuzela. The name itself has built-in poesy, which we want the world to get comfortable with. It's a new comfort zone we're offering, and we're willing to compromise.

I've recently (4 to 6 weeks ago) heard the Vuvuzela on the streets of Nairobi -- "my city, my life" -- and was pleased that it was at last here. The Vuvuzela-laden commercial I've seen on TV is heart-warming, and calls to mind the Africanness in all of us Africans. And I have seen and heard, on TV, the Vuvuzela "at full play", most currently at the FIFA Confederations Cup tournament in South Africa.

I haven't been to a live soccer match for decades, though, so I don't know if a multitude of Vuvuzelas in full blast (there is no other kind of blast here) exceeds the tolerable decibel level -- for the scientist and for reasonable men and women (young and old) -- when you are actually in there for over ninety loud and clear minutes. And I don't know what the ardent and not so ardent fan really, really thinks about the incessant bleat that's the hallmark of a jam-packed South African or other stadium. But, clearly, there are concerns being raised in important stake-holder quarters, which call for give-and-take.

Vuvuzela's haunting, primeval, elephantile bleat has something aroused and arousing about it. Something trenchant, even, when you flip the coin. It gets the soul going, but not, I suppose, that of the opponent -- or that of someone more used to a sedate (sedated?) kind of mass gathering and participation.

The question to be answered by FIFA in the not too distant future, well before 2010, is: Is too much of a/an (always good) Vuvuzela -- is making too concentrated a bleat of it -- too much to be any longer good at any one place of fun and merriment? Alternatively, is Vuvuzela a great African contribution to soccer fandom, or a fun but noise polluting and irritating instrument which Sepp Blatter, FIFA's boss, only pretends to love, for now; that is, till he is rid of his current hosts?

I think we can eat our cake and have it, Vuvuzela addicts. Outright ban would be too cruel and unbecoming, appearing as it would to be culturally particularistic. I think the use of Vuvuzela can be allowed on strictly enforced terms. Thus (a) you can choose to allow only a limited number of designated groups of entertainers (or bands)to enter the stadium with an ensemble of Vuvuzelas and other instruments (remember, not every Brazilian soccer fan enters the stadium with a Samba instrument); or, (b) you can permit only a specified percentage of paying fans, say 5-10% -- issued ahead of time with special tickets or tags -- to enter the stadium with Vuvuzelas.

Bottom line: We're going to have Vuvuzela, and we're going to have fun in 2010! And the Great She Elephant, wherever she'll be watching from, will, I believe, approve!