The same is true of South Africa. The vuvuzela is our volcano. Obviously it has nothing to do with the majesty of nature, but as cultural weapons go, it’s a fantastic device for focusing the attention of the world and directing it somewhere more useful. Think about it. The greatest crisis we faced when the World Cup began was not strikes, security concerns or corruption, it was a cheap plastic horn. (Just as an aside, I’m thinking we should revive the Kevin Bacon game and call it the Jackie Selebi game because Jackie is linked to every crime ever committed in South Africa). British TV was devoting entire mornings’ worth of discussion, not to intrepid expeditions to the heart of Hillbrow (when Nigeria played at Ellis Park, it was a home game), but to the Problem of the Vuvuzela.

Now, the vuvuzela is everywhere. It has featured on the Daily Show and Letterman. There are vuvuzela lolcats and vuvuzela memes. Technologies have been developed to combat the noise. There’s a top-selling iPhone app, developed by a Dutch outfit (evil colonialists still benefiting from Africa’s natural resources!). At one point Sainsbury’s was selling one vuvuzela every two seconds. A German man was attacked with an axe for blowing his vuvuzela; a Zimbabwean man lost an eye in a fight over one. The Chinese, being Chinese, are pumping them out of their factories like there’s no tomorrow. At the end of this year, when the New American Oxford dictionary releases its word of the year, I am willing to bet one Uruguay flag that it will be “vuvuzela”.

My hunch is that the vuvuzela is our volcano, without the flight disruptions. Or the ash, or, obviously the molten lava, but  – possibly – with the long term implications for the state of the planet. Like the volcano, it is something that captured the attention of the world, and presented us with the perfect opportunity to turn a negative into a positive. The vuvuzela is our leitmotif, our objective correlative, our brand essence. This is South Africa: loud, colourful and impossible to ignore.

In short, the vuvuzela is Brand South Africa, which is not a bad thing. It’s hard to confuse the vuvuzela with anything else, and even Americans and people who live in council estates and wear Kappa tracksuits can pronounce the name. When people in Bigfoot, Texas, aim their semiautomatic rifles at their neighbours for blowing vuvuzelas to celebrate Halloween, we will be able to take credit for that.
The big question will be: does the vuvuzela have legs, or is it just a fad? Will the rest of the world continue to want vuvuzelas after the last whistle has blown? I’m holding thumbs that this excellent example of Helmholtz resonance will become an integral part of the global culture of celebration. Whenever anybody is happy about anything, let us hope they blow a vuvuzela. Vuzuselas are the most potent cultural weapon we’ve had in ages. We’ve just got to remember not to use them to beat up Luis Suarez.