Celebrating the World Cup does not mean we can’t ask hard questions . No, not that the annoying vuvuzelas are banned, but that thousands of informal traders will lose income because of Fifa-imposed “exclusion zones” around stadiums which permit only approved businesses, that street children are forcibly removed from Durban’s city centre, and in Cape Town, coloured working class residents living next to a football stadium where some teams will train, were evicted and dumped in a camp far away from their houses and work by the city’s Democratic Alliance-run council.

In town to give some context is political economist Patrick Bond. He’ll speak on these and other matters tonight at New York University:

The Radical Film & Lecture Series presents:

FIFA Politics: South African urban protests and the 2010 world cup

A seminar featuring Patrick Bond

Monday, April 5, 6:30pm

New York University, Sociology Department 295 Lafayette St., 4th Fl.

What is the basis for apparently endless protests in South Africa’s cities, ranging from radical social movements to anti-immigrant attacks? Given worsening urban poverty, massive unemployment, and rising inequality, will deep-rooted economic contradictions be amplified by the World Cup in June- July 2010, and can the state keep a lid on social unrest? Patrick Bond presents a paper on the political economy of urban crisis and resistance.

Patrick Bond is senior professor at the Univesity of KwaZulu-Natal School of Development Studies in Durban, South Africa, where since 2004 he has directed the Centre for Civil Society.