Traditional games: A joker in modern development. Some experiences from Nordic countries and Nordic-African exchange

The development of sport and its contribution to the development of society as a whole is not a movement into one direction only, going from traditional games to modern sport. Experiences from Scandinavian development aid show a much more complex picture of exchanges between popular sports in Denmark and ngoma dance in Tanzanian. Also inside the Nordic countries, traditional games are rediscovered in the context of educational and socio-cultural development. In contrast to the established theory of developmental functionalism, which is arguing top-down, sport development can also mean exchange and empowerment of the people, bottom-up. Development is developments in plural. ‘Old’ games reappearing as new games, challenge the established categories of ‘forward’ and ‘backward’ in history. To the experts of the Western sport, the games say: ‘We talk – you listen.’ ______________________________ Once upon a time, the development of sports looked like one single path leading from traditional games to modern sport. Just like ‘the evolution’ of society was imagined as a oneway transformation from tradition to modernity. Today, the narrative of the one way is still quite living, constituting a fundamental myth of Western self-understanding. And indeed, it includes some important truth (Guttmann 2004: 285). However, the narrative of the one way may also sound like a touching fairy tale from past time. This tale relieves from all those inner contradictions, which ‘the progress’ has produced for modern life. There are contrasting experiences worldwide. Sport development aid Scandinavia-Tanzania: top-down and bottom-up Let us turn to a special focus area of Danish development aid, Tanzania. The Tanzanian case has also played a special role for Scandinavian sport development aid. Scandinavian development aid to sports in Tanzania was from the beginning characterized by inner contradictions. These conflicts did not only result from the tension between mass sports and elite sports, where West German policies constituted a contrasting model by sending top trainers for the national team of soccer and other elite sports to the African country. The strategy of mass sports or Sport for all could be contradictory, too.