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Flags and borders - what are they good for? |
"Nation states are the result of wars,
intrigues, marriage, propaganda, blackmail, lies and deception," writes
former German cabinet minister Norbert Blum in the Süddeutsche Zeitung today in a column headed Nationalism Equals
Idiocy.
Blum points out that during the 74 years of
the German Empire (1871-1945), "Germany went to war with France three
times. Generations broke their skulls shedding blood because of national
borders. The issues could be as banal as the exact entrenchment point of the
border stone between France and Germany." He decries the insular,
backward-looking neo-nationalism of states like Poland and Hungary who've
forgotten that they struggled for their own freedom to cross borders as
recently as 1989.
Which raises the question - why do we even still
have international sports tournaments? Man-created national borders are, as
Blum notes, the historical result of scurrilous manoeuvring and violence, and
should play little or no role in a modern, united Europe. So what is the sense
in creating spurious rivalries that inflame resentments and attempt to inspire
pride in something as superficial as a coloured flag?
Last night's main headline on The Guardian's web site was that two
British competitors had won the bronze medal in the 10m synchronised diving event.
That was the biggest story in the world at that moment in time, apparently.
This morning on the German radio news we heard repeatedly the dolorous words of
a table tennis player unexpectedly eliminated at the final-16 stage by an
opponent ranked 40th. in the world. Again and again, the media cajole us into investing
our hopes for joy and a sense of fulfilment in the skills of athletes with whom
we just happen to share a common passport.
The opponent, you see, has a different
country name in his or her passport. For that reason alone we wish them
disappointment and defeat. With some justification, you could maintain that
it's better than shooting or bombing them for the same reason, but that's just
arguing in negatives. It doesn't help us to understand our supposed affiliation
with random sportsmen and -women who were born or integrated into the same
geographical space that we, too, coincidentally inhabit.
Does it then make any more sense for teams
from individual towns, cities, suburbs and villages to compete against each
other? I would argue that it does, because most of these clubs are rooted in
the social and cultural history of their communities. An individual's identification
with a club generally springs from a more concrete personal experience or
contact. While a regional rivalry may suffer from multiple unpleasant facets -
see, for example, the frequently poisonous and pointless exchanges between
Manchester United and Liverpool fans - it's not likely that the two cities will
go to war. And at least there's no Fifa-sourced pretence that sport serves as a
healing, unifying force for good.
Given that the Olympics and the World Cup
have become economically crippling, corruption-riddled, doping-debased
mega-events exploited by individual governments around the world to glorify
themselves, it would make more sense at this point in history just to abolish
them. Few countries can afford to stage them or sustain the facilities that
Fifa and the IOC demand. The tournaments' main results are jingoism, chronic
debts, and the enrichment of sponsors, participants and functionaries, while the
human rights of those who build the infrastructure, or who are displaced by it,
are trampled upon with impunity.
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One nationality - humankind. |
In football, the movement of players
between countries and nationalities has now become so fluid that the concept of
a national team has lost much of its meaning. Thanks to the power of modern
communications, there are no particular styles of play attributed to individual
countries any more. There are no tactical secrets - everyone's reading from the
same play-book, which may fluctuate between three, four or five men at the back
without raising much excitement either way. Brazil and Cameroon have long been
just as results-oriented as Denmark and the USA.
The more problematic and bloated that the politically
charged World Cup becomes, the more that the world's most powerful clubs regard
it as a superfluous burden on their major investments - their players. The
increasing clout of the wealthiest clubs over national associations has long
been seen as an evil by progressive football fans, and rightly so. But the
national associations, and by proxy Fifa, Uefa and the other continental bodies,
have been setting their own self-serving houses ablaze for decades.
For the betterment of humanity, if not necessarily
for the good of the game, it might be time to concede that, for the medium term
at least, the clubs have earned the right to have a far greater say in football's
structure. We might not at all like what they suggest - an international
super-league, say - but in the coming years that ought to represent a truer
reflection of a hopefully more progressive world.