THE PARADOXES OF NATIONALISM IN SPORTS

Defined national histories were formulated in the 19th century. If Johann Gottfried von Herder established an idea that modern nations can only flourish if they have a distinct cultural identity, then the last 100 years of international sports have re-created this myth in the strife for national über-achievement. International competition all too often reminds us that national consciousness derives from the negative identity. One perceives one’s own nationality by spotting differences with the other, something our brains are better suited to than identifying similarities. This mechanism goes well beyond the primary groups of kin, band, or tribe. European Christian identity was galvanized by centuries-long challenge from the Islam. Ancient Egyptian and Chinese identity thrived not because of the fertility of their respective river valleys, but because the economic success of these lands attracted the attention and envy of hostile hordes whose language, mores, and economic behavior differed markedly from their respective targets.

However, even though the sportsmen and sportswomen can only represent one nation at a time, their separating national colors are less and less defining. Summer 2008 is filled with sports events that oppose nations: European Football (soccer) Championship in June and the Olympic Games in August. This is an ideal time to reflect on the sense and the nonsense of athletic struggles in which the healthiest youngsters compete in the name of their “nationality”, whatever the definition of the latter. It does matter because as we imperceptibly advance into the second decade of the 21st century, the boundaries of what a nation’s representative means is subject to ineluctable shifts.

Eight years ago, I was fortunate enough to be in Sydney to watch the events of the Olympic Games. A year before 9/11, hot on the heels of the hi-tech bubble, the echoes of the New World Order were still with us. The hugely successful Games played out in the atmosphere of bonhomie, where national distinctions were, at best, accidental. The cheering international crowd adopted the joie de vivre typical in outdoorsman-dominated Aussie culture. At the height of the sun-drenched beach volleyball competition on Bondi Beach one could even wonder if the days of the Summer of Love were not back – insouciant, communal, shared. The illusions of these days proved as short-lived as the mirage of the late 1960s.



Sport, with ‘nation’ as the defining basis of competition, became a mass phenomenon in the 20th c. On many occasions, the rivalry led to outbreaks of aggression, hooliganism and rioting. In one documented case – to a war. But such attitudes are increasingly difficult to sustain. Rich, Western European nations, which usually dominate the world’s soccer, have over decades attracted immigrants whose offspring picked up the game in the inner cities and in banlieues. Whether you a bigoted racist or a liberal trans-racialist, you cannot fail to notice that 85% of the French national team looks rather different than 95% of the French supporters who come to sing ‘la Marseillaise’ during international competitions. Surveys have shown that the pride in this Légion étrangère has not particularly affected the difficult racial and religious relations in France.

Other nations are only slowly coming to terms with the internationalization of their supposedly “national” teams. During the 2006 Soccer World Cup, the German team shone largely thanks to two Polish-born players who, among other feats, contributed to defeating the Polish side. As the two countries are now notionally allies in NATO and in European Union, their neighborly relations should surprise no one. Except when it comes to sport. German chatrooms were full of hate message from Polish “fans” accusing the two Polish/German strikers of being “Vaterlandsverräter” (traitors of the Fatherland). Little did they notice that the Polish side’s rare moments of brilliance has in recent years been largely dependent on the technical prowess of naturalized Nigerian or Brazilian citizens who subvert national mythologies of both the geneticist or culturalist variant.

Admittedly, the tragic history of Polish-German relations could have blinded the over-excited sports fanatics whose passions were fanned by the idea of “nations” pitted against each other. More recent histories have added “color” to otherwise bloodless sports rivalry. Argentina-England games often bring back tabloid attention to a military stand-off from a quarter of a century ago, a parenthesis long forgotten everywhere outside these two nations. The altercations between the Swiss and Turkish team are mindlessly a-historical. The sultan's army never got any further than Vienna, and modern Swiss football owes a lot to descendants of Turkish Gastarbeiter.

Whether in European Champions League, American Major League Baseball or Indian Cricket League, a modern form of feudalism opposes this petty nationalism of viewers, selective in the knowledge of their “nations’” complex history. Professional clubs draw in star players from around the world, weakening the main organizing principle of “nationhood”. The saving grace of the European soccer is the Feudalist Champions League and the network of a dozen wealthy clubs staffed with international stardom of all nationalities. The English clubs’ dominance has long ceased to be reliant on home-grown talent, making them a magnet of adulation for fans worldwide. When Manchester United’s international squad radiates among fans across the world, it undermines the national myths of blood and soil.

Nowhere has this process gone further than in the US. The US television networks advertise the 2008 European Football Championship’s uniqueness as a struggle of “a nation against a nation”. The concept of a “nation” fielding a team may be still taken for granted in European team sports, but in the world of US professional sports business it barely deserves a footnote. The reason is often sought in the fact that US teams do not perform particularly well in international competitions and when they do, the legend lasts for generations. Such was the hollywoodian saga of the 1980 Lake Placid US hockey team, which in a nerve-racking final overcame the favored Soviet side. An underdog, through sheer will and some heavens’ support reaches the glory of championship – like Rocky wrapped in a flag of a team that actually represents a “nation”. Star-studded US Basketball Dream Team at Barcelona Olympics could also make history by bringing celestially professional game, but it was only threatened in the entire tournament for about 50 seconds (by Croatia) and could not generate a Hollywood-prone “underdog” myth.



On any other day, US teams’ mark on international competition is a rare occurrence. When the US dropped out of the World Baseball Championship, the TV networks stopped bothering. One could argue that US Major League Baseball attracts the very best players from around the world. But it is instructive to watch the ethnically-defined following that the multinational New York Yankees team accrues among various groups of fans. While most of the US fans have for years focused on the personality of Derek Jeter, Japanese newspapers dispatched specialist journalistic crews covering every step of Hideki Matsui. Meanwhile, Taiwanese media’s front pages are full of stories about Wang Chien-Ming. After a review of international press covering a Yankee game, you could be excused for believing that the three stars play for different teams.

Coagulating local identities for the benefit of the US national team is much more difficult, not only because the internationally popular team sports are not the winners in network listings. Given the relative mobility of the US workforce, with few exceptions, these local identities are somewhat diffused. The perennial rivalry between Boston Red Sox and NY Yankees routinely uncovers a sizable fifth column of loyal Red Sox fans who fill the sports bars of Manhattan. Still, the rivalry remains good-natured. Dad and son from Boston who leave the Yankee stadium do not need a police cover and will often discuss the game on the southbound subway with the supporters of the opposite team.

Unfortunately, remnants of “national” symbols are still present at sports events that do not oppose national teams. Foreign visitors are often ill-at-ease when “God Bless America” is sung in the stands during a baseball game. Equally misunderstood is “Kimigayo” during the six main Sumo tournaments in Japan. For years this “unofficial” anthem of Japan was recognized by kids as the “sumo song” – which says a lot about the erosion of nationalism in Japanese schools, and much less about a allegedly ‘national’ sport long dominated by Hawaiians, Mongolians and Bulgarians. Nowhere was the national dogmatism more striking than in the contrasts revealed during the 2002 Soccer World Cup, co-hosted by Japan and Korea. While the Japanese stands were filled by locals wearing alternatively Brazilian, Argentine or French jerseys, the Korean stands were uniformly red, with tens of thousands of single-minded fans chanting slogans in support of the home side, and the home side only. I happened to be in Paris when a large group of Korean tourists staged a quasi-military march with white, blue and red paraphernalia, yelling “Hanguk, Hanguk”. With the French team by then long eliminated, the café-bound Parisians looked on, somewhat bemused.



Rabid Asian nationalism is an unsettling spectacle to watch, something we will unfortunately experience again this summer. But the whole idea of “Asia” is undermined in the minds of confused fans watching Asian Soccer Championship and their “exotic” teams - a (predominantly black) Saudi side and a (predominantly white) Uzbek side. Indeed, few East Asians comprehend the nature of their own geography that stretches from Magadan to Papua New Guinea.

The European soccer feudalism could soon be replicated by India’s professional cricket league, if it lives up to the expectations as a modern-day new Stupor Mundi. South Asians are cricket crazy, so the location (approximately halfway between Oceania and UK/African time zone) is a perfect choice. I once met a village boy in Rajasthan who told me of his only long distance trip - to see a famous South African cricket player who toured the Subcontinent. The family’s entire savings went to finance boy’s lifelong dream. The boy obtained the autograph, shook the player’s hand and returned north. Much to a nationalist’s despair, the hand he shook was white and African, not Indian.

Class consciousness may divide sports arenas within a nation, but it may lead to a form of brotherhood that bridges national divisions. There are, indeed, fewer displays of aggressive nationalism in the British Commonwealth’s most popular sports – cricket and rugby - fewer than in Olympic sports or nations’ soccer competition. In England, when posh-tongued boys from public schools mastered the intricacies of the bat, “football” was left to smoke-blighted cockney areas. The class consciousness entailed appropriate behavior, which somehow spilled over to the demeanor adopted in the former colonies. Rugby – rougher and less technically refined – caught on in specific regions even outside the Commonwealth, but the international competition remained largely free of hooliganism that plagued nations’ soccer. Rather, the selective appeal of these English sports often brings together Southern Hemisphere westerners whenever they find themselves isolated from their origins. Outdoorsy Aussi, Kiwi and South African professionals naturally bond and josh about “their” sports in New York or in Tokyo. This is the bond of language in its expressive and referential roles.

Not surprisingly, sport is sometimes dragged in to play a politically constructive role. Beyond ping-pong or cricket diplomacy, there is always hope that national pride stoked by achievements in sports will solidify nations that emerge from traumatic past. South Africa’s unsuccessful soccer team, commonly referred to as “Bafana Bafana” remains the passion of the mostly black population which rarely shares the excitement of the white minority-dominated rugby team. For years, white South African sportsmen and sportswomen who clinched international trophies in Formula 1, swimming or tennis remained entirely obscure for the depressed black population. However, since Nelson Mandela donned the green Springbok jersey in 1995, there has been a hope that sport nationalism would help weld the legacy of economic divisions in the country. It has not quite happened yet. More generally, inability of African teams to build a lasting success on the wealth of existing homegrown talent makes it difficult to imagine how the game could meaningfully contribute to override ethnic divisions. Iraqi soccer team’s successes prove that it is worth trying.

Sports nationalism is of particular importance for newly formed states whose claim to separate nationhood is often questioned by frustrated former empires. Croatian soccer, tennis and basketball, Ukrainian boxers and footballers, Lithuanian basketball players, Slovenian skiers, Taiwanese endurance athletes – they are all duly proud of their national colors and excited to evince a more positive side of sports nationalism.



But for former, presumed, and alleged ‘empires’, Olympic performance is a useless anachronism serving the self-glory of a regime - in East Germany, Cuba, USSR, or People’s Republic of China. The Chinese propaganda masters have recently issued a directive supposed to frame Chinese cheers in a 2-2-2-2 syllable rhythm (“ao-yun jiao, Zhonguo jiao”, which could be translated into “Go Olympics, Go China”) with specific hand gestures. FT reported that, in official parlance at least, the mandated chant is destined to “improve the quality of the citizenry, present a civilised image, embody a cultured Olympics and promote a harmonious society”. It is not clear whether lack of observance of the new regulations would lead to specific punishment, but expect the stands to be peppered with plain-clothed police nonetheless.