Skip to main content

England's infatuation with nationalism and racism is no shock - it's just elevated by football


The emotion around Sunday's Euro 2020 final should have stirred me. The biggest English football match in both mine and my parents' lifetime is a moment that ought to be savoured. Yet, in the aftermath of the past 24 hours, I feel not pain, but apathy. 

The sport I have followed religiously throughout my life has always had its reputation stained by violence and barbarism born out of the much-revered "firms" and hooliganism in the mid-20th century. Particularly in the international sphere, England fans have been cast aside and scolded for anti-social and disruptive behaviour.

For all that people like to claim those days are a far-cry from the current crop of fans, they are not. Think back to Euro 2016 and its infamous clashes with Russians in Paris. Just on Wednesday, there were stories of Danish fans as young as 9 being harassed and spat at - in the midst of a pandemic - after their semi-final defeat. Last night, hoards of ticketless England fans tried to get into Wembley to see the final defeat. The result was chaos and unsavoury scenes that have undoubtedly marred the experience of those fortunate enough to have witnessed the game.

The glaring omission is what has been front page news since the game. The online racist abuse aimed that Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho is only another episode of "racism by social-media". The videos of people of colour being attacked after the game are to put it mildly, unsettling to watch. 
Credit: asianewsday.com

But contrary to the uproar and condemnation that the country has demonstrated in the aftermath of the game, this is not a shock. I wrote half of this blog the day before the final, because the neutrality I feel about England is fundamentally down to the bigotry it provides a platform for. It is a measure of white fragility that people are suddenly "standing up to injustice". Your words are empty because they are reactive. You will settle back into the bubble of privilege before it happens again - and then you'll be bothered to speak up. 

The stark irony is that the culpable England "fans" act in complete contrast to the members of the current squad they so brazenly support. Think Marcus Rashford and free school meals. Jordan Henderson and raising money for the NHS. The whole team and their support for the BLM and Rainbow Laces campaigns. They are a group of progressive young men having their say both on and off the pitch, led by a manager who seems all too aware of the power of unity and innovation. 

Therein lies the paradox. Most football fans, naturally, are supporting this young squad on their rocky journey to footballing idolism and commendable change out of football. They are happy to ignore the nationalist, racist and xenophobic culture that the adoration around the England team enables. You cannot take one without supporting the other - and it is impossible to cast aside that bigoted culture when it is contributing to a society that aims that bigotry at people like myself.

Football has wider problems with pretty much any social equality movement you can think of. Female football fans are still scolded, marginalised and ridiculed on the regular. I have seen and heard homophobic slurs used in football contexts, which is makes it wholly unsurprising that there are no openly gay footballers in the top 4 English divisions.

Perhaps the sanctimonious preaching may sound boring to you, for as many people have told me, it is after all "just a game". I will keep echoing this message until it actually reaches people, because it certainly isn't right now. This sport only enhances the discriminatory political culture that has allowed politicians to make openly prejudiced comments without fear of reprisal. Like it or not, English fanaticism actively encourages this.

At the end of the day, there's a football problem and there's an England problem. Or maybe there's just an "us" problem.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

As Western governments wilfully ignore events in Palestine, they have lost the trust of their own people - and crucially, the Global South

It does not take a genius to spot the obvious contradictions in geopolitical narratives of Western governments and media evident over the past few decades. The US' post-9/11 botched "war on terror", that created a generation of instability in the Middle East, has served as the driver for European countries to lament the subsequent influx of migrants and legitimise the xenophobic desires of far-right parties. More recently, the same states have rightfully isolated Russia for their invasion of Ukraine - despite the similarity to their atrocities after 2001. Yet in the past three months, they have managed to brazenly exhibit their hypocrisy to an extent that I, and evidently many others, find astounding. And any long-time readers will know I've been more than happy to highlight duplicity of Western countries on this blog, so that should tell you something about how bizarre recent events feel. Source: UNRWA, via The Wire In response to the militant group Hamas' terror
Post a Comment
Read more

We must better consider all the people caught up in modern-day warfare

In some ways, this blog comes full circle to the very second post I wrote on  here circa six years ago .  That time, in the aftermath of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, the blog focused on how names and stories appeal to our emotion more than facts and figures. Boy can I see the difference in writing style - 17 year old Kabir bizarrely quoted Stalin in making the point.  What I grappled with, and have done for a while since, is the unnatural and paradoxically natural emotional response to scales of tragedy. Hundreds of thousands dying is harder to comprehend than ten that are accompanied by names and faces. Yet more people dying is obviously worse globally. Ironically, I forgot the shooting’s details, which in itself encapsulates the point.  These limits of human empathy are (at least to me) fascinating, but they pose some problems in the globalised, interconnected world we now live in. In a world where our media consumption plays such a key role in how we perceive and interpret l
Post a Comment
Read more

Light at the End of the Tunnel

It is never a bad thing to ask for help, contrary to what the mind, or even society, might say. Unfortunately for me, whilst sat there in floods of tears at my kitchen table, the whole tissue box I had emptied littered on the floor, I didn’t realise it. It was a Wednesday evening in late January, I had just gone through a day of school feeling perfectly content – bar the worries many teenagers find themselves under. I recall feeling focused in the three lessons I had that day, and playing football in the afternoon, I imagined, would only help my mood. After all, they do say exercise helps balance the chemicals in your brain. But I got home, sat down and genuinely considered suicide. What possibly is there left here for me? How is it ever going to feel like life is worth living? The weeks of building anxiety and depression had taken their toll. School stress, A-levels closing in. Social stress (ever-increasing in an age where social media has become habitual). Coupled with en
Post a Comment
Read more