Sport

Sporting and national pride should be a force for good, not a tool of evil

Kenny Archer

Kenny Archer

Kenny is the deputy sports editor and a Liverpool FC fan.

A decade ago the Olympic Stadium in Kyiv, Ukraine hosted the final of Euro 2012.
A decade ago the Olympic Stadium in Kyiv, Ukraine hosted the final of Euro 2012. A decade ago the Olympic Stadium in Kyiv, Ukraine hosted the final of Euro 2012.

NATIONALISM can be dangerous. Before any reader fears this column has been taken over by a unionist shock jock, let me clarify: there are all sorts of nationalism.

On this island the term relates to a desire for Irish unity, but there's also British nationalism and/ or Northern Irish nationalism, both better known as 'unionism'. Sometimes those two are interchangeable, but Ulster unionists have again learned the hard lesson that they are only pawns in the game of keeping the Conservative (and, occasionally, Unionist) party in power at Westminster.

What's this all got to do with sport?

Clearly, sport and politics can never be kept apart, whether those politics are nationalist or unionist, conservative or socialist.

Sport can also be used as a form of 'soft power'. Russia has done so by hosting the soccer World Cup and the winter Olympics, China by holding both the summer and winter Olympics. Qatar has bought this year's soccer World Cup, forcing it to be delayed until November and December.

Azerbaijan has used its oil money to host major boxing and athletics events, as well as matches at the Euros last summer.

Saudi Arabia has held boxing world title fights and Formula One Grands Prix, with the latter also taking place in the UAE. The Saudis, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi have all bought top flight European soccer sides.

All those countries, among other repressive regimes, are guilty of human rights abuses. Sporting authorities are guilty of taking their dirty money.

Russia's illegal, war-crime committing invasion of Ukraine has at least, at last, sparked much-needed debate into the links between clubs and countries which willingly accept such filthy lucre, with Chelsea bank-roller Roman Abramovich having been belatedly sanctioned by the Russia-friendly British government.

The discussion should widen out into the nature of international sport, and its consequences, good and bad.

George Orwell, in his essay 'The Sporting Sprit', was scathing in his assessment, writing: "At the international level sport is frankly mimic warfare."

Famously, he went on to call it 'war minus the shooting'.

Competition and rivalry are intrinsic elements of sport, but must be kept within the appropriate bounds; sport should never encourage such nationalistic pride that anyone is prepared to kill because of it.

Real war is far more horrific, of course, as First World War poet Wilfred Owen warned:

'My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.'

It is never 'sweet and fitting' to die, for your country or otherwise.

The cynical politicians who stoke up nationalistic pride are never at the forefront of attacks, unlike the kings of old, as John Fogerty noted:

'Some folks are born made to wave the flag

They're red, white and blue

And when the band plays "Hail to the Chief"

They point the cannon at you, Lord.'

However, sport has its benefits too, of course. Travel and interaction can also break down barriers as well as broaden minds.

Soccer at club level has done much to change mind-sets for the better, with players from all over the world, of all colours and creeds, flocking to the English Premier League.

A country which had a terrible problem of racial abuse on the terraces and in the stands has improved immensely in that regard, although there are is still latent bigotry which has been stirred up by the Brexit campaign and its aftermath.

In general, though, supporters have grown to realise that all that really matters about any player is what they do on the pitch (with the caveat that they shouldn't be up to illegal or scummy behaviour off the pitch either).

What they look like, sound like, or where they come from is largely immaterial, apart from the effect that their international duties may have on their availability for their club.

It's fine to be patriotic, to have pride of place. Yet once that crosses the line into truly believing that you're intrinsically better than someone from somewhere else, and/or someone who looks and sounds different to you, then you've entered extremely dangerous territory.

Similarly, refusing to even accept differences can have fatal consequences too.

Borders may not change much nowadays, but populations do.

That's the excuse of Putin and his acolytes for their lack of respect for Ukraine's sovereign territory. Russians who declare that 'Crimea is not Ukrainian' are correct; but it's only 'Russian' because of the forced influx of people since its annexation by the Russian Empire in 1783.

Worse than the plantation of people was the forcible expulsion of the Muslim Crimean Tatars - the majority there until after the mid-nineteenth century Crimean War – by Joseph Stalin after World War Two.

We know all about cultural imperialism and plantation of populations here on this island, and their ongoing consequences.

However, comment from the people and politicians from a part of the world where far greater genocide and seizure of territory occurred, far more recently, is breathtakingly hypocritical. To be clear, that's a reference to the USA, not Russia.

Sport often offers an identity to people. Too often the terms 'Russia' and 'Soviet Union' were used as if they meant the same thing.

The so-called 'Russian linesman' from the 1966 World Cup was actually Azerbaijani. Twenty years later, 15 of the 22 players in the USSR squad at the 1986 World Cup were actually Ukrainian, as was their famous coach Valeriy Lobanovskiy. Only five were ethnic Russians, with one Belarussian and one Georgian.

Russia has already exerted its influence over those other two neighbouring countries in recent times.

On the sporting front, this column has expressed discomfort about players switching international allegiance with little or no actual connection to their new nation, beyond their pay packet. That has been too prevalent in rugby in particular, but has also occurred a fair bit in athletics.

The other side of that debate is the obvious need to welcome people in, to accept that sportspeople representing Ireland no longer only have white skin, for example.

Tomorrow is a day for being proud to be Irish, whatever your creed or colour – but keep it country, folks.