I’m excited for the World Cup, if only because all my TV channels here are in Greek, and sports are the only thing I like to watch because you don’t have to understand what they’re saying. But apparently some football fans have been on their worst behavior lately.
As he left the soccer field after a club match in the eastern German city of Halle on March 25, the Nigerian forward Adebowale Ogungbure was spit upon, jeered with racial remarks and mocked with monkey noises. In rebuke, he placed two fingers under his nose to simulate a Hitler mustache and thrust his arm in a Nazi salute.
In April, the American defender Oguchi Onyewu, playing for his professional club team in Belgium, dismissively gestured toward fans who were making simian chants at him. Then, as he went to throw the ball inbounds, Onyewu said a fan of the opposing team reached over a barrier and punched him in the face.
Very nice, guys. And it’s escalating as European teams sign more players from Africa and Latin America.
Players and antiracism experts said they expected offensive behavior during the tournament, including monkey-like chanting; derisive singing; the hanging of banners that reflect neofascist and racist beliefs; and perhaps the tossing of bananas or banana peels, all familiar occurrences during matches in Spain, Italy, eastern Germany and eastern Europe.
“For us it’s quite clear this is a reflection of underlying tensions that exist in European societies,” said Piara Powar, director of the London-based antiracist soccer organization Kick It Out. He said of Eastern Europe: “Poverty, unemployment, is a problem. Indigenous people are looking for easy answers to blame. Often newcomers bear the brunt of the blame.”
And perhaps the intense xenophobia and stringent immigration laws in many European nations sets the cultural tone.
After making a Nazi salute, which is illegal in Germany, Ogungbure of Nigeria was investigated by the authorities. But a charge of unconstitutional behavior against him was soon dropped because his gesture had been meant to renounce extremist activity.
“I regret what I did,” Ogungbure said in a telephone interview from Leipzig. “I should have walked away. I’m a professional, but I’m a human, too. They don’t spit on dogs. Why should they spit on me? I felt like a nobody.”
I wonder if they also investigated the person who make racist comments and monkey noises at him.
It’s pretty clear that Ogungbure made the Nazi symbol as a comment on the fan’s behavior, reminding him of where racism led German society before. Maybe not an ideal reaction, but an understandable one. And perhaps in addition to cracking down on racism, Germany should consider free expression rights. I understand that their past is deeply marred by hate, but illegalizing gestures because they evoke a painful past seems a little heavy-handed. That said, of course the authorities are justified in removing offending fans from soccer stadiums.
Gerald Asamoah, a forward on Germany’s World Cup team and a native of Ghana, has been recounting an incident in the 1990′s when he was pelted with bananas before a club match in Cottbus. “I’ll never forget that,” he said in a television interview. “It’s like we’re not people.” He has expressed anger and sadness over a banner distributed by a right-wing group that admonished, “No Gerald, You Are Not Germany.”
That’s certainly disturbing. But the fact is, as much as Germany passes anti-racism laws, xenophobia is deeply entrenched in their laws and culture. Try and immigrate to Germany from a developing nation (or, heck, any nation) if you lack German heritage and let me know how easy it is. The German govermnet sends a clear message with its laws: If you aren’t ethnically German, then no, You Are Not Germany.
That isn’t to say that all racism can be traced back to the government, and if only the laws would change, minds would follow. Clearly, this right-wing hatred operates independent of the law. But German institutions send a clear message with their approach to immigration, and limiting public gestures isn’t going to do much to change the cultural mentality. It’s easy to say that racism doesn’t exist (or to say that you aren’t racist) when you’re surrounded by people with your same skin color — it’s another thing to have people who look differently from you living in your neighborhood, working in your ofice, and playing on your sports fields. This is what supposed bastions of liberalism in Europe are facing now. They’re not doing a great job.
This reminds me of the time I spent in Scotland. Football in Europe is such an obsession that it becomes an expression of everything in various nations culture. In Germany this may be white supremacy, in Scotland it is sectarianism, with a side of racism as well. This is particularly visible in two teams in Glasgow – Glasgow Rangers and Celtic. My parter, who is Scottish and only moved here to Canada with me recently, took me to a Rangers game when I spent a year there, and I was shocked. I’m very, very glad it wasn’t a Rangers v Celtic game, as those get very, very ugly, and we usually spent those days not leaving the house, as we lived near-ish to the Rangers stadium. Sitting through a game with the “cheering squad” behind me singing songs with lyrics like “we’re up to our knees in Fenian blood” and “fuck the Pope and the IRA” could be pretty disconcerting, especially given that I was raised Catholic by my very Irish (but Canadian by many generations) family, and have a name that immediately gives me away as of Irish-Catholic descent. It seems a good chunk of the crime there is sectarian violence and football related.
That tangent aside, he had warned me that it would be pretty bad, but I’d wanted to see some football regardless. He also informed me that the abuse mentioned above – spitting, pelting with bananas, monkey-noises – are pretty much par for the course in Britian & Europe. It’s foul.
And Europeans chide Americans for being uncivilized? The game is dumb. The fans are dumber.
There’s certainly some negative backlash against anything regarded as liberal values in the air. One wonders if there’s anywhere safe left.
As someone who loves soccer, racism in football grieves me. England, once famous for its hooligans, has done a better job than the continent in addressing it, it seems.
As far as the Nazi slogans remaining illegal in Germany, I understand that from an American civil libertarian perspective, it’s a mistake to ban the salutes and the swastikas. But many Germans still perceive, perhaps rightly, that their democratic institutions are still fragile (they were all created from scratch well within living memory). The Holocaust is also within living memory. The historical burden of the Nazi era, and the fear of the return of fascism and anti-Semitism, might need to trump civil liberties for a while longer. In another generation, perhaps, it may be time to lift the ban.
Football fans are the worst. Even the idiots in the U.S. who storm the fields to attack referees, and the players who leave the courts to attack fans, have nothin’ on these guys.
I think that not only was Ogungbure’s response justified, but also completely appropriate. Racists deserve to be compared to Nazis.
I’ve never lived in Europe, so I apologize for speaking out of some ignorance here, but it’s situations like these described here that make me take European criticism of American racism with a grain of salt. Which is by no means meant to justify or excuse what happens here in North America with regard to race, but I’m often inclined to respond to European critiques (sometimes served with a dash of moral superiority) with “Take the log out of your own eye….”
Especially German racists. Talk about setting yourself up.
I dunno, Jill; I find most network shows in the U S are better with the sound off, if only slightly.
First of all .as an european that enjoys soccer (went to games for14 years) ,although not like i used to anymore,i feel disgusted with the racial coments and attacks to player of other nationalities or races in the stadiums,i’ve felt it myself while still living in barcelona (my hometown,now i live in miami beach) and some people starting making monkey noises to black players. it was not the whole stadium,but a bunch of drunken ultras,hooligans.wich are not allowed to enter the stadiums anymore in barcelona because of that behavior.
i’ve never had the sensation of a majority of people in europe being racist (although social tensions have arise this last years).and i think it is hard to understand without understanding soccer.once in the game there’s a shift in people behavior that does not reflect the real personality of the individual.a radicalization for 90 minutes .still is not a restpectful thing to do and is wrong,in ANY circumstance, in my opinion. but i think it is giving a bloated image of racism in europe.
we’ll see anyway racism in the world cup (and a lot of riots by youngs of inmigrants comunities turn radicals due to huge inequalities of class,but thats another thread) but i’m sure it’ll be a radical minority and will get coverage because more eyes are going to be in general on the world cup,and because racism sells newspapers and airtime…of course is my humble opinion,
and to magis and marksman 2000.
very insightful.like your arguments….