I have to admit that back here in the states, I’m soured on the term patriotism because it has been so co-opted by those with political motives. It means homeland, fatherland, and is rooted not in politics but in heritage. On a regular basis, I heard the term “La Patria” thrown around. Consequently, they seemed to have a strong sense of what ties them all together, and that bond exists quite apart from politics, or rather in spite of politics.
They didn’t judge people by their political leaders. In fact, one thing I noticed when living in Ecuador was that people there were very aware that the government did not necessarily represent the citizenry-hence, despite the widespread unpopularity of Bush, who was the US president at the time, Ecuadorians did not look at me as a de facto supporter of him. It was a joke, but still, the link between pride in the national team and pride in the citizenry’s patriotic ouster of an asshole made a lot of sense.
I remember watching the game at a restaurant and seeing a guy jump up at a near-goal moment and shout “Fuera Lucio,” a reference to the very recent ousting of corrupt president Lucio Gutierrez. When they beat Argentina, all of Quito erupted into ecstatic celebration. When I lived in Ecuador, we were drawn into the soccer fervor a little. So I think Borges has a point.Īnd yet, there’s something pretty appealing about that level of passion and belonging. I could give a lot more examples, but suffice to say soccer is prone to disturbing tribalism. Although we had said before the game that football had nothing to do with the Malvinas War, we knew they had killed a lot of Argentine boys there, killed them like little birds. Maradona writes in his autobiography, “It was as if we had beaten a country, not just a football team. Four years later, the Argentine team beat England in the World Cup in Mexico. In 1982, there was a brief 10-week war between the UK and Argentina over the Falkland Islands, off the coast of Argentina. A really great example of the nationalism inherent in soccer comes from Diego Maradona’s description of Argentina’s victory over England in the 1986 World Cup. Indeed, soccer somewhat regularly brings out the worst kind of us vs. Nationalism only allows for affirmations you’re either with us or against us love it or leave it.įranklin Foer uses the term tribalism instead of Nationalism, but he illuminates exactly what freaked Borges out when he describes how in the “2002 World Cup, there was a deadly riot in Bangladesh between fans of Argentina and fans of Brazil.” Or how “support for Rangers has become a means for venting a sort of lingering Catholic hatred.” (Apparently, fans have adopted the Rangers as the Protestant team, and even wear orange despite the team’s colors being blue, white, and red.)
“Nationalism only allows for affirmations, and every doctrine that discards doubt, negation, is a form of fanaticism and stupidity.” I just want to pause and digest this last comment. According to Shaj Mathew, writing at New Republic, Borges’ “problem was with soccer fan culture, which he linked to the kind of blind popular support that propped up the leaders of the twentieth century’s most horrifying political movements.” Borges was an Argentinian, who witnessed firsthand the Dirty War and the rise of a fascist government-horrifying political movements-so it makes sense that “he was naturally suspicious of his countrymen’s unqualified devotion to any doctrine or religion.” He feared that nationalism seems to go hand in hand with soccer. I recently read about some of Jorge Luis Borges’ opinions on soccer he didn’t like it. Here’s something that occurred to me a few weeks ago: All else being equal, if I lived outside of the US, I might not love the World Cup as much as I do.
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