Football and the play of identities in Europe

As I write these lines from Paris airport on the last day of my month-long journey in Europe, I must mention a curious aspect of the French football team. Just how French is the French football team? The question contains a flaw, subtle but serious. ‘‘French’’ as it appears the first time in the question has an altogether different connotation from the second. It presupposes that ‘‘French’’ are only those who belong to France’s white native society, a notion that’s completely disproved by a mere glance at its current team. Out of the 23 players selected, fully 16 are either black or brown. They are of African or Arab origin, and one of them, Vikash Dhorasoo, is even of Indian lineage (though born in Mauritius). Zinedine Zidane, France’s best-known player who scored two stunning headers in his team’s triumph against Brazil in the 1998 final, belongs to a family of Algerian immigrants. He is seen everywhere—on billboards, TV commercials and magazine covers.

The same multi-racial look is worn by the football teams of almost every other western European country. And what’s seen on football fields is also seen on the streets of urban Europe. Non-whites are everywhere. In Rome, almost all the telephone and internet centres, which offer services that are incredibly cheaper than the astronomical rates in hotels, are run by Bangladeshis. In Brussels, Indians and Pakistanis own many cheap hotels, and have no hesitation in employing job-seekers from one another’s country. Most menial jobs in European cities are done by blacks from Africa. But, as in sports and athletics, they are also exceptionally gifted in music and crafts. The rope-haired guitarist who stole my heart as he played one soulful tune after another at sunset time on the enchanting beachfront in San Sebastian, in northern Spain, was from Benin, a small western African nation.

Thus, street culture and street commerce, often the most visible identity-markers for any visitor to a foreign country, are now dominated by immigrants. The legal immigrant population in EU countries is 2.5 crore, 5.5 per cent of the total population. However, in western European countries alone, an equal number are illegal immigrants. Although many immigrants are from former colonies of the country concerned (as is the case with Zidane), the faces that form the demographic collage in European cities are practically from every part of the world, including from the poorer nations of eastern Europe. As a result, the social complexion of all the western European countries is rapidly changing. This is an unsettling phenomenon. Europe, in the perception of some natives who are increasingly nervous about the influx of immigrants, is getting ‘‘de-Europeanised’’. Their worry: ‘‘How European is Europe today? And how much of Europe of yesterday will be left in the Europe of tomorrow?’’

Thus, apart from football, the subject that is being discussed most heatedly and persistently in Europe these days is the problem of immigration. It’s a complex issue that defies easy solutions. On the one hand, Europe needs immigrants. Its native population is ageing, and birth-rates are falling. ‘‘Europeans have practically stopped having children,’’ writes a commentator. ‘‘At present birth rates the native populations of Europe will disappear in a few generations.’’ This has created the scare of native societies becoming unable to run their countries’ advanced economies and, hence, to sustain their prosperity in the decades ahead.

On the other hand, you cannot have a black African immigrant woman managing the toilet at a Paris railway station, or a Moroccan running a taxi in Paris streets, and not give equal rights and opportunities to them and their children. France cannot treat Zidane as its national hero, and look upon other less accomplished Algerians as unwanted aliens. Thus, the land that proclaimed ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’ as the modern age mantra for the whole world is now called upon to remain faithful to it as it wrestles with the problem of immigrants. Sadly, a fringe section of the French society—and similar fringes in other European countries—have profaned this mantra with their racist and ultra-nationalist conduct.

If native Europe has an obligation towards immigrants, the latter too have an obligation towards Europe. Knowledge of the host country’s language and history, appreciation of its social mores and cultural traditions, and a willingness to contribute to its achievements (as Zidane has done) are essential if native populations are not to look upon new entrants with apathy and suspicion. Not all immigrants who enter new lands wish to be integrated. This poses knotty questions about identity retention and integration. An ardent desire on their part to preserve their own cultural identity is understandable, even welcome. But when some of them isolate themselves within exclusivist and separatist walls, or show no respect for the laws and ethos of the host country, they sow seeds of disharmony and feed the racist tendencies in the host population.

Thus, what is most notable about the emergence of New Europe is this concert and clash of identities—both between various European countries as they seek to come together into a closer EU, and between these countries and their immigrant populations. In this, football—along with other sports, music, arts, and million different ordinary interactions between native populations and immigrants—is serving as a source and a catalyst of mutual understanding, harmony and integration.

These are some thoughts provoked by the way immigrants have enriched football in Europe. May Mondial 2006 begin. Back home in India, as I watch its matches, I’ll be reinforced in my conviction that all those players, irrespective of their colour, race and nationality (original or adopted) will not only be creating magic on the green field, but also weaving threads of unity in a shrinking world that badly needs it. For as Beckenbauer has put it, ‘‘Football has an incredible power beyond sports.’’

write to sudheen.kulkarni@expressindia.com