Of football and national flags

GENEVA, July 10: The World Cup actually hides a bigger story about the rest of the world. That story is not about football -- it is about fl...

GENEVA, July 10: The World Cup actually hides a bigger story about the rest of the world. That story is not about football — it is about flags, war, crass nationalism. Time was when games of this magnitude served on the sidelines as geography lessons about where Barbados was and what Upper Volta is now called. Time was when breathless flag-waving was considered a provocation, a right-wing activity.

Geography has been replaced by history and economics narrated in the language of victors and the vanquished. Football stories now come wrapped in socio-economic terms never heard until now and a lucky day at the goal is heralded in Parliament.

When the Croats beat the Germans, Second World War alliances were recalled to tell the story of the war in the Balkan in the early nineties. After its stunning victory over Germany, commentators were quick to yell into their microphones that nothing can approach football’s healing impact on the nation’s emotional scars.

Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, know mostrecently for planting his country’s flag by force in his neighbourhood, was there, cheering his men and by extension, his country. When Iran and the United States shook hands, everyone was quick to wonder when America’s Clinton and Iran’s Khatami would follow. World Cup 1998 is as much about politics as it is about a two dozen odd men chasing a black and white ball.

France, ever-ready even on an ordinary day to wrap itself up in its red, blue and white national colours is ready for the Brazilians on Sunday. The colonnaded facade of the French Parliament will be decked out in national colours this weekend with a giant banner wishing the French team luck in their first World Cup final against Brazil.

National Assembly speaker and former prime minister Laurent Fabius is slated to unfurl the banner carrying the words “Allez la France” or “Go France”. The win set up for this match between the host team and the defending champion has been called “The Dream Final” by the Liberation newspaper.

Anothernewspaper, Le Parisien, has called for a statue to be erected immediately for defender Lilian Thuram, the heroic scorer of both French goals against Croatia. Yet another newspaper has mocked government plans to crackdown on immigration wondering what fate awaits the national football team where many top players are either from black Africa or Algeria.

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In distant Brazil, rumour has it that the government may fall if Ronaldo returns home without Le Cup.

Welcome to the World Cup view of the world where faces are flags and players are soldiers for whom every successful goal is their country’s flag flying higher than the rest. Face painters have blossomed outside the stadia and one of the most sought after World Cup kitsch is a painters palette complete with all the worlds flags. As part of official organisation, some 4,000 palettes are distributed free of charge before every match and each serves to makeup four people. Officials say they don’t think they are pandering to jingoistic nationalism by encouragingpeople to paint their flags on their face.

Few weeks ago the US-Iran match, no great football, was heralded as the political event of the year, second only to India and Pakistan’s nuclear blasts and US President Bill Clinton’s honeymoon with China. As both teams fell, all attention turned to Nigeria and every one was talking about its former dictator Sani Abacha as much as they were discussing the success story of footballers who grew up on a steady diet of dictatorship and sorghum. When the British team played Argentina, the Falkland war was in focus.

Yugoslavia returned home at about the same time that their President Slobodan Milosevic made it to international headlines for not allowing refugees from Kosovo to come home.