The kid was lying on the ground in a crumpled heap, clutching his stomach. Blood was pouring from his nose and with each drop, my nightmare scenario was being enacted. As the league director, this was now my mess to clean up and avoid a mutiny by the other teams. Along with the kid bleeding on the floor, my ref had also been slugged, although this appeared to be accidental, and he was ok. In misfortune, I had been lucky: lucky it wasn’t worse, lucky the ref hadn’t quit, lucky no-one was arrested, lucky the kid was ok, lucky...
We called the game and told the teams to leave immediately. Get the fuck off the pitch and go the fuck home. But the kid who took the beating was now standing; he had gone for some rocks and was trying to hurl them at the opposing team. Luckily he was being restrained by team mates, but it was enough to have the whole opposition team massed once again, ready to fight... So I did the only thing I could think to do: call 9-1-1 and get the cops to send everyone home. I hated doing it. It was an admission that I was out of my depth, and that I had failed to control the situation myself. Two minuets later, the cops were there and asking who was in charge. That would be me officer... I explained the situation, told them the trouble was over and if they could just encourage people to leave, that would be a help. They did just that, staying for less than 10 minuets.
There were about 20 minuets before the next game, which I did not cancel. So I went and paid the ref (who left with a smile and feeling ok), and spent the remaining time in my car thinking about what had just transpired, and how to deal with it. E came around and gave me a hug, and listened to me for a few minuets, which helped a good deal. Around the time she left, Fitzy showed up. He is a kind man and also the ref for the next game. We sat on the grass at KP, in the shade and talked through the situation. It was calm now and some people were milling around the food stand, a few players for the next game were warming up at the far goal. People should play because they love the game, irrespective of results or ideology; I couldn’t help thinking that was a totally naïve desire. The whole thing had made be really sad.
Fitzy, an accountant by day, calmed my nerves with his jovial smile and his lack of serious concern for what had just transpired. It wasn’t that he didn’t think we needed to take it seriously, but that it wasn’t something that should cause us to consider whether the league should have a future. He loved the league, and had come to know so many of the players, as have I. He didn’t want to see it go away. The league just needs to come down hard on the few that were involved in order to break up the mob mentality of a few of the teams. This I agreed with. The heart break for me was one of the culprits has been a real leader all season, getting involved in addressing the leagues issues and making sure his team was not getting into fights.
After the last game Fitzy asked me if I would remain involved next year. I half lied: yes. Truth is, I don’t know if I will. I don’t know if I want to. I enjoy soccer, no, I love soccer, and there is nothing that can change those feelings. But I also spent a year writing a thesis about how the sport is ultimately a divider, rather than a unifier, and I don’t believe that it will ever unite Portland’s divided communities. So, will I keep giving up every summer weekend for something I don’t believe in and makes me no money? I doubt it. I wonder now, if the league isn’t facilitating conflict rather than resolving it? If that is the case, then we should all walk away now, rather than ferment nationalistic tensions along ethnic lines in this small costal city. If the league is fostering tension, rather than diffusing it, then I want no part of it. Fitzy left with an offer to be involved in the management next year.
Well, the season is coming to an end in 4 weeks, so I will see it through to the conclusion, and then take the winter to see if I want to stay committed or walk away. And it had been such a wonderful day, 75 and sunny...
Monday, July 20, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Short Story
Here is a short story I came across last night. It was written by Ralf Bönt, former captain of the German National Writing team.
http://www.ralf-boent.de/essen_gb.html
http://www.ralf-boent.de/essen_gb.html
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Saying no to discrimination....
...is discrimination against people who want to discriminate. :-)
UEFA recently announced its newest initiative to tackle racism in stadiums across Europe. This initiative comes almost exactly one year before an African nation prepares to host the World Cup for the first time (South Africa in 2010). While there is no direct link between the these two things, the reality, in Europe, is that African players are most often subjected to racist abuse and FIFA will need to consider the demographic represented in many of the National fans that may travel to South Africa next summer. So in a sense, FIFA may want to pay close attention to how well these new initiatives function.
Basically, UEFA has mandated that the Referee be give the power to interrupt the game in three stages when they become aware of racist behavior towards players on the pitch. First, they stop the game and have the stadium announcer make a public announcement, if the abuse continues, then the game is to be stopped for 15 minuets, the teams sent into the changing rooms and another announcement is made, if the situation continues, the game is suspended until further notice. I find this approach interesting for a few reasons, not only because it will, in theory, create a public pressure inside the stadium against racist behavior. UEFA is essentially introducing social regulation by punishing everyone for the transgressions of a few individuals. The idea is as ingenious as it is suspect, and the potential for the public to act as a lynch mob should give pause for thought.
No-one who paid the relatively high ticket prices will want to see the game cancelled, or even interrupted, so the logic is that the public will get involved when they see racist behavior on the part of a fan (or group of fans). It is a carrot and sticks approach that will punish a whole village for the transgressions of one of its wayward children. Interestingly, I just watched The Art of Soccer with John Cleese. A portion of the documentary was dedicated to Xenophobia: many of the people interviewed (players subjected to racism, and fans) formulated a similar approach to the one UEFA has now taken. The idea being, if fans see people being racist, they will take action... But as much as one hopes that this action would be a nice group explaining to the racist what they had done wrong, I fear it could be much more violent than that.
But this is also facinating on another level: it is meant to develop normative behavior and is thus a sort of mass brainwashing. The effect that this could have, though I may be giving too much credit to the power of soccer, is of building community. It is, on some level, an extension of the imagined community as much as it is part of Schmitt’s thesis. We are now united against racism, as a community, and we will be held responsible, as a community, if we fail to ensure that racism is controlled.
I bring this up, in the context of the first African World Cup, because it will be fascinating to see how fans from Europe, notorious for highly racists views, attitudes and songs, will behave, and how FIFA will handle the racism. It may be a moot point, because maybe South Africa will simply be too far for these types of fans to travel. But in case it is not, FIFA will need to have effective measures in place to handle such situations, on the field and off. But I also think it is interesting to reflect on this in light of recent comments by Arch Bishop Tutu, who said that it would be the World Cup that will help South Africa grown an additional two inches in stature. South Africa, with its deep history of a vitriolic racism, is facing a massive challenge as host of the worlds largest sporting event. Success and failure, either way, will have lasting effects on the nation as much as on the sport.
Football cannot be used to end racism. We have to educate them. ~ Kaká
UEFA recently announced its newest initiative to tackle racism in stadiums across Europe. This initiative comes almost exactly one year before an African nation prepares to host the World Cup for the first time (South Africa in 2010). While there is no direct link between the these two things, the reality, in Europe, is that African players are most often subjected to racist abuse and FIFA will need to consider the demographic represented in many of the National fans that may travel to South Africa next summer. So in a sense, FIFA may want to pay close attention to how well these new initiatives function.
Basically, UEFA has mandated that the Referee be give the power to interrupt the game in three stages when they become aware of racist behavior towards players on the pitch. First, they stop the game and have the stadium announcer make a public announcement, if the abuse continues, then the game is to be stopped for 15 minuets, the teams sent into the changing rooms and another announcement is made, if the situation continues, the game is suspended until further notice. I find this approach interesting for a few reasons, not only because it will, in theory, create a public pressure inside the stadium against racist behavior. UEFA is essentially introducing social regulation by punishing everyone for the transgressions of a few individuals. The idea is as ingenious as it is suspect, and the potential for the public to act as a lynch mob should give pause for thought.
No-one who paid the relatively high ticket prices will want to see the game cancelled, or even interrupted, so the logic is that the public will get involved when they see racist behavior on the part of a fan (or group of fans). It is a carrot and sticks approach that will punish a whole village for the transgressions of one of its wayward children. Interestingly, I just watched The Art of Soccer with John Cleese. A portion of the documentary was dedicated to Xenophobia: many of the people interviewed (players subjected to racism, and fans) formulated a similar approach to the one UEFA has now taken. The idea being, if fans see people being racist, they will take action... But as much as one hopes that this action would be a nice group explaining to the racist what they had done wrong, I fear it could be much more violent than that.
But this is also facinating on another level: it is meant to develop normative behavior and is thus a sort of mass brainwashing. The effect that this could have, though I may be giving too much credit to the power of soccer, is of building community. It is, on some level, an extension of the imagined community as much as it is part of Schmitt’s thesis. We are now united against racism, as a community, and we will be held responsible, as a community, if we fail to ensure that racism is controlled.
I bring this up, in the context of the first African World Cup, because it will be fascinating to see how fans from Europe, notorious for highly racists views, attitudes and songs, will behave, and how FIFA will handle the racism. It may be a moot point, because maybe South Africa will simply be too far for these types of fans to travel. But in case it is not, FIFA will need to have effective measures in place to handle such situations, on the field and off. But I also think it is interesting to reflect on this in light of recent comments by Arch Bishop Tutu, who said that it would be the World Cup that will help South Africa grown an additional two inches in stature. South Africa, with its deep history of a vitriolic racism, is facing a massive challenge as host of the worlds largest sporting event. Success and failure, either way, will have lasting effects on the nation as much as on the sport.
Football cannot be used to end racism. We have to educate them. ~ Kaká
Monday, July 13, 2009
About a Film
I am so glad he didn’t ask me what my favorite film was; I dislike that question. How do you answer that? Maybe this is an easy for some, but all I can think is: based on what criteria? Genre? Director? Do we start with Orson Wells, Kubrick, Roeg, Almodovar, Kurusawa or Von Trotta? What about Fassbinder or should I go back to D. W. Griffith? But as I was thinking about ‘favorite film’, and my interlocutor was quick to offer Millers Crossing as one of his favorites (a great film, to be sure), I thought about the one film I have often used to answer that awful question: Easy Rider.
Having grown up in Europe, the road movie was something of a novelty; fascinating and difficult to relate to. Easy Rider has a simple narrative, two men traveling from A to B on bikes during a time of great change in American Society. The simplicity is not a handy cap however, and the film yields an effective social critique of the downward spiral (from the film-makers point of view). Well, I don’t mean to get bogged down in offering a review of this film, but it has been on my mind again, particularly as I read Jean Baudrillard’s Amérique, a European’s take on America in the 1980s, half-way through the Age of Reagan (a time seriously committed to the rear-view mirror fantasy). He opens the text with a quote: objects in the mirror are closer than they appear. Most Americans see this short statement on a daily basis as they look back at the place they just came from, they read this as a literal statement: the car behind you appears larger to you than it really is. But for Baudrillard, this means something totally different. It is a powerful statement about a culture in which everything is a mirror image of something that has already existed, but in its recreation, it has been made bigger (larger than life). According to Baudrillard, American culture, or the American experience, is defined by the fact that everything is a reproduction of something else, but bigger and better than the original (I am thinking of Las Vegas thanks to Simons blog entry). Everything in a mirror is artificial, two dimensional and unoriginal.
In Easy Rider, we get something of a premonition of Baudrillard’s analysis. Representing the counter-cultural movement in the USA, the two protagonists go in search of the authentic experience, without a real roadmap, and certainly no time-frame in mind. But their existence is an affront to most of the characters they meet along the way. Their death at the hands of strangers is the result of their lack of conformity (at least in a superficial reading of the film); their authentic life (and look) is a challenge to a system built in a rear-view mirror with magnifying properties, and they are not the mirror image of anything. In fact, they represent a moment of authentic creation in Americana, and they have since been mirrored, along with the whole counter-cultural movement (in language, dress and attitudes, we constantly recreate the 1960’s in our new realities).
In death, Billy and Captain America (along with the whole movement) became pure and unassailable, and though is was lambasted and repressed at the time, they have now become a beacon of American free-expression and liberty. We dream about the freedom that comes from the open road, the lack of schedules, and the feeling of the wind screaming past your ears. Our idealistic view of this period is problematic however, and it is false and out of proportion, unoriginal and larger than life. The trip in Easy Rider begins with a drug deal after all. Billy and the Captain were flawed, as was the whole movement, and it wasn’t just about flower power and free speech either. But that is, in many ways, all we know of it today. Kids at Target buying their 1960’s inspired shirts and dresses are not reflecting on what this means (well, maybe they are) on a symbolic level, and how they feel about recreating a rewritten history. We often do not ask ourselves what it means to wear a Ché shirt or wear peace symbols, we do not think about how these things came to be, what they were then, and what they are now.
In any case, I love this film, but it is only one of many that are, in my tilted view, brilliant...
Having grown up in Europe, the road movie was something of a novelty; fascinating and difficult to relate to. Easy Rider has a simple narrative, two men traveling from A to B on bikes during a time of great change in American Society. The simplicity is not a handy cap however, and the film yields an effective social critique of the downward spiral (from the film-makers point of view). Well, I don’t mean to get bogged down in offering a review of this film, but it has been on my mind again, particularly as I read Jean Baudrillard’s Amérique, a European’s take on America in the 1980s, half-way through the Age of Reagan (a time seriously committed to the rear-view mirror fantasy). He opens the text with a quote: objects in the mirror are closer than they appear. Most Americans see this short statement on a daily basis as they look back at the place they just came from, they read this as a literal statement: the car behind you appears larger to you than it really is. But for Baudrillard, this means something totally different. It is a powerful statement about a culture in which everything is a mirror image of something that has already existed, but in its recreation, it has been made bigger (larger than life). According to Baudrillard, American culture, or the American experience, is defined by the fact that everything is a reproduction of something else, but bigger and better than the original (I am thinking of Las Vegas thanks to Simons blog entry). Everything in a mirror is artificial, two dimensional and unoriginal.
In Easy Rider, we get something of a premonition of Baudrillard’s analysis. Representing the counter-cultural movement in the USA, the two protagonists go in search of the authentic experience, without a real roadmap, and certainly no time-frame in mind. But their existence is an affront to most of the characters they meet along the way. Their death at the hands of strangers is the result of their lack of conformity (at least in a superficial reading of the film); their authentic life (and look) is a challenge to a system built in a rear-view mirror with magnifying properties, and they are not the mirror image of anything. In fact, they represent a moment of authentic creation in Americana, and they have since been mirrored, along with the whole counter-cultural movement (in language, dress and attitudes, we constantly recreate the 1960’s in our new realities).
In death, Billy and Captain America (along with the whole movement) became pure and unassailable, and though is was lambasted and repressed at the time, they have now become a beacon of American free-expression and liberty. We dream about the freedom that comes from the open road, the lack of schedules, and the feeling of the wind screaming past your ears. Our idealistic view of this period is problematic however, and it is false and out of proportion, unoriginal and larger than life. The trip in Easy Rider begins with a drug deal after all. Billy and the Captain were flawed, as was the whole movement, and it wasn’t just about flower power and free speech either. But that is, in many ways, all we know of it today. Kids at Target buying their 1960’s inspired shirts and dresses are not reflecting on what this means (well, maybe they are) on a symbolic level, and how they feel about recreating a rewritten history. We often do not ask ourselves what it means to wear a Ché shirt or wear peace symbols, we do not think about how these things came to be, what they were then, and what they are now.
In any case, I love this film, but it is only one of many that are, in my tilted view, brilliant...
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Negotiations
You are leaving already? But you haven’t contributed anything yet! His face was darkened by the sun coming in through the window behind him, and for a moment I thought he was mad at me. I replied that I was simply listening because I thought they were sending me to Sudan. Everyone laughed. It was the fourth of July and I spent the whole day with non-Americans, Africans and Serbs, and it was a great day. After coffee at NorthStar with Alfred, we tooled over to SoPo to visit with his brother and have some food. We’ll be there for an hour or so, he said. But you have to be flexible.
Three hours later, my belly was stuffed with Sudanese foods and tea, most of the women and all the children had been kept away from us men, and we were now deep into debates. I quickly realized that I was in an intense meeting over the construction of the school Southern Sudan. People were calling contacts in Jubba, men were offering advice to Alfred on how to handle the ‘locals’, and the whole time we sat in a circle sharing the floor fairly democratically. A few voices dominated the conversation, but even being a total outsider, I felt as though I could have said something and they would have listened.
Alfred drove me back and I could see he was strained. As experienced as he is, the trip he was about to take, going home for the first time in 14 years and overseeing the construction clearly feels like a monumental task. I spent the evening playing soccer and watching Milos Foreman movies. I didn’t even bother with the fireworks.
Three hours later, my belly was stuffed with Sudanese foods and tea, most of the women and all the children had been kept away from us men, and we were now deep into debates. I quickly realized that I was in an intense meeting over the construction of the school Southern Sudan. People were calling contacts in Jubba, men were offering advice to Alfred on how to handle the ‘locals’, and the whole time we sat in a circle sharing the floor fairly democratically. A few voices dominated the conversation, but even being a total outsider, I felt as though I could have said something and they would have listened.
Alfred drove me back and I could see he was strained. As experienced as he is, the trip he was about to take, going home for the first time in 14 years and overseeing the construction clearly feels like a monumental task. I spent the evening playing soccer and watching Milos Foreman movies. I didn’t even bother with the fireworks.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Constant Gardner
He paused. The rake was cutting into his hand, tearing away a small patch of skin. Some part of him enjoyed the sensation; it wasn’t too painful. He examined his work, the clear patch of dirt, and thought about the people he knew, about good will and trust. Were people generally good natured? Those he knew were, so he believed. He trusted and had been hurt as a result. He trusted again and suspected he was being played now.
Pressing the wooden handle of the rake against the open wound, he went back to work. He didn’t turn to look at his friends, it wasn’t them he was thinking about. He had nothing to offer them, and they nothing to offer him. They were friends because they all wanted to be. He thought about how pain fades and scabs over, like the small wound on his hand. Someone yelled out; a bird was busy scolding him for being too close to the nest, and he felt calmness come over him in that environment. Focusing on a patch of weeds right in front of him, hidden slightly under the burning bush, he went over the ground, again and again, slashing through roots and pulling up stones. His nose was filled with the smell of freshly uncovered dirt. He kept going. Not aggressively, just rhythmically going back and forth.
Beer? Before he answered, the bottle cap was removed and the pressure released with a sucking sound. He put down the rake and held the bottle against the place where the skin had rubbed off. It felt good.
I’ll go see about those rose bushes next. He walked across the newly laid sod and her eyes followed him.
Don’t injure yourself.
Pressing the wooden handle of the rake against the open wound, he went back to work. He didn’t turn to look at his friends, it wasn’t them he was thinking about. He had nothing to offer them, and they nothing to offer him. They were friends because they all wanted to be. He thought about how pain fades and scabs over, like the small wound on his hand. Someone yelled out; a bird was busy scolding him for being too close to the nest, and he felt calmness come over him in that environment. Focusing on a patch of weeds right in front of him, hidden slightly under the burning bush, he went over the ground, again and again, slashing through roots and pulling up stones. His nose was filled with the smell of freshly uncovered dirt. He kept going. Not aggressively, just rhythmically going back and forth.
Beer? Before he answered, the bottle cap was removed and the pressure released with a sucking sound. He put down the rake and held the bottle against the place where the skin had rubbed off. It felt good.
I’ll go see about those rose bushes next. He walked across the newly laid sod and her eyes followed him.
Don’t injure yourself.
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