All I am saying is give football a chance

BY JETHRO WEST

In future instead of fighting wars with weapons we should simply play football. The past weeks have made me think this as I’ve enjoyed the Euros.

British football is currently experiencing a cultural reset which is uplifting but also comes with some inevitable but painful baggage. Football has always been popular multiculturally. The only times I would experience friends, peers and my community of all racial and cultural backgrounds displaying flag waving jingoistic patriotism would be during the football, watching our players soar across the pitch, forging joy, community and memories .

At other times of the year it can seem tasteless in England to wave the George cross as the symbol has been appropriated by nationalist groups. When I see the flag outside a house or on a car I imagine starchy Britain First–types bemoaning the good old days, outraged that their kids may be learning about Hindu weddings in school.

This is ironic, as the George cross symbolizes English identity, while the supposedly more inclusive Union flag is historically a symbol of Britain’s horrific colonial past. English identity includes a history of dissent from Wat Tylers peasant revolt to abolitionist anti-imperialists like Charles James Fox and the suffragettes, and later miner revolts against Thatcher. English identity also includes grime music, UK garage and chicken tikka masala, and a renaissance of multicultural thought and art.

At the same time, the empire of the Union flag has committed atrocities from Belfast to Bangalore, and its phantom of crude jingoism and generational trauma and inequality still looms across the world today.

English identity is not that negative thing in itself, and the current England squad represents a country that I love and recognise, not some perverse nativist distortion that Nigel Farage or Tommy Robinson live in.

I know that I am not the only one feeling this way. I, and many others of the millennial generation, felt refreshingly patriotic this season in a country I often find challenging to love.

I’m proud that England was one of only three teams to continue to take the knee, I’m proud that Harry Kane wore a rainbow armband for pride, and I was moved to read Gareth Southgate‘s essay and behold his leadership and heartfelt care for his entire team.

While watching England vs Scotland in a packed rowdy pub in Camberwell, south London, people would applaud every time Marcus Rashford appeared on screen, in recognition of his noble activism for the growing obscene problems of homelessness and child poverty in this country. 

It is constantly harrowing how every time I take a walk in my neighbourhood in Peckham or Camberwell I encounter beggars: sometimes waxing soliloquys or dispensing raw harsh bleak humor and truth to me, sometimes just desperate for someone to listen to them, numb to the daily dehumanisation of of their existence.

While in Brixton for the first half of the England vs Italy match I saw Black Rastafarian men sing Sweet Caroline, adorned in England flags. In the centre of the capital for the second half, we saw England and Italy fans hurl abuse at one and other then hug it off and march on or engage in mutually–agreed wrestling matches on the chaotic streets.

A minor rave ensued throughout Piccadilly and on the cobbles of beloved Soho. People of all ages, colours and classes were grooving together in perfect absurd ecstasy.

I spotted a police officer who had arrested me last July at a protest and asked to take a picture with him in some sort of perverse reunion.

“Hey, I know you,” I said. 

“You alright, mate?” he said. 

“Can I try on your hat?” I asked the constable. 

He shook his head and agreed to take a selfie with me and we parted ways.

Of course the Euros were mired in racism at the end and throughout. First, by some booing ‘fans’ and by the encouragement of the British establishment. In the Home Secretary’s initial defence of the howling morons, she enabled the racism that she later condemned upon England‘s defeat. As does the Prime Minister with his long record of racist comments. As do the many pundits who condemn Black Lives Matter as a Marxist organisation. It‘s a movement that I am part of which is a spectrum of organisations with a wide range of political views.

I reflect on the Windrush generation who have been abused and robbed by the establishment. The team would not be what it is today without that generation and neither would our country. Growing up in London, my generation feel a deep affinity for the Caribbean even though I and many of us have never been there.

Footballer Bukayo Saka is 19 years old. I shudder when I think about what I was doing at that age. He held an entire nation in his hands (or feet rather) for the past weeks.

The day after the final, I looked on social media and realised the distressing yet sadly predictable news that Rashford, Saka and Sancho had been subjected to foul racist abuse from bitter, sad parasites. It was sobering and depressing.

I saw footage of Italian fans being assaulted in Wembley. While I had revelled and delighted in the lighthearted anarchy I’d witnessed the previous evening I suddenly felt cold embarrassment in the knowledge that it was not all fun and games.

Maybe my cynical side is correct, and England really is foul?

But no, it can‘t be. The England team has been defiantly a voice for a new England. It is our first vocally anti-racist team and although that may make the oafs howl and the dry pundits sneer while politicians make cynical laws, I take that as a sign that the cruel old orders feel threatened.

The Rashford mural was defaced with sickening racism but then people came out in force of all creeds, leaving messages of love and respect. When the forces of evil show their ugly faces, anti-fascists and good ordinary people must come out in all our power to show them what England really is.

This article appeared in the Summer 2021 issue of Black + Green Magazine