The racist abuse suffered by the English football players
who missed penalties was peculiarly stupid. The English football team is picked
on merit. It so happens that a large number of those players are black. The
manager’s judgement must be that these players deserve to be in the squad. If
they underperformed other players would be picked in their place. It follows
therefore that those players who were racially abused were in part responsible
for England qualifying for the tournament and reaching the final. The racial
abusers are therefore insulting the penalty takers who were responsible for
getting England to the position where they could take the penalties in the
first place. The abuse is therefore not merely wrong, but self-defeating.
The squad is picked on merit, so we can assume that without
the players who were racially abused it would be a worse squad than it is at
present. We can assume then that the racists would prefer a worse team to be
competing. But to complain about people missing penalties while wishing for less
talented players to take them is senseless.
The fact that the team is picked on merit and that
people from all races, backgrounds and religions are picked on the basis of
their talent means that the support for the England team reflects the
population in England. Everyone is equally English no matter where their
parents came from. This is quite unusual in the world.
In places like Poland, Hungary and Japan and others,
it is only really possible to be Polish, Hungarian or Japanese if you were born
there and your parents were born there too. In Britain we are taught to be wary
of such an idea, but it was commonplace here too until recently.
The response to the abuse of the English players shows
that the vast majority of people in Britain reject the idea that they were not
really English. We also reject the idea that people should be hated, disliked
or abused because of characteristics we were born with. We should be judged on
the basis of our character, thoughts, morals and actions because we are
responsible for these things. We ought not to be judged on the basis of our
race, sex, age or physical characteristics because we were born with these and
cannot help them.
But just as I am not responsible for the colour of my
eyes, so too I am not responsible for where I was born or my nationality. To
hate and abuse someone because he is black is therefore just as wrong as to
hate someone because he is English.
Racism is still clearly still a problem in England.
But we may be hopeful that progress is being made. Sporting teams are picked on
merit. There are laws to prevent racial discrimination in work and black people
have demonstrated that they can reach the top in a variety of fields. More
importantly the vast majority of people were horrified when the footballers
were abused and condemned it. No serious thinker, politician or writer has
tried to justify the racial abuse that occurred. Rather ordinary people have
sought to express their support for the black players.
But in Scotland it is still commonplace to hate people
for sectarian reasons, for political reasons and for xenophobic reasons. These
hatreds have largely been eradicated in England, but we still have work to do
here.
It is routine on social media for Scots to be abused
by Scottish nationalists if they describe themselves as British. I have never
once seen a Scot abuse a Scottish nationalist because he is Scottish, but it is
commonplace for Scottish nationalists to use hateful language to describe
people who think we can be both Scottish and British at the same time. I am
routinely abused simply for being a Scot who disagrees with the SNP.
Hating people because they are black, of Pakistani or
Indian heritage is unacceptable in Scotland, but hating people because they
have an English heritage is not merely acceptable it is routine. Even
newspapers and media journalists frequently describe our nearest neighbour as
the Auld Enemy. People make generalisation about English people, being
arrogant, condescending, snooty or always talking about England during football
matches, that would be completely unacceptable if they were made about any
other country. Imagine criticising people from Pakistan by making generalisations
about their character. But we make generalisations about English people and
have stereotypes about their character that we simply would not dare to make about
anywhere else.
This is sometimes dismissed as banter and good fun.
Everyone hates England after all and wants them to lose. But a number of
incidents have shown how this banter can quickly turn nasty and violent.
Sporting rivalry is perfectly reasonable, but Australia
and England can maintain a keen sporting rivalry without ever expressing that
they hate or dislike the other’s country. England cricket fans do not hope that
Australia loses whenever it plays someone else, nor I suspect did Germans support
first Ukraine, then Denmark and finally Italy in a desperate hope that their sporting
rival would lose. Germans did not buy the football shirts of England’s opponents
or dance in the street in delight when they missed a penalty, because Germans
have learned that hating people because of their nationality or where they were
born or their religion is not merely unpleasant it is dangerous.
Some idiots, thankfully few in number, made racist remarks
when a black footballer missed a penalty, but in Scotland there were loud
cheers from those watching on TV, who then went out on the streets to celebrate
that the goalkeeper had saved his kick. While there was condemnation of the
racists who insulted him and hated him because he was black, there was no
condemnation whatsoever of those who hated him because he was English. But he
could no more help that he was born with black skin than that he was born in
Ealing. But in Scotland while it is wrong to hate people because they are black
it is still quite acceptable to hate them because they are English. Indeed, it
is only because of this hatred that so many of us can’t quite bear to live in
the same country as Bukayo Saka.
