In general, I am not a sports fan. I don't understand much of the terminology (what the hell is a handicap?), or the rules (isn't it illegal to kick him there?), or the traditions (why do they line up with a bunch of little kids before starting a match?). I don't know many of the players, I get the teams mixed up, and I have decided on sheer impulse that the day I watch more than two minutes of a cricket match is the day I drink a mixture of lemonade and black powder and set myself on fire with a scented candle. So I guess you could say that sports and I don't have a terribly healthy relationship. In fact I could shoot it in the head and attend the funeral with no ill feeling.
But every four years, I suspend the apathy (or, in cricket's case, antipathy) towards the whole realm of physical fitness and get my game face on. Those are the years when the world drops its dramas, its follies, its trivial fits of military action, and tunes its TVs to whichever poor country is hosting the global tourney/bloodfest that is the FIFA World Cup. This year, it's South Africa. Make no mistake, I think it's a marvelous honour for a country so bitterly divided for so many years to be playing host to the one sports event (take that, Summer Olympics) that truly brings the seven continents together. But I can't love anything without feeling bitter about it. So that's my confession about it all--I love you, World Cup, I really do, but at the same time I think you're a hilarious scrobble of overblown patriotism, a colossal sinkhole of international funds... and a touchingly clumsy reminder of why humanity is not doomed after all.
Let's get this out of the way. The World Cup is stupid, stupid with a capital S except that makes me look dyslexic. It's volatile and it doesn't make sense, and there's much not to like. Crappy ball? Explained away as "too perfect". (Right.) Lacklustre teams? Oh, it's just the altitude. Spectacularly bad ref'ing? Nothing new there, but there have been some real horrible bombshells in the past month. And, dear God, let us not talk about the cost, because every single penny or cent or whatever currency it is you people hitch your lives to that goes into the execution of this global indulgence is money that won't be going towards saving lives, or bettering lives in any way save for some highly voluble entertainment. In short, there is much not to like about this institution, and from the way some people are going on it'd kill poverty and AIDS in one strike if we just wiped FIFA off the face of this Earth.
But I talked about hope, didn't I? The World Cup brings hope because it brings people together. It does what the Olympics tries so hard to do with the faintest of efforts: it bridges vast cultural divides and eradicates old taboos for every single moment of a 90-minute match. You can have a near-senile pensioner in the Cotswolds and a law student in Nanjing and a Hazara farmer's little daughter all cheering for the same team, the same eleven men in funny-coloured outfits running around with a terrible ball on the other side of the Earth.
I don't know of any other event that does the same thing. Not even the Olympics. And dare we dream that one day--
No. We daren't. Because this is real life. And just like that the dreaming is over and your favourite team is knocked out, your favourite player kicked in the shin or given a red card for ripping someone else's shirt into tiny little pieces. What on earth were we thinking, when we thought about peace? It's just a game, after all.
Maybe it's idealistic of me to hope that soccer can bring together a world that is already so frailly stitched together. But I would like to believe that it's possible. I'd like to believe that for an hour and a half we could suspend everything and unite. I'd like to believe it, but there's one thing in the way--the Cup itself. Because it simply doesn't make sense.
I don't know what can we make of this most secular of rituals that draws such religious fervour. I don't know what we can learn from this thing, this strange thing that burns with passion and fury and hatred--yes, hatred--and at the same time holds so close to our oh-so-human desires for peace. What can be said about this fragile microcosm of opposites, this living paradox, this wonderful angry horrible crazy incomprehensible tribute to just how much the world adores The Beautiful Game? What does it mean when we lose ourselves in the World Cup? What does it all mean?
I wish I could answer. I wish I could answer even one of these questions. But all I can do is stand on the sidelines and scream at the men who are too busy making history to listen to this little girl.
~Mnemosyne
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