The hazards of investing sport with the power to transform a nation’s sense of itself...
Morocco’s loss to France in the semifinals showed the limitations of attaching national self-respect to sporting events.Every World Cup gives birth to fantasies of historical and political transformation, a kind of magical thinking that replaces the terrible intractability of history with athletic miracles that promise escape from national impotence, racial humiliation or economic decline.
The Moroccan team had become the avatar of Pan-Arab solidarity, the avenger of the depredations of European colonialism, and the world-class achievers who had rescued Moroccan dignity from the colonial past. “There’s this idea that we can’t accomplish much,” said a Moroccan city councilman. “It’s important that we prove them wrong.”
The lessons of World Cup history do not inspire confidence that the euphoria created by a dramatic sportive victory guarantee the lasting benefits sympathetic journalists routinely predict. In fact, the illusory equating of sportive victories with national strength and self-respect was pioneered at the 1936 “Nazi Olympics” in Berlin, creating an inspirational template for future dictatorships and democracies alike.
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