“At the World Cup, the Empire Strikes Back,” The Atlantic, 15 June 2010.
The soccer tournament pits colonizers versus the colonized.
In July 1978, an obscure Nigerian literary magazine called Third World First published a posthumous essay from South African anti-apartheid activist Stephen Biko. In it, Biko rejects the “lie” of black inferiority reinforced by 19th and 20th century colonialism. “To make the lie live even longer, blacks have to be denied any chance of accidentally proving their equality with white men,” he notes.
For 70 years, the FIFA World Cup has helped dismantle the lie Biko spent his life fighting to disprove. The arrival of the 2010 tournament in his home country will be no different. As football is sport, parity is not guaranteed. But the quadrennial competition creates rare opportunities for once-colonized nations to challenge the great powers of the last century. No matter how bloody or complex the history, the World Cup gives the empire the chance to strike back.
Saturday’s matchup between the United States and England, for instance, generated white-hot interest in both the old and new world. Americans on the ground in Rustenburg waved flags with the original Tea Party slogan, “Don’t Tread on Me.” Martin Longren of the British embassy in Washington sent the U.S. a biting email establishing the terms of a bilateral wager. “You should know that the Ambassador takes his steak like American soccer victories—somewhat rare,” he cabled. One stateside commentator referred to the match as “1776 2.0.”
Despite the agreeably Atlanticist final tally, citizens of both countries relished the 96-minute match all the more for its historic symmetries. And while the World Cup always produces oddball pairings (North Korea, meet Brazil!), the unique legacy of post-colonialism—reparations, whitewashing, the flow of migrants, outright war—creates the highest drama in all of sport.
This year’s postcolonial matchups include the U.S. versus the UK, Portugal versus Brazil, and Spain versus almost everybody else. These showdowns are not as common as you might imagine, though in recent years Senegal has defeated France, Portugal has drubbed Angola, and England has drawn Nigeria in the tournament’s group stage. (France and Algeria seem destined never to meet.)
Of course, the on-pitch retread of geopolitics is not limited to colonial ties—East and West Germany were strategically kept from sparring during the Cold War, and longstanding tensions in the Middle East compel Israel to play with European teams. But the most contentious rivalries have evolved from the European scramble for blood and treasure abroad. When Honduras meets Spain on Monday, it will be in the hope of recreating its joyous 1982 World Cup debut, when striker Hector Zelaya schooled the Spanish team on its home turf. It will also be a reckoning for the exploitative silver mining that gilded the Spanish crown. Likewise, former Spanish colonies Chile and Argentina are in it for the trophy, but fans will enjoy a rematch of the 19th century wars of independence that cost thousands of lives.
The beauty of the World Cup is that it promises not reparations, but a literally level playing field. Rather predictably, Angola fell to slave-trading Portugal in its first World Cup appearance. But a battle of sweat, grit and gentle jersey-tugging is preferable to a bloody civil war. And at times, the turnabout is delicious: The 2002 World Cup began with Senegal’s dashing triumph over the defending champions and former rulers from France—a revival of the pride the insurgent Cameroon brought to the continent in 1990. But on Friday, Portugal will face likely defeat against the dominant Brazilian squad whose forbears spent nearly 400 years under Lisbon’s thumb.
NEW YORK—On the eve of the international political conference in Pittsburgh known as the Group of 20, President Barack Obama addressed a packed main hall of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Making his first appearance before the international diplomatic and peacekeeping body, Obama stressed that expectations of global cooperation now drive American foreign policy.
