Jonathan Zimmerman: Sports, Dictators, and Democracy
[Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history and education at New York University, is teaching this semester at the university's study-abroad program in Accra, Ghana.]
Can sports make a nation?
That's a strange question. Americans love high-profile athletic events, as the current buildup to Super Bowl XLII illustrates. But nobody hangs America's future upon sports.
In Africa, though, it's quite common to do so. In a continent ravaged by political and ethnic violence, people often invoke sports - especially soccer - as force for national unity. And nobody does so more than the Ghanaians, who are hosts of the 16-country Africa Cup of Nations tournament at four sites around the country.
"We all speak football," one headline announced this week. "Football - A real source of unity," declared another. When Ghana celebrated a last-minute defeat over Guinea in the tournament's opening match, one commentator wrote, "there were no distinctions as to who belonged to which political party, religious sect, or ethnic division." Another editorialist compared Ghana's stability to the ethnic violence plaguing Kenya. "Is it because Kenya does not have an accomplished, unifying football team?" he asked.
As a rabid supporter of Ghana's "Black Stars" soccer team, I can appreciate the sentiment. But as a historian, I am also deeply worried by it. Over the last century, sports have rarely spawned true national harmony and reconciliation. Instead, they provide a convenient tool for one part of a nation - or, even, for one leader - to oppress the rest of it.
To take the most notorious example: Adolf Hitler used the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin to "unify" Germany - around the idea of Aryan superiority.
With the next Olympics slated for Beijing this summer, China has been jailing dissidents and pushing poor people from their homes to build stadiums.
Here in Africa, tyrants have often seized upon sports to bolster their power. Zaire's Mobotu, Nigeria's San Abacha, and especially Uganda's Idi Amin all poured vast resources into national sports programs. A former boxing and swimming champion, the 6-foot, 4-inch Amin lavished cash upon the country's star athletes. He also competed with them personally, knocking out one of the country's leading boxers and offering 10,000 shillings to anyone who could defeat him in the breast stroke. (Amin lost to a brave challenger, in 1976, and promptly paid up.)
Did these antics help Amin "unify" Uganda? Perhaps. More than anything else, however, they helped him solidify his dictatorial regime. ...
Read entire article at International Herald Tribune
Can sports make a nation?
That's a strange question. Americans love high-profile athletic events, as the current buildup to Super Bowl XLII illustrates. But nobody hangs America's future upon sports.
In Africa, though, it's quite common to do so. In a continent ravaged by political and ethnic violence, people often invoke sports - especially soccer - as force for national unity. And nobody does so more than the Ghanaians, who are hosts of the 16-country Africa Cup of Nations tournament at four sites around the country.
"We all speak football," one headline announced this week. "Football - A real source of unity," declared another. When Ghana celebrated a last-minute defeat over Guinea in the tournament's opening match, one commentator wrote, "there were no distinctions as to who belonged to which political party, religious sect, or ethnic division." Another editorialist compared Ghana's stability to the ethnic violence plaguing Kenya. "Is it because Kenya does not have an accomplished, unifying football team?" he asked.
As a rabid supporter of Ghana's "Black Stars" soccer team, I can appreciate the sentiment. But as a historian, I am also deeply worried by it. Over the last century, sports have rarely spawned true national harmony and reconciliation. Instead, they provide a convenient tool for one part of a nation - or, even, for one leader - to oppress the rest of it.
To take the most notorious example: Adolf Hitler used the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin to "unify" Germany - around the idea of Aryan superiority.
With the next Olympics slated for Beijing this summer, China has been jailing dissidents and pushing poor people from their homes to build stadiums.
Here in Africa, tyrants have often seized upon sports to bolster their power. Zaire's Mobotu, Nigeria's San Abacha, and especially Uganda's Idi Amin all poured vast resources into national sports programs. A former boxing and swimming champion, the 6-foot, 4-inch Amin lavished cash upon the country's star athletes. He also competed with them personally, knocking out one of the country's leading boxers and offering 10,000 shillings to anyone who could defeat him in the breast stroke. (Amin lost to a brave challenger, in 1976, and promptly paid up.)
Did these antics help Amin "unify" Uganda? Perhaps. More than anything else, however, they helped him solidify his dictatorial regime. ...