When German footballer Dennis Undow scored two late goals to lead his team to a 2-1 win over Ivory Coast, you would have found very few German fans who did not consider him a national hero. Little was cared that this Turkish-Syrian son of Kurdish-Yazidi parents did not have traditional German looks. But he led the German team to a thrilling victory, proving why the “beautiful game” enjoys a greater global audience than any other sport. Undav’s success was also a slap in the face to extremists. He and his team are living proof that people with very different backgrounds and looks can be woven into a common enterprise, and they can also become a source of collective pride. They show that loving one’s country (often referred to as the Left The idea of being distorted or considered unfashionable is not limited to the German team. Every serious contender for the World Cup is fielding players whose families are only one or two generations old. They came here in the first place, and yet they are inspiring a wave of patriotism that makes mainstream politics in much of the industrialized world anxious about the influx of culturally diverse peoples and ideas once confined to the dark corners of the Internet. Demands for “‘re-immigration’ are now being expressed and talked about in respected forums. A recent poll found that 45% of the British, 50% of the Danish, 51% of the French, 53% of the Germans, 51% of the Italians, 52% of the Polish and 46% of the Spanish would support a scenario in which immigration was halted, and many recent migrants returned. There is, of course, no evidence that There is little hope that there will be much support for the forced expulsion of immigrants through a harsh process such as “ethnic cleansing,” but despite such warnings, there is a startling change from a decade ago. A decade ago, people in many of these same countries welcomed migrants fleeing war in the Middle East. Meanwhile, a large section of left ideology has also moved in a different, but disturbing direction, due to its habit of viewing every issue through the lens of the oppressor and the oppressed. Due to this simplistic view, Western countries are always the villains and patriotism should always be viewed with suspicion or contempt. This change is also reflected in the voting figures. According to Gallup, the share of Democrats feeling proud to be an American dropped from more than 60% in the early 2000s to just 22% in 2019 (though there has been some improvement since then). The majority of this decline coincided with Donald Trump’s first term, suggesting it reflects dissatisfaction with those in power. Still, the trends are clear. It is no secret that talk of national pride has become an embarrassment for many on the Left. This is a worrying trend, because without the support of a shared identity, politics becomes less likely to coalesce around policies designed to support the disadvantaged. This also includes workers without college degrees, who have been struggling for decades in the industrialized world. Of course, professional athletics is not a perfect mirror of society. A national team is a small, resource-rich and deeply managed group, united by the clear goal of winning matches. Building a winning team is not the same as uniting large populations in homes, schools, and labor markets. And even in sports, integration hasn’t been as smooth. England’s black players were bombarded with racist abuse after losing the Euro 2020 final; The France national team is always dragged into the debate about who is truly French in it; And many sports in America have a ugly history of racism. Many may celebrate integration, but voices empowered by algorithms are now loud and disproportionately influential. In this sense, sports also mimic patterns seen in society. The World Cup does not prove that it is easy to unite people from different backgrounds. But it does confirm what extremists want to deny: that ethnic solidarity and patriotic pride routinely co-exist. Most fans who watch their multi-ethnic team raise the national flag experience this truth without any hesitation. If the hard right and the far left put aside their egos for a moment and watch a few World Cup matches, they might rediscover what we already know. That is, when solidarity and national pride go together, in most cases the result is a win! (@ProjectSyndicate)
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Daron Acemoglu’s column: What can’t we humans do through socializing?
