Toure: Black players may boycott World Cup

[Hortical]

Yaya Toure: Black players may boycott 2018 Russia World Cup


Black players might boycott the 2018 World Cup in Russia unless the country tackles racism in football, Manchester City's Yaya Toure has suggested.
"If we aren't confident at the World Cup, coming to Russia, we don't come," the Ivorian midfielder was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.
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“If all the players said they are not going, there wouldn't be a World Cup, or if there was it would be meaningless”

Piara Powar Anti-racism campaigner

Uefa is investigating Toure's complaint that he was racially abused by some CSKA fans during Wednesday's Champions League game in Moscow.
CSKA deny racist chanting took place.
The Russian club, which said it was "surprised and disappointed" by Toure's allegation, will face a disciplinary hearing on 30 October.
If found guilty, Uefa could force CSKA to close part of its stadium for a future game.



A club statement read: "Having carefully studied the video of the game, we found no racist insults from fans of CSKA."
Spokesman Michael Sanadnze told BBC Radio 5 live: "We have nothing to hide, of course, and we have confirmation from the match delegate and the venue director that they themselves didn't hear anything special."
The Russian side's own Ivory Coast player, striker Seydou Doumbia, added: "I didn't hear anything like that from the CSKA fans.
"Yes, they're always noisy in supporting the team and try to put as much pressure as possible on our opponents, but they wouldn't ever allow themselves to come out with racist chants.



"So my Ivory Coast colleague is clearly exaggerating."
But Piara Powar, executive director of European anti-discrimination body Football Against Racism in Europe (Fare) and a member of Fifa's anti-discrimination taskforce, backed Toure's stance.
Uefa's sanctions against clubs for racist behaviour this season

• Full stadium closures: Dinamo Zagreb of Croatia, Legia Warsaw of Poland and Honved of Hungary
• Partial stadium closures: Lazio (originally given a full stadium closure that was reduced on appeal), Polish clubs Lech Poznan and Piast Gliwice, APOEL Nicosia of Cyprus and Croatian outfit HNK Rijeka

He said: "Yaya Toure is absolutely right in raising the spectre of African players or players of African heritage not going to the 2018 World Cup - and without them there will not be a World Cup in Russia.
"I wouldn't blame them - in this era players are the most powerful force and if all the players said they are not going there wouldn't be a World Cup, or if there was it would be meaningless."
While saying he did not envisage racism at a World Cup in Russia, Powar claimed the situation in the country's domestic football is "dire" and fuelled by far-right extremists.
Fare has identified banners supporting the Greek far-right political party Golden Dawn - which has a swastika-like symbol - being displayed in several stadiums in eastern Europe including Russia in the last month.
"In terms of the number of black players being abused, that is happening in club football in Russia and in that regard the situation is dire," Powar said.

[World Fan]

Been going on long enough. A line has to be drawn somewhere.

[HL]

Fast forward: It's 2018, Jamaica qualifies for World Cup in Russia.

The Russians are still ( genetically predisposed) to racism.

The decision is that black players should boycot the games.

What should Jamaica's stance be?

[USAF]

This time give YOUR opinion on what Jamaica should do ........And what has been Jamaica's stance & record on racism???

[Peter R]

There is precedence of a sort; the rebel tour (cricket) to South Africa.

[World Fan]

Not just Russia, not just football

Should be put to a referendum for the population to decide if we should go.

I have not had pleasant experiences with these people.


http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ce-netherlands


Black Pete exposes the Netherlands' problem with race

White people dressing up as fools with black faces is not the harmless Christmas fun that the Dutch make it out to be

• Siji Jabbar for This is Africa, part of the Guardian Africa Network
• theguardian.com, Wednesday 5 December 2012 10.23 EST
• Jump to comments (409)

A woman's face is painted to become a Black Pete in Soest in the Netherlands. Photograph: Bas Czerwinski/EPA

I once heard a joke that went something like this: when the world is coming to an end, move to the Netherlands because everything happens there 50 years later. A bit harsh, I thought, after all, the Dutch are a relatively progressive people with much to recommend them: from the high level of volunteering to absence of hysteria around subjects such as cannabis, prostitution, same-sex marriage and euthanasia. On the matter of race, though, you do wonder. Particularly around this time of year, by way of a character called "Zwarte Piet" (Black Pete).

In America you have Santa Claus, in the UK he's Father Christmas, and in the Netherlands he's called Sinterklaas. Unlike the other Santas, though, the Dutch Sinterklaas arrives with his slave/servant called Zwarte Piet. The slave-servant comes dressed like a renaissance minstrel: black face, painted red lips, afro wig. The arrival is a huge event: Sinterklaas and the Zwarte Pieten make a grand entrance, and the whole parade is broadcast on public television. Sinterklaas sits tall on a white horse while his black servants share out candy to the kids on the sidelines, and families from all over the country turn up to watch. Or course, there are always several Black Petes, typically played by white people, all in blackface, with red painted lips and afro wigs.

The transformation, however, is not complete with the outfit and greasepaint. The character must speak poor Dutch with a stupid accent, and must act childlike and mischievous when performing. And from mid-November, when Sintaklass and his servants arrive, you can see Zwarte Pieten all over, on television programmes and commercials and on the streets, acting the fool.

At schools across the country, children sing songs referring to the skin tone and character of the black servant "...even if I'm black as coal I mean well…", "Saint Nicolas, enter with your black servant", etc, and there are other old songs about Zwarte Piet in which he's made out to be a little bit stupid, a little bit clumsy, more akin to a child than an adult, the same generalisations previously applied to black people, but which can no longer be made explicitly.

This clip, which mocks the Zwarte Piet tradition, appeared on public television in 2007:
Click here to view the video on mobile What on is going on with the Dutch? How can such an abhorrent anachronism exist in a seemingly modern and progressive country? As one writer put it, "millions of black people were killed or enslaved by white people over four centuries, and millions more continue to suffer discrimination all over Europe and in the States, so this Zwarte Piet character is about as funny as wearing a swastika."

As I hinted in the first paragraph, Zwarte Piet is not the only sign that the Dutch have a problem with race. Dutch society also has more subtle ways of reminding black people of their place and keeping them there. If you spend any time in the Netherlands, you will soon hear the words "allochtoon" used in polite conversation.

People of "non-western" descent are labeled "allochtoon", not only by the white society, but also by law. "Allochtoon" is based on a Greek word, "allokhthon", and means "found in a place other than where they were formed". But no non-Dutch white person living in the Netherlands is referred to as allochtoon, only non-white people, Dutch and otherwise. These allochtonen, the "outsiders" (many of whom were born and raised in the Netherlands) are the ones typically accused by the right-wing politician Geert Wilders and others of exploiting the country's resources and social services while not integrating properly into Dutch society. The word allochtoon is thus used as a continuous reminder to people of colour in the Netherlands that white-Dutch people simply do not see them as an equal member of the society, let alone as Dutch, no matter multi-cultural said society might appear on the surface.

Yet a fifth of the Dutch population consists of people of colour. This includes people from former colonies such as Indonesia and Surinam, but also people whose roots lay in Morocco and Turkey. Since the 1980s, there has also been a steady stream of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa to the Netherlands. Some of them are now grandparents, with kids and grandkids who consider the Netherlands home (or try to, at any rate). All of these people are "allochtoon".

In this context, one can start to understand why the unemployment rate of non-white Dutch people (at 15% in the first quarter of 2012) is two-and-a-half times higher than the Dutch average. One also starts to understand why black and white Dutch people see nothing wrong with a film like Alleen Maar Nette Mensen ("Only Decent People") or why, in December last year, the editor of Dutch fashion magazine Jackie thought it was okay to give its readers fashion advice that they could dress like a "***** Bitch", associating the style with Rihanna. Rihanna, of course, didn't hold back in her response (she's not black Dutch, so one imagines she didn't know her place), and the editor was forced to resign. But here's the thing, many white and black people felt the editor would have kept her job, if the controversy hadn't been picked up outside the Netherlands. Those who objected were labelled "too sensitive". When the editor was first confronted about the racist slur, her response was that it was just a "bad joke".

Why do people keep defending Zwarte Piet? Is it that they really can't see that it is racist or that they don't want to see? One blogger (Toby Sterling) writes that actually, the people who defend Zwarte Piet know all to well that he is a racist caricature, but that they are experiencing the psychological phenomenon known as "cognitive dissonance": the brain filters out new information (Zwarte Piet is a racist caricature) that conflicts with what one already believes (I love Zwarte Piet and I am not a racist).

You don't have to have a degree in psychology or sociology to work out that the figure of Zwarte Piet, and the use of words like "neger" and "allochtoon" ensure the continued internalisation of ideas of superiority of white Dutch people, and of inferiority and marginalisation of black Dutch people. Nor do you need it to understand the associate power of symbols like Zwarte Piet. You can keep a symbolic boot on someone's neck, and it can be just as effective as doing so physically, more so, even.

The debate is also, as Lulu Wang writes, a discussion about citizenship and identity. "And because this discussion does not take place behind closed doors between politicians and intellectuals only, but in schools, between colleagues, family-members and friends, it offers us a chance to challenge old conceptions of self and other at many different levels. However, this annual debate is not sufficient to change things, but it can lead to more activism, a critical outlook and recognition of those situations where the same strategies of marginalisation are being used. The Black servant and his White master can not be isolated from the social context, Dutch society, in which they exist."

In researching this piece, and from discussing it with Dutch people, black and white, I discovered that this debate has been going on for years, every year. Initially, I thought that was cause for concern. Perhaps the defenders of the "tradition" believe so long as they don't listen to anything the black Dutch people say, the debate will never get beyond talk, and the anti-Piet campaigners will give up from exhaustion. But I was reassured that the numbers (black and white) of those against this "tradition" are indeed growing.

Playwright Mark Walraven, for instance, says he used to be one of the many white men who would paint their faces black each year to the delight of children. "I stopped after I began working with black people," he said. "Many people are offended by this symbol."

Four years ago, Walraven put on a play In the Shadow of the Saint about the debate over Black Pete at Amsterdam's Krater Theater. One of messages of his play is that you can still have Sinterklaas without Black Pete. "Many countries have abolished these kinds of things but in Holland they still exist," Walraven said. "Nevertheless, most Dutch don't consider themselves to be racist and feel they are being personally attacked when you criticise Black Pete," he said.

"The majority here in Holland refuse to talk about Black Pete. They are afraid that the people who discuss it want to take away Sinterklaas as a phenomenon."

• This article was amended on 6 December to clarify that the embedded video is a satirical one mocking the Black Pete tradition.

Read a longer version of this article on This is Africa

[HL]

I was waiting on a flight at the airport in Prague--and decided to shop around in the various stores.

Went in a liquor store, and was quite offended by a label on a bottle--depicting Black people as monkeys!! There were lots of other items that would not be acceptable in this part of the world.

EUROPE is still myred in racism.

To answer USAF above: I would support Jamaica not participating.

[Peter R]

What would REAAALLLYYY be nice is if EVERYONE boycotted the damn thing because of racism!!

[HL]

Indeed. The white players 'specially in the Championship, merely go through the "say no to racism" RITUAL.