Dr. Frank's What's-it

See also the brilliant book Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Soccer, by English journalist David Winner. If I knew how to do the linky to the amazon.com page, I would.

Winner, unlike Buruma, seems to think that the Ajax=Jewish connection predates the war.

He quotes several older Amsterdammers, most of them "disgusted" by the Ajax fans' faux Zionism, but says that the young take it in stride:

"Yves Girath, publisher of Jewish Journal magazine, says: 'The Ajax board should have said "This is simply not possible" but they accepted it years ago. When the other fans insult us, it's not because they hate Jews but because they hate Ajax.'"

Winner on an Ajax away match in Israel: "When the Israeli media billed the 1999 UEFA Cup match between Ajax and Israeli team Hapoel Haifa as a 'Jewish derby', non-Jewish Ajax fans appeared on television saying how excited they were to be 'going home'. F-Side members [Ajax hooligans], accustomed to being treated like dangerous animals, were in Israel given VIP treatment and received like long-lost cousins."

Which is all well and good, if a bit strange, until you read that one of the Feyenoord chants is "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas," and you can't help but wonder why people don't realize that it's gone too far.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the famous Dutch "pillarized" society, which I think lasted up into the seventies. Catholics went to Catholic shops and restaurants, lived in Catholic neighborhoods, read Catholic newspapers and watched a state-run Catholic TV stations. Likewise for the Calivinists and, oddly enough, the Socialists. Could it be that claiming Ajax as a "Jewish" club was a kind of rebellion against all that?

"And what did such crowds do before Auschwitz became a reference point?"
Well, they made monkey noises at black players.
http://www.soccernet.com/columns/2000/1019/20001019featspeck.html

Or, if you favor the Old Firm derby, the classic Catholic/Protestant debate will do nicely.
http://www.realmaroonfc.com/documents/feat_sectarianism_5.htm

I agree with you Frank - the books that have dealt with the underbelly of European football have only scratched the surface; generally taking one country (or even one club) for a subject. Mass movements are fascinating, if often ghastly, things, and football provides hundreds of small-scale movements in which people can adopt the passions and blissful anonymity of true believers.
It's often said that Americans are the most sports mad people on the planet - why don't we do this?

I value "modesty" as an ethic, I hate the very concept of appearing to brag, much less engage in the evil practice. But I can't believe that this sort of shit exists in WESTERN CIVILIZATION.

That is to say, mock the McDonald's and the reality tv shows all Europe wants, I refuse to believe that the United States is the standard bearer for CIVILITY...nay, CIVILIZATION. As the most powerful nation on Earth, I demand we defy history, act responsibly, act modestly, and respect the world community (except...you know...when they back Saddam Husseins of the world).

This sort of shit would cause riots in the United States. If there is any value for Political Correctness, which we rightfully make fun of, this is it. I honestly couldn't believe any single American would sink to the levels that tens of thousands of Europeans apparently can do with relative ease.

At least this revelation makes me feel much better about "unilateralism", at least by ourselves. It even justifies it. I'd just feel better if there were more "checks and balances" by equally or superior nations, morally. Unfortunately, they don't exist, I hear...

"I honestly couldn't believe any single American would sink to the levels that tens of thousands of Europeans apparently can do with relative ease."

Well, maybe your experience has been different to mine, but I don't find this hard to believe. I encountered racism (true, nasty racism -- not subversive or implied racism, but white people dismissing black people with the most vile language we've all heard at one time or another) almost every day when I was growing up in America. I do share the sense of disbelief, though, around the fact that such large groups think it's funny and clever and acceptable to do this sort of thing, though.

Well Jackie D, I will admit to being rather young and would readily argue that, what I believe to be is a remarkable LACK of racism in America is a recent phenomenom, I did live in the South for a good amount of my life and could not even contemplate the racism occuring there that I hear in anecdotes from Europe.

It just seems European racism is so effortless, so natural, and so ACCEPTABLE. And that, as you said, mob mentality so readily sucks it up and plays the part is pretty eye opening. I'm really under the impression that there are more circumstances than not where someone can make a blatantly racist statement in a public, group setting, and possibly not experience a difference of opinion.

I've never been to Europe, so hopefully I've been decieved, but if I have, I've been decieved by a MOUNTAIN of anecdotal evidence.

On the other hand, Matt, how many American sports teams -- how many European ones -- have a fan base that is enthusiastically internationalist?

I'm talking about Ajax, not Feyenoord. From what I understand, Ajax took up being "Jewish" long before Feyenoord became "Anti-Semitic."

It's an odd thing: I would say that I've encountered (comparatively) little anti-black racism in Europe. What I have witnessed is a fair amount of racism and nationalism against those from the India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Middle East in general and those who are visibly or audibly from Eastern Europe, as well as a startling amount of anti-Semitism. Where I've lived in the UK (two places in the Midlands, which is very heavily populated with those from the Indian subcontinent, or who are British-born but of that descent; a very white, posh London suburb and my current home in northeast London, an area with a high Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi population), black people have always been almost invisible -- something that is very odd to me.

I don't know how remarkable the supposed lack of racism in America is. I would think that would be hard for a white person like me to say. I do know that my step-father and step-siblings, who are black, would not share that view -- and having witnessed some of the crap that's been blatantly and unashamedly thrown their way, I would tend to agree with them. Are some things called racism which aren't? Absolutely. But that doesn't address the amount of racism that does exist. How fortunate I am not to suffer from it -- the anti-Americanism I encounter is hardly comparable, but angering all the same.

I don't know why crowds in Europe find it acceptable to participate in this kind of thing. Is it because they are yobs, plain and simple? Wish I knew. But the only difference I see between the racism I've seen in Europe and the racism I've seen in the US, apart from the targets, is that the American brand is a bit more subversive. But I have seen the ugly depths that such Americans will sink to, so I can't pretend we have any superiority when it comes to hatefulness.

(FWIW, I come from an area with pretty much no Jewish population, and consequently never encountered anti-Semitism until I came to the UK. Maybe that's why it still shocks me so much. Either that or the fact that people are so matter-of-fact about it, in a "Well, there's hardly any of them, but they control everything anyway -- tell me there's nothing to that" sort of way. You may have noticed something similar in some of the more ridiculous coverage of the Iraq war.)

Pretty damn interesting points, Hank and Jackie.

Of course, it does cut both ways. Here's a touching little exchange between an F-Sider and some members of the Tel Aviv Maccabi Ultras mob:

"when I was against haifa last year and after the game there was a fight with some arabs of Haifa and some people of T-A was very nice I enjoy
and I say at another time: HOOLIGANS you write like that and not with 'S ok understand?

"If the Ultras/hooligans of T-A want to come to a Ajax game, Let me know ok? some people can sleep here"

The Ajax hooligan calls himself "Mossad Maccabi."

http://www.ultras.co.il/eng_forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8&whichpage=1

Pew Research poll that's interesting:

http://people-press.org/reports/images/185-10.gif

Full story here:

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=185

Jackie, that is a terrific, well-stated comment. I agree: I can honestly say that I had never personally witnessed anything that I could positively identify as anti-Semitism till I started visiting England. It was the last thing I expected to find there, I can tell you.

It is indeed the matter-of-fact quality that is most shocking. You just can't believe the things that come out of the mouths of otherwise normal, decent, forward-thinking people, when it comes to Jews. Many's the time I've experienced the rough equivalent of the scene in Monty Python's Meaning of Life where Terry Jones as cleaning woman recites a poem that ends bathetically with "at least we don't work for Jews." Usually, there is no bucket of vomit handy, however.

A similar sort of scenario can come up when you're a Yankee travelling in the South. People can say really shocking racist things at the most surprising moments and with a bizarrely gentle demeanor. (Sometimes I have the impression that they're goading me, just trying to see how I'll react. I don't have that impression in England in re: Jews. In that case it seems as though it simply never occurs to them that what they're saying might be something someone would wonder about.)

And there is, as you say, a great deal less black/white racial tension in London (the London I know, anyway) than there is in America.

However, the "gas the Jews" chants that we've been discussing are something of a completely different order and scale, and maybe of a different essence, than either of those things. Offhand comments like those reflect prejudice, ignorance, a disturbing cultural proclivity perhaps that is worthy of comment, scrutiny and perhaps cause for worry. Mass pro-extermination sing-alongs, on the other hand, directed at Jews, celebrating the Holocaust (even "in jest," if that's the right word) is just so out there, so inconceivable that I just don't know what to say about it. It may be related to the former in some way that I can't quite put together, but to me it is utterly impossible to fathom how people can participate in it or even just witness it and find it unworthy of note. (Which appears to be the case. Thousands upon thousands must have witnessed it over the years; but only a few seem to have judged it worthy of comment. Which is amazing. I've never seen it written of till just the other day.)

It's certainly impossible to imagine anything like that happening at an American sporting event. (A rollicking sing-along in praise of lynching at an A's game, for example.) It was difficult for me to believe that it happened at European sporting events, till I saw it attested in several trustworthy sources.

Matt's original comments had to do with racism, and the response centered on the lack of anti-black racism in Europe. Well, sure - the patterns of immigration ensure that other groups will be the primary targets of native idiots. But the question is does the racism against, say, South Asians in England match anti-black racism in the US. With race riots in the north, and the ubiquitousness of the epithet 'Paki,' it would take a whole lot of that nebulous, 'subversive' racism to match it.
Doktor: You're right about the way the racist soccer chants 'are something of a completely different order and scale, and maybe of a different essence, than either of those things.'
I still haven't quite figured out with that essence is. It's a fascinating topic, and it would be tremendously difficult to untangle. Part of me still believes that it's actually less worrying than other forms of racism - I think it's because when you see something this far beyond the pale, your brain associates it with satire. "I mean, no one could be that ghastly and actually mean it...right? It's a kind of dumb joke, isn't it?" It's clearly not satire, but I keep thinking that no one capable of dressing himself could say such things in public and really mean them.

AJAX AMSTERDAM

CAN'T BE STOPPED