The treatment of Mario Balotelli, and football's fight against racism

There is perhaps not a player in the modern era who has attracted as much media attention, good and bad, as Mario Balotelli. At times he seems to court it, matching wacky antics with phenomenal talent - a former manager of his, Roberto Mancini, said he would be as good as Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi, if only he could focus his energies into playing.

 

During his time at Manchester City the British media focused largely on the antics, the laughs - like the time he wandered into a college in Manchester looking for a toilet, or the time he drove around the city high-fiving fans after winning the Manchester derby. They also looked at the two contrasting sides of his playing - the talent, which saw him set up the goal which gave Manchester City their first league title in decades, and the flaws, which saw his almost conspire to lose City the league when he went rogue in a match against Arsenal, getting sent off for a tackle that could have broken an opponents leg and generally causing his team more hassle than good.

 

He's since moved to AC Milan, where, unfortunately, most of the coverage has focused on the racism he has encountered. Most recently fans of Inter Milan (who Balotelli played for before moving to Manchester) abused him during a game against Chievo. This is not the first time that Balotelli has been the target of racist abuse from fans, both at club level and international when playing for Italy, and it is likely that the Inter fans attitude to him has soured since he joined their big rivals (as happens with just about any football player). Although he has not been at the club a month, there is also another controversy concerning his race - Paolo Berlusconi, brother of Silvio and vice-president of AC Milan, referred to Mario as '...' - 'the family's little n-----'. The club released a press photo of Paolo and Mario shaking hands during a training conference, but it is difficult to see how the incredibly offensive remark can be easily glossed over. Not only because of the use of the n word, but also by the connotations of making Balotelli sound as if he is owned in some way by the family, a fact exacerbated by the rumours that AC Milan signed him to give Silvio Berlusconi a boost in the forth-coming Italian election. Not only has he been racially abused in his time at Milan, Balotelli is also being treated as a commodity, a piece of arm candy.

 

Racism in British football, that we know of, happens, by and large, in isolation. Last season the English Premier League saw two major race-based controversies - Luis Suarez of Liverpool, and John Terry of Chelsea, both found to have racially abused opponents during matches, and both given bans. Subsequently, support was shown by both Liverpool and Chelsea fans to their respective players, although both men are now booed at just about every ground they visit. The media is therefore surprised when this new-found tolerance is not replicated across Europe. Before England were due to travel to Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine the BBC ran a documentary about the level of racism that occurs at club level in these countries, largely due to the prevalence of neo-nazi groups in the Ultras section of each team's support. In Spain, accusations of racist insults by several Barcelona players began to drip out, before, more and more, it became apparent that racist abuse by players in Spain, and especially in El Clasico, was to be expected. It was part of trying to put off your opponent. Again, in Italy, a pre-season game between AC Milan and Pro Patria was distrupted by fans of the latter team racially abused Kevin Prince Boateng.

 

While often players attempt to shrug off the insults, Boateng took an approach which shocked everyone, and propelled the game from no-mark friendly to one which prompted headlines across Europe - he walked off. After hearing monkey chants whenever he was in possession, Boateng kicked the ball at the fans who had abused him, and walked off. His team followed him in solidarity, leaving players of the Pro Patria to reprimand their owns fans at the touchline.

 

This is perhaps the most radical and significant step taken by a player to combat racism. Their shirking of tackling the abuse (which is understandable, given the pressure that players are under) leaves it to governing bodies such as Fifa and Uefa to tackle racism, which they are hugely ineffective at. The usual incident pointed to here is that of Nicolas Bentnar, who was given a fine of £80,000 during the Euros for exposing his branded underwear (this article contrasts that incident with other major fines given out by football governing bodies). This is more than any team has ever been fined for racist abuse by their fans. In the eyes of Uefa and Fifa, making monkey chants at players is bad, but advertising a non-sponsor during a match is even worse. For all the claims to want to remove racism from football, their paltry actions undermine them straight away. Fifa seem to maintain that by getting players to wear 'Kick Racism Out of Football' t-shirts before a game will indeed kick racism out of football. It hasn't, and it won't. Sepp Blatter, the comically inept and corrupt head Fifa, also refused to back Boateng in walking off, while maintaining that he against racism, and wanted it removed from football. of  The lack of positive action from governing bodies, I believe, means that players who have been racially abused will want to ignore it, and play it down, as they have no one to back them up.

 

The actions of Boateng and his Milan teammates is incredibly important. It shows the only way in which football can effectively tackle it's racism problem. If the withdrawal of football itself does not stop the fans - and this, unfortunately, is likely, as racist fans have shown time and time again that the docking of points, or issuing of fines to their teams does not stop them - then the withdraw of football from Fifa will. It will disrupt to product, and thus the revenue. The AC Milan game against Pro Patria was an insignificant game in footballing terms - anyone without a keen interest in either team is unlikely to have known it was going ahead - but imagine if it happened in a high profile league game, or even Champions League game. If Balotelli, or Boateng, or any other player, is abused during the up-coming Milan derby and both teams walk off, what will happen then. Perhaps very little, it may lead to more walk-offs, and, at that point, Fifa will have to act. It is shameful that it would take them to that point, but it is better than not reaching there at all.

The Polite British Far-Right

It's a tragic fact, that the mechanisms of capitalism swing every-closer to 'disaster' setting, political extremism on the right flares up. In Europe, which is straining most under the weight of the ongoing economic crisis, it has been the most noticable. Greece is the obvious example, where Golden Dawn, an openly violent facist party are currently polling third. In France, in Italy, all across Europe, the ugly head of facism rises, spouting Islamophobia.

What about in Britain? Our premier far-right party, the BNP, have disinegrated, but the individual splinters still protrude; the EDL, the British Freedom Party, the National Front - all offering a slight variation on the same old hatred (the EDL claims to be welcoming to non-whites and non-Christians, so if that ain't your thing, you might what to head by the openly white-supremacist NF).

If you look at the trends in the last few years, the rise of the extreme right-wing in Europe has been marked by parties that do embrace a form of facism, but in Britain, where, despite a flurry of electoral successes a few years ago for the BNP, they have made very little gain. Has the UK been spared, the trend passed it by? Not quite.

In Britain it's currently all about Ukip. They've been slowly building on successes in European and council elections, working towards calling themselves the new 'third party' in British politics, taking the place of the Lib Dems (this despite them never actually having won a seat in parliament - their only representation coming after a defection from the Tory party).

Ukip's rise in popularity has worried the Conservatives. They feared that Cameron was too close to the political middle ground to secure the traditional Tory voter base - he was, and many of them defected right to Ukip. In some places the popularity of Ukip has even been blamed for splitting the Tory vote, causing them to lose an estimated 40 seats at the last election. Michael Fabricant, who does something for the Tory party (he's high up, I don't care any more than that) has proposed an election pact between the two parties, as they increasingly seem like star-crossed lovers, split over a need to appeal to the centre vote.

The problem here is that Ukip represent the same ground as the BNP and their ilk - they just have a greater grasp of political PR. Ukip supporters and BNP supporters largely agree on the parties' main electoral points - immigration, British superiority, anti-Europeanism (unless they want to buy our stuff).

From the Guardian article 'Ukip shares more with the far right than it admits':

While they also appear deeply concerned about immigration and Islam, Ukip supporters are less intense and less hostile than their BNP rivals. They are also far more likely to consider violence as "never justifiable".

At the same time, however, Ukip critics tend to ignore the fact that their party does have considerable policy overlaps with the extreme right. Like the BNP, at the last general election Ukip demanded an end to uncontrolled immigration, tighter border controls, the expulsion of illegal immigrants, the removal of benefits for remaining immigrants and an "end the active promotion of the doctrine of multiculturalism by local and national government and all publicly funded bodies". This radical right pitch to voters included an end to political correctness and a ban on the burqa, and led Ukip to invite Geert Wilders to show an anti-Islam documentary in the House of Lords.

Ukip is not a rightwing extremist party, but on the doorsteps of voters it is often pushing the same message as the extreme right.

 What Ukip are able to do is exploit the British love for decent, honest 'chaps' who have little time for the political establishment (which Ukip claim to be outside, but are earnest supporters of). Their leader Nigel Farage smokes and is known to drink pints at lunch (probably British bitter). He is the walking embodiment of people who are just a little bit tired of political correctness and health and safety, and the liberals who push them on society.

Not mentioned in the article is Ukip's homophobic record - during the recent outcry in Rotherham, when the local council removed foster kids from the care of Ukip members because of the racist views of the party, Ukip were playing the victims. The actions of the council were perfect political fodder for the party, who used it to present a case of them being victimised and attacked by 'liberals' for their beliefs, in exactly the same way any far-right party would. (The BNP used to pull the 'they're trying to silence us because we know The Truth' card on several occasions.) What was hardly mentioned was the views of the Croydon North by-election candidate for Ukip, and the party's culture, media and sport spokesman, who said that it was wrong to allow gay couples to foster children. It was the usual stuff about the destruction of the 'traditional' Christian family, of course. Pinknews.co.uk has a further article it's worth reading about several other cases of homophobia in the party.

  Ukip supporters burn picture of openly-gay Lib Dem politican Brian Paddock

 

Listing the idiotic views of Ukip could be an enternal, Sysiphsian task. The crux of this article is this - Ukip differ from the BNP only in style and media presentation. They are slick, unencumbered by the Doc Martin-ed skinheads which are associated with other far-right movements. This makes them more dangerous. They are able to move, clandestine, into the wider political arena, trading on their created identity as a moderate party to come close to securing a place in government, as part of a Tory-Ukip coalition. They exist under the cloak that all 'protest vote' parties use - no one actually pays attention to their policies, they just want an alternative. An alternative Ukip certainly may be, but they are not even better than the Tories.

The end of the BNP is not the end of racism

Picture taken from politicalscrapbook.net

 

Nick Griffin severed another artery of his already mortally-wounded career earlier, tweeting the private address of a gay couple who had won a ruling against the owners of a B&B who had refused them entry based on their sexuality. The original story emerged a few years ago, if I remember correctly, but the court case only wrapped up today.

 

Griffin's basis for these tweets was apparently that people should be allowed to turn away anyone they want from their house - which is a neat way of disguising your homophobia, I reckon. As is using the phrase 'heterophobia', which has afflicted literally no one in history, except those who think not being about to daub 'fag scum' on a gay neighbour's car is classed as a breach on their human rights, and a breach undertaken solely because they're not gay. To complain about being disadvantaged as a heterosexual - in the same way a person would claim to be disadvantaged because they were a white, western, Christian male - is hugely offensive to those groups who have been genuinely disadvantaged in society, and continue to be at all junctures.

 

So Griffin's career is gone, even more than it was already. His BNP party, which for all intents and purposes he embodies, has limped through a collapse in finances (it couldn't even raise enough money to stand candidates in last Scottish local council elections), in-fighting (Griffin has used party rules to solidify his standing as leader, meaning that disgruntled members leave than attempt reform) a splintering of the far-right in Britain, between both political groups and street-level protest movements, and, as a result of all three, a hemorrhaging of votes at all levels. The surge of support the party experienced as a result of Labour voters leaving their traditional party has subsided as the Tories have regained their 'hatred figures for the working class' throne.

 

The BNP, once the figurehead of the British far-right, have faded from view, and will only keep fading. It didn't even seem that long ago that Griffin was panicking the establishment and provoking swathes of though-pieces with his impending appearance on Question Time. How he sits at home, tweeting angrily into the virtual abyss like the rest of us.

 

I for one, as someone who would proudly call themselves an anti-fascist, am happy to see the BNP go. Thousands, millions of people across the country will cheer their demise, which is becoming clearer even to those with only a casual interest in politics (the initial signs of the death of the BNP came by piecing together the tabloid-style gossip articles of Hope Not Hate). However, I still feel uneasy. 

 

The BNP are not British racism as a whole. As a figurehead they essentially gave a face to the movement - a face to be egged, a face to be despised. But the demise of the BNP does not mean the demise of racism and fascism in this country. Many people who voted for the BNP were disaffected Labour voters looking for a protest vote, and the party were able to fill the void - something that the Lib Dems couldn't do, and the Tories wouldn't even bother trying to do. These people will perhaps not vote for them again, and may go back to Labour, which is fine.

 

But many more voted for the BNP because they genuinely hate and fear immigrants, Muslims, or homosexuals. These people require an outlet. Parties like the English Democrats, the British Freedom Party allow for this, despite their petty squabbles. More worryingly, the EDL, and it's Scottish and Welsh associates (which are, admittedly, less popular) have allowed frustrations with the slow movement of the BNP to develop into a hooligan-based street movement.

 

For example - the BNP promise a break-through at the next election. Months of campaigning follow, but they finished 5th, barely retaining their deposit. Wait another five years, they say, and we'll have another crack at it. For all that the BNP have warned of a current crisis of immigration and Sharia law, they don't seem capable of doing anything quickly.

 

Along come the EDL, which is able to hold flash-mobs just a few hours after they find out that ASDA is selling Muesli, which looks a bit like it says MUSLIM! They have a bad demonstration, they can just try again next weekend, rather than next year, or at some point within the next five. The EDL are a greater threat that the BNP ever were, mainly for this reason - they allow the mobility and physical manifestation of this hatred. We can only bless them for being a disorganised, drunken mess - had they taken on the usual neatness of fascism and all started wearing the same colour shirts the people would have got behind them years ago and the government would have fallen.

 

What has puzzled many people is why significant numbers of the electorate choose Nick Griffin and his BNP as their representatives, and, now, how they can also back the EDL, and their various off-shoots. One answer is the simplest - support for extreme politics always surges in times of economic crisis. It happened, perhaps most notably, in the Weimar Republic, where the vote of the Nazi party directly correlates with the state of the economy. Greece has experienced a rise from both sides, with SYRIZA and Golden Dawn both emerging from electoral obscurity in the past few years.

 

But the real answer is more worrying, and harder to face. The racism which manifests itself directly in the far-right comes from our society as a whole. It comes from the newspapers, like the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Sun, the Daily Star, which regularly run negative stories about asylum seekers and Muslims. These institutions would deny that they are racist, and will attack far-right groups (although the Star has, in the past, ran pro-EDL stories) they contribute to the creation of a racist hegemony. They maintain the idea of Britain as a white, Christian, straight country, and their attitude in the stories reflect this. 

 

If the only news you got about Muslims was from The Sun, and the only person you talked to about Muslims got their information from the Daily Star, the allegedly-subconsious pattern of anti-Islam stories would likely forment in your mind - especially if these people are made a scapegoat for your problems*.

 

Celebrating the death of the BNP, and perhaps soon the EDL, is good, and I surely will. But we, as a society, must not only be wary of the other groups that spring up in their place, but of racism as a whole. Racism does not only exist when manifested in a political group. It seeps into every area of society, usually hidden in plain site - on the front page of a national newspaper, for example.

 

*Just thinking aloud here (well, typing aloud, or something) but can there be any correlation between the fact that many people in post-industrialised areas live in deprivation because of the policies of Thatcher, and that the newspapers which run stories claiming that 'immigrants took all our jobs' supported Thatcher?