The world, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, is slowly returning to its usual rhythm, and emotions on the football field hit a higher wave than in politics and even medicine. The scandal in Paris, where the UEFA Champions League match between Paris Saint-Germain and Istanbul Basaksehir was suspended due to racist remarks by the referees, is now a central event in world news.
It should be noted at the outset that UEFA is very strongly opposed to any political expression on the part of both players and spectators. It is forbidden to bring and display debatable political symbols in stadiums. It is also forbidden for players to make political statements on the pitch or in post-match press conferences. UEFA wants to distance itself as much as possible from any political disagreement in its infancy. These reservations do not apply to racism, because there is a global consensus that racism has no place in sport.
So what happened at the Paris Stadium? Pierre Webo, Turkey's assistant coach and former Cameroon national player, commented very emotionally on what was happening on the field and Sebastian Coltescu, the fourth official, urged the referee to show the red card to the unruly assistant coach. It should be noted that the team of judges was from Romania and spoke Romanian to each other. When the referree asked the fourth official who was the unruly one, the latter indicated in Romanian - that guy, the black one (negru, in Romanian).
Hearing the word - negru - Webo got riled up and would no longer calm down, constantly repeating - Why he said negro? Given that due to Covid restrictions, the game took place with virtually empty stands, these loud shouts from Webo echoed throughout the stadium. Webo, like a machine gun, repeated this phrase continuously for three minutes until he was convinced to go to the locker room. But he was replaced by a Basaksehir player from Senegal Demba Ba, who more calmly, but no less insistently, repeatedly asked the Romanian referee another question: “When you mention a white guy, you never say ‘this white guy’, you just say ‘this guy’, so why when you mention a black guy do you say ‘this black guy?” This question could theoretically be easily answered: because all the other coaches of the Istanbul team are white and Webo differed from them precisely with his skin color, which in itself is neither good nor bad.
If a white footballer were to play on an African team where everyone is dark-skinned, then to refer directly to him, term “the white guy” would be commonplace. I myself have been to equatorial Africa many times and have heard the word “mzungu” directed at me more than once. Let me be honest, it feels strange at that moment, because it is not very pleasant to hear a word in an incomprehensible language that clearly refers to you. At the same time, I don't think it is anything special. If you are white among black people, then you definitely stand out with your skin color and you have to deal with it.
As I said, all this would be theoretical, but in practice the context must be taken into account, in which it is clear racism to mention to a black person the color of his skin. Western European football referees would hardly allow such ambiguity, but the Romanian, speaking in his own language, forgot that in the civilized world of the 21st century, the word black can be extremely toxic in any inflection and it is better not to use it. Especially if it contains the root “negro” in your language.
The rest was already easy to predict. A long exchange of words began, which ended with the Istanbul team refusing to continue the game and leaving the field. This incident could also be ignored if it did not expose an important aspect of modern social relations. It is the extremely heightened sense of being offended. Excessive sensitivity to certain issues has gone beyond any reason. People have become (or are deliberately trying to become) so extremely sensitive that they explode over anything that can be treated as an insult to them. This particular sensitivity is present all over the world. In Russia, laws are passed that forbid offending the feelings of believers; the Muslim ummah feels offended by the caricatures of the prophet and demands that the rest of the world not be allowed to blaspheme, but for dark-skinned people, the border can be crossed at every step if you are not careful enough.
Today's "good behavior" teachers use simple criteria to properly assess the situation and understand which side to take. It is necessary to determine who is in a "position of power" and who is in a "subordinate position". In the event of a conflict, the "oppressed" side must be taken. When it comes to the conflict at the Paris Stadium, the reaction of Western and Eastern European societies is quite different. Why? Largely because there have traditionally been few immigrants from Africa in Eastern Europe and Eastern Europeans can look at the problem of racism in the West as if from the sidelines. And what do we see there?
I emphasize that this is just how it seems from the sidelines. What it looks like from the inside is a whole other matter. So it seems from the sidelines (and this is also evidenced by the body language of the people involved in the conflict) that the "aggressor" (the one in position of power) is not the Romanian judge Coltescu. Rather, it is the Senegalese striker Demba Ba, who in a relatively calm but insistent and convincing manner explains that you, the whites, have insulted us and will now have to pay dearly for it. It is clear that it will be difficult for a Romanian judge to explain this away and that a big strikethrough line has been drawn over his career as an international referee. Now he has a mark of shame burned on his forehead forever - a racist.
Furthermore, it should be noted that both in this case and in many similar cases, it is not a real insult in substance, but a purely formal one, the main function of which is to demonstrate who is in charge here. It is a bit like a situation when in the presence of a lout, you curse without thinking anything of it, but you are immediately "billed". What? Did you just insult my mother, you pig? You will have to pay for that.
On any issue, including racism, we can come to the limit at some point, when some invisible threshold is crossed and the conditional "victim" and "persecutor" change places. From the sidelines, it seems that in the West this threshold has already been exceeded and the former victims have themselves become aggressors, while the former aggressors have turned into intimidated rabbits who are afraid to even say a word in their defense.
I recently spoke with a colleague who had once accompanied our Prime Minister (not the current one) on a visit to the United States. This happened shortly after September 11, 2001, when foreign guests were assigned an impressive security guard. "As we walked down the street, the guards literally swept to the side the oncoming people if they were white. If they were black, we walked around them,” he said.
It is clear that any manifestation of racism must be combated and is not acceptable in a civilized society, but that does not mean that former victims can become aggressors themselves and that we should allow them to shamelessly dominate others. Human history shows that it can end badly.