Looking back in history to the 19th century Europe, colonization and global expansion created a sense of competition amongst European nations. This sparked global rivalries over territories and was a catalyst to the age of nationalism in Europe. The competition between countries venture of manifest destiny was the leading catalyst in the rise of nationalism. It is no surprise that the nationalism and competitive nature of 19th century expansionism, created a platform for the rivalry and competition in modern sports (Bottenburg). Global rivalries in sports are played out in, major events such as the world cup and the Olympics. These events bring out the die-hard and the casual fan together in a global celebration of sporting and national pride. The World Cup of soccer is a great place to begin looking at the impact modern sports have on nationalism and national identity. Every four years 32 teams from across the globe come together in celebration of the worlds most popular game, in hopes their country wins the worlds most coveted trophy. Nationalism in this tournament comes in an array of positivity and negativity. The atmosphere, colors, flags, fans cheering and chanting songs shows the role of symbolism. On the other hand, hooliganism and violence amongst fans show us the negative aspect of attaching such strong nationalistic ties to a
essays on nationalism in sport
The connection between sports and such political and social phenomena as imperialism and nationalism has been the focus of various academic studies. Imperialism is the desire of a country to gain control over and influence other countries. Nationalism is the belief that one nation is better than other ones. Analysis has shown that both imperialism and nationalism can be connected to sports and the sports paradigm. There are three major points of describing this connection: sports as a worldview, sports as a venue, and sports as a political tool.
Second, sports provide a venue for imperialism and nationalism. In international sports competitions, the stadium becomes a sort of a battlefield, and the game becomes a symbolic war. An important aspect of this process is that the playing teams are defined in terms of their nationalities (Gleaves and Llewellyn 1). Sports fans constitute an environment where the themes of nationalism and national superiority are popular (Bogdanov 20). These themes can promote violent actions such as attacks on the fans of other national teams.
Nationalism and sports twisted in a way that both provides a symbolic competition among different nations. The national conflicts are mostly reflected through the sports matches. Sometimes sports also use as a vibrant tool of diplomacy. However, contrary to the basic rules of games, which carried out to please the participants, the involvement of political motives in the sports are the matter of routine activity. The influence of political and nationalistic ideologies in sports is present throughout the history of games. The same is happening in the current postmodern world. For example, the English newspaper of UK the Guardian has written about the winning of Iceland football team euro in two thousand sixteen that what is the fantasy of the adventure, which has captured the nation and it is turning into a nationwide romance. This shows how sports have brought people from one country together and provide the platform for joy, love and pride. With this example of the football match, we have an idea that how identities of nations form from the individuals, nationals, and global interactions. Events like Olympics and world cups provided a blunt picture of national race, characters and strict competitions. The postmodern era of power has also influenced sports in various ways and change the simple concept of games that was just to entertain and enjoy.
Generating the national ethos or pride from the sports is a standard tool among the member of various nations. People in general also get pride when their team win over the players of other countries. The waving the flag and listening to the national anthems are essential activities in the present day sports activity. It is a critical tool in convening an indirect message to the confronted nation. Using the actions of fans at ceremonies after the conclusion of the match policymakers try to influence the people of other countries. The free version of sports activities has developed a sense of fear among political analysts that the ground for the match might become the stage of political debate (Bairner, 2001). Regardless of the bright dresses and showings of individuals in sports events with their background symbols, there is the close link between nationalism and the sports. Like in the history of Ireland Gaelic sports are significantly taken up in an over nationalistic tone. Those people have banned from sports activity if the individual seen by the authorities as playing with the association football, rugby, cricket or game that belongs to the origin of British. Contrary to the rugby and soccer, the fascist nationals of the Italian state have developed their game and named as volata. The step was taken against the replacement of favourite games that were of British origin. The citizens of Italian link their newly grown match with the historical perspective and games played before for cultural safety.
In Scotland, the derby firm, which was featuring the Celtic, has linked the game historically with the Catholic community and rangers lined with the Protestant population. They also have seen trends along with religious and political lines. The policy of the Spanish team of football in the picking of Basque players was highly linked with the nationalism of Basque. Similarly, the FC Barcelona is promoting their youth in a series of Catalan players such as Carlos and Xavi. The club is widely seen as the de facto representatives of Catalonia. The same case happens in Canada where old and successful players of hockey team the Montreal Canadians are always symbolising as francophone. The period of seventy-five to nineteen ninety-five political influence of games was enormous between the Nordiques and Quebec City. Different units and group still influence the ideas of players playing from different teams. Political and religious thoughts are incorporated along with the enjoyment that the participant of any match have, providing ways to the strong relation of nationalism and sports.
The concept of the nationalism commonly used to grasp the ideologies and the collective experiences of the nation. The phenomena of the national identity also reflect the same, which is also propounded by the various theorist. The categorisation where we provide detail about different symbols, as assigned to them, are the requirements mostly associated with the concept of the ideology of nations. The sports base national narratives are commonly produced through the conversation, imposition and incentives of the precipitate mechanism. The general discourse on the nationalism reveals that how sports take on the ritual forms might influence the national feelings and the sentiments (Bairner, 2008). Games are now in the modern society became a central symbol of the nationalistic views, and it is activating the identity stories about the members of the state. The national pride coming from sports is one way to look at the outcomes of such processes. Being proud of the success of our athletes, we are mostly convinced that we are best at football in an attractive way, is a feeling of all about banal nationalism.
Those individuals with their strong national sentiment also proud of the success of their athletes. Sports nationalism might depend on the factor of affection with the sports. Despite not showing their strong feeling for the nation, some are the people, which feel national proud on their players. Smith and Calhoun pointed out that nationalism is placed under the thick layers of culture and among this relationship between religion and the conscious national patriotism can be very close. Religion is close in connection with nationalistic ideas, as it was linked to the ritual practices, places and the people with the flavour of the nation. The comparative research concluded that culture has primary relation with cognition of individual. Educated class of the society have the better understanding of the otherness. They can quickly adjust to the cosmopolitan atmosphere with the image that they are part of the larger social group. People with the higher education are lesser proud of their nationalistic sports than those people who have less knowledge. Material resources also influence the ideology of nationalism because people with high finances feel secured than that of those having minor investments. However, people with increased income should be less nationalistic than others who have low income. In the same way, gender also plays the significant role about the relation of sports and political ideology.
The result of gender involvement in sports nationalism is because males are more prone to the sports and playing, while females are less interested in games. Similarly, older or mature people are more nationalistic than the younger generation. Older people have experience sports and other events like politics and wars while young class have public attitude due to interaction and education. However, direct participation in the sports events and related physical activity might increase the sports nationalism for every age of the person. There are several national characteristics, which overwhelm the concept of sports nationalism. Some of these characteristics have distinguished the national experience, which fosters them towards nationalism. National prosperity, democratic values and political and cultural phenomena are the structural factors leading to the sports nationalism. Income of the individual, education and cultural globalisation of country also featured the nationalistic ideas (Wong, 2008). The meaning of cultural internationalisation included the information availed by people, expansion of views, more cosmopolitan citizens with education. 2ff7e9595c
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