Media double standards on football violence
Article by Sven Niekel
Editorial credit: kovop / Shutterstock.com
For anyone in Europe tuning into the FIFA World Cup, it was impossible to ignore some of the controversies it sparked. While the hosting by Qatar and FIFA itself have been scrutinized from a multitude of angles, one issue has received a particularly one-sided view: the riots. When people of predominantly Moroccan descent took to the streets in the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Germany to celebrate their victory or vent their frustration after their defeat, it sparked heated arguments as to what motivated them to do so. Many were quick to blame Muslim culture and Islamic beliefs and did so unapologetically. A Belgian political commentator, Johan Sanctorum, framed these “ethnic revolts” as follows:
“Soccer is not the cause [for these riots], but the pretext. This is a periodical manifestation of a violent (Moroccan) subculture […] which is fed by a cocktail of Moroccan nationalism, mixed with Muslim resentment against Western society with the related hate discourse of a second and third-generation immigrant that sucks at school and does not want to participate in society and enjoys disruption […]. These Moroccan communities must assimilate in our society, so that these explosive clusters of hate dissipate.”
Among the avid football fans, this line of reasoning should raise a few eyebrows. After all, football matches get very emotional and unruly celebration is nothing new. Were these events truly that exceptional? Moreover, if this is a ‘Muslim’ or ‘Moroccan’ phenomenon, then what explains riots in general?
Graph made by the author of the article using data gathered from several media outlets
If you look at some of the more noteworthy football matches that involved violence, you can see that arrests were indeed quite high. This is in part because the police will make arrests if fans are called to but refuse to vacate the area. Real injuries, however, are remarkably rare. As various Belgian (de Morgen) and Dutch newspapers reported about the event, there were a few damaged cars, destroyed benches and multiple razor electric scooters were set ablaze. Ten individuals were detained, and a camera team was harassed. Nothing good, but also nothing particularly special in terms of football fan scrapes.
It surely does not compare with the violent outbursts of football hooliganism. When England played against Russia in 2016, some 32 people sustained injuries. When Germany played against Sweden in 2006, 122 people were arrested and 20 people were injured and in 2005, when Ajax and Feynoord fought it out, there were 52 injuries. This is not to point to a cause, but rather to point out that events during the Moroccan matches were not so violent as to warrant a whole new argument linking it to culture and religion.
So it is surprising that when native citizens riot, there is no societal debate about the cultural flaws of the rioters. Not to say we couldn’t. When PSG played against Hapoel Tel Aviv in 2006, Nazi salutes and antisemitic slurs very much implied a religious dimension motivating hooligans. And when PSG played against Sochaux, racist slurs and monkey chants implied a cultural dimension. But most people separate the hard-line hooligans from the crowd. Yet when it involves Moroccan youth, it speaks to the dominating and uniformly toxic culture. The political commentator generalizes and blames personal flaws and a shared culture.
Where we decide to place the blame has massive repercussions for how the problem will be addressed. In a constitutional democracy the basic assumption is the protection of minority rights and the freedom from discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation. Attributing the cause of collective violence (or at least a statistically significant portion of it) to a religious dimension risks discrimination and stigmatisation with all its associated problems.
In no sense is this line of reasoning meant to condone violence or the destruction of public and private property. It is meant to urge individuals to suspend judgement on scientific claims that are difficult to prove but come with great repercussions for certain groups. This holds especially true when the stereotypes such claims feed into dehumanise and ‘other’. Responses to violent protests and riots including those occurring during the World Cup quickly fall into the lingo of ‘beasts’, ‘destructive mobs’ or ‘uncivilized rabble’. These narratives venture into dangerous territory that pander to our psychological biases. Specifically, people underplay the relevance of external factors and overestimate the effect personal characteristics have (i.e. these people are simply this way). It also divides ‘us’ from ‘them’ – sets the good apart from the bad – effectively dehumanizing people.
The repercussions are real and potentially dire. The dehumanised are depicted as lacking in agency, rationality, and implicitly even moral worth. That imposes a social hierarchy, where one is better than the other. And suddenly equal treatment, the founding tenet of democracy, loses its rationale. The narrative promotes that there are groups that lack basic human qualities, and this makes it easier to justify mistreating or exploiting them. Forget their dignity because they are not as dignified as you. It is the act of dehumanization that justified for centuries the atrocities committed to (among others) native peoples and individuals of African descent. Specifically in the context of football riots, the mistreatment manifests in the appeal to a law-and-order approach. It inspires the call to enact harsher punishment as a method of solving the issue. During the riots in Belgium, some called for the stripping of nationality or even deportation of native-born people of Moroccan descent. All for the destruction of property. That can hardly genuinely be called a solution to the problem and is likely a solution (offered by right-wing parties and informed by an attribution and confirmation bias) seeking a problem.
If one is truly interested in explaining and preventing riots started in the wake of Moroccan football matches, blaming religious beliefs and enacting punishment is insufficient. One must look at the deeper causes of social dissent. That first of all requires approaching perpetrators of any illegal action with the degree of humanity everyone deserves. And for all the negative coverage about the matches, there were also signs of great humanity. Large numbers of people from the local Moroccan community volunteered to de-escalate the events, interlocking their arms to form a human chain with the intent to keep the peace. They urged and encouraged others to go home or remain calm. That is something you do not always see at football matches. Let us also remember these redeeming qualities before jumping to the conclusion that they are through their culture irredeemable delinquents.
