“panem et circenses”
Inequality of Sports
The Grand Illusion
By
Rodolfo F.Acuña
Michael Harrington
in The Other America (1962) wrote
“Beauty can be a mask for ugliness,” referring to rural poverty in Appalachia
where the beauty of the landscape hid the poverty. According to Harrington,
“America has the best-dressed poverty in the world,” allowing poor whites to go
unnoticed and giving the illusion of equality
Most Americans
rarely notice the ugliness –and are reluctant to peek behind the landscape. Nor
are they bothered by the facts, too preoccupied to notice social gaps.
The camouflaging
of the ugliness is not an American invention and does not happen by
accident. “Panem et circenses” (“Bread
and circuses") have been used by the oligarchy since Roman times; it is “a
superficial means of appeasement” that diverts and distracts attention from the
ugliness.
Attention is
regularly diverted from wars of aggression by “wagging the dog.” It is used to win
the votes of the poor and distract them from the ugliness of a billionaire like
Donald Trumps who casts himself as “Joe Six-Pack” who like working class
Americans is fed up with the “elites.”
Powerless, the
masses become part of a Roman mob. Meanwhile, Bread and Circuses hide
detestable corruption. Bread and circuses dull compassion. Imperial expansion
and domestic policing are
justified. Violent military interventions are clothed
by humanitarian terms, such as "compassion."
As the illusions
of “one man one vote” and equality before the law are eroded, the ‘bread and
circuses” are becoming more necessary. Sports are part of “panem et circenses”.
Even when so few plebians are admitted to the coliseum; the masses watch the
games on TV under the illusion that they are equal. But even this delusion is
being threatened by exorbitant cable costs.
Soccer is the
latest rage. Latinas/os are rabid fans. However, the irony is that most
Latinas/os are weeded out by an exclusive club system that costs $3000 a year
per child. Want good coaching? A college scholarship? You go through the club
system; just like tennis soccer is become a rich person’s sport. The poor are
left to rule rundown public parks (that some want to privatize).
Last year,
Francisco Goldman wrote an article about the delusions of the World Cup
titled “Fooling Mexican Fans.” He wrote that Mexico was on “the verge of monumental decisions” and that upon awakening the fans would “realize that the
country’s energy reserves have been cheaply sold off or whatever else, don’t
bother protesting because this is a chronicle foretold.” Goldman cited SinEmbargo that pointed out that Mexican
politicos were debating and passing laws “that could open Pemex, the
nationalized oil company, to foreign investment, the Mexican Congress scheduled
legislative sessions from June 10 to 23, dates precisely coinciding with you
know what. Final passage might be pushed back, but it originally looked like it
was supposed to happen on Monday, when Mexico plays Croatia to decide which
country advances to the elimination rounds.”
According to
Goldman, in 1998 the Mexican Congress passed a $67 billion rescue of Mexican
banks on December 12, the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the start of the
Christmas holiday season.
Goldman
underscored that there is “nothing wrong with talking about soccer teams as
long as the discussion did not encourage a national amnesia” or hide how greedy
Mexican capitalists use the opiate of the World Cup.
Contradictions
abound. Latinos root for the American team, although none are part of the
national teams. Teresa Noyola, a Mexican American All American soccer player from Stanford
University, was advised to go back and play for Mexico, the reason given she was
too short.
The “panem et circenses” reared its ugly
head during the CONCACAF Gold Cup. Tensions built as Mexico defeated Costa Rica 1-0 in the quarter-finals. The refereeing
was atrocious. Mexico won after a controversial foul call beyond the 120th
minute.
The Mexican and Panamanian teams met in Gold Cup semi-final match in Houston. A rough and heated encounter was climaxed by
a shoving match where joined. No doubt horrific refereeing that was, as one commentator put it, “una vergüenza,” contributed to the mayhem.
After this point,
it really did not matter who won the finals. The encounter had done irreparable
harm to Latin American unity.
Who was to blame?
Certainly not the players. Nationalism drove them to want to win. The fans,
well they were like the Roman mob, pointing thumbs down.
Looking behind the
landscape, I could not directly blame the mother countries’ corruption; all of
them are equally corrupt. As for the U.S., it is the puppet master, benefiting
from the lack of unity in the Americas.
It came down to
the organizers wanting Mexico to win because it is a larger market. Mexico is a
nation of 120 million with another 35 million in the U.S. The scenario is similar
to the National Basketball Association wanting the Lakers in the finals. People
do not matter, paying customers and viewers do.
The Bread and
Circuses get out of hand such as in 1969 when a war broke out between El Salvador and Honduras. The war broke out during a best of
three World Cup qualifiers.
The first game held in Tegucigalpa
ended in a 1-0 win for Honduras - where fights broke out. From that point,
everything went south. In San Salvador, the Honduran team endured a sleepless
night before the game -- rotten eggs, dead rats and stinking rags all tossed
through the broken windows of their hotel.
The determining match was in Mexico. On June 27, Honduras broke off diplomatic relations with El Salvador that won 3-2. By July 14, El Salvador invaded Honduras.
Approximately 1,000 to 2,000 people lost their lives and 100,000 more became refugees. On the surface, the cause was the soccer game, but tensions ran much deeper. Immigration, broken agreements, and a Honduran agrarian reform law that took land away from some of the Salvadorans all played a part.
The tension of 1-0 overtime Honduran win contributed to Salvadorans feeling cheated and their national honor threatened. Before the second game, three Salvadorans were killed in downtown San Salvador. The Salvadoran government blamed the acts of violence on “communist and subversive elements.”
The rhetoric during the Gold Cup was also
out of control. It hurt relations between Latinos who are struggling to
coexist. I have heard Latin American friends complain about having so many
Mexicans on Spanish language television. With tongue in cheek, I suggest that
each Latin American group should have its own television station, with its own
telenovelas, news and commentators. We could then have 21 stations as mediocre
as Univision and Televisa that would show their own telenovelas and sponsor
their own Srta. Colita contests.
Personally, I feel
like Antonio Díaz Soto Gama who in 1914 caused “El incidente de la bandera” at la Convención Revolucionaria in Aguas Calientes when he protested the Plan of Ayala. As he
mounted the stage, he crumbled flag and threw it to the floor and roared “This
flag symbolized the triumph of clerical [church] reaction” in 1821. In other
words, the flag is part of the “panem et circenses” that masks the ugliness
that todos estamos jodidos (we’re all screwed).
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