Boo!
I guess what with Zidane's freakout, they deserved to lose (although it was a cool way to get redcarded as these things go, and pretty poignant if this is true). Nevertheless, I was rooting for France. For much the same reasons expressed in this New Republic article by Andrew Curry about Germany:
In Germany, national feeling has always run either too hot or too cold, but never just right. But since the World Cup started on June 9, there's been a sudden outbreak of perfectly innocent flag-waving here....At first glance, this was a little unsettling. Under ordinary circumstances, flying the German flag anywhere but on top of federal buildings is looked down upon. Patriotic displays aren't quite taboo in Germany, but they are certainly politically incorrect. Perhaps for Germany, then, the best thing to come out of the 2006 World Cup may be something Americans take for granted: an understanding that it is possible to be proud of one's country without being a nationalist.
...Neither nationalism nor self-loathing, the feeling here is one of pride without hate. Reports of serious fights between German and foreign fans can be counted on one hand, and the police patrolling the capital's Fan Mile have been mostly bored. Despite over six million visitors since the beginning of the Cup, only one serious breach of security occurred when a driver broke through crowd-control barriers last Sunday and injured almost two dozen fans.
Of course Germany has celebrated during past World Cups, but never with the patriotic outpouring--and the sense of community--of the past few weeks. In fact, Berlin probably hasn't partied this hard since the fall of the wall in 1989. That party was more a celebration of freedom than of patriotism. But Germans today can be proud of being German without forgetting or denying the past. Though Germany's flurry of flags is unlikely to outlast the World Cup, hopefully the country's new-found patriotism will.
When we lived in Germany, I was in the first grade and my Dad was on sabbatical. Strangers actually approached my parents on the street to apologize for the Holocaust, for the past. And even though Germany has rebuilt itself and established a political system that protects against extremism while providing a lot of democracy, in recent years they've had to endure the indignity of being held up as a model of how not to run a macroeconomy and embarrassing gains by the far right.
Germany's need for innocent flag-waving (and that was one happy crowd Saturday) is second only to France's. It's been a rough few years for France... alternatively the punchline and the bete noire of the ascendant American right; ignominous loser of the 2012 Olympics (on the same day of the London tube bombings); main foilers of the EU Constitution (against poor Chirac's wishes); and the model example, even more than Germany, even among liberals, even among European liberals, not how not to run a macroeconomy. And of how not to run an assimilation policy. And then there was that humiliating-for-all-decent-people Jean Marie Le Pen thing a few years ago... And overtones of all of that in Zidane's end, in France's end on the field.
It all makes the Italian domestic football scandal pale in comparison as a need for redemption. Poor France.
In Germany, national feeling has always run either too hot or too cold, but never just right. But since the World Cup started on June 9, there's been a sudden outbreak of perfectly innocent flag-waving here....At first glance, this was a little unsettling. Under ordinary circumstances, flying the German flag anywhere but on top of federal buildings is looked down upon. Patriotic displays aren't quite taboo in Germany, but they are certainly politically incorrect. Perhaps for Germany, then, the best thing to come out of the 2006 World Cup may be something Americans take for granted: an understanding that it is possible to be proud of one's country without being a nationalist.
...Neither nationalism nor self-loathing, the feeling here is one of pride without hate. Reports of serious fights between German and foreign fans can be counted on one hand, and the police patrolling the capital's Fan Mile have been mostly bored. Despite over six million visitors since the beginning of the Cup, only one serious breach of security occurred when a driver broke through crowd-control barriers last Sunday and injured almost two dozen fans.
Of course Germany has celebrated during past World Cups, but never with the patriotic outpouring--and the sense of community--of the past few weeks. In fact, Berlin probably hasn't partied this hard since the fall of the wall in 1989. That party was more a celebration of freedom than of patriotism. But Germans today can be proud of being German without forgetting or denying the past. Though Germany's flurry of flags is unlikely to outlast the World Cup, hopefully the country's new-found patriotism will.
When we lived in Germany, I was in the first grade and my Dad was on sabbatical. Strangers actually approached my parents on the street to apologize for the Holocaust, for the past. And even though Germany has rebuilt itself and established a political system that protects against extremism while providing a lot of democracy, in recent years they've had to endure the indignity of being held up as a model of how not to run a macroeconomy and embarrassing gains by the far right.
Germany's need for innocent flag-waving (and that was one happy crowd Saturday) is second only to France's. It's been a rough few years for France... alternatively the punchline and the bete noire of the ascendant American right; ignominous loser of the 2012 Olympics (on the same day of the London tube bombings); main foilers of the EU Constitution (against poor Chirac's wishes); and the model example, even more than Germany, even among liberals, even among European liberals, not how not to run a macroeconomy. And of how not to run an assimilation policy. And then there was that humiliating-for-all-decent-people Jean Marie Le Pen thing a few years ago... And overtones of all of that in Zidane's end, in France's end on the field.
It all makes the Italian domestic football scandal pale in comparison as a need for redemption. Poor France.
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