Gareth Southgate has won many plaudits for the letter he has written to English football fans in anticipation of the Euro 2020 finals. I offer another. I think these comments well worth sharing:
Why would you choose to insult somebody for something as ridiculous as the colour of their skin?
Why?
Unfortunately for those people that engage in that kind of behaviour, I have some bad news. You're on the losing side. It's clear to me that we are heading for a much more tolerant and understanding society, and I know our lads will be a big part of that.
It might not feel like it at times, but it's true. The awareness around inequality and the discussions on race have gone to a different level in the last 12 months alone.
I am confident that young kids of today will grow up baffled by old attitudes and ways of thinking.
For many of that younger generation, your notion of Englishness is quite different from my own. I understand that, too.
I understand that on this island, we have a desire to protect our values and traditions – as we should – but that shouldn't come at the expense of introspection and progress.
Regardless of your upbringing and politics, what is clear is that we are an incredible nation – relative to our size and population – that has contributed so much to the arts, science and sport.
We do have a special identity and that remains a powerful motivator.
In a funny way, I see the same Englishness represented by the fans who protested against the Super League. We are independent thinkers. We speak out on the issues that matter to us and we are proud of that.
Of course, my players and I will be judged on winning matches. Only one team can win the Euros. We have never done it before and we are desperate to do it for the first time.
Believe me.
But, the reality is that the result is just a small part of it. When England play, there's much more at stake than that.
It's about how we conduct ourselves on and off the pitch, how we bring people together, how we inspire and unite, how we create memories that last beyond the 90 minutes. That last beyond the summer. That last forever.
I think about all the young kids who will be watching this summer, filling out their first wall charts. No matter what happens, I just hope that their parents, teachers and club managers will turn to them and say, “Look. That's the way to represent your country. That's what England is about. That is what's possible.”
If we can do that, it will be a summer to be proud of.
There are three reasons for sharing that.
First, it is very rare for anyone to offer a view of what it is to be English, excepting those who use the term to bully or harangue others. So Southgate's open minded view is welcome.
Second his candour on racism is so very welcome.
Third, to note the implicit rebuttal of those in the government who use their positions to bully and harangue those opposed to racism.
We know not being a racist is not good enough now. We know that we have to be anti-racist. It's not left or right wing to be so. It's definitely not Marxist. It most certainly is Christian. But our government opposes anti-racism. Which makes it racist. Southgate is calling them out. Good for him I say.
He will deserve a knighthood after the Euros, whatever happens and however soon England lose. It will be for services to the community. I think we can be sure he will not get it.
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I don’t see any rebuttal of the government in Southgate’s piece.
I don’t see any mention of them at all.
Are you just obsessed by trying to shoehorn a criticism of a Conservative government into everything you write, because that is the implicit position that comes from all your posts.
Ah, your second wrong claim here this morning
And I also note you are known as Alan
I think we can sagely conclude you are a troll
Instead of considering whether Gareth Southgate is worthy of a knighthood, what about doing the reverse – make a knighthood worthy of the Gareth Southgates of England’s world. Think of the worthless timeservers, and worse, who have been awarded one.
Great stuff from Gareth.
This is real leadership. Good man.
Why can’t we get away from the term Racism? There is only one human race – (unfortunately!). If a term such as “recent ethnicity” were used it might make the bigots think differently. We apparently all have the same original ethnicity and at that time we were all presumably dark-skinned
Don’t deny racism exosts
It is a very easy way to get banned here
I am not impressed by this comment
Sometimes I do not understand where you are coming from. Maybe I should ban myself.
My comment was in no way denying racism, BY DEFINITION!!!!
You wanted to deny using the term racism
I think that wrong
That denies racism
And it is very real
As we prepare our Social Club for the tournament, there will be EXTRA disappointment this time in addition to the limited number we can squeeze in as well as how such tournaments go and as they finally realise their blind trust in bozos BrexShit clown troupe has been misplaced – as they are forced to yet again cancel their plans for this tourney and the whole summer and many of them end up ill .
I am already disappointed by the usual yarboos wanting the odious St George’s flags only to despoil our facade and internal spaces as if that makes any difference to the outcome of what is on the goggle box – ignoring our various home nation members and several European mixed ones too .
However I am enthused by how some of them have been reacting to the letter by Southgate.
I put the ex and current Man Utd players sensibilities down to the radical socialism of Alex Ferguson and co who took a bunch of school boys and moulded them into a Team with mental strength.
These men now are mostly doing and saying what they truly believe – which stands as further testament to Ferggy.
I believe the English Players should gather in front of their own supporters and face them down by taking the knee looking them straight in the faces!
These ‘fans’ can then learn or decide that the forum for their petty xenophobia has passed them by and will not tolerate it and LEAVE and be forced to get their odious arses away from stadiums and go watch it in a field somewhere that will always be their imaginary Engurrrllaaaann.
Racism and zmxenophobia will not end in other countries if we tolerate it in OUR’s.
I personally find football to be a turgid game but it looks like this tourney it may be a spectacularly politically reawakening important one.
But England will still not win. So as a salute to SIR Alex and the men he made –
Come on Scotland..??
I like it….
I think this is quite brave of Gareth. I agree with almost all of it, and yet at the same time, if I am honest, for reasons I cannot quite understand it also makes me feel uncomfortable. Too much sentiment perhaps. And maybe an aversion to that is rather English in itself.
Part of it too maybe to do with the context, which is about taking the knee. What Gareth is saying seems directly or indirectly to be a defence of that.
This may be slightly off topic, but I don’t really understand why others on the left are so avid in defending it.
It is perhaps because they make assumptions about those who are fed up with it, and find themselves propelled in the opposite direction, but this I suspect is never a great approach.
My own sense is this. Taking the knee began as a protest. It had a long history, but it also related directly to the knee on GF’s neck. It was at the same time an act of solidarity, particularly in the context of the ongoing police violence against BLM protesters in the US, and it was a call for change here too. It was political.
But something has surely gone wrong when you start to mandate protest, which is what seems to be happening. It ceases to be protest and becomes something else.
I was particularly struck by the comments of, I think, a PFA representative on Today yesterday, who insisted taking the knee wasn’t political. His comments seemed absurd, but in a way I think he was right. Taking the knee has become devoid of any political content. It means nothing beyond the insistence that players continue to do it. It has become entirely vacuous, an exercise in dull conformity. And it has also come to be surrounded by a great deal of sanctimony, and I suspect it is a rather English trait (on both the left and the right) to have an intense dislike of sanctimony. The booers reflect that, and maybe, if we don’t understand it, we drive a wedge between them and liberal-leftie values.
I certainly won’t be booing, and if black footballers and others want to keep it, that’s kind of fine with me. I’m aware I don’t have the same skin the game (no pun originally intended). They can make their own call. I’m happy to go along. But, for myself, I’d get rid, and I do wonder if insisting on it is really good politics.
Thye o[ption exists
It is not compulsory
Some people do not do it
Why do it? Because it expresses your concern and commonality with all those who play football – none of whom should be discriminated against
It is intensely political – but not party political
What do I think it akin to? Crossing yourself which some do as a reminder of faith? That’s my best suggestion
This is an indication of belief
I support it for that reason
I just want to add that taking the knee during the national anthem was originally popularised by Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers back in 2016.
It was an act of defiance against the racism and police brutality prevalent in the United States, and predates George Floyd’s death by 4 years or so, though his death reignited the action when many more NFL players began taking the knee in solidarity.
Kaepernick effectively lost his career, did it largely by himself for a long time, and had to face down personal attacks from Trump over it, allegations of “disrespecting the flag” from the military and so on. It was immense and incredible bravery for one person to continue to do that in face of so much ire.
I see somewhat of the same thing happening here, but the difference being that no one is going to lose their career over it this time – though maybe they might lose their knighthood like you say.
The positive difference between then and now is how many other athletes who are willing to take the knee at the same time, and how well their coaching staff are supporting them. That’s got to be considered progress, even if it’s gotten further from the original message and what it was about.
Thanks
Good old Gareth. He’s gone up in my estimation. Thanks for sharing.
Well, I am rowing back on my disdain for footballers. Ever since Radford took a really well thought-out stand against the govt over school meals and other players backed him I began to revise my views. Now, the manager, someone who is traditionally politically conservative in that role, has written this brave letter, I feel I need to support them.
For the first time I will watch an England football game and not just rugby. Virtuousness is a rare commodity in England today. It most heartwarming.
In Marx and Engels’s understanding as set out in their writings, racial disparities emerged under the influence of shared natural and social conditions hardening into heredity and of the mixing of blood. Their writings racialized skin-colour groups, ethnicities, nations and social classes, while endowing them with innate superior and inferior character traits. They regarded race as part of humanity’s natural conditions, upon which the production system rested.
In their view, ‘races’ endowed with superior qualities would boost economic development and productivity, while the less endowed ones would hold humanity back and were best removed from society.
Much of their doctrine and writings were littered with racist stereotypes and insults.
And you claim Marxism is anti-racist?
I made no such claim
I said taking the knee is not Marxist
It isn’t
I am not a Marxist
I was not promoting Marxism
I am suggesting you have entirely missed the point
The last comment is odd and troll like – picking an issue and trying to divert from the underlying issue. I too back Rashford – an individual with far more social conscience and maturity than I’d expect of someone that age. Both Marcus and Gareth are showing leadership on this issue where our government demonstrates itself to be so corrupt that it seeks to use the racism issue to prop up its regime by sewing the division it must to distract and divide us.
“I said taking the knee is not Marxist”
The problem here is that taking the knee was the symbolic gesture adopted and promoted and now associated with the Black Lives Matter movement, which is a Marxist organisation.
If people then chose to wear BLM badges and take the knee as a symbolic gesture you can hardly blame other people if they read that as support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
Why don’t the players link arms? Or bow their heads? Why not wear “Kick Racism Out” badges rather than BLM badges?
Symbols and their associations matter. Would it be wise for an anti-litter campaign to adopt the swastika as it’s symbol? That symbol has been around for thousands of years. Why not set up a party and have a stiff armed salute as a greeting? That’s been around since Roman times.
And why choose racism as the protest? Why not homophobia? Why not Islamophobia? Why not global inequity? The death of George Floyd was a tragedy. So are the deaths of dozens of young gay men executed just for being gay in some countries. What protests are being made regarding the deaths of virtual slave labourers currently employed building the 2022 football stadiums where these footballers probably hope to play during the next World Cup?
All these questions and points deserve to be discussed and they are not. Every time they are raised, those who raise them are shouted at for being “obvious racists”.
Football suffers particularly from racism
And black lives do matter
So, some in that movement may be Marxists
So, I can assure you are some of my friends
So what? Better than neoliberaals, or Tories.
Why, because they care
And you are just making an excuse for being a racist.
They also care about the issues you raise – they tend to go together
That’s why we have a decided dislike of people who says black lives do not matter. We know want you mean
And we loathe what you stand for
“some in that movement may be Marxists
So, I can assure you are some of my friends”
You are friends with people who follow someone who wrote that mankind needed to be emancipated from the Jew? That some races were superior to others and that the inferior ones should be removed from society?
Perhaps you should choose your friends more wisely?
For heaven’s sake stop being stupid
I have friends who are Christian and Jews too. Do you really think they follow all in Leviticus?
Your projection onto Marxists says a lot about you, but not Marxists
You are trolling
Don’t call again
“Football suffers particularly from racism”
It also suffers particularly from homophobia. How many openly gay professional footballers are there? Have there ever been? Why isn’t Gareth Southgate taking a stand against that? Why aren’t the England players? Why haven’t they joined in any Gay Pride marches or protests? It’s pretty obvious why and so there ends football’s virtue signalling.
Indeed, what have you done? It’s not enough just to not be homophobic. You have to be anti-homophobia and I have not even seen a single word written about this by you.
I wonder why.
I shared a womb with a gay guy – yes I am referring to my twin
I have been anti- homophobic all my life as a result. I know we are born who we are
This was reflected in my employment policy a long time before it was commonplace
And sure as heck my firm’s clientele knew that was a safe place when HIV made that harder
You are trolling
I live my principles
Steve Cornwell on ‘Marx and Engels’s understanding’ … This is utterly wrong. You will find none of these assertions in anything written by Marx and Engels.
An impressive contribution, well done Gareth. It creats a real contrast to other leadership figures.
However if it is reported in the mainstream media at all, it is hidden very well. Why is this not being celebrated widely?
I can understand why an organisation like BLM might be run by ‘Marxists’ (Both Groucho and Karl) but I dont see that the demand for proper treatment has to demand any particular form of economic organisation
In a generally positive message from Gareth Southgate I was a a bit surprised by this comment,
‘We do have a special identity and that remains a powerful motivator’
That remark smacks of British (aka English) exceptionalism to me. My view is that we in the British Isles have simply been lucky in the circumstances that have shaped us, which have nothing to do with any ‘special identity’ As an island race our relative isolation, insulated us from foreign conquest and provided a stability which enabled us to do some things differently. Living on an island also prompted a predisposition to mercantile activity, which resulted in England/Britain having the worlds most powerful navy for a significant period, which in turn greatly aided Imperialism. It’s often said that Britain’s possession of India and the vast wealth that was then extracted from it was lucky happenstance rather than the result of any cunning master plan. Add in a wealth of natural resources such as coal, chemicals and iron ore, not to mention fertile agricultural land and the total mix was for a lengthy period, highly beneficial. That period is now past and I think it’s incumbent on us all to acknowledge that there is nothing special or unique about the people of the British Isles and that the sooner we accept this reality, the sooner we will be able to shape a future rooted in reality rather than fantasy, a fantasy which has for so long infected the England football team.
I think all nations have a special identity – that is what defines them
I see the English as having that
I do not think it makes them superior and odd n ot get a sense Southgate was claiming that – or I would have objected to it
I had to come back to this given my comment above: there is a whole Guardian editorial mentioning this tonight but curiously it talks more about Nancy Mitford’s “The Pursuit of Love” than Gareth Southgate’s views despite those being the handle for the headline. Admittedly Southgate’s statement can be read first hand by following the link in the online edition but you wouldn’t get his thrust from the text.
This blog is not really quite the forum for literary discussion, but I found the recent TV adaptation of Mitford quite unpalatable, to my mind it missed competely the spirit of Mitford’s novel as an English comedy of manners in the tradition of Jane Austen. It isn’t about “Englishness” as such, really a gentle self-mocking portrait of the remnants of an Upper Class at a point when traditional “class” no longer carried the meaning of an earlier age. Wheras the TV series was little more than slapstick.
And ironically, Southgate’s statement wasn’t really about “Englishness” except that as the manager of an England team that is the limit of his remit. He was representing a view which I trust is shared by all civilsed Britons. If he had been asked to manage an Olympic team I am sure he would express the same principles on behalf of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish components of Team GB as well.
Well said
I too found The Pursuit of Love disappointing
It failed to say anything of worth