https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/6/21/to-tackle-racism-in-football-spain-needs-to-face-its-historyIt's OK for Spain to be "white"?
To tackle racism in football Spain needs to face its history
The global outrage over the racist abuse of Vinícius Jr should spark a society-wide conversation on racism and colonial history in Spain.
It has been a month now since Black Brazilian forward Vinícius Jr suffered yet another disgusting episode of racist abuse during a match in Spain.
The incident triggered outrage in my country, Brazil, and across the globe. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called on football bodies to “take measures so we don’t allow racism and fascism to take over”.
The Brazilian football authorities immediately took action to protect our player. They not only condemned the racist abuse and demanded action on it, but also organized an anti-racism campaign and had the whole national team take a knee while dressed in black jerseys during a friendly match against Guinea in June.
Meanwhile, other Black footballers have spoken up in solidarity with Vinícius Jr and have even considered forming a union to fight racism together.
But while international support for the Brazilian player has been strong, in Spain, reactions have been mixed at best. It is this ambiguity and lack of serious action that led an angered Vinícius Jr to write on Twitter: “It was not the first time, nor the second, nor the third. Racism is normal in La Liga. The competition thinks it’s normal, the Federation does too, and the opponents encourage it.”
Instead of showing unconditional support for the Brazilian player, La Liga, the elite Spanish football league, did the exact opposite. Its president, Javier Tebas, attacked Vinícius Jr for his tweet, saying: “Since those who should have, haven’t explained to you what La Liga is doing and can do in cases of racism, we have tried to explain it to you, but you have not shown up for either of the two agreed dates that you requested yourself.”
Instead of admitting that La Liga has a racism problem, Tebas passed the ball to the Spanish police, which also has done little to combat racist abuse when complaints have been lodged by football teams.
Before the most recent incident, Real Madrid had filed nine formal complaints in two seasons over racism specifically targeting Vinícius Jr. Despite the clearly systematic nature of the racist torment, the Spanish authorities did not take any action on some of these complaints.
One has to wonder whether there would have been any reaction from the Spanish authorities to the racist abuse during the Valencia-Real Madrid game had there been no international outrage.
That Vinícius Jr had “provoked” his racist abusers appeared to be a popular opinion in Spain.
Despite the long and rich track record of anti-Black racism in Spanish football, the common refrain after the Valencia-Real Madrid match was: “Spain is not a racist country”. Spanish society appears to be in denial about its racism problem which by far is not limited to football.
A 2016 report on the situation of Spain’s Black community prepared by several Spanish non-governmental organisations states that racism in Spain exists “in insidious and persistent forms”.
“[There is] an absolute public and educational erasure of the enslaving and colonialist Spanish past.”
While European nations, in general, do not seem too eager to admit to and apologise for the enslavement and colonisation of other peoples, Spain seems to be particularly behind in coming to terms with its history.
One just has to look at the reaction of Spanish politicians when US President Joe Biden declared ahead of Columbus Day in 2021 that the arrival of Europeans to North America led to a “wave of devastation” for Native Americans and called for “these shameful episodes of our past” not to be buried.
In response, Pablo Casado, leader of Spain’s conservative Popular Party (PP), said in a video posted on Twitter: “Does the Kingdom of Spain have to apologise because five centuries ago it discovered the New World, respected those who were there, created universities, created prosperity, built entire cities? I don’t think so.”
Spain clearly is not ready to apologise, much less remember its history correctly. Apart from the destruction Spanish colonisation wrought on two continents, official historical memory also conveniently excludes the role the Spanish Empire played in slavery.
Clearly Spain needs to be invaded.