A while back I saw an ad for "How Soccer Explains the World" by Franklin Foer and though I had enjoyed the World Cup and had shunned some of my past hatred for this sport, it intrigued me, but not enough to buy it. On a late night journey to B&N Saturday night I found it, read the first chapter, and decided to buy it. Just finished it, solid book, I would recommend it. The author's stated premise is "an unlikely theory on globalization" but really had very few conclusions, at least that I could discern. I enjoyed his story-telling and the broad range of topics he tackled. A few things that struck out at me:

1) I had no idea the deep level of nationalism that still exists in Europe and around the world and the deep-seated hate these ethnic groups still hold for one another. He talked about the Serbs and Croats, Irish and Scottish, Catalans and Spaniards, etc. In America I feel we are shielded from these emotions, but he would interview various people on both sides of the spectrum in these rivalries and the reason for their hate would go back hundreds of years. The history is unbelievable. The conclusion I took from this and what surprised me was that this is a major threat to globalization, these ethnic rivalries and hatred are to subside as we modernize, as economies improve, etc. He writes, "Through the late twentieth century, liberal political thinkers...have blamed nationalism for most of modernity's evils. Tribalism in a more modern guise, they denounce it. If only we abandoned this old fixation with national identities, then we could finally get past nasty ethnocentrism, vulgar chauvinism, and blood fueding. In place of nationalism, they propose that we become cosmopolitans-shelving patriotism and submitting to government by international institutions and laws...

It's a beautiful picture, but not at all realistic...this tradition understands that humans crave identifying with a group...since modern life has knocked the family and tribe from their central positions, the nation has become the only viable vessel for this impulse...

Besides, in theory, patriotism and cosmopolitanism should be perfectly compatible. You could love your country-even consider it a superior group-without desiring to dominate other groups or closing yourself off to foreign impulses...

In theory, but not in reality!

2) He names a chapter "How Soccer Explains the Problem of Islam" and spends a great deal of time providing a history lesson on Iran, including how it was a ver modern nation up to the Islamic revolution in 1979. I had not known that, I guess I had heard of it but not to the level is ascribes. He also discusses how Iranians seek to be modern and Western, something that reminded me of a Time quote I saw quite a few years ago when Clinton visited there post-President and a sign at his speech read, "I hate America, take me there." Seems to sum up the thinking very well.

3) Finally, I was shocked at the amount of corruption that Foer uncovered and discussed. Sure I know that in every society it exists, but how blatant it seemed in modern Europe took me by surprise. One example regards the Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, who in 2003 according to Foer orchestrated the "passage of legislation granting himself blanket immunity from prosecution. He had decriminalized the offense of false accounting, which his company is accused of committing." In the margin I wrote the note, "Europe? Today?" I may expect this as commonplace today in many third-world countries, but not in Europe today, I guess I have too high of expectations for Euro-society. My Kenyan friend Japheth keeps complaining about the corruption in the Kenyan government, and it is bad, but while he views the US and Europeans governments as utopic, I try to tell him that it still exists here, though it may be illegal the politicians find ways around it. I guess I was more right than I thought.