Rising racism and football in Germany

We have left behind the FIFA World Cup, one of the most important sporting organizations in the world. France, which won the final played between France and Croatia, became the owner of the cup. We have left behind a World Cup that was quite interesting in many respects. From a football standpoint, it was a tournament in which Brazil could not even see the semi-final. Similarly, giants such as Portugal and Spain bid the tournament an early farewell. What Argentina with Messi would do was a matter of curiosity. For them, too, the tournament ended early.

England, which last managed to reach for this cup in 1966 and which, with the advantage of the fixture, was said to be able to take the cup after a long gap, being beaten by Croatia and eliminated in the semi-final, and finishing the tournament in fourth place after the match against Belgium, can itself be regarded as a great success and a surprise.

The most debated issue of the 2018 World Cup outside football, however, was the question of how "European" the footballers running with the ball, especially in the European teams, were, or how "French/German/Belgian" they were. Six of the players in the starting eleven of the French National Team, which won the championship, and 8 of the players who finished the match, though citizens of France, were not truly of French origin. There were 7 Muslim players in the French National Team, and exactly 15 footballers on the team were of African origin.

The sentence of Mustafa Ndiaye, a Senegalese touring Turkey by bicycle, "Our neighborhood team will take part in the World Cup representing France," was in fact a fine summary of the situation. Indeed, although it is evident that this situation does not pose a problem for the great majority of the French people, the disproportionate contradiction between the Muslim and African presence in the squad that brought the championship to the French National Team and the Islamophobic policies and discourses currently prevalent in France is also as plain as day.

"Having exploited the poor and Muslims of Africa for many years, France has now stolen a World Cup from them too" is among the lines most frequently voiced now. Of course, let us not fail to say that this situation also constitutes an effective invitation to reflect on French identity and on France's historical indebtedness to Africans and Muslims. We hope this invitation will be answered and that the results of answering it will be auspicious.

By contrast, although it did not remain so much on the agenda because it did not get as far as the final, it was in fact Germany that experienced the most serious problem on this matter. The panzers, owners of the 2014 World Cup, were shown as the most serious favorites of this tournament as well. The pose that İlkay Gündoğan and Mesut Özil, who carried the team's load, gave together with Cenk Tosun, who had transferred from Beşiktaş to Everton in the middle of last season, with our President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, created an uproar in Germany before the tournament. Frankly, the event that marked the tournament was also largely this photograph.

A lynching campaign against these footballers was launched in German public opinion, which spends most of its day with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (!) because of television and newspaper broadcasts. In fact the incident was very, very simple. That is, two footballers had met with the leader of the country their ancestors came from and had given a few simple poses for the press, but the matter was not perceived as so simple in a German society that had by now reached a schizophrenic stage.

To calm these reactions, the first thing Mesut and İlkay did was to meet with the German President as well, and they gave a few poses with him too, but the anger did not seem about to subside. This unpleasantness before the tournament spread to the tournament itself, and German fans whistled at their own players every time the ball came to the feet of Mesut and İlkay.

Löw, the coach of the German National Team, first tried to stand by his players, but when the anger did not subside, he was compelled to cut Mesut and İlkay from the team. Yet once the footballers of Turkish origin were removed, the German national team, composed entirely of Germans (!), bid the tournament farewell in the group stage. Nevertheless, the pressure on Mesut in particular, rather than lessening with the elimination, increased even more. So much so that even the statement "Having a photograph taken with Erdoğan was not a good idea," made by Mesut Özil's father with the aim of reducing the growing pressure and security threat on the family, was not considered sufficient.

Oliver Bierhoff, the Manager of the German National Team, stated that they had erred in not considering leaving Mesut and İlkay behind rather than taking them to Russia because of the photograph taken with Erdoğan. Reinhard Grindel, the President of the German Football Federation, began pressuring Özil insistently to make a statement. As long as no statement came from Özil, the officials lost their composure as well.

What revealed what was in the mind of everyone speaking not about a football matter but about a simple photograph matter was the following post that Martin Hohmann, a deputy of the Alternative for Germany Party, made from his account on a social media site: "A picture with a dead frog, a gray jersey and Ottoman politicians. Do Turks have to be in the national team? For the next World Cup I do not want a selfie on the pitch with a frog, a gray jersey and Ottoman politicians. I want a real German national team that plays football from the heart for our country."

Hohmann's post also lays bare the essence of the matter. The increasing Islamophobia in German society has in some way begun to show itself in the form of hostility to Turks. No concession is made whatsoever to any act that evokes Turkey, or that exalts or honors Turkey.

This situation has now surpassed xenophobia many times over. The hatred directed at Mesut and İlkay not over the football they play but over their origins, because of a simple act related to these origins, is the clearest indicator that things in Germany are not going well at all.