The big lie on which the World Cup is based

“Tell me where you are from and I will tell you who you are”.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
05 December 2022 Monday 22:35
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The big lie on which the World Cup is based

“Tell me where you are from and I will tell you who you are”

Chorus.

Where are you from?" It is a question as innocuous as it is habitual but impossible, at the same time, to answer with absolute truth. We see it in the World Cup in Qatar where, of the 830 players who have participated, 137 have worn the color of the country in which they were not born.

Morocco, Spain's rival today in the round of 16, offers the most extreme case: half of the 26-strong squad were born outside Moroccan soil. Spain traffics in both directions: Aymeric Laporte and Ansu Fati were born outside of Spain but play for the Spanish team; Iñaki Williams was born in Spain, considers himself Basque and represents the Ghana national team.

Now, a question. If I ran into Iñaki Williams at, say, a party in a Qatari palace and asked him "Where are you from?" and he would answer "From Ghana" and I, detecting the Basque accent, would say, "No, come on, where from?", and he would insist, "From Ghana, kid!", and I, skeptical but smiling , I said to him, “But where are you really from?”… and he turned around and left, irritated, and then accused me of racism, would he be right?

I present this imaginary scenario as a result of the news that has generated more conversation this week in England than the English team's passage to the quarterfinals of the World Cup. For those who missed it, these were the circumstances: At a party at Buckingham Palace, an 83-year-old white lady who had been a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth II struck up a conversation with a black lady dressed in African attire. The white lady was called Lady Susan Hussey; the black lady, Ngozi Fulani.

“Where are you from?” Mrs. Hussey asked. “From London,” Mrs. Fulani replied. "Yes, but where are you really from?" Mrs. Fulani turned and left. She then took to social media and accused Lady Hussey of racism. The English monarchy agreed with Mrs. Fulani (“unacceptable and unfortunate”) and Lady Hussey was forced, after 60 years in the service of the English crown, to resign from her position.

Lady Hussey is, by all accounts, humiliated, perplexed and devastated. Mrs. Fulani does not stop appearing on television, celebrated as a heroine, defender of good against evil.

I ask myself again, then, if I had questioned Iñaki Williams in the same way that Lady Hussey questioned Mrs. Fulani, would Williams have accused me of being a racist on social media, would La Vanguardia agree with him and they would have fired me? From the newspaper?

I say Iñaki Williams as his brother Nico might say, who plays for the Spanish team, or half of the Moroccan team, or the 37 players born in France (like Laporte) who have participated in the World Cup but not for the French team, or the 50 born in Africa (like Ansu Fati) who don't play for African teams, or the nine English-born who represented Wales, small but proud Wales, against England last week in Qatar. Lady Hussey or I could have questioned each of them in the same way that Lady Hussey questioned Mrs. Fulani and… what then? Stigmatized as racist for life? Or accepted as perfectly respectful people who asked the questions we did partly out of curiosity, but mainly to explore the possibility of finding a pleasant topic of conversation?

If I had a euro for every time I've been asked where I'm from – “no, come on, really, where from?” – I'd be as rich as the Williams brothers. The truth is that, although my papers say that I am Spanish, like the two of them, my ancestors are African, like theirs. In my case, as I have scientifically verified, they are a mixture of Nigerian pygmies and Yorubas.

The fallacy, the great lie on which the soccer World Cup is based, and so many wars, and so many victims throughout the centuries, like old Lady Hussey today, is the following: that the question “Where are you from? ” has one answer and one nothing more. Is not true. But, because that's how we are, we get into trouble, some nicer than others, and then we die. In short, as they say in the country that I hope will beat England on Saturday, la comédie humaine.