The Theatre of National Identity in Modern Sport

ABSTRACT

The oil-rich nation-states of the Arabian Peninsula are investing large sums in the development of an international sports industry for the region. In an effort to field its own national sports teams for this industry, Qatar, who will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, has relied upon the practice of naturalizing foreign athletes. It is not a new practice, but Qatar’s wholesale use of the practice amounts to annexing its national sports teams and seems to miss the point of a national team. Certainly, the practice raises questions about the nature of a distinctively national sports team. As I take up some of these questions, my discussion leads to the larger question of international sport as a conversation on the differentiation of national identities. The practice of annexing national sports teams, therefore, raises questions both about nationalism and internationalism.

KEYWORDS:

• Arabian Peninsula
• nationalism
• modernization
• international sport

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the organizers of the Gulf Research Meetings, University of Cambridge for supporting this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. I am drawing on Sandel’s (1998) distinction between coercion and corruption in market exchange. Coercion occurs when consent to a market exchange is not informed or voluntary. If a very poor person consents to sell his kidney but only out of dire economic necessity, then his consent is effectively coerced by the economic necessities of his circumstances. This is not a complaint with markets as such, only with the conditions for fair market exchange. Ideally, there should be no coercion. Corruption occurs when the nature and value of the good being exchanged is obscured or diminished by virtue of that exchange. Even with fair market conditions, there are some things that should not be bought and sold. For example, if to sell one’s kidney debases the sanctity of the human body as Sandel suggests, then it is ‘wrong for rich and poor alike’ (94). By ‘corruption,’ then, I mean when the nature and value of a good is obscured or diminished.

2. We tend to be morally more comfortable with exchange in kind among familiars than we are with exchange in impersonal financial markets, particularly with respect to goods that are susceptible to corruption (supra 1) (Roth 2007). For example, exchanging a kidney for love and friendship seems less repugnant than exchanging a kidney for money.

3. For a webcam of the work see http://derbevoelkerung.de/en/.

4. Qatar’s ‘Aspire Academy’ is possibly one step in this direction. Ostensibly the Academy is a philanthropic enterprise that recruits talented youth from disadvantaged countries for training as world-class athletes. The conceit is that these athletes will return home to compete for their own countries. However many think that the aim of the Academy is not philanthropic, but rather to eventually naturalize its best performers for Qatari teams (Eder et al. 2014; Montague 2017).

5. The use of the term ‘iron cage’ depends upon the translation, it can be found in the Talcott Parsons translation (Weber [1904-05] 2005, 123). The original German is stahlhartes gehäuse meaning ‘steel-hard casing’ but the general idea is rigidity and entrapment. On such worries see also Giddens (1990).