In general, sport ought not to be used to further political aims. In a democracy, there are numerous ways in which a person can express their views without using a public platform that has nothing to do with politics or campaigning – such as playing football, or golf or swimming or whatever. There is no need for anyone to bring some leftie flag to Hill 16 or Dalymount for example.
Historically, there have been symbolic expressions through sport of common humanity against oppression. Black American runner Jesse Owens’ achievements at the 1936 Berlin Olympics spoke for themselves. Owens’ gold medals made nonsense of Nazi attempts to use the Games as a means to promote its irrational racialism.
Likewise, the great Czech gymnast Vera Caslavska made a dignified protest during the playing of the Soviet anthem at the Mexico Olympics of 1968. That was in reaction to the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Red Army in August that year. Caslavaska had to go into hiding in order to prepare for the games, the result was seemingly fixed to force her to share the gold with a Soviet athlete, and she spent the remainder of her life as a dissident until the overthrow of the Communists 30 years later.
Then you have the virtue signallers, among whom I would have to number the great Dublin footballer David Hickey who used the occasion of a presentation to the Dublin team that won the All Ireland in 1974 to express his support for the totalitarian regime in Cuba.
In the past year, the world has witnessed an unprecedented and successful attempt to politicise sport. The “kneel” was premiered by American NFL player Colin Kaepernik in 2016, but really took off when adopted by Black Lives Matter following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last year.
For months, sports people across the globe have been kneeling before games in sympathy with a cause most did not fully understand. As footballer, Lyle Taylor, a black man, explained: he refused to ‘take the knee’ because, while he was obviously opposed to racism, he did “not support Black Lives Matter as an institution or organisation”.
As the Black Lives Matter and Antifa Democrat shock troops recede from the public attention now that they have served their purpose, the kneel has begun to be questioned and increasingly abandoned. There have been a whole range of black sports persons including Taylor and rugby international Billy Vinipola who have refused to take part, and have questioned the nature and motivations of Black Lives Matter.
Last month even the insufferably Woke Megan Rapinhoe agreed with her US womens soccer team colleagues to abandon the insult to the national anthem. Most Irish teams refused to bow to the pressure of the liberal left and racial NGOs and the international rugby team was generally applauded for its ignoring of the leftie brow beating during the Six Nations.
The question must be asked then, “Why is the international soccer team still engaging in this ludicrous stunt?”
Bad enough to have been responsible for one of the worst defeats in Irish soccer history to Luxembourg which up until last night had won just 6 of its previous 135 World Cup games, but the FAI had to compound the humiliation by once again insisting on the absurd virtue signalling by getting the team to kneel at the Aviva.
The same FAI, let it be recalled, who were embarrassingly craven over a pre match video last year that dared to reference events in Irish history. Actual things that took place in Irish history such as the 1916 Rising and the Great Hunger, as opposed to makey up things like Irish people having been partly responsible for the African slave trade. Or us all being racists now, Father.
I couldn’t help noticing as well, that one of the pundits who were eviscerating Stephen Kenny’s team was one Brian Kerr. He once stated his belief that Ireland was “too white.” Just imagine the ridicule, at the very least, that would greet an African sportsperson, or any other person for that matter, who declared that Tanzania was too black, or the manager of the Israeli soccer team lamenting that their country was too Jewish?
And yet, in this country, all this abject stuff including the kneeling and the use of League of Ireland clubs, music, films, St. Patrick’s Day and so on to promote a racial agenda are not only accepted, but promoted as though to even question any of the nonsense is proof of some awful heresy. And so many people just go along with it and keep their mouths shut. Especially if their job or something else important to them is within the power of the racial industry.
I will leave you with a final point to ponder.
If, as its promoters claim, the FAI kneel is a protest against the oppression of “people of colour,” why did the Irish team not take part in another political protest by soccer teams this week. That was to highlight the real and ongoing exploitation and abuse of “workers of colour” who are building the infrastructure that will enable the medieval feudal despotic state of Qatar to host the World Cup?
Not that the FAI team will get next nor near any of those facilities, but they are taking part in the preliminaries. And unlike their fellow sportsmen in Germany and Holland, obviously do not think that this is important as opposed to keeping BLM Incorporated on our TV screens.
