Games Around Games

Introduction:

Introduction

Somebody has once said that all the politicians who wish to resolve certain problems with weapons should be sent to a deserted island in the middle of the ocean and be left alone to find the winner through a merciless war among themselves. The inhabitants of majority of the countries in transition in Europe would probably have another similar wish: that these same politicians (or politicians in general) take along a ball to that island in order to entertain themselves until they collapse, on their own behalf and without bothering the public. But, indeed, the game is not the motive that makes the sports attractive to politicians, nor is its competitive nature. Sports are simply popular and the pet subject among the voters, and therefore efficient as an exceptionally communicable activity, so it is excellent for exploitation for the purposes of power. From the famous "panem et circenses" in the ancient world to modern states that lack democracy, this principle has hardly anywhere been abandoned.

The experience of former Yugoslavia resembles that of other socialist countries from Albania to China and Cuba. The sports were extolled as an ideal means for achieving the equilibrium between the spirit and the body, according to which Socialism again follows the famous model from the ancient world, but what is striking is the irresistible similarity with Nazi treatment of sports in up-bringing of the new Man for the new age. Totalitarian societies have striven to keep everything under control and the only real benefit was that the sports did not lack funds that they were not left to the mercy of the market and sponsors. SFR Yugoslavia did not suffer from repression in the field of sports like Romania or DR Germany, so sportsmen did not flee to the West, although they were politically exploited as a paradigm of successfulness of the society based on self-management. In the eighties even such pressure started to diminish, and finally every frustration soon disappeared.

Let us skip the examples from volleyball or tennis: football is definitely the exclusive object of political interest in majority of the Balkan countries in transition (and much broader). "Twenty two men hysterically chasing the inflated pig's bladder" as on the occasion of a football game wrote George Orwell, is a ritual accepted without reservations, the battle around which crucial national and sexual stakes are raised. It is a political convergence point and the merchandise with which every stake is without fail profitable.

European societies in transition, in their pre-political phase, confirm that Pascal Boniface is very close to the truth when he says that "in parallel with the classical definition of the state-nation which consists of three traditional elements (territory, population and government) it seems necessary to add the fourth element which is equally essential - the national football team".

In Balkan societies in transition - especially those who had the war on their territory - all the circumstances that go with it have been multiplied. Nationalistic authorities in each individual case had sports at their disposal as a reliable means for accumulating patriotic awareness which ensures that it would not melt on the eve of these or some next elections... Even when active foreign animosities ran out, when internal threats lost their persuasiveness, there was the ever near at hand good old media for polarisation of a large part of the public - football. And as civilian life gradually and partly started to go back to normal, the authorities began mobilising sportsmen and their achievements (like conscripts) for the purpose of defence of the country... The first sports events in certain international competitions, the warring parties in former Yugoslavia considered as continuation of the struggle, but this time under the aegis of the longed-for legalism.

At the turn of the century, one after the other fatal regimes in the Balkans started falling, but for some time the evil spirit of anti-sports persisted as the distorted social awareness of "the continuation of war by other means". Indeed, the mentioned regimes were not imposed on the citizens from abroad; they elected them themselves as their political representatives on several occasions. The ideal of respecting and supporting the opponent in the sports fields still seem extremely distant, but it should not be disregarded that the first step in this direction has nevertheless been made. We have started facing certain collective deviations, admitting them to ourselves and others despite the accompanying nauseousness. Just as making mistakes depended solely on us (as societies in a specific time context), so will correcting them. And only when we become aware of that shall we be entitled to another chance.

I. Lasic