ABSTRACT
Nation states and stateless nations alike contribute to the development of sport for many and varied reasons, amongst them domestic solidarity, international prestige, and the physical and psychological well-being of their people. With specific reference to nationalism as a political ideology, the most common motivations have been imperialist expansion and anti-imperialist resistance. The purpose of this chapter is to examine ways in which nationalism has made a vital contribution to sports development. The chapter begins with a brief discussion of the relationship between sport and nationalism, with special attention being paid to the British (or, to be more precise, the English) experience and to the diffusion of sport as an imperialist project. The main focus of the chapter, however, is on two particular case studies – Ireland and Taiwan – with the aim of demonstrating the complex relationship between sport, nationalism and postcolonialism in relation to sports development. The chapter ends with a commentary on the threat posed by globalisation to the traditional linkage of nationalism and sports development.
At the most basic level of analysis, it is easy to see the extent to which sport, arguably more than any other form of social activity in the modern world, facilitates flag waving and the playing of national anthems, both formally, at moments such as medal ceremonies, and, informally, through the activities of fans (Hoberman 1984; MacClancy 1996; Cronin and Mayall 1998; Bairner 2001; Smith and Porter 2004). Indeed, there are political nationalists who fear that by acting as such a visible medium for overt displays of national sentiment, sport can actually blunt the edge of serious political debate (Jarvie and Walker 1994). No matter how one views the grotesque caricatures of pseudonational modes of behaviour and dress that so often provide the colourful backdrop to major sporting events, one cannot escape the fact that sport and nationalism, no matter how that concept is understood, are closely linked. It is important to appreciate, however, that the precise nature of their relationship varies dramatically from one political setting to another and that, as a consequence, it is vital that we are constantly alert to a range of different conceptual issues (Bairner 2008, 2009). For example, like the United Nations, sport’s global governing bodies, such as the Interna-
tional Olympic Committee or the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA),
consist almost exclusively of representatives not of nations but rather of sovereign nation states. It is also worth noting that pioneering figures in the organisation of international sport, such as Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics movement, embodied a commitment both to internationalism and to the interests of their own nation states. Thus, whilst de Coubertin could write enthusiastically about a sporting event that would bring together young (male) athletes from across the globe, he was also specifically concerned with the physical wellbeing of young French men in the wake of a demoralising defeat in the Franco-German War. As Hill (1992: 6) observes, ‘it was not primarily because he was an internationalist that Coubertin pursued the Olympic ideal; rather, he saw this as the best way of promoting sport of the finest type, his efforts to balance intellectual and physical education in French schools having failed’. As for the Olympics themselves, it is worth noting that although the Cold War is normally
understood as a contest between the rival ideological visions of capitalism and communism, nationalism also played its part not only in terms of international competition between the United States and the Soviet Union but also within the Soviet bloc. Hungary and Czechoslovakia’s rivalry with the Soviet Union in water polo and ice hockey, respectively, although provoked by ideological differences and their consequences, were also rooted in national pride. Indeed, simply by becoming an international competition in 1908 as opposed to one that sought only to bring together competitors representing no one but themselves, the Olympic Games have had a major subsequent impact on ensuring that sports development and the nation are inextricably linked. It should also be recognised that sport has contributed hugely to gendering the nation.
Whereas the relationship between gender and national identity in general has been relatively underexplored, the role of sport in the context of that relationship has been almost totally ignored, even by sports scholars. Yet, Jennifer Ring (2009) draws our attention to the anomalous description of baseball as ‘the national pastime’ of the United States in relation to gender. Noting that, on 21 June 1952, Commissioner Ford Frick banned women from playing minor or major league baseball, Ring (2009: 20) comments, ‘If baseball is the national pastime, the implication is that women are not part of the nation.’ Similarly, in England, the Football Association instituted a ban on women’s football on 5 December 1921, which was not lifted until 29 November 1971 (Williams 2003). Thus, another national sport was formally reserved for male members of the nation. Traditionally women have either been excluded from sport or encouraged to play for their own sakes – principally for the sake of their health. There has been little sense that female athletes carry with them the hopes and ambitions of the nation. Like war, sport has customarily been regarded as men’s work. There have been some notable exceptions to this general rule, primarily emanating from state socialist societies such as the German Democratic Republic, Rumania and the Soviet Union itself. Indeed, the most interesting contemporary example is provided by the female boxers (Lee 2009) and footballers of North Korea, and with the failure of that closed society’s men’s football team at the 2010 World Cup Finals (Lee and Bairner 2009), the propagandist value of women athletes may well remain high, at least in the short term. Whilst in most cases the nation states that constitute the membership of international sporting
bodies such as the International Olympic Committee are coterminous with nations, the fact remains that numerous nations throughout the world, as well as other forms of collective belonging, are stateless and thus denied representation in international sporting competition just as they are in the corridors of global political power. Here too the Olympic movement has ensured that sports development and nationalism are interwoven. For example, despite the fact that the right to host the Games is granted to individual cities, those cities themselves are generally also seen as representative of their respective nation states. In the case of host cities such as Montréal and Barcelona, however, the opportunity arose to promote the sporting, and
concomitantly the political, aspirations of what are seen by many as the submerged nations of Québec and Catalonia, respectively (Kidd 1992; Hargreaves 2000). As the examples of Montréal and Barcelona reveal, when considering the relationship
between sports and nationalism, it is important to think in terms both of nation states and of nations. This also provides the means whereby sport’s connection with nationality and also with national identity can be separately explored. It is also useful to bear in mind that sport often acts as a window through which we are able to examine a whole range of social developments and to test a variety of theoretical concepts and perspectives. With specific reference to the relationship between sports and nationalism, observing the world of sport offers insights into the relevance and reliability of such concepts as ethnic and civic nationalism and the validity of explanatory approaches to the rise of nations and nationalism such as primordialism and modernism. Sport can also provide important insights into varieties of imperialism, the cultural politics of anti-imperialist struggle and postcolonial legacies (Bairner 2008). However, despite a growing literature on the relationship between sport and nationalism, the precise impact of nationalism on sports development has received little attention. One way of trying to understand this impact is to look at the ways in which sport has developed (or has been developed) in societies in which the struggle for national identity has been a major political concern over extended periods of time. There are two extreme ways in which nationalism can impact on the development of sport.
First, national ambition can be instrumental in sport’s diffusion. In the case of the United Kingdom, for example, diffusion took place in two directions – from England to the other constituent parts of the nation state, from members of the upper classes to subordinate groups in British and Irish society and, finally, from Britain to the various corners of its Empire. Educational institutions played a vital role in the emergence and rapid growth of modern sport in England, as did organised religion. Indeed the two often worked hand in hand inspired by Christian headmasters in the public school system – hence the origins of the term, ‘muscular Christianity’. As Dunning (1990: 91) points out, ‘whatever the degree of adequacy of this hypothesis, it is certainly the case that public schools were the central loci of the development of embryonic forms of soccer and the rival rugby code.’ Subsequently the diffusion of British games, at least in the formal British Empire, owed much to Christian missionaries as well as to official functionaries of the Empire. The alternative manner in which nationalism can influence sports development is through
the ring fencing of certain sports in the interests of national purity. Although cricket is still closely associated with Englishness, neither the English nor the British more generally used this particular strategy, such were their expansionist aims. More recently, at one level the United States has witnessed the construction of a relatively insular sporting culture. But that too has been influenced by expansionist ambitions, both political and sporting, not least in relation to the spread of baseball, traditionally described as America’s ‘national pastime’ but now played with skill and enthusiasm in such disparate societies as Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Japan and South Korea. Rather it was with the formation of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in 1884, in direct response to the diffusion of British games in Ireland, that there emerged what was to become one of the most successful of all attempts to harness sport to a nationalist cause and, in so doing, to develop sport in interesting and successful ways.
