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Globalization, identity, and soccer in Russian and Arabic

Last week, I spoke with a close relative who told me he is against globalization, adding he will do everything in his power to actively oppose this new global reality, because he wants to protect his own identity and help to protect the identity of his country.

I then asked him what the identity he was trying to protect was. His answer was short and clear: “None. We are still looking for our identity.” In the typical fashion of a post-modern times when all answers are equally valid, my relative apparently didn’t notice the contradiction between his first answer and the second one.

On the one hand, he said globalization takes away his identity. On the other hand, he said neither him nor his country has an identity to protect. I should say my relative is not an academic researcher. He is just an observer of life who lived and worked in several countries.

Whatever the case and in spite of the unnoticed contradiction, it is true there is a connection between identity and globalization. And it is also true our times are times when the institutions created during the Modernity –schools, universities, hospitals, governments, nations- are now in the process of being re-defined in the context of post-Modernity.

In that process, we perceive ourselves as no longer being who we use to be, but we don’t know who we are now. We live in the “in between,” in the uncertainty of the lack of definitions. Therefore, it is easy to understand how globalization can be seen as a challenge or even an attack to our identity.

What we thought it was something lasting forever, now it has changed. For example, just a few days ago it was announced that the United States is no longer the country with the largest number and the tallest skyscrapers. China is now the leading country in both categories.

Globalization has caused deep and irreversible changes in the way we see ourselves and we see others. Regardless of our desires, those new images are constantly changing.

A good example is the recent decision by FIFA to select Russia as the location for the 2018 World Soccer Cup and Qatar as the location for the 2022 WSC. With those selections, FIFA seems to say the future is more important than the past and cultural, linguistic, and political barriers are no longer barriers.

Is there any other way to explain why the leading organism in charge of the most popular sports in the world selected for the largest sports event in the planet two places lacking the passion, the soccer tradition, and the infrastructure other countries have?

I think my relative doesn’t like globalization because, as the decision by FIFA clearly shows, globalization reveals a shift in the predominant position of Western civilization in the world, the position Western countries enjoyed during the past five centuries.

Perhaps it is time to study history to better understand the kind of future we are building for our children.

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