We crash out; the French-born; a movie for the family
Congratulations to the Senegalese, who outplayed and beat us.
The Dutch outplayed and beat the Senegalese.
We outplayed the Dutch but unluckily didn’t beat them. So, we crashed out.
(All three countries outplayed and beat the Qataris by the same number of goals.)
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
This four-year-old Vox video is truer than ever. The French talent pool is deep. France supplies the rest of the world with players: especially, the African teams.
This time, France is without some of its top stars; but the reality is, it could field half a dozen decent teams in a single World Cup – teams so competitive that on a good day, a “B” or “C” French team could beat the “A” team. This afternoon, Tunisia, with ten French-born players on its roster, beat France-proper. Tunisia was unlucky not to qualify out of its group.
If Senegal defeats England – which isn’t beyond imagining; it will be a bruising game for the English – Senegal could face France in a quarterfinal. A largely French-born, French-trained team could knock out France.
(Click to enlarge.)
This raises interesting questions for the French constitutional principle of laïcité, which explicitly concerns itself with religious identity but often is interpreted as applying to other forms of identity. “France does not refer to its citizens based on their race, religion or origin. To us there is no hyphenated identity,” the French ambassador to the U.S. famously said after the 2018 World Cup. What, then, to make of French citizens who try to defeat the French team in the name of Senegal or Tunisia? Do they not belong to the French nation? (Legally, they surely do.) Or, by French cultural lights, do they not truly represent those other countries? Do the ambassador’s words imply that the Tunisian team is a cultural sham?
I have no very firm grasp of how the French themselves would answer these questions. (Not that I’d insist that only the French are entitled to decide what it is to be French, even if they are entitled to decide who is French.) But it does seem to me that French national identity has different sorts of conditions than, say, U.S. national identity. This should give pause to identity activists and theorizers. In this era of identity politics, national identity is too often overlooked, or it’s taken for granted as a fixed part of the background. But it is not equally fixed by the same variables everywhere, even if, everywhere, the law helps to fix it; and its significance and function vary from nation to nation.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Tonight our family took a break from watching murders. Instead, we watched Minions, which, many years ago, was either the first or the second movie that Karin & I saw together in a theater. Samuel walked around repeating Minion-gibberish and catchphrases like “Respect, power, banana!” Daniel, who was still wearing his oversized Ecuador shirt after yesterday’s game, himself looked like a little yellow Minion.
The Dutch outplayed and beat the Senegalese.
We outplayed the Dutch but unluckily didn’t beat them. So, we crashed out.
(All three countries outplayed and beat the Qataris by the same number of goals.)
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
This four-year-old Vox video is truer than ever. The French talent pool is deep. France supplies the rest of the world with players: especially, the African teams.
This time, France is without some of its top stars; but the reality is, it could field half a dozen decent teams in a single World Cup – teams so competitive that on a good day, a “B” or “C” French team could beat the “A” team. This afternoon, Tunisia, with ten French-born players on its roster, beat France-proper. Tunisia was unlucky not to qualify out of its group.
If Senegal defeats England – which isn’t beyond imagining; it will be a bruising game for the English – Senegal could face France in a quarterfinal. A largely French-born, French-trained team could knock out France.
(Click to enlarge.)
This raises interesting questions for the French constitutional principle of laïcité, which explicitly concerns itself with religious identity but often is interpreted as applying to other forms of identity. “France does not refer to its citizens based on their race, religion or origin. To us there is no hyphenated identity,” the French ambassador to the U.S. famously said after the 2018 World Cup. What, then, to make of French citizens who try to defeat the French team in the name of Senegal or Tunisia? Do they not belong to the French nation? (Legally, they surely do.) Or, by French cultural lights, do they not truly represent those other countries? Do the ambassador’s words imply that the Tunisian team is a cultural sham?
I have no very firm grasp of how the French themselves would answer these questions. (Not that I’d insist that only the French are entitled to decide what it is to be French, even if they are entitled to decide who is French.) But it does seem to me that French national identity has different sorts of conditions than, say, U.S. national identity. This should give pause to identity activists and theorizers. In this era of identity politics, national identity is too often overlooked, or it’s taken for granted as a fixed part of the background. But it is not equally fixed by the same variables everywhere, even if, everywhere, the law helps to fix it; and its significance and function vary from nation to nation.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Tonight our family took a break from watching murders. Instead, we watched Minions, which, many years ago, was either the first or the second movie that Karin & I saw together in a theater. Samuel walked around repeating Minion-gibberish and catchphrases like “Respect, power, banana!” Daniel, who was still wearing his oversized Ecuador shirt after yesterday’s game, himself looked like a little yellow Minion.