Euro 2012: Bad Choice of Hosts?


As the start of Euro 2012 draws near, the BBC showed a documentary with details of the extent of racism and support of neo-fascism and non-Nazism among the football fans in the two host countries, Poland and Ukraine. But wouldn’t stadium security and the cops prevent such incidents? Not necessarily. As in most non-Western countries, when the violence happens, in these two countries, the police sit back and let things happen. Things have reached a point where many non-white players from the participating countries feel it safer to not call their relatives to cheer them on from the stadiums.

Why then were these two eastern European countries picked as the hosts for the Euro Cup? Turns out the European football governing body did know of these risks, but decided to go ahead anyway. Why? Partly, it was the usual “let’s bring eastern Europe to the fold” reason. Another was political correctness. Bad choice: sometimes, one just has to call a spade a spade.

Being blunt was something Obama did when he recently referred to a “Polish death camp” while referring to a Polish war hero. The Poles protested and said it was really a “German death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland,” that Obama should have distinguished the perpetrators from the location. Yeah, big difference! Like the Nazis would have setup death camps in countries that were sympathetic to Jews. Get real.

Europe likes to pretend hatred for the Jews was confined to the Nazis only and (hence) ended with the fall of the Nazis, but in reality it just continues under other names. How much longer will the Europeans pretend things are fine? Wake up, guys, it’s not just your currency that’s a mess...

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