Soccer and North Korea’s Moment in the Spotlight
“Their style of playing”, said the great Maradona, “is unattractive but pretty useful in the end” while talking about the soccer style of the North Korean team. Of course, no one expected any graceful or memorable performance from the team that crashed out of the first round from the ongoing World Cup by the margin of 1:12 goals. The DPRK team lacked stars, experience, supporters, sponsors. Moreover, news reports seem to suggest that the small bunch of fans supporting the North Korean team were in fact Chinese and were paid for playing the Vuvuzela in support of North Korea. Even then, on the field the team showed that it belonged at the highest level even in their unceremonious exit. The margin of defeat and the goal difference only exemplifies their lack of exposure, which in turn calls for more engagement with North Korean sports. It is hoped and believed that engaging Korean sports would open the window to the secretly guarded North Korean state and people to people contact could usher in the dividends of peace.
Like other things that one associates with the regime in DPRK, off the field, the team’s South African trip was stage-managed and wrapped under secrecy. The team was shown to the media while practicing and on a trip to a zoo in South Africa but only from a distance and was not allowed to interact with the media even once. In fact, one scheduled press conference of the team was cancelled amidst rumours that some of the players had gone ‘missing’. Even the fans, collectors and traders of the World Cup memorabilia were left fuming at the lack of sharing of the official team jerseys till the cup began. It seems that North Korea had squandered a perfect moment of projecting their normalcy as a state that belonged to the world stage.
However, North Korean team brought back the memories of the ping-pong diplomacy that helped bridge the improbable trans-Pacific divide in the early 1970s. Looking back nearly four decades, one cannot stop but wonder how it was a sports team that became the first official American delegation to the People’s Republic of China and paved the way for subsequent engagement. There have been numerous other occasions of international sports events being used for diplomatic posturing for it offers the best stage with the ample media and popular attention. The modern history of sports is dotted with some excellent examples of sports diplomacy. Jesse Owens defied the racist logic of the Nazi Germany of Adolf Hitler to come on top during the 1936 Summer Olympics. Similarly, the 1968 Olympics highlighted the racial rights moment in the United States because of the ‘power to people salute’. The Munich Olympics was used by Palestinian extremists to bring attention to their cause, of course in an extremely violent manner. South Africa faced the globally unanimous sports exile during the apartheid years, which many believe was one of the biggest reasons for sensitising the world opinion on the regime. The isolation awakened many South Africans about the kid of regime they were supporting. In the South Asian subcontinent, in 2004, the then Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee told the Indian cricket team, before its tour to Pakistan, to win hearts as well. Similarly, following the 26/11 attacks, Indian government did not permit the proposed Indian cricket team’s tour to Pakistan to take place.
For the DPRK regime, it was a moment to showcase that the regime was as normal as any in allowing its team to participate. Kim would have certainly hoped that the team could score a surprise in the world cup, like the North Korean team did in its last World Cup appearance of 1966 by defeating the European giants Italy. For Kim and the country that is in news for all the wrong reasons, any repeat of the 1966 feat would have brought fifteen minutes of fame and for the world it could have brought a hope that soccer could bridge the Korean divide. How one hoped that North Korea managed a strike before the Samba boys did. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Historically, sports diplomacy has already proved on numerous occasions that it is one of the most effective methods of communication. It would be an effective instrument in helping restore the communication gap across the 38th parallel. Therefore, those hoping for a peaceful resolution of the Korean standoff must believe that North Korea’s moment of ping-pong diplomacy is just round the corner.
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