Taking the knee: we shouldn’t condemn this part of our evolving culture
In 2013, long after he’d been involved in the project, Helmut Schmidt, the former West German Chancellor, was asked for his thoughts on the UK joining the single currency.
“I don’t know. I don’t know whether I would like Britain to join”, he answered. “The British are very stubborn.”
The answer might not have been particularly profound but was certainly informed by a lifetime of dealing with this country. He might also have had a point. What other nation would identify with the bulldog, a breed known for its obstinacy? Etched deeply onto our national psyche is that sentiment that we don’t like being told what to do or think.
Perhaps it’s because we’re an island or, in a more profound sense, an island of islands. Our landscape, though compact, has not always been easy to navigate and, for that matter, still offers more than a few challenges. Maybe that’s why there’s a greater sense of isolation in communities, breeding that familiar sense of parochial identity that remains acute to this day. We didn’t need the EU to make us understand the psychology of somebody coming “here” to tell “us” what to do. Even between towns and boroughs that presumption never sat well.
All of which brings us to the whole controversy around “taking the knee”.
Over the course of Euro 2020, the national debate slowly turned a diminishing gesture of solidarity with anti-racism activists in the US into a re-invigorated gesture against racism here in the UK. Yet it’s hardly surprising. It was probably only a relative few of us in this country that ever had a considered position on the Black Lives Matter movement but most of us would have bristled at the sight of a group of young, articulate, socially conscious sportsmen being bullied by yobs in a crowd. There has rarely been a better example of “I might not always agree with what you say but I’ll fight to my dying breath for your right to say it.”
Suddenly, “taking the knee” became a necessity, simply to prove that nobody should be bullied into expressing something against their will. Moreover, this was a symptom of real-life rather than the freakish culture war and it’s hard now to imagine any scenario in which “the knee” doesn’t become a fixture at every England match going forward. That doesn’t mean, however, that the heavily nuanced politics around it will go away.
Inside the culture war bubble, the “knee” had become heavily associated with that meaningless debate that has tried to conflate anti-racism with some frankly nutty fictions about “cultural Marxism” and “critical race theory” in the US. Over there, some clever but opportunistic politicians are saying plenty of dumb things about an issue that simply repeats the old and deep factionalism between the Left and the Right.
Yet in a more general sense, here in the UK, the controversy around “the knee” has been less about the message than the obligation. This is the gamble that a few high-profile Tory politicians took when they refused to condemn those that booed the gesture. What we witnessed was a succession of own goals, as Priti Patel condemned “gesture politics” and thereby left herself open to accusations of hypocrisy given a recent photo op in which she attended a police raid (though not, as widely reported, of illegal immigrants but of those involved in people trafficking).
Yet the gamble was understandable. They were relying on voters agreeing that politics do not belong in sport. That was the populist take given how familiar the arguments have become. Profess support for “the knee” (or players wearing the LGBT colours or the AIDs ribbon or even the poppy) and you hit a big contradiction. What happens if the symbol is one you happen to find offensive? What if it’s Paolo Di Canio’s fascist salute or a Confederate flag? Where do we draw the norms of our politics and deem some messages acceptable? This then becomes a matter of somebody (or some group of people) deciding that a certain point of view is acceptable. Who then gets to pick?
But what those politicians who hoped to ride the coattails of this populist take seemed to forget is that somebody always does get to choose. Whether it’s an elected official working in government or a sport’s governing body that has its own constituency in terms of sponsors, advertisers, and, indeed, the wider fanbase, somebody always decides. Indeed, the argument that “the knee” somehow forces politics into football is itself farcical given the prominence that both UAFA and FIFA have given to the Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE) network.
The point is worth emphasising. Our notions of “acceptable” are in constant flux. This is that change in cultural norms that Tyrone Mings touched upon in his well-timed tweet to the Home Secretary: “You don’t get to stoke the fire at the beginning of the tournament by labelling our anti-racism message as ‘Gesture Politics’ & then pretend to be disgusted when the very thing we’re campaigning against, happens.”
Over the course of the competition, the debate had changed. This is the story of culture, but also of all human beings struggling with life in the best ways we can. We all respond to – as well as create – cultural pressures. At the turn of the last century, women competed in the Olympics for the first time. At the 1900 Paris Games, it was deemed acceptable that women only compete in five sports: tennis, sailing, croquet, equestrianism, and golf. Opinions had shifted from those of the 19th century, as they continued to shift until the present day when women are karate kicking each other in the head and swimming, leaping, and running in clothes that would have left even the most progressive Victorian aghast. Now we argue about swimming caps suitable for black hair and the right of transgender women to compete. Who knows what fans will be arguing about in 2120 when they arrive at their Olympic Stadium, probably in the shadow of Olympus Mons. Possibly whether long jump records are valid in low gravity…
These aren’t merely inconvenient facts or, for that matter, quirks of history, but rather the moral and cultural climates of the day. In Shakespeare’s theatre, the female roles were played by young men. Go further back to the 13th century and you would find culture operating with some quite different notions of “acceptable”. Eleanor of Provence was only 12 when she married Henry III (he was 28) in 1236. It is why it’s always foolish to read history through the lens of modern attitudes or, for that matter, modern life through some notional endpoint which places us as the final arbiters of attitudes, tastes, and morality.
It means we can say with absolute certainty that there is no moral equivalency between fascist salutes and “the knee”. How do we know that? Because it ultimately comes down to us collectively, as a culture, deciding if such equivalency exists. IPSOS Mori surveyed England fans about the knee and though 48 per cent supported it, only 27 per cent opposed it. Yet even these numbers don’t express the general indifference of the public, which is often how the “acceptable” often manifests itself. Unless enough people cancel their sports subscriptions, stop attending England matches, and generally drift away from the sport, the politics of the knee are not going to change very much. Nor should they in the free market of ideas. On this issue, the England team won long before extra time.