A World Cup lesson in multi-culturalism –
An opinion piece by Aubrey Joachim
While the Australian politicians, media shock-jocks and the north-shore and Turak types argue the down sides of migration, multi-culturalism and refugees, the world was given a world cup lesson in why and how these perceived negativities can be turned into a positive and how countries can benefit at a stadium in Moscow when the French national team played Croatia in the FIFA 2018 World Cup final.
Seventeen members of the 2018 cup-winning French football team were either born overseas or have parents born overseas. They come from Congo, Cameroon, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Algeria, Morocco and DR Congo – all former French colonies. It is being said that France spent half the nineteenth century conquering Africa so they could build their 2018 team. Of course as seen by the Western world today it is wrong for a country like China to exercise its influence!
At the start of each game one saw every one of these proud French players have their hands on their hearts as they sang the La Marseillaise – the French national anthem. Some of the background stories are astounding. Paul Pogba from Guinea lived in a Paris ghetto and played his early football on the streets when he was discovered. He is a superstar. And Kylian Mbappe one of their leading goal scorers – and young players in the tournament, still in his teens is today the most expensive player in the world. I wonder how France’s migration and refugee debate will shape from now on.
The French team is not alone in harnessing the benefits of migrant, refugee multi-culturalism. Beligium, Denmark, Portugal, Switzerland, England and even the might Germany had such diverse multi-cultural talent in their ranks. And, we are not even taking into consideration the other European football giants such as Italy, Spain, The Netherlands who did not make it to the final 32 in Russia.
Even the Socceroos it must be said enjoy the benefits of multi-culturalism. Most of the players have recent migrant roots. The youngest player of the entire 2018 tournament was Socceroo Daniel Arzani of Iranian descent. Will he be another Mbappe? Would Australia even have had a world cup team if not for multi-culturalism? And what about the lovely Lucy Zelic the SBS host who stood by her philosophy of giving the highest respect to every player with her perfect name pronunciations.
While the 2018 World Cup tournament would perhaps be the greatest and most exciting of the 21 previous events, which was condemned by some countries because it was perceived to be a ‘Putin-Russia’ show, it has also shown the world that even a country as young as two decades and a population of less than Sydney – Croatia can be finalists, the most important lesson the world-game has taught the world is how humans from any part of the planet can integrate for a better outcome. Surely this is a message for the politicians and anti-migrant/ refugee lobby anywhere on the globe.
