Tell me, what’s happiness? Football, of course. Not playing it, not qualifying for it, but consuming it. Precisely, happiness is watching the 64 matches of the highest-level football played in the far-flung Amazonian longitudes, the broadcast signals being sucked live from space to the tubes of 65 million Thais at the expense of — a bargain, I believe — 427 million baht paid for by tax money from the public purse straight to a private firm. They should make it a policy to distribute ecstasy pills to accompany our late-night viewing, just to be certain maximum happiness is achieved, sustained and thanked for.
What else if not a masterpiece of populism, cooked and served in just two days? Even You-Know-Who in Dubai wouldn’t have had the nerve to do this.
Pity those who don’t care about football. Those who don’t see the lush poetry of Brazil’s attack, the geometric splendour of Spain’s passing, Cristiano Ronaldo’s dreamy dribbles. They must’ve felt betrayed that their choice of sport — synchronised gymnastics or chess — doesn’t qualify for the national enforced happiness scheme. They must’ve wondered how the 427 million baht, paid to RS Plc by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Committee with the “co-ordination” of the junta, was calculated. They must’ve wondered if democracy means all sports are treated equal. They’ve must wondered if the reaction would have been fiercer had this been approved by the previous government. They’ve must wondered, too, if the 427 million could’ve been used to do something, anything, so the Thai squad had a better chance of qualifying in four, eight or 36 years, so happiness (or nationalism) would feel just slightly more real.
I speak with joy, gratitude, and the sweet drug of insomnia. As someone who can recite the midfield line-up of every team in Group B, C and F and who can decipher not only Messi’s swashbuckling moves but also the meaning of Neymar’s tattoos, I know how dictators love exploiting football. True, democratic countries have won more World Cups than other regimes (communist nations had zero) but strong-armed juntas and on-the-rocks fascism had their fair share of football politicisation throughout history. Ours has a lot of catching up to do.
Italy in 1934 won the World Cup under Mussolini, with his Blackshirts asserting their presence throughout the tournament. Football gave the Italian fascists the rhetoric of unison and monumentalism (a byword of happiness), and even Fifa admitted questionable refereeing decisions were obvious — well, how could they not be when armed soldiers ruled the country? In mid-century Spain, General Franco knew how to manipulate his people through the sport; every time Spain won an international match, he made sure the victory rubbed off on his image and milked it to rally support for his brutal reign. Interestingly though, Spain didn’t become world champion until 2010, long after Franco’s death.
We can also study the South Americans, their 100 years of solitude now challenged by our post-coup melancholy. Brazil’s 1970 World Cup-winning squad — featuring the most celebrated luminaries of Pele, Jairzinho and Tostao — operated more or less under the shadow of the Medici dictatorship, which hand-picked the coach and embarked on a national scheme to suppress dissent and spread domestic pride via the joy of football.
Likewise the Argentinean strongman Jorge Rafael Videla, who came to power through a coup against Isabel Peron in 1976. In 1978, the country hosted the World Cup, and Videla followed the dictatorial playbook by exploiting football to whip up mass euphoria that masked the well-documented crimes of his rule (kidnapping, torture and murder among them). Of course, Argentina won the title — star players included Mario Kempes and Leopoldo Luque — but this is perhaps the ugliest tournament in Fifa history as rumour of Videla’s “warning” to his players to not lose at all cost, besides the rampant match-rigging allegations, became common football lore.
Still, those chapters in football (or world) history are understandable: dictators used the game to mass-produce happiness because their national teams were playing. They were participating and winning, and they built giant stadiums that lasted for decades and boosted the economy. So, our version of football as junta populism goes further, or lower, because we don’t even have a stake. Our team isn’t playing; they don’t even get more funding. And the state’s hasty live broadcast subsidy — this is a fan speaking — is equivalent to a drug-pusher shoving amnesiac pills down citizens’ throats. Football is joy and beauty, enough to keep a lot of us silent, tame and forgetful for another 60 days. Prescribed happiness won’t last much longer than that though.
Kong Rithdee is Deputy Life Editor, Bangkok Post.