'Soccer is war'? Not anymore

Soccer, more than most sports, lends itself to tribal feelings: the collective effort, the team colors, the speed, the physical aggression. As a famous Dutch soccer coach once said, not in jest: "Soccer is war."

It was not supposed to be like this. After two world wars, displays of national fervor became more or less taboo in Europe. Nationalism was blamed for almost destroying the old continent. The kind of exalted patriotism, especially when combined with warrior pride, that is still normal in the United States was for a long time associated with mass slaughter. The English, who escaped occupation by a hostile power and still believe they won World War II alone (well, with a little help from the Yanks), still have a militaristic streak. Hence, perhaps, the notorious belligerence of English soccer fans.

And yet, even as nationalistic emotions were suppressed in polite society all over Europe, illicit tribal feelings are given full vent in the soccer arenas. These feelings can be festive, as they were in Euro 2008. But they can contain something darker, more aggressive too, especially when sporting combat is loaded with historical memory. Games between Holland and Germany, for example, or Germany and Poland tended, until very recently, to be reenactments of the war -- as melancholy replays of wartime defeat or as sweet revenge.

The tribal feelings of Germans were considered, for obvious reasons, to be particularly toxic after Hitler's Reich, which is why German flag-waving, until recently, was exercised with a slight air of shame-faced restraint that was absent in surrounding countries. And yet Germans too are unable to suppress such feelings. Older Germans still remember their famous victory over a superb Hungarian team in 1954. It was the first time since their wartime defeat that Germans were able to feel proud of themselves.

Like everything else, forms of patriotism change over time. Reasons for national pride are varied. When France won the World Cup in 1998, the French liked to point out the ethnic diversity of their team. Their main star, Zinedine Zidane, was of Algerian stock. Others had ancestral roots in various parts of Africa. The multiethnic nature of the team was touted as a mark not of a long and often bloody colonial past but of national superiority born from the tolerance of the French Enlightenment and the fraternity of the French Revolution.

In fact, the French were harbingers of a kind. For something profound is changing in Europe, slowly, painfully, but surely. If ethnic diversity is more common in national sides, it is even more marked in the clubs, which can draw players from anywhere in the world. Clubs too often used to command tribal loyalty along ethnic or religious lines. Who would have predicted 30 years ago that English fans would have cheered for a London team full of Africans, Latin Americans and Spaniards, coached by a Frenchman?

But ethnic and cultural diversity is not all that has changed the face of European soccer. I have never seen such harmony between the supporters of different nations as in this year's championship. The carnival spirit that prevailed -- the flying of Turkish and German flags side by side in German streets when the two nations met in the semifinals, the joint Spanish-German celebrations after the final -- all this suggests something fresh.

Not that national feeling is dying, even as a new European spirit is being born. But, at the very least, national identities in Europe are no longer quite so colored by memories of war. No one much minds anymore when Germany wins, as it so often does. The Germans are now much too nice for that. And yet I have to admit that I still could not suppress a tiny yet keenly felt pleasure when Germany lost to Spain. Perhaps because Spain played more beautiful football. Or perhaps it just shows my age.

Ian Buruma is a contributing editor to Opinion and a professor of human rights at Bard College.