Honduras v Chile – stray thoughts on football and the latin american left

Two countries with breakthrough national sides – the only two countries in Latin America to have reversed gains by the left “pink” tide that has swept political elections in the region this past decade. In Chile this year, the center-left Socialist Party lost it’s first national election in the post-Pinochet era, while Honduras experienced an old fashioned right-wing coup to oust elected President Manuel Zalaya, who made the mistake of caring too much about the people in his country.

As I write, a well-organized attacking Chilean side has just broken through against a well organized Honduras forced into a defensive shell, relying on counterattacks. 1-0 moving into the final stages of the first half.

There’s more than enough to intrigue on the field – but I do find my mind wandering into politics as I watch the national heroes of Chile and Honduras – thinking about the difference between the latin american left of the early 1970s and today’s pink tide – about the differences in the contemporary political cultures of these two countries – thinking about the role of soccer in these nations as it relates to the political culture, historically and today.

Chile in the early 1970s was one of the great hopes of the international left – a constitutional democracy with a radical President, Salvador Allende. Kissenger, Nixon and the American based corporation ITT wanted him out – the country was squeezed economically, but Allende held on – then, with the utmost brutality, Pinochet struck. Allende was dead, torture reigned, and the Chicago-boys moved in to transform the economy to the liking of international capital. One week Chile was a magnet for dreamers, poets, students, and workers – the next, fascists. Over the next two decades Chile changed, all the radical spirit that had animated the Allende years was forced out the country – when democracy finally returned to Chile, a party calling itself socialist was elected, but the socialism of the 90s bore little resemblance to the socialism of the early 70s.

Chile has qualified for eight World Cup finals: four pre-Pinochet, two during his iron rule, and two since – the 2010 team is made up largely of players of non-European or Mestizo descent. Compared to other Latin American countries, Chile’s demographics are unique: Argentina and Uruguay have substantially fewer people of indiginous or African decscent – every other country in South and Central America much more. The white population in Chile, as with all white populations in Latin America is substantially more wealthy than the rest of the population. The national men’s soccer team started 11 non-white players today.

Chiliean, and international, left radicalism in the 60s and 70s was much more overt than today’s more tempered variation – political struggle was no so much worn on sleeves but it was hovering in the air, everywhere. The question “which Chile does the national football team represent?” was a live question in the 60s, the 70s – as was the case in other latin american nations where fascist dictatorships took power before the democratic left was allowed to win elections (Brazil, Argentina etc, etc) – not so much today.

The radical dreamers in Allende’s time – students, artists, and workers – almost unanimously embraced soccer as the people’s game. To the Pinochet elite it was largely viewed as a vulgar sport – of value merely as bread and circuses. Throughout the world soccer was recognized as the working class sport par excellence – from Andy Capp cartoons to the Communist Ultras of AS Roma to the banners of Che – attending soccer matches meant you weren’t explicitly organizing the proletariat, but tacitly you were involved in a complementary activity. Soccer matches were a space of working class solidarity.

The pink tide in Latin America is the legacy of the powerful, radical left of the 60s and 70s. Suppressed with the aid of the USA in that era – when democracy returned to the region the long-suppressed hopes of the people for a more economically just society finally gained expression in a tidal wave of electoral victories. But these victories have taken place in a highly constrained international economic context – the people across the region have rejected what’s known as the Washington Consensus (“free” markets overseen by international financial institutions), but the only option they’re offered is a slightly less aggressive version of that consensus (Venenzuela and Bolivia are, of course, more concerted in their efforts to develop an alternative to the Washington Consensus and in this they have more resemblance to Allende – but even they don’t directly challenge the under-lying logic of the global economic order).

And now Chile has even elected the center-right political party. While it’s true that President Michelle Bachelet would easily have won re-election if she had not been constitutionally ineligible – the fact that the country’s electoral politics now swing on personalities and not ideology betrays how little difference there really is being the two options made available through increasingly American-like elections. New Labour vs New Tories / Democrats who betray their base vs. Republicans who do the same / it’s a far cry from nationalizing mining for the benefit of the people and a long way from 1973.

Honduras, however, is closer. Last year the nation’s oligarchs and the military forced out the elected President, Manuel Zalaya, who was doing too much for the poor of his country, who make up the overwhelming majority of the population. While Lula’s Brazil offered dramatic support, sheltering Zalaya in their embassy- signaling, at least, that he wasn’t going to tolerate coups returning as a Latin American trend – the Obama administration tacitly blessed the overthrow by doing nothing to help Zalaya. Sham election were eventually held, but the left wasn’t allowed to participate and the winner of a run-off between two pro-oligarchs was embraced by the US.

It is in this context that perhaps the greatest Honduran side in history takes the field in South Africa. Made up entirely of Indiginous, mestizio, and African-Honduran players, the side resembles the population of the country – not the oligarchic families who have ruled the nation since it’s inception. Wilson Palacios, of Tottenham Hotspurs, and Maynor Figueroa of Wigan Athletic are both established stars in the English Premier League – and while the side is given little hope of advancing from a first-round group that includes tournament favorite Span and a Chilean side considered one of the sleepers in the tournament, Honduras is poised to be much more competitive than the nation’s fans could ever have expected only a few years ago.

So, what does a national side like Honduras represent, if anything, politically to its fans, to the nation – what about to political-minded people around the globe. Should the team be shunned, rooted against as there’s a long-history of repressive political regimes embracing successful national sides for their political gain and glory (a sin the left is as guilty of as the right, witness the propaganda surrounding Soviet and Eastern European sides during the cold war years) – or should the team be embraced as the champions of the people of Honduras.

It seems almost a foreign question to ask in 2010 – was in the 60s and 70s? Has anything changed in this regard? Many sports journalists loudly declare that such questions are inappropriate, that they ruin the game on the field, that fans hate such intrusions into the sanctuary from the “real world” that spectator sports provide for fans. To my mind, those journalists simply should shut up, they speak only for themselves, as they, in effect, demand that sports fans be infantile and stupid – all the sports fans I know are more than capable of enjoying and revelling in the games on the field while also considering the deeper issues of the day, often looked at directly through the lense provide by the sports events itself. Texts have many readings, and this is as true of sports as it is of art and literature – in fact, anyone who suggests you shouldn’t let your mind go wherever it wants when involved in leisure activities (i.e. watching or playing sports) would be very unpopular on the playground.

Though, of course, much of the world will object that soccer is much more important than a leisure activity – but the texture of that objection is not at the inclusion of politics and economics but clearly through its inclusion – look at the majority of Manchester-based Man U fans who embraced the protest movement against the current American owners demanding that the team essentially be socialized – and, in general, the finances of global soccer have provided a clear window into the brutally unjust fall-out from the global financial crisis (clubs folding, others being propelled to the top of the game via some international billionaire as deus ex machina).

Of course, Honduras has a priveleged and infamous place in the history of soccer and politics – as a four day war broke out between El Salvador and Honduras after their national teams squared off for a World Cup qualifying match in July 1969. the conflict, known as the Soccer War. The military battle was inconclusive – less so on the soccer field as El Salvador proceeded to qualify for the finals in Mexico in 1970.

The episode betrays the level of passion for football in Honduras and throughout Central America (and, of course, the world). As the domestic situation in Honduras remains on a razors edge, and the sport as central to the lives of Honduras, the nuances of the political significance of this year’s national team is an issue that The People’s Game will unearth.