Digging deeper

The video of the Spanish cricket team during the playing of the national anthem, some of them with their hands on their hearts, has been watched by nearly six million people and, while many comments have been positive, the quantity of insults has meant that numerous media outlets have taken up the story

David Andrews

Friday, 6 October 2023, 18:20

The European Cricket Championships are being held in Cártama. Last Friday the news should have been that Spain had qualified for finals week, beating France ... by seven wickets. What became viral, however, was the quantity of racist slurs which appeared on X (formerly Twitter) following the publication of a video of the Spanish team during the playing of the national anthem, some of them with their hands on their hearts. The video has been watched by nearly six million people and, while many comments have been positive, the quantity of insults has meant that numerous media outlets have taken up the story. The vast majority of articles have briefly mentioned the bigoted comments on social media, condemned them and then moved on to a justification of the players' "origins" and an explanation of cricket, an unknown sport to many Spaniards.

What worries me is the dearth of articles which actually analyse these attitudes and try to explain what may be lurking and festering under the surface of Spain's purported 'easygoingness' and friendliness. How can people spew their hateful views on X without any apparent consequences? And why aren't we seeing an army of Spanish politicians censoring these actions and coming out in support of the Spanish team? Or is it all just too much of a minefield? Is it easier to brush things under the carpet and not examine how putrid the underbelly of our society can be?

Casual racism in Spain is common. I am often faced with the question, "¿De dónde eres?" My answer is always Nerja and to date nobody has ever been satisfied with the answer. Just a couple of days ago I was told, "With those surnames you're not." They could just as easily have said, "With that face you're not." Don't get me wrong, being white in Spain (and virtually everywhere) means that I am never going to have to put up with the kind of attacks received by the Spanish cricket players. There is one set of rules for us lily-white immigrants (guiris) and a completely different one for the brown or black ones.

Prejudice, in my opinion, comes generally from a sense of inadequacy and the desire to feel superior to somebody else, even if there is no basis for said superiority except the prejudice in itself.

We are constantly being asked whether someone is really Spanish or not. Is it their nationality, their heritage or a feeling of belonging? Or does any of this actually matter?

The Spanish, like the people of many countries, have emigrated all over the globe for centuries and yet now a problem arises when other nationalities decide to do exactly the same.

European colonialism promoted slavery, poverty, religious fanaticism, systemic racism and an amassing of land and power in the hands of a few; the fallout from this is why people decide to leave their homes and look for a better life here.

The other day somebody asked me, "Why do we have to keep apologising for something that happened years ago?" The answer is quite simple; the injustices institutionalised then are still affecting communities around the world today.

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