TEL AVIV — Tonight’s Euro 2008 semifinal football game between Germany and Turkey will reflect a globalized world:
The World Cup gives national teams the ultimate soccer bragging rights, but the neighborly rivalries in the European event make for what at times feels like a more intense tournament. The frenzy is reaching a peak over Wednesday’s intriguing semifinal because of the estimated 2.7 million people either of Turkish citizenship or heritage living in Germany, the country’s largest minority.
With both teams still alive, it has been doubly festive here and up to this point mutually supportive, as many Germans have cheered on the Turks and vice versa. Each Turkish victory in the tournament has brought enthusiastic fans draped in the country’s red flag onto the streets, where they set off firecrackers and shot bottle rockets into the night sky, with parties often lasting until morning. German fans have packed pubs and beer gardens for their team’s run to the semifinals.
All of Europe has been in the grip of what it calls football fever for the past two and a half weeks as the Continent’s best teams have squared off. The tournament has given audiences some displays of masterful soccer, but also more than a few intriguing subplots as the increasingly mobile populations around Europe and the world create an overlapping web of confused loyalties.
I lived in Boston during the 2006 World Cup, and many of the city’s Italian-American population supported Italy over the United States — even when the two countries played each other in the group stage. Now, in Israel, many people I know are supporting teams in the 2008 Euro based on their ethnic heritage (especially since Israel did not make it past the qualifying stage). Although few Israelis will support Germany because of the Holocaust, one friend of mine wants the country to win because part of his family comes from there. Despite frequent bouts of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union, other friends of mine are supporting Russia because their families came from there. Most Israelis supported Holland, who was kicked out in the quarterfinals, because that country helped Jews during the Holocaust.
As globalization causes more and more people to travel, live and work in various parts of the world, the concept of national identity is becoming increasingly hazy. I grew up in the United States; I have admired Britain for my whole life, and I lived in London for a summer; and I currently live in Israel. As a result, England, Israel and the United States are my three favorite national football teams. But I still don’t know what I would do if one of these countries plays another.
This is a metaphor for a subtle-but-drastic change that is occurring throughout the world. Within the coming decades, the idea of the nation-state will become increasingly useless, if not disappear altogether. In a globalized world, countries already have less and less control over their individual economies; economics and finance do not stop at national boundaries. Moreover, the allegiances and emotions that people have towards a country (or countries) is increasingly complex. In pro-immigration rallies in the United States, people waved Mexican and American flags. Many American Jews own American and Israeli flags. I could go on. The increasing prominence of immigration is moving everyone to various places around the world.
The idea of a nation-state is increasingly irrelevant to global economics and private passions; all that remains for the nation-state is the presence of autonomous political power within a given jurisdiction. But even that may change. European leaders want to create a European Union (seemingly against the wishes of most of the public in many places) that is increasingly more powerful than individual European countries. After all, Europe can only compete on the global stage as a single economic unit. Given the dismal state of the U.S. economy, North America may follow in Europe’s globalized footsteps.
I predict that within the coming decades, the international order will transition from one based on the idea of individual, sovereign, nation-states to a global patchwork quilt of various ethnicites, nationalities and religions that are mixed together and intertwined throughout the world.
