Paraguay & Argentina in World Cup Racism Controversy

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio speaks to Henry Bonsu for Times Radio about the racism controversy generated for Paraguay and Argentina around the World Cup. 

Transcript

Jon Bonfiglio 0:00

Rebons 2 on Times Radio.

Henry Bonsu 0:02

Let's talk football now and culture because we want to know why the FIFA World Cup is putting some countries like Cape Verde or Cabel Verde on the map but destroying the reputation of others. Paraguay might be one country asking that question after one of its senators launched a racist terraid against the French star Killian Mbappe, and um Argentina might be another after FIFA announced it was investigating allegations of racist abuse at one of their fixtures. Let's talk to Latin American correspondent John Bonfilo. John, hello to you. Hi Henry. Hi. I thought I should turn to you for this because I've been watching the matches, watching the conduct of the players, and watching the behavior of supporters, of uh senators, of former players, particularly of Paraguay, um, off the field. And um unsurprisingly, people have got very, very angry. Let's talk about Paraguay, first of all, and um the way they behaved in their match, uh their round of uh 16 match uh against the French uh who held their heads up high, uh, but um pretty shocking behavior on the field, but also off the field, a senator and a former player uh attacking the French, saying that, well, they're just Africans are not really uh French people, and then other a senator calling Mbappe basically a chimp.

Jon Bonfiglio 1:18

Yeah, I mean, look, um how many times have we spoken about these kind of standard racist tropes that are used uh across the world, continually used across the world? This is um, of course, very specifically a really high-profile incident from Paraguayan Senator Celeste Amarilla, who um sort of decried the fact that the French side were not French at all, but were kind of um it emerged from from Africa. Again, these are sort of standard um uh, I guess, kind of discourses that are used in a uh in a sort of racist uh way. Mbappé immediately called her out saying she was a despicable woman. Interestingly, she then um deleted her uh the post, apologized, but then cast herself as a victim because she's mixed race herself and then continued to insult Mbappé and then threatened to sue him for gender-based and political uh violence. Remarkably. I what I'd say, first of all, to this, Henry, is that this isn't this isn't new at all. I mean, if we cast our minds back to the to the end of the last World Cup final in Qatar in 2022, uh footballer, Argentine footballer Enzo Fernandez, after beating France in the in the final, broadcast a video from the team bus in which players sang an openly racist song about French, about the black French players, which drew an international backlash, but then the very presence of the song kind of made clear that these expressions are basically normalized in Argentine society and and across Latin America. And I think that you know it's important to say that as well. I mean, very much Argentina and um and Paraguay are in the eye of the storm at the moment, but this is not these are not issues which are specific to those two countries. Latin America has a highly, let's say, complex relationship with with race, which of course goes back to specifically the conquest, but also the the sort of the the movement of millions of uh African slaves across to the country in the 1500s in order to sort of extract um uh for on the basis uh of European powers.

Henry Bonsu 3:13

Right, uh John, and um people are using um the whole spectacle of the World Cup as an opportunity to make political points and to investigate and look at the history of Paraguay and Argentina in particular, and they're finding them both uh wanting. What do you make of the social media reaction? Because people are looking at the composition, the ethnic composition of the players on the field, and they're finding that Paraguay and Argentina have very few black players where nearly all the other Latin American um teams, even those countries that you don't really necessarily um necessarily associate with ethnic diversity, do have a lot of uh black players as well as uh those who are of more European um heritage. Um and they're saying, well, actually, we need to look at the history here. There's a reason for this.

Jon Bonfiglio 3:59

Yeah, I mean look, and it's worth saying that these are remain highly stratified cultures. And it's not to say that there are not sort of Afro communities in in these countries. I mean, uh there's very few indigenous uh people left in Argentina because the the brutal slaughter in the southern cone of Latin America was even worse than than it was elsewhere. But yeah, I think um again, these two historical events, even though they're 500 years ago now, are sort of remain really completely crucial. I mean, you know, statistically, during the conquest, 55 million people were killed, or 90% of the pre-Columbian uh population. And then in the early 1500s, this uh sort of African labor, even though was brought and even though that ended roughly through the 19th century, what you basically have sort of emerging is anybody who who comes through that emerges in abject poverty. And so the point here is that the um these communities still today, certainly in an Afro sort of uh Latin, Afro-Caribbean sense, are still two and a half times as likely to live in chronic poverty as as other communities, and the indigenous communities twice as likely to do so. So the point is that these groups remain socially excluded, regarded as something of an underclass, and as such, it's pretty straightforward, and there's a kind of an impunity around uh racism towards them, which continues to flourish. So that's why I think it is really important to say that these are not, as much as I'd like to say that these are sort of surprising fringe comments, that they're really not. Latin America has a historical and current problem with uh with racist with racism and excluded groups.

Henry Bonsu 5:32

Uh John John, just briefly, uh, what chance of the socially the social media driven opprobrium and and um condemnation um triggering uh reflection and perhaps action in the likes of Argentina uh or Paraguay? Or will they be basically saying to use that millwall song and no one likes us, but we don't care?

Jon Bonfiglio 5:54

Yeah, I mean it's difficult, isn't it? Because as we know, social media is kind of very oppositional. I'm not convinced. I mean, of course, these um, you know, events such as this do highlight some of these issues in an international context, but often they they s they will sort of entrench positions. I I don't think that the social media reaction is really going to sort of uh help people to look inwardly at what is uh at the kind of social historical situations and how these might change. All right. John, thank you very much indeed.