Basically, I've found the 140 characters available to me on twitter not enough to express my opinions in full on the Suarez racism situation, so I have decided writing a blog on the subject is my best option.
A lot of people have been using the argument that Suarez should have known better than to use the term 'negro' in England as it is seen as racist here, whilst in his home country this is just a regular term that doesn't have racial connotations in the slightest. This is something I agree with to an extent, but I believe cultural differences should not be looked over entirely in this case.
I would like to present an example of how cultural differences can lead to a cross wire in certain situations. In 2007 a teacher from Liverpool was arrested in Sudan, Africa, because she allowed her class to name a teddy bear Muhammed. Naming something Muhammed is deemed as an insult to Islam and is therefore a crime in Muslim countries. When this story broke and it was revealed the teacher, Gillian Gibbons, could be sentenced to 40 lashes, naturally there was outrage amongst the people of this country and we wanted something to be done about this by our government, myself included.
Granted, this is on a much larger scale than the Suarez incident, but on this occasion an English woman was living amongst a different culture, she committed a crime against their religion, yet in this country we could see nothing wrong with what she had done. Now take Suarez, a South American living in England, who has said a word that is deemed racist in our culture, yet people in South America can see nothing wrong with what he has done. Can you see where I'm going with this?
When Mrs Gibbons was eventually sentenced to 15 days in prison for what she did, the people of Britain did not turn round and say "well she deserved it, she should of learned that you can't do that in Muslim countries" did we. She appealed the case with the backing of the government, with then foreign secretary David Miliband expressing "in the strongest terms" the UK's concern at her detention. Mr Miliband went on to say he was "extremely disappointed" the charges had not been dismissed and repeated his view that it had been an "innocent misunderstanding by a dedicated teacher".
Again, I repeat that this is on a much larger scale than the Suarez situation, but surely some parallels can be drawn? Personally I feel both incidents garnered greater punishment than what was deserved. Combating racism is all about tolerance and understanding, so shouldn't we look at this as possibly being an "innocent misunderstanding" the same way we would if it was in English person in this situation in a foreign country.
Sometimes I think things have gone too far the wrong way when it comes to battling prejudice. When my 92 year old gran calls black people "darkies" I don't agree to it, but I know she's not racist, I just understand that she grew up in a time and culture were this was acceptable. The same way Alan Hansen had to apologise for using the term "coloured" on television, it's a word that's just always been acceptable to him. To be honest, I can't imagine anyone would actually find him using that word offensive. Sometimes you just have to tolerate things like this, try and educate people as best you can, but accept the fact they're not racist or prejudice.
So if that member of the BNP wants to tell me I'm a racist because I'm not backing a decision made by the FA, well he can just go ahead and do that. Personally, I'll take my views and opinions that have been formed over many years of education and experience, and I'll stick to them thanks.
here is the story mentioned in the blog, just in case anyone isn't familiar with it http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7119399.stm
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