A-Infos (en) France, CNT-AIT, Anarchosyndicalisme #179: AIT against sports madness since 1925 (ca, de, it, fr, pt, tr)[machine translation]

We will celebrate in December of this year 2022 the centenary of the creation of 
the AIT (International Association of Workers), the international organization of 
anarchosyndicalists. ---- This creation is contemporary with that of the rise of 
major sports competitions, international shows, and particularly the Football 
World Cup. Indeed, the idea of organizing this competition came to Jules Rimet, 
the president of FIFA at the time, following the 1924 Paris Olympic Games. ---- 
Also, it is interesting to see that from this time, and while "spectacle sport" 
had not yet achieved the pervasive place in society it has today, the delegates 
to the second AIT congress held in Amsterdam in 1925, almost all of whom were 
proletarians, took a resolution to encourage "the fight against sporting madness, 
in order to keep away from it the youth that it could attract. ".

  "Sport is today an instrument in the hands of the capitalists to keep the 
youth away from class struggle and higher spiritual development, making them 
mechanical, non-conscious beings, instead of creating capable men. to think and 
act" (Resolution of the 2nd Congress of the AIT in Amsterdam in 1925)
Because already at that time, the anarchosyndicalists had understood the 
political and ideological stakes behind these sports competitions intended to 
"entertain" the youth - and in particular the working youth. As the dictionary 
reminds us, "entertain" can have two meanings: "To entertain by having fun" but 
also "To distract someone from a concern, for example: To entertain someone from 
their troubles". As Fabien Ollier, philosopher and director of the magazine "Quel 
sport? "The mass mobilization of minds around the national teams induces the 
establishment of an obligatory collective hysteria. All of this is an obvious 
political diversion, an ideological control of a population.

In times of economic crisis, the only subject that should concern us is the 
health of our little footballers. It's pitiful.»

"Football competitions heighten nationalist tensions and arouse patriotic 
emotions of vivid vulgarity and absurdity. Sport provokes a different form of 
violence, less obvious than a bomb, but absolutely does not contribute to a 
decline in violence.»[1]

Sport is undeniably political. As such, it generates political values. The 
current dominant sports model, which is shared by both the left and the right, is 
that of the most liberal capitalism, based on the principle of performance, 
hierarchy and competition, and widespread corruption.

For the hundred years of its creation, the AIT through its sections has never 
ceased to fight against sports hysteria and to carry out boycott campaigns 
against successive World Cups[2]. This is why in 2022 again, the 
anarchosyndicalists continue more than ever their struggle for the emancipation 
of workers, and call for a boycott of the disgusting spectacle of the Qatar World 
Cup, where more than 6500 workers died for 5760 minutes of football, or more than 
one death per minute of play!

Members of the CNT-AIT

http://cntaittoulouse.lautre.net/spip.php?article1297
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