[news] 22.10.2008
Football Against Racism
White, black, yellow, red, man, woman, hetero- or homosexual? Is there anything wrong with this? Unfortunately, there are people who thinks this.

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Racism…when I think about it a word so clear that it becomes unclear. A word everyone knows the meaning of but defining it in a few words is very difficult. The easiest way of putting it might be that racism is the belief in that some “races” of people are better and more superior inherited then others, and that we are in different social levels. The most common race difference to refer to when you speak about racism is the higher level of a person of the white skin color in comparison to people with darker skin color. But nowadays also areas speaking about religious, sexual orientated, gender and nationality racism also are in the spotlight.

Through all of our modern history racism has been a reason for many big conflicts. Americans from the 16th until the 19th century captivated Africans and brought them over the Atlantic Ocean to keep them as slaves. We have the Second World War (the Holocaust) where the Nazi’s hatred against Jews got the result in 6 million Jews dead. These are two big examples of racist actions, where one group of people see themselves as higher, more illuminated, and that this gives them the right to abuse others. And this is something that still is going on today. All over the world, in every country, in every city, everyday more or less.

All over the world there are also people and organizations working against racism, fortunately, and one of these organizations is FARE (Football Against Racism in Europe, www.farenet.org). They started their work in 1999 and today they have got partners in over 37 countries in Europe which makes them one of the biggest anti-racism organizations in the world. They also have a co-operation with the football associations UEFA and FIFA. Every year they plan the FARE-week and this year’s week is taking place between the 17th and the 28th of October. For this week organizations, clubs, people around Europe, somehow connected with football and human rights, plan events to spread the word of anti-racism. They use the world of football as a tool to spread the message, a very good idea since it connects people around the whole world. It is the largest sport we have and it reaches out to young children just learnt how to run after a ball, through professional players, to old grand mother and father sitting in the sofa at home watching their favorite team on TV.

So why are some people racists? Why do they think that their “race” is more worth than others? What makes one thing better than another and who has got the right to decide this? Well, I don’t have an exact and correct answer to this question. Of course everyone is allowed to think what they want, but as long as it doesn’t come to hurt another and that is what the racist belief does. Why does a difference have to be something bad? My good friend Amir wrote an article with the title “Opposites can go the same way”, which you can read in http://evsserres2008.wordpress.com. In it he is focusing on the differences between us human beings. Differences are everywhere; countries, cultures, religion, people…even inside yourself you have differences. So why is it bad? How can it go so far as hating a group of people just because they don’t look the same or think the same? I guess it mostly is based on fear. Fear of new, unknown things. And of course that has its roots in lack of knowledge.

That is why we have to stand up together, to take action against these things because the best way of coming closer to a solution of this problem is the spread information. It is not okay to judge another person because of his or hers nationality, skin color, sexual orientation etc. We are all humans, all humans are different and it is just to accept. Different colors – one game is the slogan for the FARE-week. I would also like to say Different colors – one world. Let us make the world a rainbow, a rainbow with as many colors as possible. It is the colors and differences that makes life.

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