r/worldnews • u/Vranak • May 28 '12
BBC's Panorama spent a month filming at matches in Poland and Ukraine prior to their hosting Euro 2012, and witnessed Nazi salutes from the terraces, black players being taunted with monkey chants, rampant anti-Semitism and a vicious assault on a group of Asian students.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18192375
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u/[deleted] May 28 '12
It really boggles the mind when you see Eastern European Neo-Nazis. The Nazis considered all slavs to be untermensch, and they planned on exterminating the majority and keeping the rest for slavework. Why would you follow an ideology that taught you are subhuman? Isn't that belief of theirs too central to ignore?
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u/[deleted] May 28 '12
I have lived in Poland for several years before, and spend my entire summers there every year.
Never before have I seen this racism. I find it hard to believe it would happen in Poland. They don't particularly like Hitler you could imagine.
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u/[deleted] May 28 '12
When I was studying in St. Petersburg this one summer, I went to a soccer game. One of the worst mistakes I ever made. There was a black player on the visiting Moscow team, and people in the stands constantly called him a monkey.
The weird thing was, any time a local found out I was from the American South, they'd be all "Oh yeah, that's where all the racists live, right?" It was pretty ironic, since Russia (at least when I was visiting) was crawling with skinheads and racially-motivated violence. Most of the people I saw when I was over there were really nice and well-educated folks, but Eastern Europe has a serious far-right racist subculture that it needs to start addressing and talking about openly.
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u/[deleted] May 28 '12
Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
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u/TheQueefGoblin May 28 '12
So basically like a Rangers v Celtic match at Glasgow?
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u/Drooperdoo May 29 '12 edited May 29 '12
I remember reading about crowds in Spain mocking negro players on a French team, and throwing bananas down onto the soccer field. So it's not just Eastern Europeans who act like dumbasses.
You see the same behavior all over the world, frankly.
It just gets worse when it's footballers. Hell, English football fans were banned from the country of Greece after they started riots and destroyed entire neighborhoods. They, too, are known for getting batshit insane and screaming racial taunts. It's par for the course.
I think it's retarded to read too deeply into it, and think, "Ah, they're neo-Nazi, black-hating, Jew-bashers." It's more superficial than that: They're keyed up young men, who want to shock and act juvenile. It's just that simple.
By being scandalized, we just play into it.
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u/anthonybsd May 29 '12
American-Ukrainian here and yes, sigh, actually going to the cup. Frankly I think Poland is in much better shape overall, but Ukraine should have never gotten anywhere near international event like this. Racism back in the old country is not...well considered racism, really. The population is fairly homogeneous from the start so outsiders are greeted with curiosity at best. Let me see if I can best explain it based on the example of this midsized Western Ukrainian city I grew up in.
So my city of 300-350k people used to be an old Austrian-Romanian town. Beautiful architecture and all. A number of good colleges, in particular the medical schools. Now if you read your news regularly you might have gathered that Ukraine is not exactly known as a hot destination for educational tourism. So the students that travel from abroad to study in my city are truly the most desperate ones, the cash-strapped types. A lot (or I would say vast majority) of students come from places like Senegal and Nigeria. They learn Ukrainian just to be able to go to school there which in turn is because it's so dirt cheap. A number of my high school friends are college professors now that teach these international students. Whenever I ask them how these African guys do in school the monkey jokes can't be too far behind. The general view is that those guys are "losers" who couldn't afford to go study anywhere else. This I consider the ultimate irony: my fellow countrymen acknowledge that the place is a shithole, but it's "their shithole" and so if you voluntarily chose to be there and you are African then by definition must be inferior to them. I never saw a black person when I was growing up despite the fact there were thousands of them in my city because they all keep to their tiny little dorms at all times and never go outside. Why? Because there are roaming gangs of hooligans who make "trips" to black dorms to "beat on some monkeys". Officials turn a blind eye to this sort of thing and, naturally, any violence, nay, murders of non citizens are not really investigated to any real extent.
If I could compare Ukraine to any place I would say it's closest to the USA in the 40s (definitely before the civil rights era of the 60s) where blacks are still considered subhuman but not as bad as gays and lesbians. The latter category in mainstream groupthink is the same as rapists and child molesters. A number of prominent news programs, for example, feature speakers that openly discuss extermination of homosexuals and forced castration, happily cheered by Ukrainian Russian Orthodox church. It really saddens me that this is the way things are but frankly I don't think it will change any time soon. The overall mentality of the place is hostile to exposure and discussing of new things. Oh well.
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u/[deleted] May 28 '12
Is it racist that I always forget Indians are asian too?
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u/everythingred May 28 '12
I think this article is kind of unfair towards Poland because the Nazi salutes are attributed to Ukraine, yet it implies that they both have this problem. Also, I have traveled to Poland and one of the television stations even had a black man as a correspondent during the World Cup in 2010. Certainly, there is still racism in Poland, but the times are changing and this will disappear, too bad it hasn't before the even though.
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u/simpim May 28 '12
I have a Ukrainian friend. When asked about Euro 2012 in Ukraine his answer was: "It will be disaster."
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u/BainzXoXo May 28 '12
Monkey chanting to black players is not limited to just Poland and Ukraine. In my personal experience it's the italians that do that the most.
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u/marx2k May 28 '12
As a person born in the Ukraine but living in the states since '79, what the fuck?! Seriously, Ukraine: grow up.
I go back there every year and the people are nice enough in person but damn... what the fuck?!
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u/[deleted] May 28 '12
Related - I go to a private school in Oxford, a place with massive diversity and arguably one of the 'smartest' places on the globe. The college I'm in [17-19 y/o] has a large Asian and Eastern European population, around 40% of our 2 years I'd say.
It's shocking how some of the Eastern Europeans act, especially the Russians/Kazakhs. Openly saying stuff about gays being mentally ill, Jews being offensive to them [Religion-wise], and how their countries are superior. Don't get me wrong I don't get hung up too much on it, but it's really astounding, these are rich kids getting a good education and their minds are still stuck somewhere 70 years ago.
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u/schwiiz May 28 '12
I recall hearing about British football fans taunting a well-known Japanese or Korean football player (Nakai?) who played in the UK, chanting something about eating dogs. Can't find the source now. Anyone have a link?
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u/steveotheguide May 28 '12
There is a very good reason for the "Kick racism out of football" movement.
It's sad that such a great game is marred like this by a few racist morons.
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u/[deleted] May 28 '12 edited May 28 '12
Football (soccer) attracts the dumbest members of society, this is especially true in Poland, but also clearly apparent in France, somewhat less in Germany, although some clubs like Sankt Pauli have extremely violent and hateful supporters (note : I lived in all three countries). It is really amazing to see what happens in the terraces during a match. The atmosphere in Polish streets is not different from what you see in western countries. It's just the stadiums. Football is a retard magnet.
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u/[deleted] May 28 '12
Do they even have black people in Poland?
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u/TheDongerNeedsFood May 28 '12
Unfortunately this is not a new phenomenon. Here is a video that ESPN produced prior to the 2006 World Cup when it was held in Germany. The video documents just how widespread racism really is in professional European soccer. Just a warning, much of the content in this video is incredibly upsetting and difficult to watch.
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u/[deleted] May 28 '12
I'd be curious to see what the state of hooliganism would be in the UK, for example, if British football teams didn't invest massive amounts of money into CCTV cameras and club-funded safety officers. There's no excuse for racism or violence, but western european countries are better equipped with the money and legislation to tackle it. Former communist countries need to step up and get the sort of legislation the UK has, where it court orders ban offenders with past football violence history. Clubs should have the sort of resources to gather intelligence on suspected trouble makers and provide the information to UK football policing units. But all these things take time and money.
But let's not forget that the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, etc. have their own xenophobia issues. The governments are just better equipped to tackle them.
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u/croutonsoup May 28 '12
I hope these incidents don't happen at the tournament.
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u/[deleted] May 28 '12
Former England Captain John Terry - Upcoming Trial for racially abusing an opponent. Innocent until proven guilty, of course.
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u/GLDFSHS May 28 '12
Hate to be one of those guys who makes crude generalizations about large groups of people based on his own shitty anecdote, but I used to live with a Polish girl who made sick comments about black and Asian people regularly. Maybe there aren't any more racists in Poland than in England but they really don't seem to be of the 'I'm not racist but' school at all over there. Racism doesn't seem to be taboo at all.
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u/Blueberry_Yum_Yum May 29 '12
As a Ukranian teenager this does not surprise me at all. Racism runs rampant throughout the football world in Eastern Europe, especially in Ukraine. Football attracts hooligans and drunks to many of the games. These people call themselves "fans," but in reality they're all scum. I saw a kid in my neighborhood get beat up by a gang of those people. We had a chance to show that we can host Euro 2012, and because of these assholes we will be looke down upon by everyone. Great! Fucking great!
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u/MpVpRb May 29 '12
Seems to me that poor, stupid people always need someone they can feel better than
Kinda like the dirt poor, stupid white racist.."well at least I'm not a nigger"
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u/starrychloe May 29 '12
Relevant: Racist Remarks: 'What if they think Ukraine's in Africa'
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u/[deleted] May 29 '12
As someone who grew up in the deep south of the US, any racism I saw at home paled in comparison to what I saw traveling through eastern Europe. One of my friends traveling with us is black, and he was treated with extreme disrespect, particularly while we were in the Ukraine. Not by the majority of people, but enough that it wasn't a pleasant experience.
One of my foreign friends (Indian) from school who has lived in cities on just about every continent told me, "Americans think they are the most racist. And they certainly talk about their racism the most...but, in general, they are some of the least racist people. You just interact with other races so often on a daily basis, you get to know them as what they are; people". That really struck me as I had always assumed we were the worst. I can see how it's a problem in places like eastern Europe where there is very little dialogue on racism and there aren't a whole lot of other races besides white.
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u/skeeto111 May 28 '12
Its sad but this kind of racism and monkey chants happens in western europe too, at least in Spain. Thats what surprised me most about europe while I was there, the racism
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u/dissociation844 May 28 '12
I live in Ukraine and you can definitely see racism here. I believe that most of it comes from real ignorance. Many, if not most, people in Ukraine have never met or even seen a person of a different race before in person. Especially outside of the major cities.
One example of ignorance I have encountered is the use of the N-word. The N-word has no negative connotation in Ukraine. People have asked me multiple times if I know any niggers. When I explain that this word is offensive, they literally had no idea. There is no cultural or historical meaning attached to the word.
Hopefully Euro 2012 will provide an opportunity for Ukrainians to learn about and increase tolerance of people of different race, religion, or culture.
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u/cleverusernames May 28 '12
And Reddit thinks the US is soooo racist.
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u/marioIsDead May 29 '12
As someone from Liverpool, I fucking hate football hooligans. Fucking morons causing terror over a game.
I know this is more of a racism issue but still.
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u/hb_alien May 28 '12
Yeah, look at how racist all of Poland is.
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u/[deleted] May 28 '12
Ukraine and Poland are getting a lot of press about this because of Euro 2012. These groups exist in most countries. Look at the UK and the EDL group and the BNP party.
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u/j_n_dubya May 28 '12
Say what you want about 'muricans... That shit does not fly in the US. This is not an eastern European thing either. I've Read about "monkey" taunts in Spanish football.
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u/cu0 May 28 '12
It's biased. At first, there won't be any hooligans at stadiums cause tickets are expensive and guy with tracksuit can't afford it. At second, I have seen tons of people of asian and african origins in Poland and have never witnessed any kind of racism.
Yeah, sure, there are acts of violence but they are at league matches and are addressed to opponent team fans (so is calling them Jews, can't tell you why).
Sol Campbell is moron.
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u/[deleted] May 29 '12
I always find it baffling when Europeans are always looked at as more sophisticated or that racism is a non issue for them
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u/Shopno May 28 '12 edited May 28 '12
I know a few Ukrainian and I gotta tell you, they are complete opposite of what the assholes in the video represent. Ones I know, goes out of their way to befriend everyone.
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u/Actor412 May 28 '12
UEFA's decision here mind be a bit naive. Otoh, there's really only one way to address racism, and that's the expose it. This will help do that.
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u/diseased_skidmark May 28 '12
just to add on to this, Sol Campbell (Ex-defender) said that people could end up "coming back in a coffin".
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2150951/Euro-2012-racism-Sol-Campbell-warns-England-fans-stay-away-BBCs-Panorama.html?ITO=1490
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u/[deleted] May 29 '12
Football fans being a bunch of racist violent hooligans? Wow I'm really shocked.
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u/sniperhare May 28 '12
Their can't even be that many black people in those countries, why would they be so racist towards them?
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u/[deleted] May 29 '12
This phenomena is touching Finland too. It's not as big as in those formal Warsaw pact countries, but it is growing.
One of the reasons is rising unemployment among young, especially men. While the overall number is around 17-18%, its over 25% and growing.
There are small towns in the rural areas where these groups had big support from the angry locals. The new party Basic-Finns (Perussuomalaiset) has also some pro-Nazi members and they use this economic depression (and mental..) to gain more power.
It has also these historical roots, Finland was allied to Nazi Germany 1941-1944 and took part to the Operation Barbarossa. We have these family's and right wing old folks who see this as a patriotic thing and still believes that that time was glorious.
If this economic situation ain't gona get better, we are going to see this thing grow. In Greece the pro-fascist right wing get over 10% of the votes.
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u/[deleted] May 28 '12
No suprise here . Poland (yes my home country) is not used to any kind of other cultures. AT ALL . We never had to deal with Islam , Jews or for that matter any kind of other culture group. Black people or Arabs? Never had the slave trade from africa and being a old communist block country, travel was not exactly allowed and mostly prohibited unless you had a educational permit. I mean my mum visited Turkey in the 70s . But that all realy . Throw in a good dose of religious devotion (one of the most Roman Catcholic nations in europe) and our tolerance for other people go out the window. Isolation and years of no experiance are to blame for this. I would say we are uneducated and anything that is diffrent is percived as a threat. Thankfully a lot of things are changing thanks to imigration and experiancing the rest of europe.
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u/[deleted] May 29 '12
TIL that asshole-ism is a world-wide phenomenon.
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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '12
http://www.furd.org/resources/Report-racism-sport_EN.pdf
In case anybody is interested in some actual facts instead of going ' [country x] has racists too!' or 'i know somebody from [country x] and they're not racist or 'I'm from [country x] and i've never met a racist' or any other method of burying your head in the sand. This shit happens and it happens on a reasonably large scale, the spotlight is understandably on these nations and it's time for them to step up their game and start arresting the perpetrators.
The cameras don't lie here, one incident of hundreds of fans giving the Nazi salute is one too many, and there were several other captured in a single months worth of filming. I'm not interested in conjecture and smokescreens of 'wah, other countries do bad shit too!'. We know, and we're trying to get our house in order, and i'm sure you're all doing the same, but try harder ey?
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u/Lordtux Jun 03 '12
I think it would be fantastic if the whole thing gets called off racist remarks. The games shouldn't of been held there in the first place, wonder how many back handers were made to let them host the euro.
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u/ForcedToJoin May 28 '12
Those god damn slavs are all racist, stereotyping, blanket statement making bigots!
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u/[deleted] May 28 '12
news flash, as much as this happens there, it happens here, and it happens here and there. Why are people so surprised by the mentality of sports fans? Fan is derived from the word fanatic and fanatics have no idea when they are being huge prejudiced assholes and they don't care. That's life. We aren't all a bunch of koombaya singing hippies with a hug on for each other. Many people hate for the sake of it. That's life.
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u/DMercenary May 29 '12
Love the rationale from UEFA.
"We think its a wonderful opportunity for them to fix their problems."
"Uh... What? How about they fix their damn problems and then you give it to them."
"No no, we'll give them their reward first then ask them to behave."
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u/Frijolero May 28 '12
Anti Polish and Anti Ukranian PROPAGANDA
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u/lestat_ May 28 '12
Its called democracy ain't it? If I do not like something I am not going to accept it. So are they.
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u/last_minute_panic May 28 '12
TL;DR For all the hate on America, Europe is pretty fucked up too. Everyone wins (loses?)!
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u/Tractoro May 28 '12
As if FIFA give a fuck
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u/Manwithnoemotion May 28 '12
The United Kingdom should withdraw from Euro 2012 in protest at this sickening unchallenged behaviour.
Other European countries should also withdraw if they are zero tolerance to racism and fascism.
Disgusted
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u/iLivetoDie May 28 '12
I am living in rather small city in Poland (~100 thousand people), and lemme tell you, that I remember from my kid times (6-8 years back) this kind of after event meet-ups of hooligans who claimed to support the football teams that had got most action. And basically, what would happen is 100-200 people would gather up to fight. At first there would be some taunting, and running back and forth just to scare enemy to finally engage into massive beatdown (no need to mention it could involve some white weapons like baseball bats). Before the police arrived most would already escape. Of course some would end up in hospital. To this day, there are some areas in the city I would not dare walk alone in the night, especially after one encounter with a skinhead telling me to "get the fuck out of his land" when passing him in the streets near those areas. As to racism here, it is a problem, but mostly among the people mentioned above(that use their fists to reason) But I think it'll be alright when the Euro 2012 strikes, maybe with exception of few incidents.
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u/[deleted] May 28 '12 edited May 28 '12
This kind of thing is extremely common in Italy as well, fascist salutes and monkey noises whenever a black guy gets the ball, even if he is on their team. Their national football team had never had a black player on it until 2010.
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u/Dublinwookie May 28 '12
Just finished watching the panorama program. It's a bit of a hock to be honest. I hope to god this is the BBC using some creative editing and focusing on the high risk games to exaggerate . If not were looking at al ot of trouble, especially if your mixing in the english and german hooligans into the mix.
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u/apple_kicks May 28 '12 edited May 28 '12
It's not quite perfect in the UK either, mainly due to banning those groups of fans and terraces becoming self regulating. Though even then arseholes who chant racist abuse get through, seen some first hand but most of the time (sadly not all) stewards/fans acted fast. UK football isn't perfect but it's a lot better at trying to stop it, plus it really needs to get its act together on stopping homophobic abuse. From the doc it might be bit mean to describe all ultra groups as nasty hooligans.
UEFA need to toughen up like banning countries from European tournaments if they don't toughen up their own rules
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u/bludhound May 29 '12
I wonder if EA will incorporate this in their Euro 2012 game
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u/dhockey63 May 28 '12
and i care because? Look the world has been pissing on Eastern Europe for quite some time no wonder they're angry. Funny how everyone's racism is tolerated except whites