Luis Suarez: Is it all really the media's fault? (Part II)

The England cricket team has a large number of South Africans who have decided to play for them after becoming naturalised citizens. Players such as Craig Kieswetter and Kevin Pietersen are always lauded when England deliver the goods and are treated like one of their own but their immigrant roots are soon picked on when England suffer a humiliating defeat.

“A lot of human nature is hateful—a desire to defeat, even to kill, those whom we view as a threat. The mixture is not so hard to understand. We feel altruism toward members of our group, and to hate members outside of our group.

“Any public figure who appeals to the base instinct of hatred is going to get more unquestioning support than someone who appeals to love and reason. The altruist may get more reasoned support, but cannot win the battle for unquestioning support.”

- Stan Rice

Ditto the case with rugby. Manu Tuilagi is a Samoan-born rugby player who chose to represent England and while much praise was being showered on him prior to making his professional début for his adopted home, papers forgot to mention that he had five older brothers, all of whom were Samoan internationals and far better than him.

What was worse is that they glossed over the fact that he had actually stayed in England illegally for six years, at a time when the UK is tightening its laws over immigration and border control.

Love and hate relationship

It is this same jingoism that is employed when Luis Suarez takes a dive on the football field. The papers are quick to vilify him as one who tarnishes the English game. But where are those accusatory sentiments and lines of vitriol when Gareth Bale, Jermaine Defoe and Ashley Young do not hesitate before taking a tumble after coming into contact with a passing breeze?

Bale is lauded as Wales’ next big superstar, the man to fill the boots of the legendary Ryan Giggs, but when he and the rest of those mentioned above do dive, it is an attitude of discreet patronisation towards the player having successfully hoodwinked the opponents and getting away with it.

But it’s not just Suarez. Another player of South American origin, Eduardo, when he was at Arsenal, was hurled brickbats at for apparently taking a tumble in a Champions League dead rubber against Celtic, who promptly took their case to UEFA, who in turn suspended Eduardo after a media storm in the UK. Arsenal however appealed the ban and it was quickly rescinded.

In their attempts to sway public opinion, how quickly the press forgot that just a few months prior to that incident, Eduardo had made a comeback that had seemed nigh impossible after he had suffered a double leg break at Birmingham in 2008, with doctors wondering whether he would even be able to walk again.

British Prime Minister David Cameron often speaks of a multicultural Britain where peace and understanding are the norm, but given the way the press handled the entire Suarez-Patrice Evra racism incident, one wonders whether they did indeed pay attention to what their nation’s leader was saying.