Fernando: Sports and nationalism

SHOWCASING our talents and skills in sports bring pride to the country. Carlo Yulo’s performance in the gymnastic events thrilled the Filipino spectators and it makes them proud of what Yulo and other Filipino athletes in the SEA games represent – the Philippines. A top official of gymnastics said that it was the first time that a gymnastic event was flocked by numerous fans. It was so full that they could not accommodate the others. Sports is one effective avenue of displaying our love for our flag and country.

In a study conducted by Seippel (2017), sports nationalism is affected by economic and cultural resources. “In general, countries with low GDPs and low levels of democracy and cultural globalization are clearly more sport nationalistic than other countries.” The Philippines is surely a country with low GDP and low cultural globalization. I cannot say the same with the level of democracy because from my vantage point, we enjoy high level of democracy. Lower GDP may speak of poverty that hinders citizens to focus on non-economic aspects of life.

It is interesting to understand whether our sports nationalism translates to genuine love of country. The SEA Games have showed the strong support of the Filipino people to their athletes and country. But does this support actually mean that Filipinos are nationalists or patriots or just a spur of the moment? Or does the support showed speak of the support of the entire nation or just the people near the sports’ venues. We put higher regard on foreign products and this surely is not a proof of nationalistic attitude. We want to work abroad that is causing “brain drain” in our country. Another sign that we prioritize other needs than the needs of the country.

Filipinos easily jump on the success of fellow Filipinos in almost all fields but in the midst of problems and embarrassments, we are also quick to criticize and even disown our fellow countrymen. Remember how we mocked a Filipino diver in the 2017 SEA games when he botched a dive during the 3m springboard event. We hurled a lot of negative comments on him and even call it an embarrassing moment for the country. It can be deduced that success in sports promotes nationalism but not when athletes are losing. To promote nationalism, the country should invest in sports to ensure the success of our athletes. In this case, the sense of nationalism among the citizenry also levels up.

Representing a country to a global sport event provides a sense of pride to the athletes. Manny Pacquiao definitely inspired millions of Filipinos and gives them a lot of reasons to love the country every time he steps in the boxing ring. His experience as an athlete solidified his love for the country.

Another result of the study is that highly educated people everywhere tend to be less sport nationalistic than less educated people. The assumption relation to the interactions between individual and national levels was also supported: education has a stronger negative effect on sport nationalism in culturally globalized countries (Seippel, 2017). This does not generally follow the trend in the country because low educated people like highly educated individuals do not have the time to mind sporting events because they are busy working to provide food on their tables. Pacquiao’s case is an exemption.

Also, a result of the study is that older people in general are more sport nationalist than younger people, but also that there are exceptions to this tendency such that age has a very weak and even opposite effect in some countries. This is observable even in the country. The young people today find nationalistic topics and discussions off unlike in some countries who have strong nationalism values.

Sports significantly affect love of our country. China and United States of America are consistently at the top in sporting competitions and these two countries are home to most patriotic citizens in the world. The development of sports in the country can develop our sense of nationalism.