provincializing europe

With most of the group-stage matches of the current World Cup underway, a standout hard-to-miss is the resurgence of the Americas, Asia, and the Africas. While my circle of viewers that enliven each match inevitably puts me in a the seat of an "expert," I can claim none of its trappings as such. Nevertheless, we have all observed how the final round in this World Cup has really seen a levelling of the playing field. Previous pushovers have upped their game and now have to be counted as formidable rivals that could knock one out: Australia, South Africa, New Zealand,...even Korea DPR showed some flair against Brazil despite the eventual 7-0 thrashing at the hands of Portugal.

But more hard-to-miss were the traditional European powerhouses that fell really short of their mark. Last World Cup's finalists Italy and France lacked the creativity and skill to raise their game above their very pedestrian display of vapid football. France's in-house problems did not help their game either. England squeezed through to the knockout round but did it in fashionably English-football style with dollops of scrappy passes and unimaginative moves...YAWWWNNN! Slovenia, Serbia, and Greece have also fallen by the wayside.

Going by the trend, I am rooting for a winner from South America or Africa. Remniscent of Dipesh Chakrabarty's book with the same title as this post, europe no longer seems to define the standards of football in the sense that the global forum--such as is the World Cup--has to be thought of in terms of the peripheries rather than the center dominated by the West (the US team has improved but i don't think will move beyond the next stage). Hopefully India will be in one of the next editions of this global tamasha and significantly represented by its diversity [read: players from Mizoram--now that the 2006 XBox edition of the World Cup features Jerry Zirsanga].

Go Brazil!!