Supplement 1
Sport for All! - Fair Play for All?
Prof. Dr. Jürgen PALM
President of TAFISA
There must be a motive for you to choose Sport for All as the subject for the European Congress and to choose me, the President of TAFISA, as one of your speakers. Thank you for this chance. I agree that the idea of Fair Play has an important role in Sport for All. And I insist that Sport for All presents a major task for the Fair Play movement.
I come to you with four positions.
My first position: Sport for All has grown into a dimension that should be recognized as an equally important part beside competitive sport and top sport.
My second position: Sport for All rediscovers the indigenous sports of the world and expects them to be recognized as a part of the sport curriculum for the future.
My third position: Sport for All participants are the largest number of persons to address the message of fairness and the biggest resource of volunteers as promoters of fairness.
And my fourth position: in Sport for All the attitude of fairness develops less in social competition and more in social cohesion.
The organizers of the Congress probably see that wide new territory of sport with hundreds of millions of people today that are physically active around the world:
Sport for All
Sport for All, that means hundreds of millions of people walking, running, swimming, playing, doing aerobics, biking along rural roads and making inner city paths a place for rollerblading. We see kids and grey haired people, slim and overweight, able-bodied and awkwardly moving. People that in former times would not have joined the sports scene. People not striving for Olympic victory, people who are never mentioned in the TV sports news, people for whom other motives are valid than being a winner. People who play for fun, are active for health, find friends in sport.
These are people who where not participating in sports at the time when the term Fair Play was introduced.
Sport has changed since the first founder generation of contemporary sports a good one hundred years ago . Especially the last forty years are a period of essential change. To recognize these changes and to evaluate them as a new foundation time in sport is the first task I would like to engage you in today.
After outlining the changes brought about by the Sport for All movement I will come to the main part of my paper. It consists of two requests and of two offers.
• The first request is to understand Sport for All as an integrative part of the established sport system.
Be fair to Sport for All!
• The second request is to discover and integrate indigenous and new contemporary sports as parts of the sports system.
Be fair to other forms of sport!
• The first offer is to realize Fair Play in the context of the Sport for All world and to establish it as a motive of voluntary action.
Sport for All is a resource of Fair Play.
• The second offer is to develop Fair Play in the human relationships of Sport for All.
Sport for All is a fair medium of community building.
But before the requests and offers let us look at the changes that Sport for All has brought about.
They are all these new forms and names of sports that are present now.
Look at how diversified gymnastic exercises have become since aerobics entered the scene: low impact aerobics, high impact aerobics, steps, hip hop, spinning, tae-bo, Svetties and Friskies etc. Oldies in physical exercise programs are becoming newcomers again like gymnastics, rope skipping, callanetics, pilates.
Swimming back and forth is one thing. But today there is also aquajogging, aquarobics, water-wellness, waterstepping.
Look at all the types of mountain-, fitness-, skill-bikes that are on the market. Are we not overwhelmed by what the kids are doing in half-pipes and on the market square with their skate boards, rollerblades and skill-bikes.
The winter sport scene has changed with the snowboards and the new types of carved skis making learning to ski even easier. The water scene has developed new types of surfing and boating.
Martial arts from Asia and Oceania found a huge attendance in Europe, whether from China, Japan Korea, Thailand, Hawai, Fiji, Philippines.
Fitness gyms originally conceived for ocean liners are present now all over the world in cities and even in the countryside.
Another aspect of the essential changes in sports is the extension of the venues in which sport is practised.
To participate in a sport or a game one does not necessarily have to enter a sports arena, a gymnasium or an exercise complex.
Joggers are populating the parks and walkways. Bikers and skaters are crowding roads and paths. Systems of bike paths like in Holland are the biggest exercise surface in the country-bigger than all the soccer fields together. More and more cities have skater nights in the summer like Rome, Frankfurt, Paris where thousands cross the town and for a little time human figures dominate the streets instead of automobiles. Karlsruhe for instance in the skater nights on Thursdays closes 11 km of its inner City streets and 34 000 join the rolling fun.
The most outstanding example of these city sports happenings is the one in Bogota, Colombia. Here Ciclovia originated nearly thirty years ago when some 10 km of streets in the city where closed on Sunday mornings. The participation grew continuously: nowadays every Sunday from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. 120 km of streets in the Colombian capital, in rich and poor areas, are closed for automobile traffic and open for human locomotion. Two million bikers, walkers, runners, skaters are moving on the streets. This is the biggest Sport for All event in the world, copied now in more Latin American cities and in planning status of some cities in Europe like Budapest, Asia like Taipeh and Australia like Melbourne.
The dimension which can be reached by exercise and sport for everybody in public areas of communities can be measured by the example of the World Challenge Day where pairs of equally sized cities compete on streets and squares etc. to see which city has more citizens active in a sport or an exercise on the last Wednesday of May. 2003 the global participation in this TAFISA event reached 42 million people.
In order to understand and explore the chances and challenges that the Sport for All movement gives to the Fair Play movement, one has to look deeper into the phenomenon of a sport that directs itself not at the competitive young but at everybody.
These are very different people than those found fifty years ago on the sport fields and in the arenas of competition.
Look at their age: we have programs now for toddlers as well as for octogenarians. Look at their gender: in many programs women outnumber men. Yes, there is still for quite some percentage the thrill of competition. But the majority looks for other benefits:
To play, to stay healthy, to meet people, to shape their body, to understand themselves, to be active in the family, to show themselves as members of the contemporary “active living culture”.
The world of Sport for All is colourful. Poor and rich. For millions of participants there are no sporting grounds, no modern equipment, no fashinable attire. A volleyball in Bangladesh costs as much as a person earns a month.
On the other side of the spectrum we have the well-to-do who have the latest rollerblades, exercise on electronic weight-machines and use their tennis balls just once.
The world of Sport for All can be one world, where exercise costs nothing, just join the walk. Or it can cost a fortune with the latest attire, thousand dollars health spa memberships, alpine holidays in New Zealand.
The world of Sport for All is a world of enormous diversity. It is a world of big numbers. It is a world that differs from elite sport.
It is this diversity of people, motives, sport forms, their enormous number and social composition that we can evaluate as a major chance and challenge for Fair Play.
What can we say that this world has to expect from Fair Play? And what can it contribute to this human idea?
My belief is that in Sport for All - exceptions granted- the quest for victory, the drive for status improvement and financial benefits - three factors of competitive sport- play a much smaller role here and may often have no role at all. The chance to apply Fair Play in Sport for All events and circumstances is definitely higher than in tournaments, where victory counts so much. We may be relieved: Fair Play seems less difficult to obtain in Sport for All. Fair Play may also find in Sport for All the biggest crowd of those that can be taught and abide by it.
With this I come to the first request.
Sport for All demands that the established sports systems with their dominance in competitive and elite sport regard Sport for All as one of their own.
Be fair to Sport for All.
We will have our World Congress - the 18th!- next week in Munich. In the abstracts of sport leaders for instance from Eastern Europe or Africa I always read the same remark: nearly all the money in the national sport budget goes into top sport. Probably this is the case in the majority of the nearly two hundred nations of the world.
What a waste of chances, Ladies and Gentlemen. Sport for All contributes to education, health, life quality, community building. Ask the Lord Mayor of Bogota how much Ciclovia does to the citizen culture of this troubled city. Ask the Director General of the World Health Organization how much sport and physical activity can do to limit the exuberant costs of non-communicable diseases.
It is indeed a matter of fairness between the customary sport system and its new relative, Sport for All , that has to be applied. If Sport for All is not integrated then it must establish itself outside. With its huge numbers it has the potential to do so. But what a waste of chances such a separation of Sport for All from the customary sport system would be and what an example of unfairness it is to let the poorer relative Sport for All camp outside the established power.
But it must not be-as we can see in quite a few other countries. Regarding Sport for All as a part of the sport system has many consequences.
In Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland - for instance - the Sport for All movement is integrated into the National Sport Confederation. In Italy, Hungary, Croatia it builds separate units. A full and equal recognition and support is still a rarity worldwide. Most Sport for All organizations are struggling for recognition and finances.
I come to my second request.
The sport system should recognize the variety and wealth of indigenous sport and the qualities of newly invented sport forms.
Be fair to other sports.
It was only in 1992 that the 1st World Festival of Traditional Sports was held in Bonn, Germany. 32 countries presented a beforehand not imaginable wealth of sports outside the customary understanding. Yabusame-archery in full gallop-from Japan-fascinated a 125 000 spectator crowd as well as Bastani from Iran, the swing from China, Fierlijeppe from the Netherlands, Sepak Takram from Malaysia, Stick Fencing from Portugal, Loop Takraw from Thailand, the Boomerang from Australia and Pelota from Peru-to name just a few. The Festival was so impressive that it is now repeated every four years and comes to Montreal next year with 60 countries and over 100 activities in August 2004.
The concentration on some 50 sports as they are played in the Olympic Winter and Summer Games is only a minority in the creativity with which humankind has produced physical cultures.
This minority overshadows with its worldwide applicability the regional sport cultures.
There are - from region to region-an incredible number of variations of wrestling, archery, martial arts, ball games, endurance runs, water sports, strength tests, riding exercises, skill exams, fitness tests. Nobody has yet collected and described them all. They are a part of the regional culture like the songs and the dances of the area.
Some of these activities have the necessary quality for developing global regulations and thus are becoming an international sport. This has happened for instance with Dragon Boat Racing from China, Sepak Takraw from Malaysia or Capoeira from Brazil.
Others are not fit for international representation and global uniformity. They have their regional or even local character. But they, too, deserve to survive the big uniformity pressure of mainstream sport.
In our age of globalisation indigenous games and sports are one important expression of cultural identity and diversity beside language, music and art.
There are four different paths the indigenous sports and games can take:
One path is the conversion of the indigenous sport into an internationally played competitive activity. This is a course for a minority only.
The second way is the one into the disappearance of traditional games with some small traces in history books and in museums.
The third way is the use of these games in a touristic context, in commercial shows for foreign visitors.
The fourth way however gives these old games and activities a position in the Sport for All programs of the respective country and in the national sport and physical education system.
Very often this is connected with the advantage that these sports do not need high financial investment, they are rather inexpensive to be played. They can be integrated into regular exercise classes, into festivals and into the physical education curriculum in schools.
The invention of new sports and games, the import of physical culture-like dances or martial arts-from one part of the globe to another offers enormous chances.
That is true both for participation but also for business. The bicycle was nearly extinct in many developed countries; now with mountain bikes, touring bikes and fitness bikes they represent a multimillion business sector. Do you remember the sport shoes of let us say thirty years ago? More or less there were only a few types. And today there is enormous specialization. It is in all these cases not the top sport participant who makes these waves of activities and businesses possible but the millions of people who belong to the Sport for All categories.
With this I come to the potential that Sport for All has for the message of Fair Play.
I see this potential in two regards.
• One is the enormous number of people to which the message of Fair Play can be brought and the acceptance it can find here. The other is the potential of messengers that we explore in the volunteers dedicated to Sport for All. This is offer number one.
• Offer number two is the process of social cohesion and community building as a specific chance of Fair Play in Sport for All.
You see now: Whereas in the first part of my paper we were confronted with the request of fairness towards Sport for All, now we explore the benefits of Sport for All for the Fair Play movement.
I find it remarkable indeed that the United Nations declared the year 2001 as the year of volunteers - and since then keeps voluntary action a major goal of their policies.
Why do I mention this here? Because in Sport for All we do have one of the largest numbers of people that need services in their leisure and the largest number of people who give these services.
It has been estimated that the number of sport participants has grown above one billion.
This figure may even be underestimated if you count in it -and I think that is fair- the 300 million Chinese who begin the day with Tai Chi. The number of runners and joggers is beyond a hundred million, the number of those who exercise by walking is definitely similarly big. The number of those who play soccer on the lowest level and outside of tournaments is enormous as well: look at the kids who play it on the streets. Volleyball may come close to similar status. The number of persons attending gyms has risen with the presence of such exercise stations in towns, cities and even in the countryside. The bicycle once used for transport and shopping has become a piece of exercise equipment for millions.
Most such physical activities and sports done for leisure pursuits, health, fun, are in the open and so are social activities, they are performed with a partner or in a group. Beside the also existing lone runner, swimmer, strength exerciser there is a majority of social performers.
The social performers are the target group for the idea of Fair Play. A target group of hundreds of millions of younger and older citizens.
And yet there are differences to the customary competitive and elite sport.
The pressure to be first is much smaller. When I participated in my first 12 km popular run I was No. 152. Not bad when the total number of runners was 5000. But why should I be tempted to try everything to cheat, use unfair chances? When I am exercising in a crowd of 60 aerobic participants: how could I be unfair to those around me? It’s something else in a soccer or hockey game but in the general context of Sport for All the violation of fair conduct is less probable than in a media influenced, status promoting, money involving tournament.
Fairness in the Sport for All context can mean something else, namely being fair to the physical capacity of a person and not asking too much, neither physical nor social. Fairness here can also mean to be alike in sport and not demonstrate superiority in wealth and status. Dressed in sport attire can help to overcome the rank that directs our public life.
Translate fairness into the circumstances of Sport for All. Make fairness a principle for the role that volunteers play in other peoples’ sport life.
The growth of participation in many sports went together with the recruiting of volunteers who help to organize, teach, coach, administrate sport courses and events. In the German Sport Confederation we count one volunteer among five members of sport clubs. These are two million persons that have been elected into certain functions and another two million that are assisting regularly or from time to time.
Their number today is four times as high as a generation ago.
In Europe’s sport clubs we recognize a similar dimension of volunteers and their increase with growing sport participation. It has been estimated that the number of volunteers in European sport is beyond twenty million women and men.
Volunteers play a major role in the life of those to whom they give their services. They coach them, advise them, encourage them, have open ears even for personal problems. And in their services they can be directed by the spirit of being fair to the person and the program. Whether in higher functions or just as helpers, their open-minded person-oriented attitude can and should be directed by the goal of a fair relationship among each other.
Sport for All offers you a major clientele for Fair Play. A huge number of participants and volunteers.
But the vision of bringing Fair Play to the people in Sport for All goes beyond these two aspects.
Let us recall:
• In our traditional understanding the attitude of Fair Play is enacted between two or more opponents in a competitive position.
• In Sport for All competitive situations play a smaller role and this role is not additionally reinforced by the selection process and by the monetary and status benefit availability as in elite sport.
• Other motivations than victory play a role: enjoyment, health aspects, togetherness, active living.
• In Sport for All we have less competition and more conviviality. Less selection and more integration.
The development of Sport for All challenges us to translate the message of Fair Play according to the conditions of Sport for All.
Where can Fair play come into life in Sport for All?
This question brings us back to the act of fairness in its basic form: two people are interacting. Two people are in a situation in which one is momentarily in a stronger position than the other and has the freedom of will to enact his or her superiority their own advantage or to the equal chance of the other person.
Now in the case of persons participating in Sport for All such a situation in many cases-as I hope to have explained successfully-is not the same as in competitive sport. It is not like Jan Ullrich waiting after Lance Armstrong fell.
It is more often that one person needs fairness in the form of understanding, assistance, adaption of the sportive test so that it fits her or his capacity.
Whereas in competitive sport the persons interacting are nearly always of the same class in their sportive capacity and in their motives for performance, in Sport for All situations the people playing and exercising with each other differ more in their capacity and in their motives.
As the basic idea of Sport for All is to invite everybody it must shape its program in a form that avoids dropout and frustration because of defeat. Sport for All is a philosophy of inclusion not of selection.
Fairness in Sport for All therefore deals with conditions and situations where the stronger of the two involved persons acts so that the other one can perform for his or her benefit and personal progress.
Where do we find such constellations between persons in Sport for All? Let me name the most frequently found:
• Sport trainer and sport beginner
• Younger and older persons
• Experienced and inexperienced participants
• Long-time members and newcomers
• Men and women
• Capacitated and handicapped
• Nationals and migrants
• But also of course we have in Sport for All competitive situations between similarly abled persons.
When we are looking into such examples of a fair deal between humans differing in their capacity we understand how parallel such sport situations in fairness are to typical life situations in our contemporary society.
I see four areas.
First with regard to performance
Be fair to what people are able to do
Second with regard to integration
Be fair to people that are different
Third with regard to social interaction
Be fair to respond to people’s motives
Fourth with regard to community building
Be fair and be an active part of the world around you
Sport for All offers possibilities of social cohesion. Beyond more exercise it offers chains and obligations of helping each other in understanding, learning, interacting on and beyond the sports ground.Sport for All can contribute to creating community.
If Fair Play can be ethics of the elite, a code among the best - here it becomes ethics for everybody, a code of basic human likeness in all difference.
This makes Sport for All an excellent contributor to dealing through fairness with major challenges of today:
• living in a multicultural and multilingual society: being fair to those who are different
• living with more and more elderly persons: being fair with the elder generation
• living with handicapped people: being fair to the differently abled
• acquiring a more active and healthy lifestyle: being fair to your body
• protecting our environment: being fair to our natural resources
• overcoming loneliness and boredom: being fair to an enjoyable life.
The question of Fair Play and Sport for All leads beyond the sport facility into the midst of daily life.
Thank you for listening to the requests and offers of Sport for All.
There is no standstill in the development of sport. And as there is no standstill there is hope for fairness in sport and fairness in life.
Athlete’s act of Fair Play: Moral Choice
Prof.Dr. Vladimir Rodichenko
Russian Olympic Committee
The present paper is a fragment of the long-term study on the system of sports competitions, in particular ethical and legal aspects of sports activities and Fair Play principles.
They say that the theory of the phenomenon of Fair Play has already taken shape as the whole. But in our opinion these are only some of its fragments:
• studies of phenomenological character, mostly based on the sociological material;
• studies of organizational and methodological character;
• manifestos, declarations, resolutions adopted by various organizations and expressing their position on the moment of the adoption of these documents.
I believe that exactly the absence of a complete and conclusive theory of Fair Play leads to the indisputably existing skepticism about its principles.
Different approaches to the development of such a theory can exist. In my opinion we should start from the answer to the question: how the world sports community conceives the Fair Play principles?
We supposed that we should look for one of the answers in the awards made by the International Fair Play Committee for real Fair Play acts. In short we should go from the practice formed during many years to the theory. You see that the description of a real act exactly contains the views on a principle that was implemented in this act. Just this principle is considered to be essential both by the organization submitting the candidature and the International Committee. It is clear that other acts that could be referred to the Fair Play principles were made. However we considered it important to use the aforementioned decisions characterized as experts’ views in this study.
We made a classification of concrete acts made by athletes and coaches on the basis of four common manifestations of Fair Play formulated by us. For these acts the International Committee awarded 155 prizes and diplomas for the period from 1964-2001. Let me give the results in diminishing order.
1. To help a rival or other person being in danger or difficulties in an ordinary competitive situation, often under the threat of losing own’s position in competitions. The first international award dated 1964 is referred to this category. During the bobsleigh competitions at the Olympic Winter Games a favourite, an Italian Eugenoi Monti, found out that a part of the bob of his rival Briton Tony Nash was broken. He took the necessary part off his bob and transferred it to Nash who won the gold medal. 69 acts, or 43.5 %, are referred to this category.
2. To correct a mistake made by a judge in favour of the rival. The typical example from the awards of 1997 is a Diploma to the Russian fencer Stanislav Pozdnpyakov. In the World Cup final in which the rival of Pozdnyakov was leading the judge umpired a shot to Pozdnyakov by mistake. But after the fight was resumed Pozdnyakov with no resistance let the rival score against him and thus restored the justice. 42 acts, or 27.1 %, are referred to this category.
3. To refuse to use the arisen advantage which was not the result of his/her own successful actions during competition. At the European Championships in 1971 a Swiss Meta Antenen was leading in the long jump. Her main rival a German Ingrid Mikler-Becker was called for a relay-race. Antenen asked the judges to prolong the break and as a result of it let the rival get the title. 25 acts, or 16.1%, are referred to this category.
4. To refuse to use the advantage which is granted by the competitions’ rules or his own (intentional or unintentional) wrong actions. Such acts are well known in this audience, I just tell you that there are 19 acts, or 12.3%.
It is natural that the afore described acts are supported by an incomparably act area of observing the humanistic principles of competitive activities, particularly a principle of equal chances and opportunity. The stimulation of this area is typical of the Fair play awards in team games mostly aimed at awarding the minimum breaking of the rules connected to rudeness and violence.
Thus we could note three types of ethical principles of sport:
• demanding a concrete act;
• determining the ethics of a sport;
• finally, the principles referred to another category of sport’s subjects, namely fans, for instance overcoming an objective contradiction between the admissible national, ethnic and club biased and actual social trend towards tolerance, opposition to violence and xenophobia.
And now let me compare the given statistics of the Fair Play acts and the frequently quoted Fair Play principles. And there and then we will reveal a wealth of contradictions.
First contradiction. 53.5% or almost half of the awarded acts are referred to giving help to a rival. But we will not be able to find such a notion as “help to a rival” among the frequently quoted principles. Respect for a rival is quoted frequently. But respect, mostly passive and help that is always active, is far from being the same thing.
The second contradiction is between such a frequently proclaimed imperative as respect for a judge’s decision and the fact that more than a quarter, 27.1%, of awards were given for actions revising and correcting decisions taken by the judges.
Third contradiction. Another frequently declared Fair Play imperative is respect for the rules. But the overwhelming majority of the awards if not all 155 ones practically in no way are connected with the observation or non-observation of the rules of the competition.
One can see other contradictions in the widespread notions about Fair Play principles but these three oblige us to search for a possibility to reconcile them.
Searching for this possibility I noted that on the whole many people agreed long ago that an athlete participating in a sport competition is present both in playing and real lives. During a sport competition an athlete mostly takes the rules of this competition as a game. But the whole complex of circumstances in which he stays does not limit this area of an athlete’s actions.
This is why I am suggesting an appoach that could be called a conception of three areas of an athlete’s conduct:
• first area-playing, or socio-modelling activities; it is regulated by the rules of the competitions and has the specific character of a particular sport;
• second area in which an athlete stays as a person is the area of observation of moral and ethical principles of human community in the real, not playing, circumstances;
• the third area of an athlete’s actions as well as the second refers not to the playing but to the real activities and social conduct.
This area is doping abuse and other types of fraud and/or cheating in sport.
The first area, which is the area of a play is quite known. Let us consider an athlete’s conduct or misconduct in two others.
Second area. Exceeding the limits of the sports code and moving to the area of moral and ethical principles of human society an athlete meets with ethical imperatives common to all mankind. For example, an obviously wrong decision by a judge in his favor drastically transfers an athlete from the playing activities into real life and puts him in front of the real, not playing, moral and ethical choice. And moral and ethical convictions of a public person, not playing one, are being tested in these circumstances. For example, a moral ban on the arisen possibilitiy to use a judge’s mistake or rival’s injury comes into force. Or this ban does not come into force if such ethical choice did not become or did not yet become a moral imperative of a concrete athlete as a person.
Finally let me consider the third area of an athlete’s conduct, namely doping and other kinds of cheating.
Stories concerning doping abuse by athletes are frequently considered in connection with Fair Play. I take another point of view. Though outwardly doping abuse lays in the field which is connected with the non-observation of constitutional rules of the international sports associations it inevitably should be transferred to the field of common law. And the field of common law is the area of responsibilitiy of the bodies protecting law and public order. My point of view is the following: modern, mostly professional, sport is a game only by form. Essentially it is real activities whose aim is not so much getting pleasure from a process of playing as the way to earn money.
This is why doping abuse is not a simple breaking of the rules of the game. This is why we need not only ethical and economic but also legal mechanisms to provide purity of the sport product and protection of the athlete as its producer. For me, doping abuse means appropriation of somebody else’s property by fraud. I mean property which belongs to a real winner. Hence basing on the criminal laws of many countries this is a fraud i.e. a criminal offence. On the face of it this action is accomplished on the playing field, in reality it is accomplished in the area protected by law. And this area is subjected not to the sports organizations and not even to a structure close to sport, namely the World Anti-Doping Agency, but to the bodies protecting law and public order. And this is why a fight against doping must be included into the whole system of public activities aimed at the protection of law and order. An athlete must know since childhood that doping abuse is not a delinquency but a crime that will be proved not in the federation but in court with a penalty of several years in prison. So little by little a clear notion will be formed in mass consciousness that a person using doping for the purpose of fraud is not an infringer of sport rules but a criminal. And not internal sport rules (disqualification) or moral and ethical mechanisms (public censure) must be applied to him, but legal measures elaborated over thousands of years.
Hasan Kasap, PhD
Marmara University,
School of PE&Sport
Turkey
Human beings are society-based creatures. They need each other from the day they are born. A child has a need for his mother, family and friends. Family needs society. Furthermore nations need each other to survive. We, all, are aware of this reality but often we fail to deal with each other in a ‘fair’ manner. Even though a human is a part of a society, actually individual life style constructs the frame of all social and global relationships.
Many of our characteristics stem from our genes. We learn our living styles from those who exist in our environment. What we learn in general in turn influences our relations with and preferences for others. When we look at the differences and life style preferences,we know that our life styles are the end results of our culture. Culture cannot be transferred by our genes. It is a total result of our learning experiences. Global culture consists of mutual values of many ethnic cultures, plus it contains additional values such as a respecting cultural differences of others. All of these values can enable individuals to live positively and peacefully as a part of society.
Our environment influences our living habits. First we show a reaction to an outside influence in a natural way, and then we react as others who surround us. Because of this learning process our natural and personal behaviors, at the end, become collective reactions. In this transformation, the first and most influential factor is family. Then we react like those individuals who touch our lives such as our teacher or coach. Over time, with the influences those individuals and events that affect our lives other than our family, we become ourselves.
Contemporary information technology, which influences individuals, has widened the environmental scope. Nowadays, children and young people can easily find themselves as a part of the global environment. They see paradoxes which are near or far from them. They are influenced and affected by them and they have problems in showing their personal reactions. As their environment grows, they have troubles in selecting the common and positive values that surround them, thus their need for advisors increases. Even though the barriers among nations are being lifted, still every society has its ethical rights. These rights are usually considered as moral values of that society. Therefore, evaluations and discussions about these rights naturally create problems. In this case, anyone who is required to make a decision finds himself/herself either having to respect or to deny these rights.
It is almost impossible to live a balanced life in a world where the life of a human being is affected by extremely strong and conflicting values. An individual wonders if families, teachers, advocates and respectable people of society will be able to come to terms with each other. This way, having a universal ‘fair life style’, which is made up of global common values, at the end results in making the world a better place to live.
Is it possible to develop a fair life style?
When the law structure of societies is examined, it is evident that they are structured to protect the justifiable living conditions of the individuals. All of the principles and teachings of the existing religions are constructed to improve the together, are constructed by society to become more justifiable and fair. Considering all of these facts, why do we have so many problems of living fairly in a society?
According to how individuals foresee and accept the living standards and principles in a society we can think of living standards in two dimensions. First one? Those rules which are developing outside the individual and society which everyone sees and accepts as ‘somebody else’s rules’. We can call these ‘outside rules’. Second set of rules is rules which an individual accepts as his own rules. We can call these ‘inside rules’. Outside rules are directed by others. Therefore we think that those rules should be accepted and obeyed by others. Also others should control them. As a result we think that ‘outside rules’ are practised and fair living standards are in existence in a society is a problem of those who supervise these rules. If there is a supervisor who controls these rules then the rules will be practised and obeyed. If there are no referee to officiate a sport contest then there are a contest. Because everyone thinks that the rules belong to the referees. If there are no traffic police then there are no traffic rules. Because everyone thinks that traffic rules belong to the traffic police.
Inside rules are those which direct an individual’s desires, wishes, joys make up the individual rules of life. If individuals enjoy and accept a game’s rules or enjoy and accept traffic rules then they make these rules part of their lives and they obey them.
Then these ‘outside rules’ become ‘inside rules’. If an individual accepts all these rules; then they all transform and become their ‘inside rules’. Of course the question is ‘how this transformation will take place?’ or ‘how human beings will adopt to life’s fair rules?’ and ‘how a just and fair world will be established?’ Another question may be; how an individual’s personal preferences in shaping his living style can become directed towards fair and justifiable living standards.
When we look at the human beings, we realize that individuals make very unique and difficult habits part of their lives when an individual inhales his/her first cigarette or for the first time drinks alcohol he seems to never forget that experience. Can anyone foresee a person lean over a pile of trash and inhale the smoke out of a trash pile? But today we see so many people who made these habits part of their lives. This shows us what we can all adopt ourselves. Remember the pain in our fingers when we are learning writing skills for first time even in our lives. The timeless act of drawing lines on our first notebook. But today we accept this act as a Value. A champion lifts tons of weights during practices just to live the feeling of victory for a few seconds.
To make a preference to become a champion is only possible?
If an individual wants to adopt a fair living style then family and school are the best sources of permanent values. Children’s pre-school and primary school years are considered natural and egocentrical phases of their lives. During that period, a child sees himself/herself as the center of life. During this period, a child outside supervision. This period is called ‘critical phase’ or ‘permanent’ face, which will last lifelong and be placed under the supervision of the family and primary school. During that period seeds, are spread which will give their fruits in the future. The influences of the heroes in a child’s life are very high at this stage. According to research a child’s mother, teacher sports leaders that he sees as models influence him 58-67 %. A child enjoys living the life style of his family. It acts as his teacher or coach if those important people in his life live in a fair world forget that not words. But behaviors leave permanent life habits in a child’s life. If a coach, rival coach and athletes present good examples the athletes of that coach enjoy practising the similar habits and roll playing.
Can a real world come true really? It may be a utopia. But a world that can be lived more could be set. It can be ideal and aimed to realise this life style. We know that important people of family, teacher and child will be effective. Therefore we can claim that development of fair life philosophy is due to the development of these points.
Development of social fair lifestyle can be providing with cooperating of family and educators. Here the most effective way is to provide family attendance. Families provide opportunity to educators by sending children to them. Because every child is important to each family and also it considers each child as their future. They do not eat; they spend all of their money for their cihldren. Therefore development of their children must be very important for them too. At this point education foundations take the opportunity to educate families. Education must not leave children from their families. Families and educators must work in cooperation. Children must not live paradoxes while adopting just attitude forms. Education foundations and educators are reliable specialists to create these values. They have enough skills to guide families and children for forming true attitudes. Therefore these works must be made with families in a well organised program.
Fair play activities practised in schools must be arranged with families. Family cooperation is important in those works. Even though it is completely organized by the school, experts provide the family organization help. Physical education teachers, program experts and pedagogues could be observers. If a leader of the family were adopted results would be more efficient what can be there in such a fair life program. First it must started with good information, enthusiasm. Then a fair play quiz must be applied, families and children must discuss results. The people who do not attend will be sent letters and documents. The winners will win a prize. The activities will be spread to the whole staff. At this point another approach can be offered as a fair play detective. These detectives can be used to inspect attitudes of children and families. It must not be set upon finding negative life styles and punishment. Setting form must be reliable and consistent. Unless it’s well organised and careful it might not be just.
For social development fair play activities must be provided not only at play dimension but also at life dimension. Games can be only a tool in development of fair life style.
References:
Jersild, Arthur T., Child Psychology, Prentice Hall, inc. Translation: Prof. Dr. Gülseren Günce, Ankara University, Faculty of Education press no: 62 1976.
Glover, Donald A. & Anderson, Leigh A., Character Education, Human Kinetics, Champaign 2003.
European Fair Play Movement, Fair Play Quiz, May 1995.
Johnson, R.&Eaton, J., Coaching Successfully, Dorling Kindersley, N.Y. 2001.
Kalish, S., Your Child’s Fitness Practical Advice for Parents’, American Running and Fitness Association, 1966.
Supplement 2
Fair Play 2004 – Challenges for
Theory and Practice
Opening speech of the 10th European Fair Play Congress, September 22-26, 2004, Vienna.
Prof.Dr.
Otmar WEISS
* Department of Sport Science of the University of Vienna
* Chairman of the Austrian Society for Sociology of Sports
* Board member of the International Sociology of Sports Association
* President of the European Association for Sociology of Sports
* Research: Sport Sociology, Sports and European integration, media sports as a social substitution.
The topic of this congress was chosen in order to discuss the latest ideas and the present situation regarding fair play in sport. The theoretical perspective is important because fair play is a societal value and varies from time to time and from society to society. And this goes hand in hand with the practical realisation of fair play in sport. The norms and rules which are derived from the value fair play can be seen in sport much more clearly than elsewhere. In sport injustice cannot be easily disguised as in the world in general, injustice and unfairness are clearly visible. Therefore the practical perspective – fair play as a challenge for concrete behaviour in sport – is also very important.
Those societal and cultural values, such as fairness, equal opportunity, success, to name a few, that people believe in, are tangibly exemplified in sport. There is hardly any other social area which illustrates the ideals of a society better than sport does – for instance, that success counts, that better performance leads to greater recognition. And the validity of social values and norms is clearly demonstrated to all those whose day to day reality and own way of life are often quite the opposite, for in sport success is achieved simply by performing. Whereas performance in other areas remains invisible to many people, and can often only be appreciated by experts, in sport success is immediately recognisable; it can be understood by one and all. Sport is looked upon as the ideal or even the utopia of a society. The role of fair play within sport is therefore all the more important. After all, fair play first came into being in the context of sport, and was then introduced into other societal areas.
In my presentation you will, I hope, see how fair play is the result of a particular process of civilisation, as Elias says; one which has taken place within modern societies and within sport as carried out in these societies.
In addition I want to outline fair play as a counter-measure to oppose the present prevalence of violence in sport. In order to maintain the true fascination of sport, it is of prime importance to underline the principle that fair play is preferable to victory at any price. The goal can never justify foul means.
Let me start with the following definition of fair play:
It demands firstly uniformity of competition conditions, and equal opportunities for all participants, secondly respect for the opponent as a human being and a partner, and thirdly strict adherence to the rules, and unconditional observance of competition regulations.
This interpretation and appreciation of fair play was not part of sport from the start. Many authors, Weiler, for instance, in 1974, later Guttmann, Elias, and Pilz and Weber, to name a few, have come to the conclusion that there was practically no such thing as fairness as we understand it today in the contests of antiquity. Assistance of one or the other by the gods, mockery of the losers, breaking rules by using trickery and deception – as was usual then – contradicts every item of the definition I have just given of fair play!
This, of course, also applied to the ancient Olympic Games. In pancratium, a mixture of boxing and wrestling, for instance, contestants used any and every part of the body in the fight, hands, feet, elbows, heads, knees and even teeth. They were even allowed to press out their opponents’ eyes, throttle them, dislocate fingers and arms. Naturally, fights as brutally rough as these led to horrific injuries, and often enough ended fatally. On the other hand, sometimes an athlete killed in an Olympic duel would be posthumously declared the victor, because he had fought with particular bravery!
We hear the following description of two boxers, given by Elias in his book of 1976:
“The first struck a blow to the head which his opponent survived. When he lowered his guard, the other man struck him under the ribs with his outstretched fingers, burst through his side with his hard nails, seized his bowels and killed him”.
Based on the standard of values within our modern society physical violence of such dimensions must surely be dismissed as barbarian depravity. It quite clearly offends our social taboos regarding violence. We can only begin to understand such brutal behaviour by looking at the structure, the stage of social development, and the way in which physical force was organised and controlled from a societal point of view in Ancient Greece. The standards of behaviour and sensitivity the Greeks had were very different from ours; they were less civilised. To be at war with one another was perfectly normal for the city states of those days. Genocide was frequently an act of calculation, perpetrated in order to destroy the military power of the rival state. In the time of the Ancient Greeks, and indeed also of the Romans, it was not considered reprehensible, and by no means an atrocity, to massacre the entire male population of a vanquished city, selling the women and children as slaves.
And the standards within the warmongering society of the 13th century were not really that much better, either. Tormenting and killing others was a source of great enjoyment, cruel treatment in no way led to social ostracism. It follows that moral antipathy, feelings of guilt and shame, must have been far less pronounced than they are nowadays. But then such sentiments would have proved to be a great handicap if we consider that the use of physical force, or even violence, was, in a way, vitally necessary. Every able-bodied male had always to be prepared for conflict, fight, or battle, either to defend his family, or where necessary, to support relatives or avenge them. The protection of citizens and of livelihood was not mainly the duty of the state. In those days people depended far more on their own physical power and tenacity in order to survive – unlike the present time when the use of force is widely under the purview of the state. All in all, the extent of physical force and violence was considerably greater in antiquity and in the Middle Ages than it is in our contemporary societies.
These differences, both in outlook and in extent, are the result of the historical change humanity has experienced. This change is termed the “Process of Civilisation” after Elias. Elias sees the course of this process as a compulsion which human beings exert on one another due to growing social involvement and interdependence. Democratisation, industrialisation, urbanisation, transport and communication have created a lever gear of interdependent pressures which have gradually, over the centuries, led to changes in behaviour, until they reached our present standards. Examples of these changes and standards given by Elias are, amongst others, so-called table manners, for instance, the use of cutlery, knives and forks; general behaviour in public wiping your nose on sleeves or handkerchiefs, spitting, cleanliness; the privacy of the bedroom and sexuality. Altogether social change has set a disciplining of human behaviour in motion. That is to say, changes in social and societal structures have led to changes in structures of personality. The human being has learned, in gradual evolutionary steps, to control his impulses and to change compulsion from outside into compulsion from inside himself. A distinct apparatus of self-compulsion has developed in humans, causing an ever higher degree of rational action, which is often intended to continue over a longer term. This meant and means suppressing spontaneous surges of emotion and subduing the instinct to use physical violence.
In sociology, psychological self-control is known as internalisation of standards and is the result of the educative process, or socialisation. Thus the development towards civilised behavioural forms and humanisation can be read from the historical changes in the education and up-bringing of children. For instance, from antiquity until well into the fourth century AD murdering illegitimate children – and indeed, on occasion, legitimate ones, too – was not unusual. De Mause speaks, in his book of 1977, of the stage of infanticide being followed by the stage of abandoning children, which continued on into about the 13th century. During the Middle Ages severe beating and whipping of children were important elements in their education and up-bringing. The adult of those times, himself tormented by asocial, sexual, egoistic, aggressive instincts and urges, saw his forbidden desires in the child and tried to beat his own base instincts out of the youngster. The screams of a child were considered to be maliciousness, which had to be driven out by blows. The stage of socialisation was not reached until the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries. The child was no longer to be subjugated by the adult will. Instead it was to be directed along the right path. Indeed, a start was being made at educating the child. Nevertheless, corporal punishment and the creation of feelings of guilt were still widespread. Only quite recently have parents begun to try and answer children’s needs, and to bring them up without using violence. The idea that a child should be looked upon as having a personality of its own is only gradually spreading.
It is essential to know these and related connections if we want to understand why the standards of behaviour and sentiment of Society A are more and those of Society B less civilised, as clearly seen, inter alia, by their different attitudes towards violence in sport. The more brutal a society is, the more brutal sport within it will be. The actors essentially realise in whatever their sport may be the normative, intellectual and cultural examples they have acquired during the process of socialisation. And so, in this way, sport is a manifestation of cultures and society. Compared with today’s, earlier forms of sport were far less organised, less differentiated, by far rougher, more savage, more brutal; they permitted an incomparably greater degree of physical violence, that was socially tolerated and accepted. This can be seen in a comparison of some of the structural characteristics of traditional versus modern sports or games: (GRAPH 1)
In modern societies there is a considerable difference in how marked the suppression of physical violence is, and this depends on the level of development, sort of organisation, social class and structure. Suppression is least advanced in such sports as boxing, ice hockey, wrestling and rugby. Athletes favouring these types of sport generally come from a social environment where physical violence is a legitimate means of looking after their own interests. Boltanski, Dunning, Schlagenhauf and, together with Russo, I myself, to name a few, have remarked upon this in various studies. In the case of boxing the use of violence can itself be the aim of the game, as physical injuries during sports contests do not count as actions to be penalised. This decriminalisation of otherwise criminal offences is one reason why in many cases boxing is regarded by members of the oppressed classes or criminal subcultures as an opportunity to climb up the social ladder. However, there are other sports, too, where the rate of aggression is in line with the normal social behaviour acquired by the athlete. Here I would mention soccer, handball, basketball, as examples. Sport is, and will probably remain, a child of its times and its society, or societal group. And it is impossible to look at any one sport isolated from these factors. That is to say, the extent of direct aggression in the form of physical attack permitted differs from one sport to the other. What a boxer is allowed to do is a lot more than is permitted for a footballer, but he, on the other hand is allowed to be more aggressive than a basketball player. It follows that active engagement in a particular sport is frequently the expression of a specific social development and situation. The different sports are preserved, altered, and shaped by their relations to society. In addition to the class-specific difference in attitude towards physical violence there are other standards for the legitimation of violence which also affect the choice of sport and how it is practised. Age and gender are here the first to come to mind. But really decisive for the choice of sport are the conscious and subconscious relations to one’s own body, the knowledge and consciousness of the body, and this is a product of each player’s personal lifestyle.
Shaped to different levels by cultural and societal influences, sensitivity and tolerance towards violence are echoed particularly in specifically national games and sports. In comparison with European football there is far more physical violence in American football. This must be seen in the light of the individual physical violence which has shaped American history. However, this difference in the degree to which culture has influenced the suppression of physical violence is also very evident when comparing central and north European athletes’ behaviour with that of south Europeans or Latin Americans. The greater tolerance of physical violence in southern cultural areas – look, for instance, at the vendetta, the blood revenge – influences the behaviour of athletes.
But far the most usual form of violence in modern sport is what is known as “instrumental violence”. The enormous societal, economic and political importance of athletic success has led to ever more frequent use of instrumental violence. Intentional fouls combined with unconditional rough play are the order of the day. The perfectly acceptable principle of high performance is being perverted. More and more areas of sport are getting caught up in the perversion of this principle, so that success now justifies the means. Particular forms of instrumental violence are increasingly being introduced into training sessions. In games where personal contact is not allowed, such as in basketball, fouls can often be used to tactical advantage. Any team that is tactically well-advised will use intentional fouls to optimise performance. And, in view of the extreme roughness and brutality of top sport today, anyone not prepared to risk one’s life is fighting a losing battle. Even in women’s sport physical violence is being used increasingly in the interests of winning. So we see that sport has unreservedly taken over the societal mentality of the day, which will only accept success.
“The more a sport is professionalised, the more victory is emphasised as the goal of athletic endeavour, rather than the means by which it is achieved; finally, the more important the economic or other consequences of a victory are, the greater is the likelihood that the rules of the sport will be violated in favour of other interests.”
Various studies, for instance Heinilä’s of 1974, show unequivocally that, with increased age, athletic experience, and strength of performance, fair play is increasingly assessed as a hindrance to athletic success. (GRAPH 2)
Instrumental violence is gaining more and more approval. Fouls and foul play are becoming part of the compulsory programme. And so the idea of success at any price is a factor why it has become almost impossible to imagine normal life in high performance sport without violence. Yet the growing importance of instrumental violence in women’s and in men’s sports is, though it may sound frivolous to put it this way, nothing other than a process of adaptation to the collective societal norms and behavioural standards of the day.
The original development of fair play took place in the England of the 18th and 19th centuries. And here the ideal of the perfect gentleman played an important role. He was of a highly respectable character, of good family and a decent way of life. In the public schools (which, as you know, were exclusive private ones!) the ideal of the gentleman was transferred to sporting contests. Preservation of the equality of an opponent or opposing team, strict adherence to the rules, foregoing any unjustified advantages, and honest and honourable behaviour towards the opponent were intrinsic elements in the educative ideal of fair play in English public schools.
The items in our frame definition have thus all been fulfilled. Processes of democratisation and education in the English public schools made it possible for fair play in sport to develop. Together with the worldwide propagation of English sport the idea of fair play spread, too. The formation and development of fairness, as we have seen, has to do with socialisation and education. The goal can never justify the means, although we have been made to prove it does! Fair play can be interpreted as the moral principle of sport.
But in this year of 2004, it would be wrong to make no mention of some of the world sporting events we have experienced with that certain tingle no one can quite explain – the Olympic Games in Athens. No doubt there will be more said about them later on, but I have a few thoughts on fair play I, myself, find very interesting. The ignominious start with two of the host country’s star athletes being disqualified for possible doping, under rather odd circumstances. Almost immediately they were gone from the sporting sky of stars – sic transit gloria – but, although I have not spoken of it before today, doping is anything but fair play! And it is very important that the IOC takes a strict view of this so that doping is not allowed to spoil the fairness of the Games.
And, closer to home, - it is barely three weeks since a soccer game was played here in Vienna which had caused some nervousness in advance. This, of course, was the match between Austria and England. It was feared there would be quite some rough if not violent play, and any amount of hooliganism. Fortunately the game was very fair – and, as you will remember with relief, it ended in a draw – 2:2. As to the hooliganism, it must be said that in England the authorities did their best to keep the spectators in order by refusing to issue tickets to known troublemakers. Here in Vienna safety measures were also taken, and all went pretty well. But it is a pointer to the fact that spectators can be fair or unfair, and can even influence the fairness of a game to a certain extent by hyping up emotions.
Moral action is the highest stage of development which humans have achieved, for it has little or nothing to do with the instinct; moral and ethical thinking does not allow any unscrupulousness. There is no area of human community exempt from moral assessment and moral consciousness – and no doubt this applies to sport as well and in particular. So there is hope that the dark side of top level sport will soon give way to the bright and sunny side – that the maxim of fair play will prevail again – after all, fair play originated in sport!
But this again depends on the values and structures of the particular society. To think along the same lines as Norbert Elias we could say it depends on how far the civilisation process has progressed in a given society. The more civilised a society is, the higher its moral consciousness and sense of responsibility.
This means, in relation to sport: if the standards of behaviour and sensitivity of, say, Society A are more civilised than those of Society B then A’s sports will be more humane than B’s.
That is to say, sport is not and will not be better than the society it is practised in. We have seen this time and again, and so far there is no reason to believe it will be different in the future. This only sounds pessimistic if we are convinced that society is becoming less moral, less human. But fortunately the opposite development is also possible as has been shown in the example of the process of civilisation: Let us hope that the future will bring us the victory of morals over mammon.
References:
De Mause, L. (Hg.): Hört ihr die Kinder weinen? Eine psychogenetische Geschichte der Kindheit, Frankfurt 1977
Elias, Norbert: Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation. Soziogenetische und Psychogenetische Untersuchungen, 2 Bde., 2. Aufl., Frankfurt am Main 1976.
Guttmann, Allen: “Ursprünge, soziale Basis und Zukunft des Fair play“, in: Sportwissenschaft 17(1987)1, pp. 9-19.
Dunning, Eric: “Volksfußball und Fußballsport“, in: Hopf, W. (Hg.): Fußball – Soziologie und Sozialgeschichte einer populären Sportart, Bensheim 1979, pp. 12-18.
Weiler, I.: Der Agon im Mythos. Zur Einstellung der Griechen zum Wettkampf, Darmstadt 1974.
Weiss, Otmar: Einführung in die Sportsoziologie, Wien 1999.
Pilz, G. A.: “Körperliche Gewalt von Sportlern – Zum aktuellen Stand sportwissenschaftlicher Forschung“, in: Pilz, G. A. (Hg.): Sport und körperliche Gewalt, Hamburg 1987, pp. 35-50.
Boltanski, L.: “Die soziale Verwendung des Körpers“, in: Kamper, D./Rittner, V.: Zur Geschichte des Körpers, Wien/München 1976, pp. 138-171.
Heinilä, K.: Ethics of Sports. University of Jyväskylä Research Report 4, 1974.
Weiss, Otmar/Russo, Manfred: Image des Sports, Wien 1987
Schlagenhauf, Karl: Sportvereine in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Teil I: Strukturelemente und Verhaltensdeterminanten im organisierten Freizeitbereich, Schorndorf 1977
GRAPH 1
Structural Characteristics of Traditional and Modern Sports
Traditional Modern
High degree of socially tolerated Low degree of socially tolerated
Physical violence Physical violence
Spontaneous emotion Great control of emotion
Little restraint Great restraint
Open and spontaneous generation of a Intensely controlled, sublimated combative mood conductive to generation of a combative mood
Enjoyment Full of tension
Emphasis on violence and strength Emphasis on skilfulness and dexterity
Source: Dunning 1979
GRAPH 2
Assessment of “Fair Play
Agreement in %
A player must behave as follows on the 15 16 17 18 Professionals
playing field/pitch, etc. yrs yrs yrs yrs
Try to gain as many advantages as 27 31 39 44 54
possible for his team
Keep to the spirit of Fair Play 40 29 30 22 16
Conform to demands of the umpire/referee 29 31 25 29 24
No reply 4 9 6 5 6
100 100 100 100 100
Source: Heinilä 1974
Keynote speech, 10th European Fair Play Congress, September 22-26, 2004, Vienna.
Prof. Dr.
Mari-Kristin SISJORD
* Norwegian University of Sports and Physical Education, Oslo
* 2000-2003 Vice-President of the International Sociology of Sports Association
* 1996-1999 Member of the Executive Board of the International Committeefor Sport Science and Physical Education
* 1996-1999 Member of the Editorial Board of the International
Review for the Sociology of Sports
* Research: Youth Sports and Culture, gender,social class etc.
Introduction
First of all I would like to thank the organisers for inviting me to this conference. I have been asked to talk about youth culture, sport and fair play. I have to admit that fair play is not my scientific area. My field of research is youth sport in general, and over recent years I have mainly worked with issues connected to youth culture and subcultures in sport. So I guess that’s why I’m here.
I will start the presentation by clarifying the concepts in the title, youth culture, sport and fair play. After that I will discuss several aspects of this topic related to sports practice in different sports settings.
What does the concept of youth culture cover?
The concept consists of two words; youth and culture. Roughly speaking, youth refers to the age groups from about 12-13 to 18-19 years. A common understanding of youth refers to the teen-ages, however, in some respects there is a more narrow demarcation connected to puberty, a stage often connoted with adolescence. When it comes to culture, it is more difficult to give a clear definition in so far as social scientists have offered more than 200 definitions of the concept. From a sociological dictionary one can read that “culture” refers to “a collective noun for the symbolic and learned, non-biological aspects of human society, including language, customs and conventions” (Abercrombie et al., 1994). It should be emphasised that the elements of culture are shared by members of society and allow cooperation and communication to take place within a common context (Giddens, 2001). How can this lead us to understand youth culture?
People often associate youth culture with conspicuous, deviant and frightening appearance and behaviour. Behaviour which is difficult to read is often understood as strange and for some people as repulsive. Young people need to experiment with new roles as part of their identity development and to mark distance from their parents and the adult generation. Symbols are crucial in that regard. Our way of dressing, behaviour, choice of lifestyle and activities, music preferences and slang words, are all-together parts of our self-presentation which signalises to the surroundings who we are and who we want to be associated with.
Within the youth group we find a variety of lifestyles on a continuum from the more traditional ones to those who clearly break with traditional norms in society and for whom the use of symbols and expressions is significant to show adherence to a particular style or genre in the existing youth culture. The latter is often referred to as subculture.
Subculture was originally used to describe groups of young people who in style and behaviour deviate from the larger society. The concept stems from scholars belonging to the Birmingham School back in the 1970s and 1980s, who carried out studies on youth groups and gangs considered as deviant, resistant and rebellious. The analyses of subcultures were primarily related to the class division in society and the development of subcultures was then understood as a reaction towards society by underprivileged youth (Brake, 1985). In later years the concept has got a wider connotation beyond the class dimension and it has been used to describe plural subcultures, including sports like climbing, windsurfing, surfing, skating and snowboarding, just to mention a few. It is easy to recognise elements from the resistant and alternative youth subcultures in these sports, as they display clothes, hair, language, music and philosophies that deviate from traditional sports norms (Humpreys, 1997).
However, there are also subcultures that do not deviate from the main culture in distinct ways, rather they reflect mainstream values in society. We find sports subcultures that share many of the same values as traditional sports. The participants in subcultures may differ in their engagement as some have a distant relationship and low engagement while others are more or less full-time participants and identify strongly with the subculture and the hardcore people in the culture. For example ski bums, snowboarders and surfers who have the subculture activity as their main pursuit for a shorter or longer time.
Another crucial dimension of youth culture is the generation aspect. It affects the relations between parents and offspring as well as the gap between generations in society in general, which we used to speak of as generation conflicts when the two parts differ in standpoint and value orientation. Contradictions between generations are universal and refer to emancipation as part of developmental tasks among young people. Such issues are relevant in discussions about facilitating youth sport, for instance like who should decide what? And how much should adults interfere or guide the play and the practice?
As a last dimension of youth culture I will mention consumption, which is closely connected to young people’s lifestyle and also identity development as it appears in fashion, style, music and leisure activities. Related to the field of sport, consumption reflects lifestyle choices and leisure preferences but it may also reflect peoples’ abilities and constraints for participation in different leisure arenas.
To sum up, it is difficult to give a clear understanding of what is meant by the concept “youth culture”. The widest definition refers to the “culture existing among young people and the most narrow definition may parallel subculture. In analysing youth culture and sport, it is reasonable to emphasise communication and contextual relations, consumption, the generational aspect as well as elements from the subculture with a focus on style, meaning and the use of symbols.
How should sport be defined?
What do we mean when we talk about sport? The question will have many answers, related to cultural and historical conditions. According to American sports sociologists McPherson and collaborates (1989) the idea of sport refers to “a structured, goal-oriented, competitive, contest-based, ludic physical activity” (p. 15) which is representative of the most common definitions of the term. The definition includes a variety of activities, sports contexts and different performance levels. Other definitions may, however, contain other dimensions, which could be shortly illustrated by the definition used by the Norwegian Olympic Committee and Confederation of Sport, where sport is defined as “Leisure or hobby-based activity where body positions and movements are the central element and where the athlete’s effort is decisive for the outcome”. As you can see this definition deviates from the former. Competition is only mentioned indirectly and the amateur aspect is expressed by the wording “leisure or hobby-based”. Bearing in mind the top level athletes’ way of living, it is reasonable to question the “leisure and hobby” dimension in this definition. In this presentation, sport will be understood in broad terms, including both recreational and competitive sports.
How do I understand and relate to the concept of Fair Play?
According to the dictionary, the concept of “fair” has several meanings, including “attractive”, “beautiful” and “clean” to mention a few, besides “just and honest” and “according to the rules”. Interpretations of the latter two point to more formal understandings of fair in that they refer to conceptions of justice and what counts as acting in accordance with the rules (Loland, 2002) which will be the main focus for the further discussion. I will, however, comment upon the former ones, and see how it connects to youth culture in sport.
In my understanding, there is an interrelationship between clean, beautiful and attractive. Telemark skiing may serve as a good example. I guess you are familiar with to-day's telemark skiing, referred to as modern telemark, which was reinvented in the United States in the 1970s. The original telemark skiing, considered as a precursor of both alpine and cross-country skiing, was developed in Norway in the first part of the 19th century in a village called Morgedal in a the county of Telemark. This particular way of skiing was considered functional for the hilly country with the steep and undulating surfaces. Besides coping with the challenges in the terrain, style and elegance were highly valued. The ski performance and the curves made in the snow had certain similarities with cultural entities, like painting, crafts and dancing (Loupedalen, 1947) and people judged the aesthetic dimension as part of the skier’s performance. Such perceptions have an impact on modern telemark as well, although racing time is the decisive component in competitions, the athletes are disqualified if they do not use proper technique. I will also quote from a study I have made with telemark skiers, namely that the participants used to emphasise the aesthetic dimension in their own and their mates’ performance, by making “beautiful curves” in the snow as well as jumping, somersaults and other movements which they perform while skiing.
The latter may also parallel snowboarding where self-expression and creativity are central elements of performance. Let me illustrate this with a quotation from a snowboarder I interviewed in connection with an investigation on a sports high school in
Norway:
“In my view snowboarding is not a sport. It is show and entertainment, or rather an art I would say, where you create something, individual featuring, you may feel free to do just what you want to. High performance tricks are beautiful to watch, an aesthetic experience, really”.
Snowboarding, in conformity with skateboarding, developed within a flexible and informal structure where the participants were the experts and controlled the physical activity. Without any rules or coaches to guide the activity, the athletes created their own tricks and games and decided when and where to perform it (Beal, 1995). Although the sport has undergone a process towards standardisation and evaluation in competition, individual expressions and creativity are still distinctive features. A few years ago I made a study on a snowboard camp and the interviewees admitted that they emphasised personal style on the board and used to compare their own performance with their peers’ style as well as the professional riders’. Snowboard videos obviously serve as a source of inspiration and education in that regard. One of the males told that he used to watch videos with the purpose of adopting tricks and adjusting them to his own style. In doing so, body composition and size was taken into consideration to “harmonise the movements, to see what fit’s your body”, as he expressed it. “You know, you want to do something spectacular, be recognised, it’s much about showmanship”.
Elements of aesthetics and creativity exist in other sports as well, which I will not spend time on commenting. But before leaving this point, I will shortly mention other interpretations of the dimensions I have discussed. A colleague at my university, Professor Sigmund Loland, whose field is sport philosophy, has done a lot of work on fair play in sport, and he suggests that the English ideal of the gentleman amateur can be derived from the interpretations of attractive, beautiful and clean. Fair actions in competitions, he says “can be considered attractive, unblemished and clean in that they do not merely serve self-interest but are performed from an impartial sense of the common good and from a sense of obligation” (Loland, 2001, pp. 13-14).
I will go over to discuss fair play with a focus on the more common understanding of the term, namely the dimensions of “just and honest” and “according to the rules”. I will deal with these issues by first discussing various aspects of “justice” and then “honest and according to the rules” in sports practice.
Fairness, justice and (in)equality
My perspectives are coloured by my background in sociology, so fairness and justice will be closely related to issues of equality versus inequality, a primary concern of sociological thinking. In that connection it might be useful to distinguish between individual and system inequalities related to sports participation.
Individual inequalities refer to a variety of characteristics of people, like gender, age, ethnicity and social class, as well as physical and mental qualities and abilities of each individual (Loland, 2004). I will not go thoroughly into these issues because that could bring me into major discussions about unequal abilities and fairness in sport, including body weight and also body height classification, as an example. It may also be difficult to distinguish between individual and system inequalities, as when research from my own country, in line with studies from other countries, show that youth with a foreign ethnic background are less involved with organised sport than ethnic Norwegian youths are.
I will relate the question to gender issues and show how this can be better understood as system inequalities. First an example from wrestling, illustrated by a quotation from a female wrestler in the Norwegian national team:
“The male wrestlers get more than double the grants, and gatherings, they have everything paid, they have a physiotherapist, we’d been promised that before the World Championship, but we didn’t get one. But the Wrestling Association spends a lot to bring people from Russia, so the men get proper sparring.”
Let me give you another one, from the lower age groups. This quotation is from a newspaper interview with a young woman, about 25 years of age, when she was elected to the board of the Norwegian Olympic Committee and Confederation of Sport. She was asked what brought her into sports politics and she said:
“I was coaching the small girls in soccer and realised that they trained as much as the boys did and that the girls’ parents often worked twice as much as the boys’ parents for the club, but they only got one third of the resources back. Therefore I started as a “politician” in the sports organisation.”
Both quotations indicate unequal treatment of female and male athletes, in children’s sport as well as top level sport. It also tells us that the girls during their sports participation have learned that boy’s sport is higher valued than girls’ sport, although they have been told that girls have the same rights as boys to participate in sport, in other words it’s a hidden curriculum here. The stories uncover individual experiences, but should rather be analysed in terms of system inequalities. We know that sport in its origin was developed by and for men, and has further developed as a system where men compose the majority and the higher up in the organisation relatively more men hold the positions. Just think of the International Olympic Committee. The male dominance is also reflected in the media’s presentations of sports events. I could have continued with countless examples, but stop here. The same could be done with reference to social class, as it is well documented that sports participation, at various levels, in different sports is highly related to people’s social class background.
Fair play in different sports settings
I will then move over to discuss contextual aspects of fair play in different sports settings. To frame the discussion I will distinguish between informal or unorganised versus formal and organised sport. Organised sport will be understood as sport performed within a sports organisation, unorganised refers to self-organised, recreational sport outside the sports system, although a clear demarcation between the two may be difficult to draw.
The concept of fair play may also be understood as having one formal and one informal component related to what is considered morally good. Formal fair play demands adherence to the rules and prescribes what is considered morally right and just. Informal fair play refers to mutual respect between the parties engaged and to the ideal attitudes and virtues with which they ought to compete (Loland, 2001). The two aspects of fair play are not directly transferable to the way sport is institutionalised and organised, as both informal and formal fair play are dealt with in both organised and unorganised sport. But formal fair play is more relevant for institutionalised and organised sport, while the informal aspect may have greater impact on informal and unorganised sport.
I will use sports subculture as an example of informal sport. In the introduction I outlined characteristics of subcultures with a particular focus on resistance and alternative activities with an emphasis of shared meanings and the use of symbols as a means of communication. Another feature in snowboarding is the dynamic in the culture and distinctions between outsiders and insiders. Studies on socialisation to a subculture (in general, not specific for snowboarding) uncover the process neophytes have to undergo in order to be included and accepted. The first stage is pre-socialisation where the potential athlete gets a notion of what the sport is about. Next is selection and recruitment, which is a flexible stage that varies from sport to sport. Traditionally, when people seek membership in a sports club they get introduced to the activity, the rules and preconditions for participation (Donnelley & Young, 1988) while this is less clear in a sport subculture. The third stage, socialisation, is an initially active but ongoing stage wherein members undergo training in the characteristics of the subculture. They soon discover whether early conceptions of the subculture developed during the pre-socialisation stage are accurate or misplaced: members learn to adopt the values and perspectives of the group, taking new roles and modifying others. The last stage, acceptance versus ostracism, is the stage where successful versus unsuccessful socialisation is manifested, which is directly related to the demonstration of appropriate skill requirements, appropriate roles and identities under specific circumstances. This may be related to informal fair play which refers to mutual respect between the parties engaged and to the ideal attitudes and virtues. However, when the codes of conduct are unclear and sometimes confusing, as it may be in a subculture, it requires more flexibility of the recruits to handle the progress from outsider to insider and the neophyte may experience unfair treatment and not being valued for his or her efforts.
Differences in perceptions of symbolic values and belief systems accentuate the insider/outsider dynamics which affects language and behaviour in general. People’s ability to read the codes and display symbolic meanings demonstrates their content of subculture capital (Thornton, 1995) and their stage in the socialisation process to the subculture. To exemplify, while newcomers think they demonstrate appropriate attitude and ability when showing up with expensive equipment, the advanced and qualified snowboarders tend to speak of them with disparagement, label them as “posers” and “wannabe snowboarders”.
Although togetherness, inclusiveness and individual expressions are often emphasised in snowboarding, the insider/outsider perspective and subculture dynamics of acceptance versus ostracism are obvious, which may be illustrated in the following quotation:
“In snowboarding, the tolerance towards other people is incredibly high, but simultaneously, it is crazy, right, people are frozen out if they haven’t got the right gear. I mean, if they are trying to be something else, right? Everything is accepted, just stay yourself and be nice to other people, but not be big-headed.”
The contradiction between the wide tolerance and the narrow lines for acceptance refers to the subculture dynamics and complexity. The relationship between experience, expression and significance in subcultures is not constant. It can be more or less organic, or more or less ruptured, reflecting the breaks and contradictions (Hebdidge, 1979). Snowboarding is not a monolithic culture, and its development in recent years with the increasing participation of riders with different motives for joining the sport has consequently led to plural styles and lifestyle images (Howe, 1998).
The unorganised and individual nature of the sport implies less available control strategies for behaviour compared to traditional sports, which may result in “the right of the strongest” to participate. This may be an additional barrier for females, who generally speaking compose only one fourth of the snowboarders, and research also shows that they have to fight for their position, for example in the half pipe. When the pipe is crowded it may be difficult for females to “drop in” which refers to enter the pipe for a ride. Let me illustrate with a quotation from a girl attending a snowboard camp in Norway:
“It may be difficult to get in. In particular when it’s competition, in the practice when you are allowed three runs I guess. That’s a fight, you have to press on and shout out ‘drop’ and ride. Because boys are much bigger and stronger.”
Besides the fact that females compose the minority, the male hegemony in snowboarding may be explained by the nature of the sport. The stereotype snowboarder is highly related to alternative youth cultures, which in general terms excel masculinity in style and behaviour (Brake, 1985).
I will now turn to the organised sport and highlight some topics of fair play in a context where the activities are normally guided by a coach and the participants are supposed to adhere to a certain set of defined rules. Organised sports programmes are increasingly likely to emphasise the so called “performance ethic”. This means performance becomes a measured outcome and an indicator of the quality of the sport experience. Fun in these programmes comes to be defined in terms of becoming a better athlete, becoming more competitive, and being promoted into more highly skilled training categories (Coakley, 2001). The performance ethic may, however, have an impact on the athletes’ socialisation in the sport context, which may interfere with the ideals of fair play behaviour.
The role of the coach is crucial for the quality of the sports context. How coaches manifest their values of what constitutes success and failure within the sports setting is likely to have a considerable cognitive and behavioural effect on their players (Miller, 2004). I will address the issue from two perspectives, one relates to exclusion from sport and the other deals with the socialisation outcome in terms of fair play behaviour.
Drop out from sport is a major problem in many countries which have also devoted a lot of attention in research as well as in the sports organizations. A central issue is competition, sports skills and performance. To the core, the debate concerns performance oriented sport versus sport for all, where the first tend to be more exclusive than the latter. In Norway the debate has gone on for more than thirty years and resulted in regulations for children’s sport for the age groups up to twelve years. I will not go into detail, but will just mention that the main idea is to de-emphasise competition and to promote participation and social inclusion. It is stated that kids should have equal opportunity to participate, which also includes equal playing time in competitions. The latter aspect has caused major debates, and when it comes to practice it appears that coaches differ in attitudes and behaviour. Some coaches disagree with the rules and tend to evade them, in particular in situations when winning and victories are at stake. Differential treatment will, however, make some athletes feel excluded, which may be illustrated by a quotation from a former soccer player when he was asked about how he liked to play soccer:
“Well, that was fun…..I don’t know why I quit…I was rarely selected for playing matches…and that’s no fun.”
The player referred to experiences he had before he quit soccer at the age of twelve-thirteen. During the interview he expressed that he used to meet regularly for practice, and he judged his own effort equal to the other players in the team. In his opinion the coach was unfair in his treatment of the players, which caused his de-motivation and withdrawal from soccer. The boy’s story may be explained in terms of unfortunate coach behaviour, but it could also be related to the system level. The ultimate goal of sport is to make the best performance. When the model of adult, competitive sport is applied to children and youths it may likely result in stories like the boy’s we heard. The issue touches the balance between performance sport and sport for all. It raises questions about how to facilitate youth sport with a focus on performance enhancement and skill improvement and still avoid the social exclusion of athletes. Such issues require a closer look at the sports context, and I find it useful to address the sports psychologists’ work, particularly on moral reasoning and moral functioning. I will outline some research in the field, based on a doctoral thesis delivered at my university last spring by Blake Miller. His topic was cheating in competitive youth soccer, with a particular focus on the effect of the motivational climate in the sports group (Miller, 2004).
Miller’s theoretical framework is achievement goal theory. A basic assumption in this theory is that individuals are rational, goal-driven beings that strive to demonstrate competence in contexts where achievement is valued. However, the demonstration of competence is the central issue which serves to provide clarity as to which types of goals are ultimately valued. For instance, if the display of one’s own abilities over those of another is valued, it is argued that a state of ego involvement will be adopted. Conversely, if the display of one’s ability in respect to one’s own prior performance is valued, then it is believed that a state of task involvement will be adopted. Whether one is task or ego involved is assumed to be determined by one’s predisposition to be the one or the other, or by the environmental cues to be task or ego involving. Consequently, the sports context and the coach’s behaviour is of major importance with regard the athletes’ development of ego versus task involvement. This leads us to further analyse the sports context in terms of motivational climate, where it is common to distinguish between two kinds, conceptualised as mastery climate and performance climate which has some relationship to task versus ego orientation. Mastery climate is assumed to present salient task-involving goals such as striving to outperform one’s previous best, development of skill mastery, while learning from previous setbacks and mistakes. A mastery motivational climate is based on a self-referenced concept of ability. On the other hand, individuals perceiving a performance climate are believed to understand the achievement context as one which values normative standards for success and failure, such as displaying ability of a higher quality and greater proficiency than others in the context, and they are believed to feel threatened if displayed ability is lower or less proficient than that of someone else. Performance climate perceptions endorse a conception of ability characterised by “other-referenced” criteria (ibid).
I will mention a few research findings related to motivational climate. Certain performance climate characteristics such as the unequal treatment of players and rivalry among team-mates affect cheating. For instance, when the coach was perceived as treating players differently based on their skill level, this negatively affected moral judgement. When players in team sports perceive that they are competing against their own team-mates, and feel that this is a strategy employed by the coach, they employed a low moral judgement as they intended to cheat and reported that they did cheat. Other findings show that coaching to win and a high perceived performance climate indicate a low degree of fair and honourable sporting behaviour, low moral reasoning and functioning, furthermore, that players indicate low respect for rules and officials, and low respect for the social conventions in sport. On the contrary, in a mastery and task-involving motivational climate, athletes do not perceive the coach as relating success to winning, but instead toward personal growth, group development and cooperation (ibid).
The addressed issues also have a gender component. With reference to Miller's findings (ibid), pertaining to moral reasoning and functioning, male players were lower in moral reasoning and functioning, male players were lower in moral functioning compared to female players; males are less morally mature and more likely to cheat than females. Research indicates that males are more likely to judge intentionally aggressive behaviour as more legitimate than females do. Males are more accepting of aggressive actions, even if harmful to the opponent, and they legitimise the use of injurious physical aggression more than female athletes do.
What can we learn from this? A number of researchers and coach-educators emphasise that if moral development is valued, then task-involving, mastery climate structures are to be fostered. In such a task-involving motivational climate, players do not tend to perceive the coach as relating success to winning, but instead toward personal and group development and cooperation. A major challenge, however, remains: how to implement the knowledge in the settings where youth sport is being exercised?
How to facilitate youth sport?
And then, as a last point I will discuss possible ways of facilitating youth sport. In doing so, I find it useful to quote the American sports sociologist, Jay Coakley, who has done a lot of work on youth sport, both in the United States and in Britain. He presents two models of thinking sport as a frame of reference for further discussions (Coakley, 2001, pp. 94-95). These are labelled Power and performance and Pleasure and participation.
The Power and performance model is the most dominant sports form in many societies today and serves as a pattern also for youth sport. Power and performance sports are highly organised and competitive. Generally they emphasise the following:
The use of strength, speed and power to push human limits and aggressively dominate opponents in the quest for victories and championships
The idea that excellence is proven through competitive success and achieved through intense dedication and hard work, combined with making sacrifices, risking one’s personal well-being and playing in pain
The importance of setting records, defining the body as a machine, and using technology to control and monitor the body
Selection systems based on physical skills and competitive success
Hierarchical authority structures, in which athletes are subordinate to coaches and coaches are subordinate to owners and administrators
Antagonism to the point that opponents are defined as enemies
Although power and performance sports have become the standard for determining what sport should be in many countries, they have also been criticised and challenged. In fact, some people have developed other forms of sport grounded in a wide range of values and experiences. Some of these are spin-offs or revisions or revisions of dominant forms, while others represent alternative or even oppositional sports forms. Coakley suggests that these sports fit the Pleasure and participation model that generally emphasise the following:
· Active participation revolving around a combination of types of connections – connections between people, between mind and body, and between physical activity and the environment
· An ethic of personal expression, enjoyment, growth, good health, and mutual concern and support for team-mates and opponents
· Empowerment (not power) created by experiencing the body as a source of pleasure and well-being
· Inclusive participation based on an accommodation of differences in physical skills
· Democratic decision-making structures characterised by cooperation, the sharing of power, and give-and-take relationships between coaches and athletes
· Interpersonal support around the idea of competing with, not against, others; opponents are not enemies, but those who test each other
Coakley emphasises that the two sports forms do not encompass all the ways in which sport might be organised and played, and a lot of sports contain elements of both. In my opinion it might, however, be useful to take into account elements from the pleasure and participation model in facilitating youth sport although most sports practice in our countries is closer to the power and performance model. A youth sport context influenced by such perspectives should promote fair play ethics among the participants, which is in line with research and advice from sports psychologists who focus upon mastery versus performance climate and task versus ego orientation among athletes in the sports setting.
Before closing I would like to comment on sports subcultures in relation to the two models. In my view sports subcultures are closer connected to the pleasure and participation model than to the power and performance model. Let me again give an example from snowboarding which was developed as part of the new leisure movement’s philosophy back in the 1970s and 1980s, along with other sports subcultures, characterised by cooperation, self-expression and anti-competition (Humprey, 1997). Vital in this leisure movement was experimenting with activities that require motor skills and creativity, with emphasis on fun and personal growth (Donnelley, 1988). Although snowboarding is perceived as an offshoot of surfing and skateboarding, it seems reasonable to consider influences from the culture and counterculture of skiing in understanding its development. For example in France the new sports associated with the use of new objects like mono-skis and boards appeared in the wake of a conflict between skiers and coaches in the French Skiing Federation, where the opposing interests between the individuals involved revolved around divergent notions of training. Some skiers spoke for more playful practices and promoted the concept of “fun” that should be experienced in the here and now.
Future discussions of the topic “youth culture, sport and fair play” would benefit from a multi-scientific approach, taking into account various dimensions of fair play, goals and different ways of practising youth sport as well as psychological aspects related to the sport context and coach behaviour.
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The Principle of Fair Play – Why doping must never be allowed
Keynote Speech, 10th European Fair Play Congress, September 22-26, 2004, Vienna.
Prof. Dr.
Helmut DIGEL
· Director of the Institute for Sport Science,University of Tuebingen
· President of Honour of the German Athletics Federation
· Vice-President of the International Athletics Association
· Research: Sport Sociology especially the field of socialchange and its influence on the development of sports.
1. Doping is a grey zone phenomenon
Today, discussions about doping offences are characterised by speculation, insulting allegations and assertions. Above all this is the result of an existing secret society of dealers, offenders and cowards. For this reason, athletes, coaches and officials pointing out in a general manner the dangers of doping cannot provide answers to the decisive question if they cannot name any people who, according to their judgement, have committed doping offences. The same applies to other people involved in this problem within the system of sports. We may assume that some people, even though they know better, are not willing to uncover the network of doping offences. It is, however, more likely that this exact information, which could provide sufficient evidence to be used as witness knowledge in trials, does not exist at all.
The decisive problem has to be seen in the fact that manipulation by doping takes place in situations that are not under the observation and control of the public. Cheating by doping is a process usually involving several people. In practice, it occurs where athletes take medication that is not permitted or they are given medication by other persons with the intention of illegally manipulating the athletes’ performance. This situation is characterised by privacy. The cheating person and the others involved do not feel observed and are sure in this situation that cheating is possible and will lead to success. If the situation of cheating features these characteristics, it is hardly surprising that we can only provide very insufficient knowledge of the actual process of manipulation by doping in high performance sports. Frequently we get only indirect descriptions, suspicions and assumptions. Reports about manipulation are most likely statements by people not personally involved about other people they do not know personally. Neither do they provide for empirically verifiable conclusions nor can they serve as a base for legal action. The real dimension of the doping problem therefore is unknown, not even estimates concerning the dimension of manipulation in top level sports can be made. Any assumption in this respect could be answered by a counter-assumption. Thus, doping is – in the best sense of the word – a grey zone phenomenon.
2. The fight against doping needs state support
If the statements made here about the offences are true, they are beyond the limits of what sports associations can investigate. We will rather need measures and methods of investigation which sports, for good reasons, are not allowed to apply. For equally good reasons regulations involving so-called crown witnesses do not make any sense in trials organised by the sports associations themselves. If sport wants to make the decisive step in the fight against the crime of doping it needs the state’s support, it needs criminal investigation under the protection of the state’s monopoly on the use of force. Consequently the investigations by public prosecutors should be seen as an important contribution in the fight against the crime of doping. However, this seems to be merely the first step. Universal and more consistent strategies are required if the fight against doping offences is to have the deterrent effects needed to protect those athletes who adhere to the principles of fair sport.
3. High performance sport is under suspicion
Nowadays we have a situation where any sporting performance is suspected of having been achieved in an unfair manner. Doping violations are considered possible or have already occurred in almost all Olympic disciplines, and taking a look at the positive results of doping tests within the last few decades we may be suspicious of any top achievement in any Olympic discipline.
4. Pleadings for permission are no surprise
In the face of such a situation it is more than likely that self-appointed as well as real experts both inside and outside of sport again and again express the opinion that it would be more honest to stop doping tests in training and competition, thus allowing all athletes to manipulate their performances by the use of pharmaceuticals. The pleadings supporting the permission of doping are pointing at a society where it has long been common practice for people to keep physically fit with the help of medication, that outstanding achievements of artists and scientists but also of numerous other professionals are only possible with pharmaceutical assistance, and that we will have to accept the fact that a consumer society is always also a society dominated by medication. Sport – so the saying goes – cannot be better than society, and therefore it would be more honest to permit doping. This would enable the spectators to decide themselves if they want to show any interest in that kind of sport. At least, spectators would no longer be subject to an illusion, not knowing who is honest and who is cheating. Arguments in favour of permission are meanwhile being repeated over and over again. In TV programmes, talk shows as well in other media reports they are conveyed to large numbers of sports enthusiasts, and so it is hardly surprising that in opinion polls an increasing number of people express the view that the permission of doping would be a better alternative.
5. Pleadings for permission are not well founded
Why – we could have asked for quite some time now – are there still athletes, coaches and officials in sport insisting on doping control tests, on an active fight against doping, and on education against doping? Why are there people who still pursue the specific ideals of sport, the idea of fair play, which apparently is acquiring more and more utopian features? Why do we, in sport, go the difficult way of disallowing doping, a way characterised by a lot of resistance and rejection? Why are we not going for a simple permissive solution? Those who seriously deal with the problem of doping in high performance sports and who examine the question of permitting it will in particular have to answer the question concerning the aftermath. What would happen if the fight against doping ended? What would happen if all medication was allowed? What would happen if high performance sports competitions were essentially pharmacological contests?
The most positive scenario – so we may assume – would be athlete A competing against athlete B, in their training both athletes would have taken the same medication in order to improve their performance, and in the competition the same things would take effect. In a sense we would have a situation of equal opportunity. If the taking of these medicaments took place under the supervision of physicians, we could even maintain that safe top level sport was guaranteed; the medication would have no other function than the many technical innovations to be observed in today’s high performance sports: engineers contribute to faster bob-sleighs, faster bicycles and faster rowing-boats, hence permanently generating inequality of opportunity before competitions. Consequently the permission of doping seems to be quite tempting. However, what is neglected in this context is that athlete A only competes against athlete B under the same medical and pharmaceutical conditions if this is controlled? Anti-doping control tests would be replaced by medication control tests.
It is, however, more likely that after the permission of doping every athlete would try to use the best and most suitable medication for them from the point of view of experts in order to beat the competitors. A competition between pharmaceutical companies would replace the competition between athletes. However, not only experts but also everybody else knows that medication not only has the desired effects as listed on the instruction leaflet. Those who choose to ignore the medical principle that medication should only be given to people who are sick knowingly accept that in a competition between pharmaceuticals or their producers those undesired side effects both common and dangerous will take effect to their full extent.
Concerning the aftermath it is therefore much more likely that in a type of top level sport that is more of a pharmaceutical competition the dropping-out of the product “athlete” would have to be consciously calculated. From situations where shocks occur and also sudden deaths, all of this would have to be considered normal. Such incidents could, however, be repressed as they would mostly occur on the backstage of the sports shows. On the front stage, on the other hand, we may assume that styled super-athletes would compete against each other: where dwarfs are requested, dwarfs would be manipulatively generated, where giants are needed, giants would be produced. Performance sport would be equal to a monster show, and it would be likely that pharmaceutical corporations could generate their own shows. Such sport could undeniably be quite entertaining for some people. Wherever death is lurking – so entertainment interests in our mass society indicate – high TV ratings are guaranteed. When spectacular things happen, when giants compete against dwarfs, dwarfs against dwarfs and giants against giants, this may well be considered interesting.
However, for every member of our society we should raise the question concerning the dignity of man, the question concerning the responsibility towards a life given to each person in a unique manner. Therefore we also must be allowed to raise the question as to whether those who want to permit doping would themselves practise such a kind of sport, and if they would allow all this to be tried and executed on their own or their children’s bodies. Above all we have to ask the advocates of permission if they would encourage their own children to practise a sport that is developing towards a monster show of high performance sport. The supporters of permission also have to answer the question of how they want to organise sport for children and youths in an educationally responsible manner in the future without this sport being able to serve as a foundation for sport for the adult world that cannot be ethically justified. We do not want to ignore that the doping prohibition has restricted the athletes’ individual freedom of decision. But what kind of individualistic freedom are we talking about? And what dangerous concept of social order is hiding behind such argumentation? None of these questions is raised nor is it answered in the frequently sloppy debates about doping. Thus it becomes evident that true reflection about the problem of doping has not occurred among the advocates of permission. The debate about permission is rather characterised by trendy features. What is “in” or “hip” gets applause. Boldly and swiftly presented zeitgeist seems to be more comfortable than making the effort of intensive reflection. Therefore it is to be emphasised once more that bad arguments do not get any better merely because they are repeated again and again. And in particular they do not become intelligent remarks by being noisily presented in TV programmes.
6. Sport is constituted by its own rules
The specific significance and opportunity of sport still has to be seen in the fact that it may retain its own world of ‘individual achievement’, as it can no longer be found in almost all other fields of our society. In such sport only that achievement counts which athletes generate as a result of their own power on the basis of written codes of rules. Therefore clean sport is decisively dependent on those who have to watch over the systems of rules within the sports associations. It is also dependent on whether or not violations of rules are ignored with a nod and a wink, if those who violate the rules profit more than those who obey them (which unfortunately still happens all too often with regard to doping violations) or whether those carrying responsibility do everything possible to convince young athletes, in particular, that it is worthwhile keeping to rules set by themselves. In the end the idea of sport is fundamentally dependent on that. It is also important in this respect that those responsible for sport indeed understand their sport as a part of society which is to be characterised as something special, because acting in sport is based on laid down rules which are essential for the idea of sport. If sports officials point out that sport cannot be any better than society and that there the abuse of medication is also common practice, and that therefore it would not be surprising that this kind of abuse is also to be found in sport, this kind of argumentation could certainly not be considered a contribution to a clean sport. This kind of acting rather has to be characterised as stupidity, irresponsibility and premature adaptation. From there it is not far to demanding the permission of doping. Thus, a pseudo-progressive demand is being supported by those who should – in their own interest – be adamantly against it.
Evidently there are many people responsible in sport who are not really familiar with the phenomenon of sport, featuring facets of a world of its own, who have taken over responsibility in sport without having experienced its constituting features and its own inherent laws and rules. People responsible in sport who do not know the principles of sport and its characteristic constituting features, however, act irresponsibly. They jeopardise the values of sport that is autonomously organised in voluntary associations, and they are responsible for a slow transformation of sport whose normative direction is not to be clearly recognised.
7. The principle of Fair Play is still valid
If sport wants to sustain itself, it has no other possibility than doing everything to secure its own foundations. Its foundations are the rules of fair play. If sport is deprived of these it no longer takes place. At best it will be part of a circus show where athletes meet as monsters. School sports featuring breathing exercises, yoga and back muscle exercises would then certainly be more appropriate than that kind of school sport where children and adolescents are introduced to sports disciplines which on TV merely exist as cartoons of themselves.
Wanting to stop this development requires those responsible in sport to deal with the rules they have laid down themselves.
From a cultural point of view as well as in socio-political respects sport is nearly the only area in our society which has given itself a written and codified concept of rules. When scientists compete with one another, they are in a competition for jobs, positions and results. They can use permitted or prohibited means. But for this kind of competition there is no laid-down reference system, except for a code of ethics, which, however, most scientists apparently do not know, just like most journalists are not familiar with the code of journalism. Journalists are also permanently in a state of competition, the result being truth as well as lies in the coverage of events. But there is no written frame of reference for this competition, there are no referees or umpires who could interfere in this important area of our modern information-oriented society. A press council can certainly not fulfil this function, and the code of journalism lost this capability long ago. In fact, it probably never had it. We could find more examples than these, but all of them illustrate only one thing: sport is unique, but only the kind of sport where people enter into competitions with other people. Hence we are not talking about health-promoting exercises taking place somewhere in some gyms. For this reason it was an ill-fated mistake to enter into a debate on definitions in the context of the term “leisure sport”, a debate whose end is not to be foreseen, and which has not helped to bring light into the darkness. The terminological extension has rather caused the problem of losing sight of the educational foundations and opportunities provided by the kind of sport which we are talking about here and of having already given up some of these foundations. The kind of sport we have to talk about here is the one that is secured through a written code of rules and which focuses on the idea of competition. Only such sport can claim for itself the uniqueness as postulated here.
The discussion, as presently held about the violations through cheating by doping, sometimes acquires the quality of endangering the very existence of the sports system, as a result of athletes' violations. If athletes participate in competitions under the influence of doping, if in football one team consciously and purposely plays the ball with the hand or if sports equipment is used that is not made available to competitors, the mutual trust, necessary for any successful acting in sport is in jeopardy. Then sport is in danger of turning into its opposite. The examples indicate that there evidently is a condition of membership attached to participation in sport just as for any other social organisation, which guarantees the moral basis of this organisation: those who take part in sports promise at the same time that they will adhere to rules of participation. In so far we can talk about a basic rule for the participation in the system of sport. The rule of entry is also considered the rule of exit, and the basic rule of membership is the frame of reference from which all other rules of a sport can be derived. Those who are not willing to adhere to the rules of a sport leave the game of sport. For the people practising sports this means that they must at all times be able to rely on the partners to recognise, just like themselves, that a ball, once it has been shot behind a certain line has to be counted as a goal according to certain rules, that the partners, just like themselves, try to make as many points as possible, that is that they want to win, hence accepting the principle of competition, which is the foundation of sporting competitions, and that they , like their partners, only use permitted means. This interpretation is based on the assumption that besides the laid down rules of sports there are principles that are of essential importance for our acting in sport in the sense of a pre-positioned norm. These principles are the foundation of success in sport with regard to rules. We can distinguish at least three principles in this context:
1. The first is the principle of competition. It is used to define rule-guided action as sporting contest, and it is recognised that each competitor makes an effort to win.
2. The second is the principle of fair play. It takes the position of a guiding norm in the background of all acts in sports, expressing that individuals actively participating in this system do it on the foundation of agreed rules, observing and respecting the dignity of their partners.
3. The third is the principle of the athletes’ safety. This safety has to be oriented towards the personality of those acting in sport as well as towards their competitors, because high performance sport oriented towards endangering the health of people involved cannot be justified in educational and ethical respects. This applies to their physical safety as well as to their psychological safety.
The principle of competition interferes with that of fair play. With regard to fair play we have to add the respect for human dignity. Then we may understand the principle of safety as a closer definition of the principle of fair play. For the system of sport Luhmann therefore maintains that it is unacceptable if “winning and losing were to coagulate into a moral fate. The difference between winning and losing must be justified by sporting criteria and spectators are to be informed about sporting achievements and not about biochemistry”. On the basis of this analysis and interpretation it is necessary to renew the question concerning the characterising features of a responsible sports policy as well as finding different answers to the ones that have been common so far.
Those who stand for office in sport, those who attempt to introduce the interests of citizens practising sports into the general political dialogue by means of sports policies can do this responsibly only if they are sure about the things they have taken over responsibility for, if they know the educational, social and political opportunities provided by sport, if they also know at the same time how the system they have to represent can jeopardise itself. Responsible sports-political action cannot be successful without fundamental rule consciousness and fundamental knowledge of the system of rules. It also includes an obligation that everyone responsible in sports must face and meet. The foundation of this obligation has to be their own convictions concerning the principles of sport. Those who excuse violations in sport by pointing at violations in society prove that they only have insufficient knowledge of the basic rules of sports.
They also indicate at the same time that they do not meet the standards and conditions defined as a requirement for honorary office in sport. You cannot justify your own moral shortcomings by pointing at those of others.
Those who have had the opportunity to observe more closely the anti-doping debate in sports associations over the last few years must realise that in many leading bodies of sports organisations the necessary rule consciousness, which has to be considered an essential condition for any responsible political representation of the interests of sport, exists to a limited extent only. Doubtlessly this is related to the fact that more and more honorary leading positions are taken by people whose socialisation process has been influenced by sport only for a short time and who therefore apparently lack sufficient practical experience in sport. Many of these representatives are not aware of the opportunities provided by the rules of sport, they have not been enlightened by the authenticity of sport. Above all they have not become familiar with the fact that sport itself, on the basis of its rules, can be a model for society and in a certain sense even a model for a better society. And we should, in all considerations concerning the problem of fair play in sport, refer to a multi-dimensional understanding of the term ‘rule’, which does not exclude normative elements. If, however, the basis of sport is more and more frequently and decisively influenced by the logic of business and money, and if in this process a rule mixture of two different systems comes into being, it is hardly surprising that the constitutive elements of sport are slowly changing, that sport is undergoing a process of alteration characterised by deceit finally becoming normal and the adherence to rules the exception. If this is the case – and some aspects are indicating that we are already on that way – then we are seeing a new kind of sports policy about a new kind of sport. More and more people responsible in sport wish this to happen, they express their interests firmly, such as pleading for the permission of doping. If this view gains the support of the majority, if it becomes the basis of consensus, those who consider this development to be irresponsible can only state it. Wanting to prevent this requires the provision of enlightening and normative knowledge in order to create a situation where it will no longer be possible for those responsible for these changes to justify their actions by maintaining that they did not know what they were doing.
8. The doping problem cannot be solved but mastered
“Can the doping problem be solved?” This question is asked very often. What has been said to this point only suggests one answer: “Certainly not!” Some people will be very upset about the statements made here and the answer given. They will think: this is definitely not the sport I consider meaningful and sensible. A kind of top level sport that requires such extensive controls and tests as well as multi-million-dollar investments in order to guarantee adherence to the principles of fair play – that is not my kind of sport. Top level sport without cheating, however, has never existed, even to the present day. Historical remarks are supposed to point that out. Cheating in high performance sport is part of its nature. Those who set up rules must be aware of the logic of their action. Setting up rules implies the possibility of violating these rules. Thus the definition of rules generates the idea of violating them. High performance sport that is oriented towards improvement (higher, faster, further), that reaches limits, in particular as far as making use of the limits in training and concerning possible performance improvements in competition, must face the fact that its scope of action continues to provide the possibility of cheating. If a person has reached the limits of his or her powers, and if he or she is offered the opportunity to artificially improve performance by means of pharmacological manipulation in order to continue selling it on the market, then only a strong sense of identity, possibly also a good upbringing by his or her family and surrounding, may prevent that person from giving in to this temptation. Therefore the suitable answer to the question of whether or not the doping problem can be solved has to be found in the actually more important question: how are we dealing with the problem of doping deceit?
The ten Christian commandments do not become unreasonable because people violate these commandments. The same applies to the rules of sport. Exactly for this reason the premature and usually very stupid suggestion has to be rejected which culminates in the statement: ”Permit doping, let the athletes do as they please! Let everyone swallow what they want! It is indeed a fact. In science some researchers take stimulants to boost their performance. In our society coffee is drunk by the litre without it being questioned. Those who take a look at families’ medicine chests and observe what medication is lying on the breakfast tables know that we have long been living in a society of medication.” Some observations indicated by such statements are certainly correct. Our society definitely has got a medication problem. This society also has its own drug problem. However, sport is not identical with our society. It rather is an outside area by its own definition. Nor is it anything natural, it is rather something very artificial, created by man himself. In a 400m race you start at a particular point, coming back to the same point after 400 metres. There is hardly anything less necessary or less sensible to be done than this. But if we realise that this is exactly what sport is, then we will also recognise that sport is a kind of outside world.
Sport is the only cultural area that has given itself its own written rules. There is nothing comparable for the arts, for professional life or for science. In this respect the idea of high performance sport is to be seen in all participants trying to be the best in a competition. Accepting this idea means having understood sport. It also means knowing that the rules of sport must not be thrown overboard because they are not kept to by cheats. Those who want to change or abolish the rules of sport today must be required to openly reveal their objectives. Those who want circus sports, manipulation and show, those who want athletes to collapse dead at the end of sporting competitions, those who plead for the permission of doping must openly declare what they want.
Therefore we can finally maintain: for those responsible in sport there is no alternative to strictly observing and adhering to their own rules. That is why officials need to feel obligated towards their own rules. This applies in the same way to athletes and coaches, but also to those who participate directly or indirectly in high performance sport. The principle of fair play still is of fundamental significance for modern high performance sport. The principle of fair play is not some aristocrat’s invention, even though it has its roots in England. The principle of fair play is rather a principle directing and guiding human performance in situations of competition in a humane way. High performance sport is only a sensible cultural asset worthwhile promoting in our society because it provides the opportunity for expressing the possibilities of human performance in a particular manner. For our society it is important that young people symbolically present the possibilities of human performance in it. However, high performance sport does have this symbolism and this quality only if it is practised in a clean way.
If it suggests a variant of interpretation to a public observing it with interest that the symbolic achievements of athletes are manipulated, that cheating has become normal in high performance sport, then this cultural asset has lost its credibility and its quality. Then top level sport does no longer deserve public support and then those politically responsible would be well advised to bid farewell to such high performance sport. Top level sport can only get public support when it adheres to its rules. Everyone is obligated to do that, above all those responsible in the associations, the athletes and coaches, but those who follow and observe sport should also feel this obligation.
Do we need an anti-doping law?
The subsidiary principle, this important principle of Catholic social doctrine was taken as the basis of a modern sports movement for good reason, when the German Sports Association was established in 1950; it may serve as a point of reference to the present day. Autonomous sport, on the basis of voluntary associations, should take its affairs into its own hands; this was the objective and wish of the founding fathers of the German Sports Association as well as that of politicians at the time. Those responsible in clubs and associations were expected to adapt the most important mass phenomenon in modern societies – that is sport – through a continuous process of modernisation to meet the needs of the citizens. The state was to interfere only when and where voluntary organisations themselves with the means available to them were not capable of pursuing their culturally and socio-politically significant objectives. The subsidiary principle therefore is to be understood as an organisational as well as financial, personal and legal principle.
In the present debate about the fight against doping it would be a good idea to reflect on this principle in more detail. Applying the extremely helpful standards of Catholic social doctrine to sports, taking into account the quantitative dimensions of the subsidiary principle, then sport itself must be the first and foremost instance to lead the fight against the evil of doping independently. In this fight it must apply all the means made available to it by the state through its subsidiary relation. Sport has gained its specific competence in the fight against doping through the rules at its disposal, whose observance it has to guarantee with the help of its instances of supervision and control. On the basis of these rules sport is in a position to have its own jurisdiction in order to secure the adherence to its rules, thus enabling the members of our society to pursue their interests concerning the practising of sports. However, the jurisdiction of the sports associations can always only be a subsidiary kind of jurisdiction. It has to be subject to the state’s jurisdiction, its limitations being defined by state or national law. Wherever the jurisdiction of sports associations proves to be insufficient it is the duty of the state to provide assistance and advice and, through its monopoly on the use of force, to grant the legal support needed by the associations. When looking at the continuous debate about the quantity, the dimensions and the consequences of cheating through doping in sports we have to recognise that autonomous sport has obviously reached its limits in the fight against the doping problem, limits, which, however, have existed in sport since 1950 as a result of the subsidiary relationship between state and sport. In the present debate it is evident that sport – in claiming its autonomy – has recently failed to realise that for any successful relationship between state and sport it is important that sport is aware of its own limitations, that it accepts them readily and actively seeks co-operation with the state. If the fight against the evil of doping is to be characterised by consequence and clarity, it is important to focus on a division of labour and responsibility prescribed for sport through the subsidiary principle. In this context sport should fulfil its original function. The state, however, is also called upon to perform its duties, as is required by the subsidiary relationship between sport and state.
Following the present debates we have to recognise that we can only speculate about the scope and the structure of doping offences. We talk about comprehensive doping, presumably or actually affecting all facets and areas of high performance sport. Male and female athletes point out that it has been common for quite a while to manipulate performance pharmacologically in training and competition before and during Olympic Games. This kind of debate is not new, it has been triggered by the media at regular intervals, consequently causing people carrying responsibility in state, politics and business, officials and others to declare nervously at the same intervals that they will now start to take all the necessary steps and action; on the next occasion, however, they will be as surprised as on the last one.
If this is what the situation is like, we can easily recognise that the contribution by sport is evidently not sufficient to fight the problem of doping in sport effectively. Consequently sports depend on the assistance of the state. This concerns in particular the question of prosecuting doping-related offences. In this context it is both necessary and desirable for the people carrying responsibility in sports to realise that doping is not a gentleman’s misdemeanour. Everybody involved in such criminal action should rather have to face justice and receive just punishment. The extension of German laws concerning medical and pharmaceutical treatment was a decisive step in this respect. It would, however, also be desirable for athletes, as central figures involved in these crimes, also to have to face punishment by the state if they are found guilty.
In Germany it is common to pamper athletes during their times of success. This special treatment becomes particularly evident in the context of cheating by doping. It is, however, not understandable that athletes are treated differently than those who, together with them, are responsible for and guilty of the doping crisis. Those who, on the one hand, promise athletes amnesty and, on the other hand, demand punishment for physicians, officials and coaches, as we saw it when dealing with doping offences in East Germany, those people do not really recognise the structures characterising modern top level sports today. The term “mature and responsible” athlete therefore should not only be used when the President of the Federal Republic awards successful athletes with the “Cross of Merit”. If athletes are considered sufficiently competent to sign highly paid contracts with sponsors and if they can act as private entrepreneurs in sports, they should also be liable for their own actions.
Not only in high performance sport has the question been raised repeatedly as to who bears responsibility for what area in what form, and how those responsible can adequately meet this challenge and fulfil their tasks. It seems appropriate in this respect to remind first of all the sports organisations of their responsibility for the athletes. Sports associations act responsibly concerning their athletes if they provide optimal training conditions for them, if they grant them the assistance of physicians and physiotherapists in order to guarantee and secure high training standards. Above all, sports associations act responsibly, and they can only justify their high performance sport, if they make sure that athletes are themselves responsible as mature and independent individuals and that these athletes, on the basis of their own decisions and for their own reasons, are actively involved in top level sports. Sports associations can, and should, be only in a position to provide the framework conditions that make the “mature” athlete possible. If this view of a mature and responsible athlete is accepted, sports associations and the people bearing responsibility in them will have to deal with the question concerning the limitations of the physical performance of human individuals not as a question they have to answer specifically in view of their responsibility. With regard to top level sports it is rather the individual person’s, that is the mature athlete’s, duty to treat his or her body responsibly. This responsibility cannot be delegated to associations or officials, nor can it be passed on to teams of scientists or physicians. It is definitely the athletes’ responsibility to justify their actions, both morally and legally.
To the present day the act of cheating is not being legally prosecuted. Consequently the ethical principles of sport, the principles of fair play and equality of opportunity in competition do not enjoy genuine legal protection. If these core values, which alone define the valuable model function of sport in society, are to be legally secured and protected, a new view about doping will be absolutely essential.
Those who want the best for the cultural asset of sport should not hide behind a medication law which cannot provide for the central problem of the issue. Especially in the face of the increasing economic importance of top level sports it may indeed make sense to focus on the legal regulations regarding economic competition in order to obtain an additional justification for the legal protection of sport as a cultural asset. Therefore it is very advisable to demand from those athletes who enjoy high annual incomes to pay their share of the cost of the doping control system. A percentage-oriented contribution paid off their income, which would go towards the anti-doping control system, would, in fact, be a measure worthwhile considering. The problem of doping has so far been almost exclusively discussed with a focus on the athletes’ health. The dominance of health protection in comparison with other interests worthwhile protecting such as the ethical principles of sport or property interests is quite astonishing as the commercialisation or increasing professionalism of sport are by no means new phenomena. Rather is it the commercialisation of sport that provides the athletes with opportunities to achieve advantages in competition by using prohibited substances. Athletes who use doping therefore not only violate ethical principles of sport but their acts of cheating or fraud also have to be considered violations in economic terms. In the chain of legally protected rights affected by the doping problem we have take into account the following ones in particular: if athletes become victims of doping, the damaging of their health is to be seen as a deed of physical injury. If athletes are doping delinquents their illegally earned income leads to a constellation of fraud that requires further discussion. Particular uneasiness is caused by the conscious rebellion against the ethical aspects of sport, the fair and open comparison of achievement and performance – exactly what in English the term “sportsman” expresses about the character of an athlete as a participant in competition. The legally protected right that is really affected by an act of doping consequently would have to be this ethical principle of sport, with possible protective reflexes towards health and property.
Considering general prevention in particular it is necessary to confront the doping athlete, that is the athlete as the offender, with a judicial response. Therefore the ethical principles of sport would have to be included in the list of legally protected rights. In this respect economic competition could serve as a model, especially because the mixing of sporting and economic competition has already reached extensive dimensions. For this very reason it would make sense in both contexts to prohibit the unfair behaviour of competitors, especially as the rules, whose adherence is essential in sporting competition, are significantly more important than in the field of the economy.
Some legal experts and sports politicians point out that the legal protection of ethics in sports can merely be the last resort. If we take the statements of the sports associations seriously, we are now in precisely this situation, as those sports associations which have committed themselves to fight against doping have clearly expressed their evident inability to effectively interfere with cheating by doping. Especially in the face of this fact it is extremely astonishing that a large number of sports politicians and officials still hold the view that the state’s prohibition of self-inflicted doping is not justified, maintaining that the doping problem is rather something sport, as an autonomous body, must deal with by using its own means. Those who – on such vague foundations – escape from any further debate on the necessity of an anti-doping law must also face the accusation that they either know too little about the substance of the matter or that they want to continue the inefficient strategy which has marked the fight against doping for too long.
In Germany this issue has unfortunately become a matter of controversy between the political parties without the contesting parties keeping to secure empirical facts. Those who reject anti-doping legislation on the grounds that in the year 1998 only 0.6 per cent of all doping tests were positive and that in international comparison the German associations would have an outstandingly good position are using ideological arguments which fail to withstand any closer examination. In many respects the German control system is indeed extremely good. In the face of the discrepancy between the number of squad athletes and the annually provided testing capacities even the German system can only achieve very limited deterrent effects. Table 6 indicates that in Germany there are also a fair number of sports where athletes have to undergo testing in training only once in a few years, and where several tests per year are very unlikely. Thus not only in international top level sports the use or application of banned substances is a very calculable matter (as far as time is concerned).
The same applies when people belonging to sports-related circles point out that an anti-doping law would jeopardise the autonomy of sport. The opposite is true, in fact. This is indeed the only way to secure the quality of an autonomous judiciary of the associations, and autonomous sports could much better, and with more determination, guarantee the enforcement of their own rules.
References
Cherkeh, R.T./Momsen, C., “Doping als Wettbewerbsverzerrung? Möglichkeiten der
strafrechtlichen Erfassung des Dopings unter Berücksichtigung der Schädigung von
Mitbewerbern”, in: Neue Juristische Wochenzeitschrift 54(2001), 1745-1826.
Digel, H., “’Typisch deutsch’, oder: Es gibt kein Recht im Unrecht. Länderspezifische Dopingbekämpfung im Vergleich“, in: M. Gamper/J. Mühletaler/F. Reidhaar (Eds.),
Doping. Spitzensport als gesellschaftliches Problem, Zürich 2000, pp. 149-158.
Digel, H., “Zur sportpolitischen Bedeutung der Regeln des Sports“, in: K. Fischer/S. Güldenpfennig/D. Kayser (Red.), Gibt es eine Ethik des olympischen Sports?,
Köln 2001, pp. 147-174.
Digel, H., “Ist das Dopingproblem lösbar?“, in: H. Digel/H.-H. Dickhuth (Eds.),
Doping im Sport, Schorndorf 2002, pp. 1-38.
Luhmann, N., “Die Ehrlichkeit der Politiker und die höhere Amoralität der Politik“,
in: P. Kemper (Ed.), Opfer der Macht: müssen Politiker ehrlich sein?,
Frankfurt/Main 1993, pp. 27-41.
Is the Principle of Fair Play the Highest Value in Sport?
Keynote speech, 10th European Fair Play Congress, September 22-26, 2004, Vienna.
Prof. Dr.
Jerzy KOSIEWICZ
· Academy of Physical Education, Warsaw
· Head of the Philosophy Department and Head of the Chair of Social Sciences
· Vice-President of the European Association for Sociology of Sports
· Member of the International Sport Sociology Association
· Member of the British Philosophy of Sport Association
· Member of the International Association for the Philosophy of Sports
· Research: Philosophical Anthropology, Methodology and Philosophy of physical culture and sports.
This presentation considers the place of the fair play principle within the hierarchy of sports values. It undermines – from the philosophical point of view – an opinion which states that this principle is the highest value in sport, especially in achievement-oriented (Olympic, professional) sport.
Before I present my argumentation in this respect, I would like to direct your attention to the fact that the principle of fair play, irrespective of the question as to which place is attributed to it in the above-mentioned hierarchy, is a vital value for sport. It turns sport – for everybody interested in it – into a moral phenomenon, which is very important from the social viewpoint: a constant test of righteousness and active goodness.
Admittedly sports can be done independently of the principle of fair play, which competitors observing only the guidelines of the game's rules and regulations, but then this means that we are dealing only with facts of a praxeological character, concerning nothing but the effectiveness of activity.
In such cases, sport stops being an activity of an auto telic character. It stops being an aim in itself. It becomes instrumentalised – treated as a means to achieve the fixed aim. It becomes labour stripped of moral values.
This presentation is divided into two main parts. In the first, I demonstrate that the principle of fair play is not the highest value in sport by pointing out that this value is indubitably constituted by variously defined sporting success. As I see it, this part of the text is already history, since some important doubts concerning the conclusions placed there have come to mind. I will address these in the second part of the text.
1. The Relationship between the Cognitive Perspective and the Ideological and Postulatory Order in Considerations on the Idea of Fair Play
It is a mistake often made by researchers from the sphere of the sports sciences to combine the cognitive (scientific) perspective with the ideological and postulatory order. An academic approach to a given range of problems obliges researchers to formulate an essential and full (and not a fragmentary) context for their argumentation, that is: to take into account – in shorter or further perspective – the complexity of their problem field while considering a given issue. It is also their duty to disconnect the separate cognitive (strictly scientific) order from the ideological and postulatory (emotional and normative) one. Such an attitude to an investigated realm is safeguarded by methods which refer to the methodological tradition existing within the realm of sociology, psychology and the philosophy of morality.
In their studies on the principle of fair play, research workers from outside the scope of these disciplines mainly assume an axionormative attitude. They attempt to prove, on the basis of their own inquiries (which are, in this case, of a quasi-scientific character), the rightness of the ideas which they promote. They become, first of all, promoters of the guidelines of fair play.
2. Fair Play as a Relative, Complementary and Instrumental Value
One of the manifestations of the above-mentioned activity lies in the numerous statements which are used to point out that the fair play principle represents the highest value in sport.
I admit that I do not share this opinion. In connection with this, I will present some arguments to justify this viewpoint.
So, if we consider the problem raised here in the historical perspective that reaches back to the sources of European agonistics – to the Olympic Games – we can find that the highest value for this form of sport and its basic aim was indubitably constituted by the experience of sacrum, participation in a sublime manifestation of cult. The Olympic Games were for the Hellenes an important religious ceremony, a form of worshipping chosen gods from the pantheon of Olympic deities. Their foundations were constituted by soteriological assumptions (assumptions of salvation). Their fulfilment, according to believers, safeguarded gods' favour for athletes. Endeavours connected with it had cultural and cult-connected character; they were a manifestation of a religious soteriological ethic.
These guiding values of an autotelic character were accompanied by utilitarian values, connected with drawing up and implementing models of sporting behaviour which showed how the above-mentioned sacral aims, the most important spiritual values, could be achieved. Thus, from the historical viewpoint, the principle of fair play could not be the most important value for the ancient Olympic Games. Nota bene, this principle as such was not known to ancient athletes. When its rudiments appeared in sports agonistics, they did so only entangled in the complex of religious and cultural norms which defined the conduct of free people enjoying the benefits of the age of slavery.
On the other hand, today's competitive sport (professional, Olympic) does not formulate religious aims for itself (an exception in this respect is constituted by various – marginal in their relation to sport as a whole – Christian and non-Christian sports organisations that treat sport, inter alia, in an instrumental way, as a means of moulding and tending to confessional values). Nor are competitions organised to cultivate moral qualities, since they only value the associated sports rivalry. They can only constitute complementary, intermediate, transitional aims. On the other hand, if, for example, the principle of fair play is placed in the foreground and if it is claimed that fair play constitutes the most important and autotelic aim, then these aims and tasks which sport was set up to realise, are, to a considerable degree, annulled. In this case, sport becomes axiologically and instrumentally subordinated to moral values, becomes reduced to a means of realising some fixed ethical programme.
In my opinion, the actual state of affairs is different: it is a realisation of moral assumptions – based on a deontological, perfectionist, utilitarian (utilitarianism of rules and utilitarianism of behaviours), paternalist (hard and soft paternalism) ethic or, in the final analysis, on a principle of fair play that can be favourable to the realisation of sports and spectacular aims, especially in achievement-oriented agonistics. The most important of these are, among others, victory or some other relative success in competition (such as coming second, fourth or tenth), with financial, political, social and other overtones. The aim of achievement-oriented (professional or Olympic) sport is the cultivation of mastery in a particular sport. It is the non-relative and final value. On the other hand, other values – health, religious experience, morality – can be extremely relative, transitional, complementary and instrumental, but not those highest and autotelic ones – those constituting the aim in itself for sport at its highest level.
As I see it, moral values do not constitute the highest aim in sport for all either (treated as an analogon of recreation by movement and physical recreation). The basic values for this form of activity are – in short – prophylaxis, preservation and improvement of health, preservation and perfection of physical fitness, active relaxation.
The principle of fair play is – as I suppose – the highest value neither in sport for all nor in achievement-oriented (professional, Olympic) competitive sport, nor in sport with a religious undertone. Nor does it constitute the highest value in school sport carried out within the scope of physical education, since the supreme aim of this sport consists of putting into practice an educational ideal made up of various values. It is also certain that this is not the overriding aim of disability sport or tourist activity.
3. Summary
At the end of the thoughts presented above we come to the conclusion that the idea of fair play can be treated not so much as the highest principle in sport as a whole, but rather as the highest value of the ethics of sport.
However, use of the word "can", which is included in the above sentence, suggests – in accordance with the author's intention – a reductionist attitude which indicates that the principle of fair play does not in every situation or in every case achieve the status of the highest value within the frameworks of sports ethics.
In this respect, we are dealing with a small quantifier, since this is a principle which is of importance not to every sport – and it refers both to competitors and to the persons who make up their closer and extended social environment.
Moralising and ideological recommendations by institutions and persons who promote this ethical principle – which is, after all, important for sport – are visibly ignored in professional boxing, for example.
There are also forms of sport which resolutely exclude the principle of fair play. This applied, inter alia, to Far Eastern martial arts, which are based on non-European value systems originating from Oriental cultures and from the religious and philosophical assumptions which constitute their foundations. The idea of fair play does not fit into the sphere of their interest since the questions of positive behaviour postulated by this idea are solved within the range of Far Eastern martial arts not in a fragmentary and reductionist way (as takes place in the case of fair play postulations referring to conduct defined by the accepted rules of games), but in a holistic way. Postulations of a positive attitude towards persons occupying themselves with the above-mentioned forms of combat are not some collection of artificially isolated norms which only take sport sacrum and the festivity of spectacular competition into consideration and are separated from moral contexts of familial (marital, maternal), religious, political, economic, professional, student, school, peer-group, city, town or country life, but are connected with everyday life, with the profanum of commonness. A positive attitude towards other persons, in the case of these martial arts, arises from the values in force in Far-Eastern culture – from holistic and systemic solutions which have religious and philosophical foundations and are deeply rooted in the everyday life of the Oriental civilisation.
There is no sport that I know of where the principle of fair play represents the highest value or the leading moral principle. This refers both to sport presented as an historical phenomenon and to present-day sport, to sport of both religious and non-confessional foundations.
It has a relative character, since it is not a non-relative norm – that is, according to Kantian interpretation, it is not the highest value.
The above-discussed principle has complementary qualities, since it can constitute a helpful supplement to regulations concerning sporting competition. However it is not their principal directive, but only a collection of additional, non-formal postulations. A competitor who ignores the norms of fair play while training or engaging in sporting competition is condemned neither morally, nor legally as long as (s)he does not break the rules of the game. Even irregular conduct, if it does not break the rules in a gross way (nota bene, the term "gross" is a relative one) is treated in a sports milieu as a behaviour possessing only utilitarian qualities; as conduct that evidences a good knowledge of the rules as well as their skilful application and takes advantage of them to realise defined, detailed and transitional tasks as well as the main aim. In connection with this, such behaviour has an amoral character, that is: it situates itself – consciously or non-consciously – beyond moral good or evil. This is why it is ethically neutral, that is: it has no features of non-moral conduct and, consequently, it is not ethically reprehensible.
The principle of fair play is neither a universal nor a necessary norm. It is not applied universally, everywhere and in each sporting (or non-sporting) situation – it can be left out completely.
This principle also has no meaning for the pragmatic side of sporting spectacle – that is: for the organisation and management of this kind of physical activity and the associated infrastructure – since competitions are not organised solely to let it (the principle of fair play) be applied at some stage of a preparatory procedure or during a sporting spectacle as such.
In this respect, it can only be an instrumental value that unconventionally (beyond the scope of official rules) supports a correct course of sports agon. The principle of fair play is, in this sense, axiologically and instrumentally subordinated to the rules of games and to the aims they serve.
4. Principle of Fair Play Among Another's Values of Sport
However, as I mentioned earlier, I will make some modifications concerning the grounds for the view that the principle of fair play is not the highest value in sport.
This view appeared quite recently and so I presented the first part without any changes.
Nowadays, to put it briefly, it is assumed that man constitutes the highest value in sport and that all other values are secondary in their relation to this principal value. They serve to strengthen it. This refers, of course, to the principle of fair play and to all other moral values influencing the behaviour and life of societies and persons connected with sport, since man – using Kant's terminology contained in "Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals" – is a non-relative value in sport. All others have a relative character.
These are relations which – in spite of numerous differences – look similar to those which, from the viewpoint of the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of God or Christian theology – occur between God and morality. In the light of these disciplines, the highest and absolute value is constituted by God and evaluations, bans, commands, norms, patterns, models and schemes of moral conduct – which are so important in the lives of believers – are of an instrumental character and indicate the correct behaviour in relations towards God and persons from the circle of a given religion.
Nota bene, most religions strive for the universalisation of their own axiological assumptions and aspire to spread them to people and social groups from outside the circle of the believers of a given faith. Many of the promoters of the fair play principle that I know of behave in a similar way. They would like it to be in force in other domains of life as well.
Moral principles constitute the highest values neither in the case of religion nor in the case of sport. The highest value in religion is constituted by God and man is the highest value in sport. It was just to fulfil his biological and cultural needs that sport was established.
The essence of sport, that is: the essence of a particular sporting discipline, is constituted by its rules and regulations. They define its identity, character, qualities and principles of rivalry. They are its fullest and the most coherent definition. If they didn't exist, a given sport would cease to exist too. They make up the second – next to man – fundamental value for it and the principle of fair play can be applied only in its relation to the rules regulating the course of sporting competition.
However, in order to allow this rivalry between athletes to arise, it is necessary to meet, inter alia, one extremely important condition connected with proper training and preparation for competition. Only a suitable level of physical fitness and skills, a high degree of professional competence – not counting the whole sports infrastructure – allows sporting competition to take place and makes it possible to achieve success as a social and individual value. Thus, the fitness and skills of a luge racer, a bobsleigh rider or a tennis player are not enough for taking part in ski jumping or car racing, for example.
Today, Coubertin's principle – concerning the Olympic Games and defining that what counts is not winning but the very participation in competition – is no longer applied in achievement-oriented (Olympic, professional) sport. Moreover, individual and team preliminary heats or so called Olympic minima, entitling athletes to participate in the Games, do not relate to the knowledge and skills connected with the application of the fair play principle – they are connected with a preliminary sporting success that qualifies them to take part in a given competition.
Taking into account the above remarks, it can be assumed that the highest value in sport, and especially in achievement-oriented (Olympic, professional) sport, is man – the creator, participator and recipient of sporting activity. The second value is in turn constituted by rules and regulations defining properties of a given discipline and the principles of sporting competition and rivalry.
The next value is in turn constituted by proper skills and training adjusted to a given sport and enabling competitors to participate in the form of sporting contest which is assumed by it.
Only then it is possible to strive for achievement of the highest value in competition – to strive for success.
Preparations for competitions and the course of rivalry are very positively influenced by the principles of fair play. They supplement the rules and humanise sporting competitions, saturating them with moral good.
Rules and regulations of sports, games and competitions have a strictly formal character and are unquestionable during the course of play. On the other hand, the principle of fair play is a non-formal value, a voluntarily adopted convention based on intuitions of the good; a convention situated beyond the rigorous determinants of the rules of sports and games, but immanently connected with them.
This means – as I have said – that sport becomes a moral phenomenon for everybody who is interested in it, which is very important from the social viewpoint: a constant test of righteousness and active goodness.
Admittedly sporting activity can be carried out independently of the principle of fair play, observing only the guidelines of a game's rules and regulations, but then we are dealing only with the facts of a praxeological character, concerning nothing but the effectiveness of activity.
Then sport stops being an activity of an auto telic character. It stops being an aim in itself. It becomes instrumentalised – treated as a means for achieving the fixed aim. It becomes labour stripped of moral values.
Bibliography:
Kosiewicz, J.: “Dylematy wspó_czesnego olimpizmu” [The Dilemmas of Contemporary Olympism], in: Wychowanie Fizyczne i Zdrowotne [Physical and Health Education] 6/7(2001)
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Axiology], in: Nauki o kulturze fizycznej i filozofia [Physical Culture Sciences and
Philosophy] (Roczniki Naukowe AWF w Warszawie [Scientific Yearbooks of the Academy
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Philosophical Conception of the Body”, in: Research Yearbook. Studies in the Theory of Physical Education and Sport VIII(2001-2002)
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Veblen, T.: The Theory of the Leisure Class, New York 1957
Supplement 3
Fair Play as an Olympic Ideal and a Personal Behaviour Pattern in Sports Activities:
In a European study on physical fitness and active lifestyles 12- and 15-year-old boys and girls in six different countries have been involved. As a third part of the study (Olympic Ideals) their knowledge about the Olympic movement, attitudes to Olympic Ideals like fair play, assessment of personal fair play patterns, teaching experiences in Olympic Education, assessment of Olympic Champions and their personal aspirations to become an Olympic athlete were evaluated (cf. Telama et.al. 2002). In this paper results of young European students` assessments of fair play as an Olympic Ideal and their personal assessments of fair play patterns in sports activities are reported, including another Polish sample.
An “Olympic Ideal Questionnaire” have been developed (cf. Telama et.al. 2002, appendix C) which includes quantitative and qualitative items of measurement, e.g. open questions for self-report, given multiple-choice items and items to fill in as personal comments and assessments to given items with a “Likert-scale”.
For the assessment of fair play a whole range of Olympic Ideals were given to the students identified by previous international literature reviews within the study. Item C 10 of the questionnaire for example includes “fair play” as one item (see Fig. 1).
The students should assess in how far they agree or disagree that “fair play” is associated with the Olympic Games. In addition they should tick the box at the left side whether an item like fair play is (still) typical of the Olympic Games of today. Percentages of agreement (totally and quite) were summarized likewise the identification as “typical for today” were measured in percentage. The percentages of agreement was counted as “desirability” of fair play as an Olympic Ideal and the percentages of the vote “typical for today” was counted as “reality” of fair play as an Olympic Ideal both in the view of the students.
In addition, a set of 10 different personal fair play patterns were given to the students as items (C 5 of the questionnaire) to assess in the same way (agreement or disagreement) by the same Likert-scale. The ranges of items is given in figure two.
The 10 items of personal fair play patterns in sports activities are very different: some (No.5) document a “pro-fair play-attitude”, some like No. 6 are ambivalent which means there is a situational ambiguity of interaction with an opponent and some others like No. 1 or 3 give real support to violence and clearly contradicts fair play behaviour.
After confirmatory factor-analysis of the items six items load on a “fair-play factor”, five items load on a “violence-factor”. Both factors will also compared later for each age and gender group of the study.
Finally, results of the “desirability/reality” assessments of fair play as an Olympic Ideal were compared with results of the personal reactions to fair play behaviour patterns measured by the “fair play factor” and “violence factor” respectively.
The sample of this European study included 3,440 boys and girls aged 12 and 15 years representing six European countries (Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Hungary and Poland).
Figure No. 3 und 4 document the results how 12- and 15-year-old boys and girls from the five European countries assessed Fair Play as an Olympic Ideal (desirability) and in how far Fair play is a typical today as a marker of Olympic Games (reality).
Up to 90% and more both boys and girls in their age of 12 agree on fair play as an Olympic Ideal in all countries of the study. However, significant differences occurred by the assessment how far fair play is typical in “reality”. Young Girls tend to be a little more critical than boys are, but the majority of Hungarian and Polish boys and girls have serious doubts whether fair play is present in today`s Olympics like many of their Finnish counterparts do. But up to 80% and 70% of Czech and German young boys and girls do believe in fair play as a current element in the Olympic Games movement.
More reluctant to identify fair play as an Olympic Ideal and more critical about the real appearance of fair play in Olympic Games are the 15-year-old students. However, between 80 and 90% of all boys and girls in each country of this study are convinced that fair play is an Olympic Ideal. But most of the students except the Czech girls and in particular both German sample groups (girls agree up to 63 %, boys up to 74%) do not believe that fair play belongs to the “reality” of the Olympic Games. Most critical are the Polish and Hungarian boys and girls. Less than one out of three Polish students do associate fair play as a present feature of the Olympic Games.
In total: no important cultural, age or gender related differences were found for the acceptance of fair play as an Olympic Ideal, however, some significant cultural (e,g, Germany, Poland), gender (e.g. Czech boys and girls), and age (15-year-old more critical) related differences occurred by the assessment in how far Fair Play as an Olympic Ideal is typical for the Olympic Games today. A certain discrepancy is visible for almost each 12- and 15-year-old sample group.
Bending fair play rules
Fig. 5: Assessment that it is impossible to do well in sports if you play fair by 12- and 15-year-old boys and girls
Up to 54% of the young Czech boys and 42% of the Polish older boys are convinced not to be successful in sports if you play fair. Their Finnish counterparts did only agree up to 15% (12-year old) and 11% (15-year old). On an average almost one boy out of three in other countries agree that it is impossible to do well in sports if ones play fair. In each country the younger boys` group tend to agree more than the older boys` group. The same trend is visible for the 12 year old girls compared with the 15 year old girls` groups. In contradiction to results of many other previous studies on fair play one can say: the younger the students both boys and girls (not the older the students!) the less they are convinced to be successful in sports by playing fair. However, in each country all gender and age groups (except 12 year old boys CZE) are still more convinced that you can do well in sports also as a fair player. But their seems to be a smaller group in each country, except the Finns, which really seems to believe fair play hinders success in sports. Younger boys are more represented than younger girls.
Situational ambiguity of fair play
About 30 % and more of the young boys and 40% of all older boys` groups would pay reciprocate with unfairness to their opponent (fig. 6). Also 15 year old German (32%), Hungarian 36%) and Polish (39%) girls would pay back unfairness to their opponents. Less gender related differences occurred for the 12-year-old boys and girls, except for the Finnish sample. No real age related difference can be reported for girls, except for the Czech 12-year-old and Polish 15-year-old girls. However, traditional gender related differences for situational ambiguity in fair play actions clearly exist between 15-year-old boys and girls, except for the Hungarian group but significantly between the Czech and Finnish boys and girls. In both countries ice hockey is a popular sport for boys inside and outside schools. Clearly gender and age related differences for situational ambiguity in fair play exist for the Polish sample. Finally, our data proofs that almost one out of three students would reciprocate unfairness to his or her opponent.
Support of fair play
The majority of the student in our study (90% and more) are also strong supporters of fair play rules in practising their individual sports (fig. 7). Only the 15-year-old Czech boys (63%) and Polish boys (75%), and Hungarian and Polish 15-year-old students (about 80%) are less convinced. The results coincide with data about the students` desirabilty of fair play in Olympic sport activities. However, there also seems to be some correlation between critical assessment about the reality of fair play in Olympic Games sports activites and the students` personal assessment how to cope with fair play rules in practising sports if the rules are bended by their opponents.
Evaluating our findings about the assessment of fair play by European students some ambivalences between desirability and reality within the context of Olympic Games sport activities as well as different personal reactions to the three types of personal fair play behaviour patterns are apparent. Factor analysis of the 10 fair play items may give some more insight about this ambivalence and how European students react to support fair play (fig. 8) and unfairness (fig.9). If a student supported all 6 items of the “Fair Play Factor” either with a statement, or in the reverse case withj a statement of disagreement, the highest point score for fair play would be 24 and the lowest 6. If a participant supported 5 items of the “Violence Factor” by agreeing or disagreeing to the reverse statement, thr strongest factor would be 5 and the weakest “Violence Factor” would be 20. For documentation and comparison, the values of the items in both factors were de-coded and polarised. The lowest possible score points (6 and 5) were set at zero. Therefore, scales range from 0 to 18 points (fair play) and 0 to 15 points (violence) respectively.
All students` groups scored much higher than the mean of 9 which means fair play was supported by all of them (fig.8). The lowest mean value was for the 15-year-old Czech boys (11,91) and the highest for the 15-year-old Czech girls (15.85). Age and gender-related differences are visible: across the countries 15-year-old girls scored higher than 12-year-old girls (except the Hungarian girls) and 12-year-old boys scored higher than their 15-year-old counterparts. However, the two girls`groups scored higher in each country than the respective boys`groups. There are also some significant cultural- and gender-related differences for the Fair Play Factor: the 15-year-old girls from Czech Republic scored higher compared to the Hungarian 15-year-old girls and, in total, girls of that age scored higher than the 15-year-old boys.
No group reached the mean of 7.5 (highest score: 7.10 by Czech 12-year-old girls), which clearly suggests that at least a certain sub-sample of boys and girls in this study and in each country had a tendency to support situational violence behaviour patterns and also disregard occasionally some fair play rules (fig. 9). The lowest mean, which implies the strongest support of unfair and violence patterns, was found for the 15-year-old boys from Finland (lowest score: 4. 97). In all countries boys scored lower than girls and 15-year-old students both boys and girls (except the 12-year-old Czech boys and the 15-year-old Hungarian girls) scored lower than the 12-year-old students. There seems to be two important results: boys were more supportive of violence patterns than girls and the older the students were, both boys and girls, the more supportive they became. These results correlate inside with other findings on fair play and violence in children`s and adolecents` sport activities (cf. Shields & Bredemeier 1995, pp. 178).
Comparison of the Desirabilty/Reality of Fair Play as an Olympic Ideal with Results of the Fairplay and Violence Factor
As already reported some divergencies exist between gender and national groups of the students. Twelve year old boys tend to be more critical about differences between “desirability” and “reality” of fair play as an Olympic Ideal than 15 year old girls do who think more positively and see a “closer gap”. On the contrast 12 year old boys in the Czech Republic and Germany assessed their support of personal fair play attitudes higher than their counterparts in Finland and Hungary did. A certain combination of a more critical assessment of fair play as an Olympic Ideal in “reality” correlates with a strong value of the violence factor for the Finnish and Hungarian young boys as well as for the 15 year old female groups of their country. However, across the countries and across the sample groups of the students we identified a high desirability of Fair play as an Olympic Ideal, regardless of any other personal assessments of fair play or unfairness in sports behaviour.
Discussion
Both boys and girls aged 12 and 15 from five different European countries (CZE, FIN, GER, HUN, POL) strongly support the desirability of fair play in the Olympic Games. They all have a moral vision in expectancy of a very high level of fair play in Olympic sports activities; however, many of the participants in this study, including both boys and girls, have serious doubts as to whether fair play is practised.
This findings is divided between the two gender groups, with a more critical attitude about the reality of fair play in the sample group of girls. Some cultural-related differences exist, in particular for the assessment of how far fair play seems to be practised in Olympic sports activities. Students from Hungary and Poland seems to be more critical than others.
The `Fair Play Factor` clearly shows dominant individual moral standards in practising sports for boys and girls; but again, girls supported fair play attitudes more strongly than boys did. The high desirability of fair play in Olympic sport activities seems to coincide with the individual agreement on fair-play behaviour patterns in both gender groups, again slightly stronger for the girls.
Although the results show slightly weaker values in the girls` sample for the `Violence Factor`, it appears relatively strong for boys and girls. In both gender groups there seems to be a clear vision of high moral standard expecting fair play in Olympic sports and supporting fair play in personal behaviour in sport activities.
However, there seems to be two sub-groups in each country which are more and less convinced that fair play actually exists in Olympic sports activities. It is striking that there is a tendency of groups who are more critical about the reality of fair play in Olympic sports activities, to respond more positively to statements on personal behaviour patterns, which are unfair.
Obviously, there exist for young European students a vision of high moral demands on fair play in Olympic sports activities and yet the high moral expectancy seems to be dissonant when compared with the assessed reality of fair play in the Olympics, and the personal support given to the unfair behaviour patterns of the `Violence Factor`. The moral picture of fair play seems to have two faces for young people: high moral thinking, but real actions on a lower, pragmatic level.
References
Shields, D. & Bredemeier, B. (1995): Character Development and Physical Activity. Champaign/Ill: Human Kinetics.
Telama, R, Naul, R., Nupponen, H., Rychtecky, A. & Vuolle, P. (2002): Physical Fitness, Sporting Lifestyles and Olympic Ideals: Cross-Cultural Studies on Youth Sport in Europe. Schorndorf: Hofmann.
Budo’s Potential for Peace:
Breaking Down Barriers in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Danny HAKIM
Wingate Institute for Physical Education and Sport, Israel
“We are already two years into a new century after bidding farewell to the war-stricken twentieth century. Have we progressed at all toward peace? The fact that we can’t proudly and confidently say yes indicates the great uncertainty, which still engulfs the world. With all the mistrust arising from cultural and religious differences, how are we supposed to offer hope for future generations? One answer to this question can be found in promoting budo. An inquiry into the process of budo, originally a form of combat, has developed into a spiritual pursuit which places emphasis on mutual respect and is a means of education, and spreading it to the people of the world will go a long way in contributing to world peace.” (Matsunaga Hikaru, Nippon Budokan Chairman, March 2002).
This paper considers the effect that budo can have in contributing to world peace. More specially, it posits how budo education can be used to break down barriers between peoples in regions of severe conflict in general, and offers practical suggestions for achieving this goal in one of the longest and most violent disputes in modern history, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The centrist position on resolution of this conflict acknowledges the need for co-existence. The Israeli and the Palestinian peoples – Jews, Muslims and Christians – share only a very small tract of territory, which will ultimately, most likely, serve as two states. Finding a modus vivendi is vital as their economies, cultures and infrastructures are sure to be linked.
With the “Al-Aqsa intifada” now in its fourth year and no end in sight, the road to coexistence seems interminably long. But it is my conviction that it is possible to alleviate the pain and shatter the barriers of hatred.
Budo - “The Way of Stopping Conflict”
Most frequently, budo is taught in the dojo, within the framework of “martial arts”. The study of budo encourages practitioners, including youths, to:
1. Learn to respect themselves and others.
2. Maintain emotional well-being.
3. Increase their self-confidence.
4. Find peace within themselves and with others.
Ideally, and in concert, these elements could break down barriers of fear between people. The process has been considered successful for individuals for centuries. I am suggesting extending it to the macro-level, to advance coexistence to a wider scale. This paper recommends drawing on budo education to sow harmony in troubled places.
What is Budo, and How is it Taught in the Dojo?
Budo is unique in the modern world of physical activities. It includes elements of sport, exercise, game, play and recreation – though it is linked to a more profound set of values than all of these. As fighting systems of self-defence, budo is rooted in East Asian traditions. Despite the influences of today’s world, budo continues to reflect its roots, even as they develop in many instances into modern sports.
The Japanese word budo, loosely translated as “martial arts”, is often interpreted as “the Way of stopping conflict”. The word is made up of two Chinese characters- “bu”, which encompasses both “stop” and “halberd” and “do” meaning “the Way”, as in karatedo, aikido, judo, kendo. Students of the martial arts learn to deal with and control conflict, both within themselves and between themselves and others. Indeed, this is a major aspect of their training. The ideological focus of martial arts training, combined with unique discipline and ritual, qualitatively differentiates these activities from other forms of exercise.
The Japanese word dojo, is loosely translated as a training hall, with “do” meaning “the Way” and “jo” meaning “place”. Hence, a dojo is a place where “the Way” is taught.
Budo includes the nine martial arts offcially recognized by the Nippon Budokan: judo, karate, kendo, aikido, kyodo, naginata, jokendo, shorinji kempo and sumo. Internationally, budo also refers to other East Asian martial arts that have philosophical and spiritual elements, such as taekwondo, kung fu and tai chi.
Offcial estimates of the number of people around the globe learning karate are 9.1 million, judo 6.7 million and taekwondo 4.6 million. It is estimated that there are another 1.5 million practitioners of shorinji kempo. Unofficially, there are over 200 million practitioners of budo in the world.
Although different budo may vary in physical technique, they all share a general concept that training enhances the connection between the mind, body and spirit. The mind develops concentration, focus and self-discipline. The body becomes it while one learns to defend oneself. The spiritual training offers emotional stability and a way to live in harmony and balance with the world.
Budo is considered a way of life. All budo share the general philosophy that by training the mind and body one develops ki (inner power) and with this energy one can create wa (harmony) with oneself and with others in the world.
Here follows a list of the martial arts that comprise budo and a brief explanation of them:
Judo
Kano Jigoro founded Kodokan judo in 1882. It was derived from jijutsu. Kano believed that the ultimate purpose of judo practice was to perfect the self also for the benefit of others. He devised the concepts of seiryoku zenyo and jita kyoei (maximum efficiency and mutual prosperity), which are the idealistic foundation stones of judo training (It is a paradoxical distraction unfortunate that in Olympic judo the focus on moral development has received less attention than its role as a competitive sport).
Karate
The actual, precise origin of karate is unknown. Some believe that karate originated in China with the Buddhist monk Daruma, in the sixth century B.C.E. Others believe it started in Greece much earlier. Modern karate however was developed in Okinawa around the sixteenth century and was officially exported to mainland Japan in 1922 by Funakoshi Gichin. Funakoshi is known as the father of modern karate. When karate was no longer needed for self-protection against oppressors, it was turned into an art of self-perfection for the public. Funakoshi stressed, “The ultimate aim of the art of Karate lies not in victory or defeat, but in the perfection of the character of its participants”.
The five karate principles of the dojo are all considered equally important:
One! To strive for the perfection of character!
One! To defend the paths of truth!
One! To foster the spirit of effort!
One! To honour the principles of etiquette!
One! To guard against impetuous courage!
In most dojo in the world these principles are recited and application is encouraged beyond the dojo walls as well. They transcend cultural barriers and create a format for respect and cooperation between individuals and groups. Needless to say, were they to be applied to peoples in conflict, the world would be a very different place.
Kendo
The Ogasawara-ryu traditional school of etiquette created in the Muromachi period (1333-1568), related specially to the practice of archery and horsemanship, and other bugei (military arts). Its code of manners became prescribed behaviour in warrior society, and many of these traditions are continued today in kendo clubs around the world.
Makita Minoru, of the International Budo University kendo club, notes how kendo develops character through technique, training, and competition: “The strict forms of etiquette and ceremony before and after tachiai (facing an opponent in combat) in kendo incorporates a discipline that is an essential part of kendo’s attempt to create respect and develop character.”
Kyodo
Before firearms the most effective military weapon was the bow and arrow. Over centuries of training in archery, the traditional form of kyodo evolved. It preserves the essence of budo - it is never the purpose to strive to beat an opponent; rather, the main objective of the endeavour is to defeat the self through constant practice and refinement.
Shorinji Kempo
The founder of shorinji kempo, So Doshin created his art based on a desire to improve the nation by cultivating qualities – such as courage and the ability to act – in young people. When training in pairs, for example, the point is not to compete against one another, but rather to teach one another. One of the principles of shorinji kempo is “happiness for self and others”. This means to recognize the existence of both the self and others, and living in a way that consistently seeks improvement and development.
Aikido
Aikido makes the most explicit claim to being an art of peace. Its founder, Ueshiba Morihei (1883-1969), had a vision of the “Great Spirit of Peace”, which could lead to the elimination of all strife and the reconciliation of humankind. He said, “The Way of the warrior has been misunderstood as a means to kill and destroy others. Those who seek competition are making a grave mistake. To smash, injure, or destroy is the worst sin a human being can commit. The real Way of the warrior is to prevent slaughter – it is the Art of Peace, the power of love.”
Unlike the authors of old-time warrior classics such as The Art of War and The Book of Five Rings, which accept the inevitability of war and emphasize cunning strategy as a means to victory, Ueshiba understood that prolonged fighting – with others, with ourselves, and with the environment – would lead to ruin.
“The world will continue to change dramatically, but fighting and war can destroy us utterly. What we need now are techniques of harmony, not those of contention. The art of Peace is required, not the art of War.”
He thus taught the “art of Peace” as a creative mind-body discipline, as a practical means of handling aggression, and as a way of life that fosters fearlessness, wisdom, love, and friendship. He interpreted the art of Peace in the broadest possible sense and believed that its principles of reconciliation, harmony, cooperation, and empathy could be applied to all the challenges we face in life – to personal and work relationships, interactions with society, and to interactions with nature. Everyone can be a warrior for peace.
“Foster peace in your own life and then apply the art to all that you encounter. A warrior is always engaged in a life-and-death struggle for peace”, he said.
Promoting Respect and Harmony Through the Practice of Budo
Dojo
A dojo is a miniature cosmos where we make contact with ourselves – our fears, anxieties, reactions, and habits. It is an arena of confined conflict where we confront an opponent who is not really an opponent but rather a partner engaged in helping us understand ourselves more fully. It is a place where we can learn a great deal in a short time about who we are and how we react in the world. The conflicts that take place inside the dojo help prepare us to handle conflicts that take place outside. Thus, the total concentration and discipline required to study budo carries over to daily life.
Japanese machi-dojo (community dojo) tends to resemble a kind of family structure in the relationships of the kinds of people training in them. Often the teacher will take the role of parent, and exercise disciplinary measures. The more senior budo practitioners and students serve as older brothers and sisters to the junior ones.
This type of family-style system found in Japan is replicated in many dojo around the world. The environment nurtures personal development in children, giving them confidence and a safe place to express themselves.
If such machi-dojo can maintain this family-like atmosphere, and if teachers believe that budo can be a means of cultivating personality, then we can see how respect and harmony can be achieved not only within dojo but between dojo and beyond. The environment that budo engenders in the dojo can play an important role in creating peace and co-existence beyond those walls.
Rei (Etiquette/courtesy)
The concept of showing respect is an integral part of budo. The first lesson begins with the practice of bowing, and this is reinforced at every training session. Only those who grasp the depth of its meaning reach a high level of proficiency. Rei may be defined as the will to establish a relationship based on mutual trust, goodwill, understanding, and respect of individual feelings by showing respect. In society, it is a means of maintaining harmony between people for a better society. Bowing to express this attitude to the dojo, to one’s senior, to one’s sensei and to one’s opponent engenders a relationship of honour. Proper behaviour can help achieve what budo endeavours to develop in individuals, but only when one really understands and accepts what the behaviour means. When you bow, for example, you have to actually feel gratitude and respect toward the person you are bowing to. If you don’t, it is all just empty formality with little substance. It is the content, and not necessarily the form, that is most important.
Of course, the custom of bowing as a form of respect is not unique to Japan. Different manifestations of bowing have in the past been adopted, and adapted, in line with religious sensitivity while maintaining the significance of showing respect to others. For example, Kanazawa Hirokazu, chairman of Shotokan Karate International who teaches extensively throughout the world, reputedly has over one million Muslim students. He has adapted two styles of bowing that suit the religious values of his students. Kneeling and placing one’s forehead near the ground, as in traditional Japanese custom (zarei); and kneeling while holding one’s hands together upright and bowing the head to the hands. The latter of these two types of bowing has been integrated into the local dojo training of many Muslim cities and towns and has become socially acceptable in those dojo. The practice has fostered harmony and respect between religious and less religious members of those dojo.
The do-gi (uniform)
The do-gi is the traditional outfit for practicing budo. In most types of budo, the gi is plain white with no added colours or designs. It symbolizes equality, regardless of colour, creed, religious or social background. It creates an instant equalizing effect for new and old members of a dojo. Although the colour of the belt shows a difference in basic levels of skills, after achieving the level of black-belt there is no distinction between levels.
The language of the dojo
All Budo practitioners speak a common language in the dojo. They understand common words and concepts in Japanese, as it is an integral part of learning in the dojo. In karate, terms such as tsuki (punch), mae-geri (front kick), kiba-dachi (horse riding stance), kata (form), kumite (fight) etc. and concepts such as wa (harmony), ma-ai (distance), zanshin (continued mental and physical awareness) and ki (vital energy) are regularly used in the dojo regardless of the country or which budo is being taught. This form of communication offers a common language, which breaks down the barriers of stereotyping and bridges the cultural divide between peoples in conflict.
The spirit of “Oss”
“Oss” has become an important word in the vernacular of karate, understood and exchanged among practitioners throughout the world both as an everyday greeting and also to mean “thank you”,“glad to meet you”, “goodbye” and “I understand”. It must be uttered with a bow, showing respect, sympathy and trust to the other party. Oss is in fact written with these two Chinese characters. The first literally means “pushing”, (symbolizing the fighting spirit, the importance of effort, and facing all obstacles, pushing them away, with a positive and unchanging attitude. The second means “suffering” but expresses courage and perseverance, keeping spirits high even in the face of hardship.
In his book, Karate – My Life , Kanazawa states “Budo is an activity where one develops the mind and spirit during the process of tempering the spirit. Winning matches is not the final goal of budo. Knowing your limitations and disciplining yourself is the ultimate objective. That is the true meaning of oss […] Oss means to never retreat from problems or hardships, but to stick with them, never giving up and achieving what you set out to achieve […] Perseverance (nintai), effort (doryoku), and achievement (tassei) are the underlying concepts of oss.”
Its spirit can be tapped to forge strong relationships at the grassroots level between people in conflict.
The Psychological Benefits
Cultivating a child’s development in Japan
Kanno Jun, a professor of psychology at Waseda University and a youth counselor, has been involved in developmental and clinical psychology particularly helping children who face development problems such as dropping out of school, school violence, domestic violence, delinquency and developmental disorders.
In his article, “Budo – Cultivating Young Minds”, he talks about his experiences interviewing many budo instructors and children. He notes the developmental attributes of budo and the role of instructors. His experience and observations over thirty years touched on many issues relevant to all children in the world, including:
* Spiritual problems facing modern children
* Mistrust of other people and developing a “victim mentality”
* Hunger for love
* Underdevelopment or ignorance of social skills
* Mental strength and resilience
* Nurturing a healthy self-image to act as a basis for physical development
* Budo’s contribution to the development of social skills, such as courtesy, generosity, consideration and so on
* Budo’s contribution to the development of discipline and strength to endure hardships
* Drawing on Budo to enhance the ability to understand yourself, which leads to self-development
* The nurturing of trust through the process of receiving instruction and working hard with one’s peers. He concludes that “budo offers a vehicle to educate children in areas in which schools and homes are failing”
Emotional well-being and therapy in the U.S.
The psychologists Wingate and Sachs have studied the effects of martial arts on emotional development in the U.S. They found that martial arts training contributes to psychological well-being in children and adults. Martial artists display lower levels of anxiety and depression than do non-martial artists. Maintenance of emotional well-being and stress reduction were important reasons for training among traditional karateka. They concluded that martial arts enhance the development of character and improvement of the individual more than other sports. In the traditional view of these arts, perfection of character and perfection of technique are inseparable because of the Eastern approach to mind and body in general.
The specific aspects of martial arts training that lead to improvements in psychological well-being result from the three ideological claims most often made about martial arts: that practicing these arts a) promotes the formation of moral character; b) promotes non-violent attitudes and behaviour; and c) promotes spiritual development.
Further literature describes the therapeutic relevance of budo. Other studies explicitly note the parallels between the goals and methods of budo and verbal psychotherapy, in that both are disciplines for gaining understanding into one’s character with the aim of growth toward a new and stronger way of being with one’s self in the world. Both budoka and psychotherapy patients learn to understand and deal with resistance, in themselves and others, to manage both evasion and confrontation, and to cope with aggression and vulnerability.
Trauma therapy in Israeli and Palestinian communities
Many Palestinian and Israeli children have experienced degrees of behavioural changes due to trauma developed from the reality of living in a state of war and occupation. A nationwide survey of schools found that six percent of Israel’s two million children suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) with another twelve percent displaying partial symptoms. Fifty-five percent of Palestinian children have started developing PTSD.
The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF says that parents report behavioural changes among eighty percent of children living in Palestinian areas. Even though Israeli and Palestinian children differ culturally from those in, say, Japan and America, one should consider the extreme circumstances in which they live. In this context, the effect of budo education in the local dojo may have a greater therapeutic impact.
In 2002, dance therapist Yael Perpignan researched the therapeutic benefits of Shotokan karate in a dojo in Israel. Perpignan interviewed karate practitioners from beginner to advanced levels. She examined the theories of Feldenkreis, Laban Movement Analysis and Jung and the therapeutic elements of karate using these psychological models of behaviour. Her research showed positive results in self-confidence, learning to cope and not giving up, concentration, calm instinct, self-control, and intuition. She also explored interpersonal relationships: relationships with peers in the dojo and outside and the opposite sex. Further studies on the benefits of budo on trauma victims, mentally challenged and the physically disabled are underway and are being documented.
Respect, Harmony and Breaking Down Barriers
in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
This section is based on my own research, experience and the discussions with my Palestinian counterpart, Dughan Khalil. Khalil is the chief instructor and coach of Shotokan Karate International in the Palestinian Authority. I am presently the senior instructor and coach of Shotokan Karate International in Israel. Both Khalil and I have been training in Shotokan karate for over thirty years. We first met in 1997 when we did our 5th dan black belt test together under Kanazawa Hirokazu. This experience was the first of many that forged a mutual respect and friendship. In September 2003, we both passed the 6th dan black belt test and were awarded the title of renshi. We both also follow the philosophy of Kanazawa of respect and harmony, and maintain that this belief has enabled us to break down barriers in our personal lives. We now accept responsibility to channel our skills and understanding to the younger generation through the education we provide in our dojo.
Victims verses aggressors
Both Israelis and Palestinians believe that they are the victims of terror or occupation and that the other side is the aggressor. Media and education reinforce this belief. The victim/aggressor belief is a fundamental obstacle, preventing Palestinians and Israelis from thinking in terms of coexistence. The mistrust, suspicion and negative stereotyping run so deep in both societies that many people believe that it is not possible to coexist with the other.
In a joint Israeli-Palestinian survey in 1999 conducted by the Van Leer Jerusalem Foundation, 71 % of Jews said Palestinians in general were violent, and only 15.4 % called them non-violent as a group. Among Palestinians, 91.5 % labelled Jews as violent and 8.4 % said they were non-violent.
Israeli parents train their children to watch out for suspicious objects and suspicious-looking people; years of random suicide bombers extinguishing innocent lives have impacted on daily life. Similarly, Palestinian parents tell their children not to play outside in fear of them being in the line of the Israeli defence forces. Children growing up in this environment, needless to say, are exposed to fear and anxiety. Not all Israeli Jews subscribe to the whole list of prejudices against Arabs, of course, and not all Arabs hold negative stereotypes of Jews. Even so, the constant imagery in the media coupled with politically-influenced education creates a convincing pattern of stereotypes and beliefs, which makes it difficult for either side to trust each other and work towards a peaceful solution.
Respect and harmony versus stereotyping and fear
Respect teaches tolerance, which is the first tool necessary to break down barriers of hatred. Respecting others immediately puts one on an equal playing field. Having respect for oneself and for others discards the notion that one is a victim and others are the aggressors. Respect helps break down stereotypic images and hatred developed from years of indoctrination. These stereotypes have worked their way thoroughly into literature, education, history, language, and social mores on both sides.
Khalil makes the case that:
“Respect is the foundation of our relationships with parents, teachers, fellow students and all that we interact and communicate with in this universe. Respect cannot be requested. You can earn [respect] by how you treat others and carry yourself. Respecting others is beyond race, religious belief and culture. You have to respect yourself first in order to make harmonious relationships with others. This can be achieved by training in traditional karate. In this way we can build global education and global relationships between nations.
Harmony means respect, treating others the way we want to be treated. We will not always agree, we should not, as we should be allowed to think for ourselves, to make our own choices, what is right for us. We respect the right to disagree and still live in harmony. We each have a heart, we each have a soul and though we are different in many respects, inside, we are the same. No matter what the colour of our skin, religion, culture or beliefs, we can still live in peace, respect and harmony.
Then more people will join us in spreading the seeds of peace among young generations, building together a future of authentic peace. I truly believe in the power of respect, harmony and love. Harmony is the secret to inner peace. Harmony is the state of being humble, neither proud nor haughty, neither arrogant nor assertive, it is humility. People have to know each other better to spread the messages of peace, respect and harmony in their surroundings. This will lead to the harmony of spirit, body and mind so that the feeling of hate and violence will disappear and everywhere truth and love will triumph. It will be great [when] the seeds of peace blossom in our countries...”
The famous warrior Miyamoto Musashi said that “becoming the opponent means you should put yourself in the opponent’s place and think from the opponent’s point of view.” Understanding one’s opponent is the first stage of respecting them and forging a partnership in harmony.
Applying Budo to the Middle East Context
The popularity of budo in the Middle East
For those living in the Middle East, Asian culture – Japan’s in particular – is seen as exotic and interesting. It is significantly different to any Western culture and therefore has an appeal without prejudice or ulterior motives. While American culture is seen as “conquering” the Middle East, Japanese culture is not seen as politically or socially “threatening”. Nor do the Japanese have any historical imperial influence in the area.
Tradition and history are sources of pride and identity amongst Muslims and Jews and it is natural for them to respect and honour the traditional forms of etiquette propagated in all Japanese cultural activities like budo. Indeed, to provide just one example, karate is one of the most popular sports in Iran today and the Iranian National Junior Karate team is among the most successful teams in the world. In the World Junior Karate Championships in October 2003, Iran won more medals than any other country, including Japan.
Japanese initiatives for bringing
peace to the Middle East
In April 2003, the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs, Kawaguchi Yoriko, announced a new Japanese initiative for “Peace in the Middle East, towards the peaceful coexistence of the two states”. The initiative is aimed at confidence building between Israelis and Palestinians. It is designed to help uproot the distrust and hatred between the two sides. In launching the initiative, Kawaguchi stated: “In order to achieve ‘two-state vision,’ which aims at realizing the peaceful coexistence of the two states of Israel and Palestine, it is necessary to promote confidence building through various levels of dialogues and cooperation. This project will support grassroots groups, NGOs and local governments to carry out activities such as raising public awareness, cooperation and peace activities between Israelis and Palestinians.”
There are many ways to promote further exchanges between Palestinians and Israelis and other peoples in conflict through the avenues of budo culture. It is with this aim that the Budo Movement for Peace was established.
The Budo Movement for Peace
The Budo Movement for Peace was established in Novem