Football against the Enemy, as my good friend and colleague Simon Kuper titled his seminal book on the political and cultural passions generated by the game, could well take on new meaning later this week.
With an admirable sense and sensibility not common in the football world, the French and English football authorities have agreed to go ahead with the match between their respective national teams.
While the game might have been cancelled on grounds of extended mourning, not to have gone ahead with it would have been an admission of fear and insecurity, and would have handed the ideologues of Islamic terror another propaganda coup.
Instead-and I have no doubt of this- on Tuesday Wembley will be packed, and will resonate with passionate renderings of God Save the Queen and La Marseillaise , with the anthems complementing rather that antagonising each other as a restoration of faith in what unites civilised societies.
That said it would be a pity if the occasion is hijacked by xenophobic football fans in a show of bigotry. Rather it should be an opportunity for people of all races, and faiths to stand shoulder should to shoulder in solidarity and shared respect for the cherished principles of democracy-human rights, political tolerance, and the rule of law.
The fact that the game was arranged months ago as a ‘friendly’ between two countries proud of their democratic traditions should set the defining note, with the baser instincts of rivalry giving way to a clear perception of the common good. Football against the real enemy, that which terrorises.
Have you read this book?
This is the book the late Graham Greene managed to read in manuscript form on his way to Moscow to visit his old friend Kim Philby. Greene – always generous with young aspiring authors – subsequently wrote to me saying: “You can quote me as saying this is a required book for anyone who wishes to understand the Argentine situation before and after the Falklands War.’