“Russian Whores! Russian Whores!”
Posted on June 13, 2012 2:49 pm
In our little corner of the world, when public safety officials are faced with situations which involve “civil disobedience” in one form or another, the theory they operate under is usually described as “proportionate response”.
The feeling is that a massive police presence when such may not be called for or entirely necessary only serves to provoke the element you are attempting to control.
So in tense situations they try to go with the lightest possible footprint in the hope that the situation can be diffused without an overwhelming show of force and the violence which it implicitly threatens.
One thing we learned yesterday is that this particular theory does not hold much currency in Poland.
Here, for an example, is how the Polish security people chose to deal with the Russian fan section at the match in Warsaw:
The not-so-subtle message is perfectly clear: mess with us and we’ll kick your ass.
The reported numbers in various categories vary wildly: 56 arrests, 120 arrests, 200 arrests. A couple dozen in the hospital, 50 in the hospital, 100 in the hospital. 2,500 Russian marchers, 5,000 Russian marchers, 20,000 Russian marchers.
One number does stand out and it comes straight from the top of the government: 6,000.
That’s how many truncheon-carrying, helmeted, body-armor wearing professionally trained riot police they assembled from all corners of the country to deal with whatever happened.
And as it turned out the Russia fans had a lot more to worry about than the citizens of Warsaw did: the Poles were plenty pissed off about the Russkies celebrating their Independence Day by marching in their city.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj0MXWVSV4k
From the beginning of the march the Russians, apparently numbering closer to 2500 than 5000, were surrounded by an angry mob of Poles, chanting things like “Russian Whores! Russian Whores!” and – my favorite – “Smash them with a hammer, cut them with a sickle!”.
As they got closer to the river the crowd grew ever larger until, as they neared the bridge, the police decided not to allow them to continue, and made the marchers disburse.
That, reportedly, is when most of the pre-match violence took place. Rather than mob-on-mob assaults it became a case of angry fans picking off the laggards and kicking crap out of them until the police arrived to break it up and haul some people off to jail or the hospital as seemed appropriate.
Police used dogs, tear gas, water cannons and the ever-popular truncheon to restore order.
In fairness to the Russians – now there’s a phrase you don’t hear much – the lions’ share of the blame for this has to fall on UEFA, who scheduled this match for Russia’s Independence Day.
UEFA says it was the computer and I’m sure that’s true, but all it would have taken was a pen and two minutes to change it.
Secondly, the local authorities gave their permission for the march, which was pretty much destined to end the way it did.
And it was the Poles who took most of the beating from the police, who were just trying to keep them away from the Russians.
No word from UEFA yet today. Not sure what they can possibly say.
Please note: Yes, I posted the wrong video somehow. The right one is now up. A thousand apologies for my lack of technical skills, except to those of you who wanted to make a huge deal out of it, who can kiss my ass.
Changing the schedule is not as simple that it would take 2 minutes. There is a process to determine which teams end up in the 4 groups, and then the schedule is determined based on where the team falls within a group (A1 -A4, B1 – B4, etc.).
In every group the schedule goes like this. X1 v. X2, X3 v. X4; game 2 X1 v. X3, X2 v. X4; game 3 X1 v. X4, X2 v. X3. It doesn’t matter what group it is, that’s how the schedule goes.
The fact that Poland and Russia landed in the same group, and that their positioning in the group coincided with their game being played on that date was random.
But if you start messing with the order in which the games are played, then you are messing with the tournament. The order in which games are played is part of the strategy of the tournament.
Not to mention that with the animosity among Poland and Russia, would changing the date really made a difference in reducing the violence?
You didn’t just get the video wrong. You got the facts that you referenced wrong because for some reason you chose to base them on an event that occurred in November. So it’s not really a technical issue. It’s an issue of you completely mixing up two entirely separate events.
You also missed a great opportunity to put what happened yesterday into some greatly needed perspective. The hooliganism was despicable. Period. But, despite what American media want to blow it up to be, it was not really a huge event considering that there were tens of thousands of Polish and Russian fans in Warsaw. In fact, many political demonstrations all across the world, like the one that the video that you originally posted was based on, often involve more violence. But, of course, soccer hooliganism has to make the front pages in America.
George Harrison was quoted in the anthology specifically in relation to touring and just getting caught up in some demonstration about this that or the other
“They used us as an excuse to go mad, the world did,” he said in The Beatles Anthology, “and then blamed it on us.”
In some respects Soccer has the same issue.
To snadog: you will not find me siding with Bill often, but here I must. This was a poor showing by many sides, but that it happened involving Russia strikes sour. As Bill’s previous article stated, English hooligans were banned from travel to continental matches, and there were two particularly tragic events that made England examine itself. Even 23 years on, there is sporadic revival of fan violence. But recently, Russia has taken the lead in fan violence with apparently little being done. The behavior of their fans at both matches is, even at a “small” size, is aggressive and threatening. This is unacceptable in the light of hosting an upcoming World Cup.
“The feeling is that a massive police presence when such may not be called for or entirely necessary only serves to provoke the element you are attempting to control.”
Agreed. But the video does show many acts of unprovoked violence. This is disgusting and has nothing to do with kicking a round leather ball. What a bunch of morons.
Bill, that photo of the police standing in front of the Russian section demands an explanation clearer than the one you provided. Today, the Polish PM said that the Russian police advised their Polish counterparts that some elements of Russian hooligans were planning to “invade the pitch” prior to the conclusion of the match, disrupting the game and causing a major international embarrassment. Placing large numbers of cops in that spot was, in my opinion, a very good preventive move by the Polish police.
Likewise, the fact that out of more then 150,000 people that were in some way involved in the match (at the stadium, outside, on the streets, in the fanzones), only about two hundred were arrested and ten hospitalized should be considered a success, given the explosiveness of the situation.
That’s a fair point.
Bill’s main point of UEFA completely screwing up by scheduling that game on that day remains compelling.
Bill’s grander point that awarding Russia the World Cup in 2018 through a farcically corrupt process without anyone addressing safety (both eastern European neighbors with complicated political history and fans of color from around the world) also still holds.
I know and understand that. But you can’t not allow countries to organize major sporting events because of their complicated history, neighbor problems or isolated racial incidents. Despite the wishes of English-language media Euro 2012 so far has been a success. A great majority of people are enjoying themselves and the doomsday scenarios did not come to fruition, at least so far. It almost seems that the various BBC programs, negative articles and blogs that greatly exaggerate potential or real problems are produced with the hidden agenda of “disneyfication” of sports tournaments, wanting them to be held in what they perceive are “safe” countries.
Or is 2018 what this is all about? We all know that the process was corrupt, but I dare say so has been every other award of a major tournament in the last 25 years. Is this exaggeration of hooligan and racist issues in Poland and Ukraine a skillful propaganda attempt to force FIFA to rethink 2018??
This is the worst kind of false advertising there is… there aren’t any whores anwhere in this article.
Boo this man! BOOOOOO!
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