[WC] World Cup 2018 - General Talk Thread (60 Viewers)
- Thread starter Dostoevsky
- Start date
Uli is right.
This is my take on Ozil's case.
First of all, I think he's been treated unfairly but I don't think it has anything at all to do with racism. The rage against Ozil from Germans seems pretty universal, and while there are racists everywhere I really don't think you can label Germans as a collective racist, because then what would you call most third world countries, or less developed European countries in that respect. The northern european countries relatively have got to be one of the least racist places on earth, so I'm ticking off racism as a possible explanation.
But in Ozil's defense, I think the whole picture thing is overblown for a number of reasons. First of all, as he said he's not a politician and has nothing to do with politics, secondly; while Erdogan might be a dictator who is running his country to the ground and an international pariah who is definitely in the wrong IMO in his conflicts with the EU and the Netherlands and Germany in particular, he is still officially and legally the President of Turkey and not some convicted war criminal or something like that; when the picture was taken Erdogan was being hosted by the UK and met with the Queen and the British PM. Thirdly, and this is the most important point IMO; Ozil is Turkish in addition to being German; one of his countries Turkey is being ruled by a dictator unfortunately; for those of you who have been lucky enough to live in democracies all your life I really don't think you get how countries ruled by dictators work. For example, if you go to the old Libya thread, you will see exactly what I thought of our former dictator Geddaffi, but when he was in power there was no way I would ever risk airing such views in public; its simply not worth it and would only end with you being exiled from your country or imprisoned/your assets seized or a number of terrible options. If I was a public figure and Geddaffi asked me for a photo, you can be sure as hell that I would have taken it even while hating him and his policies.
Also I don't understand why some of you are bringing up his football into this, I don't think his performances or his football have anything to do with this. In all cases, the German manager, and the Real Madrid Manager previously all thought he was a player that deserved to be a regular and consistent starter in the German NT and Real Madrid, so whatever your opinions about him are, they're obviously not shared by those two top class managers that coached him.
First of all, I think he's been treated unfairly but I don't think it has anything at all to do with racism. The rage against Ozil from Germans seems pretty universal, and while there are racists everywhere I really don't think you can label Germans as a collective racist, because then what would you call most third world countries, or less developed European countries in that respect. The northern european countries relatively have got to be one of the least racist places on earth, so I'm ticking off racism as a possible explanation.
But in Ozil's defense, I think the whole picture thing is overblown for a number of reasons. First of all, as he said he's not a politician and has nothing to do with politics, secondly; while Erdogan might be a dictator who is running his country to the ground and an international pariah who is definitely in the wrong IMO in his conflicts with the EU and the Netherlands and Germany in particular, he is still officially and legally the President of Turkey and not some convicted war criminal or something like that; when the picture was taken Erdogan was being hosted by the UK and met with the Queen and the British PM. Thirdly, and this is the most important point IMO; Ozil is Turkish in addition to being German; one of his countries Turkey is being ruled by a dictator unfortunately; for those of you who have been lucky enough to live in democracies all your life I really don't think you get how countries ruled by dictators work. For example, if you go to the old Libya thread, you will see exactly what I thought of our former dictator Geddaffi, but when he was in power there was no way I would ever risk airing such views in public; its simply not worth it and would only end with you being exiled from your country or imprisoned/your assets seized or a number of terrible options. If I was a public figure and Geddaffi asked me for a photo, you can be sure as hell that I would have taken it even while hating him and his policies.
Also I don't understand why some of you are bringing up his football into this, I don't think his performances or his football have anything to do with this. In all cases, the German manager, and the Real Madrid Manager previously all thought he was a player that deserved to be a regular and consistent starter in the German NT and Real Madrid, so whatever your opinions about him are, they're obviously not shared by those two top class managers that coached him.
özil was used by erdogan for political purposes, and özil was dumb enough to gladly participate in erdogan's campaign. he simply could have said 'no' to that pic, or postpone it a bit. everyone with a brain should have known that such a photo would stir up some controversy around his national team. posing with a politician will always send a political message, simple as that. it was an unfortunate decision, and he payed the price.
i'm not following the german nt too closely, i just saw their matches during the wc, but based on that, hoeness was more right than rude with özil. his performances were simply awful. as far as i see it, he's not a victim of racial abuse here, but the victim of his own choices.
i'm not following the german nt too closely, i just saw their matches during the wc, but based on that, hoeness was more right than rude with özil. his performances were simply awful. as far as i see it, he's not a victim of racial abuse here, but the victim of his own choices.
He's not a victim of racial abuse in this case at all as far as I can tell. I think we've already established that. His performances were no worse than his teammates, the whole team played poorly(defense even worse than the offensive players for sure).
But back to the original topic. Again, the guy still has roots in Turkey, no he couldn't say no or postpone a picture with Erdogan. Did you see what has happened to other Turkish public figures who either explicitly or implicitly were adjudged to have been against Erdogan?
But back to the original topic. Again, the guy still has roots in Turkey, no he couldn't say no or postpone a picture with Erdogan. Did you see what has happened to other Turkish public figures who either explicitly or implicitly were adjudged to have been against Erdogan?
His performances have not helped him. He has looked uninterested for years now.
I do agree with your opinion that it matters that he's Turkish too and that Erdogan, as of yet, is still the president of Turkey. I guess in a way you could say it should always be an honour to meet your president. But I can also perfectly understand the outrage, because you always have the responsibility to try and understand if the person you're meeting is someone you actually want to meet.
I don't think the threat of Erdogan doing something to Ozil or Ozil's family is a real one. Germany would not take kindly to that at all.
Because Erdogan would be so bold to assassinate a high profile German NT player?