Australia's Nestory Irankunda, born in a Tanzanian refugee camp in 2006 to Burundian parents, became the youngest player to ever score at the World Cup for the Socceroos, in his team's win over Turkey in Vancouver.Lee Smith/Reuters
On the eve of the World Cup, Australia’s men’s soccer team released a video.
It opens with defender Thomas Deng saying he was born in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya to parents who were South Sudanese. The next player talks about being part of family that fled Cyprus. Another says he was born in Italy. Another Guinea. The next Scotland.
Somehow, they all ended up in Australia playing football for the Socceroos – yes, that’s indeed what the men’s team is called.
“The Socceroos aren’t just a team,” one player says. “We are a reflection of modern Australia.”
And then different players take turns continuing with the theme: “Our diversity is our strength.” “The Socceroos are the best representation right now of what Australia is ….”
There’s been a lot of discussion leading up to this World Cup about, well, immigration and immigrants. It’s not a surprise. One of the host nations is led by a far-right anti-immigration zealot. U.S. President Donald Trump’s view of immigrants, particularly those from Africa, have cast a pall on this tournament, at least that part being played in his country.
Many of the players competing for teams suiting up for games in the U.S. come from the same African nations Mr. Trump called “shitholes.”
“Sadly, if you import people from Third World Countries, you quickly become a Third World Country,” the President said in one post.
Interestingly, the U.S.’s Game 1 hero at this World Cup was striker Folarin Balogun, who scored twice. The only reason he’s playing for the U.S. is because his Nigerian-born mother was pregnant with him when she visited New York many years ago. She was refused permission by U.S. airlines to return home to England because of her condition and consequently gave birth to Folarin in the U.S., automatically granting him American citizenship. If the Trump administration has its way, this provision of birthright law in the U.S. will be no more.
Folarin Balogun (20) of the United States had two goals in his team's win against Paraguay.Andre Penner/The Associated Press
In some ways, the U.S. is the best place to host the World Cup, and in others the worst. The aforementioned policies of the Trump government have had a chilling effect on the World Cup; 39 countries are under full or partial travel bans. The State Department has suspended issuing visas for 19 of those countries, including four competing in the World Cup. A FIFA referee from Somalia was denied entry and had to go home.
It’s simply gross.
And yet, the number of foreign-born individuals from the U.S. has surpassed 50 million. There are large diasporas from any number of nations around the globe.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton was part of the U.S. pitch team vying for the 2022 World Cup, which eventually went to Qatar. But he said at the time: “Maybe America’s best claim to this World Cup is that we have the only nation … that can guarantee, no matter who makes the final, we can fill a stadium with home-nation rooters.”
Yes, there are few away teams in America.
There is something wonderful about the World Cup though: for one month at least, this anti-immigrant surge we can see and feel around the world kind of melts away. It truly is a global celebration and almost a representation of the best of mankind. And I say this despite FIFA’s best efforts to corrupt everything about this spectacular event.
Opinion: FIFA president offers no apologies at this eat-what-you-kill World Cup
Australians have some of the most enthusiastic sports fans on the planet, and their presence at the World Cup has confirmed that. They cheered wildly for Nestory Irankunda, the 20-year-old who wrote his name in the Aussie record books for being the youngest scorer in the World Cup for the Socceroos. Irankunda was born in a Tanzanian refugee camp in 2006 to Burundian parents who fled their homeland because of civil war and were accepted by Australia.
But it’s been pointed out by more than a few people that the current rise in anti-immigrant sentiment in Australia, in part fueled by the opposition One Nation party, would make a story like Nestory Irankunda’s impossible in the future. His parents wouldn’t be allowed in the country.
Look around the world. It’s happening everywhere: England, France, Italy, Germany … there is an anti-immigrant backlash that provides an uncomfortable backdrop to this World Cup.
Canada is not immune to this phenomenon. Immigration has also been curtailed here but not because our government thinks certain countries are unworthy to be welcomed. Rather it’s because we couldn’t sustain the levels at which immigrants were arriving; the infrastructure (housing, jobs, social services) wasn’t available.
Canada's Joel Waterman, left and Canada's Tani Oluwaseyi, react after the end of their team's Group B draw with Bosnia-Herzegovina in Toronto last week.Stephanie Scarbrough/The Associated Press
But I don’t think there is any question about the love Canadians have for their men’s team, in all its multi-ethnic glory.
Jesse Marsch, the U.S.-born coach of the Canadian team, said he had to learn a lot about what it meant to be Canadian when he first arrived. He said one of the things that impressed him the most was how much his players loved each other.
“Even though there were differences,” Marsch said, “their back stories had similarities: first and second-generation Canadian, Portuguese, French, Jamaican, Colombian, Scottish …”
He could have added Ivorian, Ghanaian, Nigerian.
“Every one of these boys is incredibly Canadian,” Marsch went on. “And the pride they have in putting on the jersey, representing the country, hearing the national anthem ... ”
If nothing else, I hope this World Cup reminds us who we are as Canadians and why we can never change from being the open-armed, open-hearted country that we are. We are proof that what makes us different, makes us stronger.
It will not always be a smooth ride. But it’s where we end up as a nation that’s most important.