Football and Other Religions

By Andika Gunadarma 

There are only two things that can unite and at the same time divide the Indonesian people: they are football and religion. 

I’m not a huge football fan like most guys in Indonesia. I’m also not a fanatic supporter of any particular religion. For me football and religion have different purposes, different merit but collegially, somehow they can both create a similar effect on behavior, especially of men.

In some countries, football clubs (or soccer in the US) can be considered of equal importance to religion. Both religion and football have their fans and some “fanatics” fans that are willing to go and do things without clarifying their individual motives and legitimacy of action. Fans of religion and football meet on their ‘holy days,’ be it on Sunday or Friday or any other day at churches or mosques for religion, and stadiums or bars for football fans.

These “organizations/clubs” have leaders and followers, these leaders usually have prominent control over their followers, and I’m telling you these followers are not just loyal but also committed.

“Fans” of both religion and football cherish and support their team for better and for worse, and they will mock and (if they feel they need to) fight supporters of different teams.

Ever since the heyday of the Roman Empire, governments all over the world have used both “sports/entertainment” and religion as a means for political objectives and social control. By using sports or religion, one might point out, that one can generate a significant number of followers. It is easier because once a person becomes a follower they tend to buy into the culture and become committed to the group behavior” the person’s identity molds into the group identity.

If you live in a country that has a 250 million strong population, 90% of which are devoted to one particular religion, and football is the number one sport, once you have control over sport or religion, you control the people.

And if you somehow manage to control both at the same time, you are God.

Politicians and corrupt government officials allegedly and anecdotally use either of these two “groups” as a facility for their personal gain, it can be for financial gain, political ends or simply for the thrill of it. All they have to do is to control the leaders of these groups, usually with false promises, and they can make these groups do anything they want (usually to be present at a particular venue as a show of force).

Individually people have different needs, but when they are in groups these needs are sublimed by the group’s needs, and those needs are usually easier to achieve or otherwise seem to be straightforward. The good thing is that whenever the group’s needs are fulfilled it has the psychological effect of fulfilling the personal needs (a sense of purpose, usually) of the group’s members, because it is very hard to negotiate individual needs when you are already committed to a group.

In a football match the winner will be decided by a score, while in religion there can’t be any one winner or loser, and there is no way on earth that we can (or should be able to) measure that. It is not a competition for righteousness, for “heaven’s” sake!

The worst part of this situation in the context of modern Indonesia is the referee. In football a person (a mere mortal) is responsible for keeping the game “fair”. There are also rules designed by man that allows the game to be played in harmony. Players, officials and supporters can protest the decisions of the referee, and there are countless examples of a referee having been found guilty of fixing the game, which at times leads to substantial public outrage.

However in religion we have a different set of so-called ‘rules.’

No human being would or should have the capacity to become a “referee” between religious beliefs. It is not within our realm of perception or senses that another human being could decide on which religion is “the right” religion.

Whenever a fight breaks out between two football supporters it will probably last for several hours at most. But when a fight breaks out because of inter-religious tension it could explode into a war that could last for thousands of years. It doesn’t matter who started it, but for “God sake,” it’s NOT for us to decide how it should end.

There cannot be a winner in this situation, and in the end, everyone is a loser. Only God has the right to decide, whether in this life or the next one.

“You shall have your religion and I shall have my religion” (The Quran, 109:6)