{"id":245230,"date":"2023-07-11T14:21:02","date_gmt":"2023-07-11T13:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/spgb\/?post_type=snippet&p=245230"},"modified":"2023-07-11T14:32:02","modified_gmt":"2023-07-11T13:32:02","slug":"anyone-for-tennis","status":"publish","type":"snippet","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/spgb\/snippet\/anyone-for-tennis\/","title":{"rendered":"Anyone for tennis?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Samuel Johnson called patriotism ‘the last refuge of the scoundrel<\/a>‘, but apparently he only meant the opportunistic, virtue-signalling kind. Socialists despise all nationalism, because it props up the capitalist mindset and justifies wars. It’s also bloody silly.<\/p>\n

This year, when Ukrainian tennis players draw matches with players from countries supporting Russia, they still play (because\u2026 money) but pointedly refuse the traditional end-of-play handshake. When Elina Svitolina narrowly defeated Belarusian Victoria Azarenka at Wimbledon, the usually respectful crowd booed Azarenka off court<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Blaming tennis players for what governments do \u2013 especially totalitarian ones \u2013 shows what a meaningless abstraction nationalism is. Meanwhile ‘evil’ Azarenka won’t be too upset, having clocked up $36m in prize money<\/a>, while ‘patriotic heroine’ Svitolina has amassed $21m<\/a>. New balls please.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","class_list":["post-245230","snippet","type-snippet","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/spgb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/snippet\/245230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/spgb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/snippet"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/spgb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/snippet"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/spgb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}