They'd just show up, play until they started to lose, then blow themselves up because of all of the oppression.

Then, of course, the Guardian would have a feature story on their blown Olympic hopes because their star forward was the one carrying the bomb.

cirby didn't get the joke, either.

I don't get it. Does this mean I'm a terrorist?

I'm guessing it's a reference to the 1914 christmas truce, where football matches were played in the no-man's land between trenches. Just shows the difference between that war and this one ... lots less common ground for peace to grow on this time.

apex

No, just that you're ignorant of a minor piece of military history, the Christmas truce of 1914 when the various sides mingled together and a number of football matches were played between the two sides.

And you know what? Recent military history (forget the source - hung-over like a bastard) strongly suggests that the plucky Brits lost 3-2. Whether that counts as a home or an away fixture is admittedly a somewhat moot point.

Seriously though, there is a real point here. US troops in WW-2 were (this was studied extensively) much more likely to say of German prisoners, "they're just a bunch of blokes like us" and give them a smoke than they were with the Japanese. When wars occur across a deep, incomprehensible, cultural fracture they are especially vicious.

And no, I'm not being a cultural relativist because every fibre of my being just knows our lads & lasses (Brits, Yanks, Danes, whatever) are right. Our culture is (was?) dominated by the concept of honour and theirs is governed by shame. Or in short, the Royal Marines strapped themselves to Apaches to rescue the body of a fallen comrade whilst the Taliban cover themselves in glory by killing schoolgirls.

"Our culture is (was?) dominated by the concept of honour and theirs is governed by shame."

Technically, in social-science-speak 'shame' doesn't contrast with 'honor', it contrasts with 'guilt'. The purpose of both shame and guilt function as negative motivators to pressure people to not misbehave. That is one does not misbehave in order to avoid the negative feelings of shame or guilt.

guilt - One's private conscience limits (ideally) transgression. That is, even if no one finds out you did something wrong, you're still supposed to feel bad.

shame - Transgression limited (ideally) by social pressure. If other people think (rightly or wrongly) that you did something wrong, you feel shamed (as do those associated with you).

All cultures (and all non-sociopathic individuals) have ideas of guilt and shame and both play a role in limiting social transgressions. But typically one or the other is more important (often extremely so), making it possible to talk about shame cultures and guilt cultures.

Most European cultures are guilt cultures.

I don't know enough about Afghan culture to say, but I would assume that social control is affected more by shame than guilt and probably honor (a different concept contrasted more with law than with shame or guilt).

Never mind the football, just settle back and look at some porn lads! (That's if it's o.k. with NuLabour.)

I thought the joke was getting muslim extremists to handle a ball made of pig skin.

That would make sense if the person being quoted was American, but I don't think many Americans are to be found in the Royal Military.

(On the small chance that there are any Americana-impaired readers here, an informal name for the ball used in American football is 'pigskin')

That raised a smile. My hat off to the soldier.