The Refusal to Sing: Affective Demands on Athletes of Color in German National Football 69 The Refusal to Sing: Affective Demands on Athletes of Color in German National Football Kate Zambon University of New Hampshire Abstract: This paper analyzes the emergence of public debates about the obligation of athletes with transnational heritage to perform the national anthem� While the sporting national anthem has a contentious history in Germany, the question of the obligation to sing only emerged in 2010, once Germany’s men’s national football team began to reflect the true diversity of the citizenry. As some players chose to pray or silently focus and reflect during those crucial moments before the match, commentators began to raise questions about their commitment and true loyalties� Discourse around national sports reflects and reconstructs national politics of culture, race, and citizenship� It both symbolizes the optimism of national communities and reveals the fragility of support for celebrated “role models of integration�” Every time the anthem plays and the cameras pan player’s faces, the audience is invited to scrutinize and interpret their emotions and motivations� Beyond the right to judge, media discourse has established the public’s entitlement to command (minoritized) players’ bodies� This study analyzes the asymmetrical power of competing narrations by the mainstream media and players themselves� However, while players’ voices were elicited only to be dismissed, the persistent non-performance of the anthem exerted its own counterhegemonic effect. Athletes’ assertion of control over their bodies and voices became an act of resistance� While this debate demonstrates the depth of racist logics underlying the self-declared positivity of “soccer patriotism,” it also reveals how small counterhegemonic acts can shatter that benign façade by making racism visible� Keywords: football, national anthem, performance, minority, German national team, transnational heritage, patriotism, mainstream media, resistance 70 Kate Zambon Children march onto the field, leading uniformed men by the hand to line up, shoulder-to-shoulder, flanked by enormous national flags and looking out onto the roiling sea of fans� The announcer’s voice booms through the stadium announcing the anthem moments before the first swelling orchestral chords fill the space� The cameras perform a slow, close-up tracking shot of players’ faces� Nationwide, from the public viewing spaces to private homes, the screen asks viewers to evaluate and compare each athlete’s performance� Are their lips moving? Are their voices audible? Do their chests heave with emotion? What feeling can be read in their eyes? Does the spirit of the national anthem move them? Are they genuinely committed to their side in the battle ahead, to their role as warriors fighting for national supremacy? Do they “look German”? This article analyzes public debates about the obligation of national team footballers with transnational heritage to perform the national anthem� Analysis of press discourse shows that this topic only emerged as a focus of national debate after players of color became a substantial part of the German national team in 2010� As this issue became a heated national debate in subsequent years, journalists interrogated players about their refusal to sing only to dismiss or ignore their nuanced sentiments and reasoning� Players of color were repeatedly asked to explain themselves, although their answers were never enough� Despite the disproportionate weight given to the claims of their critics, the persistence of their performative non-performance of the anthem exerted its own counterhegemonic effect. Athletes’ assertion of control over their bodies and mental preparation became an act of resistance� While this debate demonstrates the depth of racist logics underlying the self-declared positivity of “soccer patriotism,” it also reveals how easily small counterhegemonic acts can shatter that benign façade by making racism visible� International competition turns athletes into living symbols of the nation� The carefully choreographed cameras and running commentary of mediated international sports reproduce familiar tropes and narratives of racial, gendered, and national differentiation. 1 Drawing on an archive of 353 news and magazine articles, 2 this paper analyzes the public debate around the obligation of athletes with transnational heritage to perform the German national anthem� Articles were combined from a custom Google search of 177 German newspaper archives curated by onlinenewspapers�com, as well as a custom search curated by the author of the 10 highest circulating periodicals in Germany� For historical perspective, the corpus includes results mentioning the national anthem, singing, and football from the complete archives of Der Spiegel beginning in 1954� The obligation to sing ( Singpflicht) became a policy proposal in 2012, but it began with speculation about the commitment and true national allegiance of immigrant and minority players in the 2010 men’s FIFA World Cup in South Africa� The Refusal to Sing: Affective Demands on Athletes of Color in German National Football 71 Minoritized players are a central part of new soccer patriotism narratives� The beginnings of this narrative element appeared with the 2006 World Cup in Germany, which spurred unprecedented marketing and promotional projects by media, industry, and the federal government to both promote Germany on the world stage and to prepare Germans to be appropriately enthusiastic and patriotic fans (Speth)� The most prominent and expensive of these campaigns, under the slogan Du bist Deutschland (You Are Germany), earned praise for its inclusion of Ghanaian-born German national team player, Gerald Asamoah and several other entertainers of color. While it was an important affirmation that people of color can, indeed, “be Germany,” the campaign’s neoliberal ethos of citizenship through productivity set up new limitations on belonging� These new frameworks of citizenship and nationalism came into full focus in the 2010 World Cup, when half of the German team had immigrant heritage� 3 With his outstanding World Cup debut in 2010, Mesut Özil attracted special acclaim as a symbol of “successful integration” and as proof of the openness of German society� At the same time, alongside his fellow starting players Sami Khedira and Jerome Boateng, Özil became a lightning rod of suspicion about the loyalties and commitments of these new “cosmopolitan” players, exemplified in the now perennial debate about their obligation to perform the national anthem� While this debate reveals the tenacity of racialized nationalism within the celebratory framework of “soccer patriotism,” it also shows that small counterhegemonic “acts of citizenship” (Isin and Nielsen 2) can reveal how supposedly apolitical national sporting spectacles reproduce white Christian normativity� The public act of refusing to conform to hegemonic demands lays the foundations for future protests and claims to substantive citizenship� This case opens opportunities for transnational comparison analyzing the public responses to athletes’ attempts to assert their voices in the nationalist symbolic space of mediated sports� While it is beyond the scope of this paper, there are striking transnational similarities linking responses to athletes who use their platform to resist the racism of national publics that devalue the voices and the lives of “others�” These connections are especially clear between Germany and the U�S, from the national anthem protests of NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and Mesut Özil’s condemnation of racism in his 2018 resignation to recent criticism of human rights abuses in China by Özil and NBA executives, fans, and players� The debate around the obligations and constraints on athletes’ speech and action in this paper sheds light on of the politics and nationalist symbolism of mediated sports in a global world� As Germany is experiencing a resurgence of far-right nationalism like many other established democracies globally, this case study shows that white Chris- 72 Kate Zambon tian nativist notions of German identity and demands for increased nationalism do not only come from the extremist margins of society� International sporting events like the Men’s FIFA World Cup 4 normalize nationalist hegemonies while obscuring this ideological role� Through a productive contradiction, political projects built around sports do so in part by claiming that sports are apolitical� This position holds that political protests corrupt of the “purity” of sporting competition by inserting politics where they do not belong� It is not accidental that this assertion often pairs with the celebration of “healthy” patriotism facilitated by international sporting events� Like sports themselves, this patriotism is framed as fun, natural, and, somehow, apolitical� However, as symbolically laden events, sporting spectacles are ideally situated to produce nationalist consciousness� Hobsbawm saw the rise of mass mediated international sporting competitions as deeply intertwined with the emergence of modern nationalism� He argued that international sporting competitions are the most potent means of making “national symbols part of the life of every individual” (142), spurring individuals to identify with the nation embodied by individual athletes� Maurice Roche concurs, finding that international sports provide occasions to invent and imagine national tradition and community and to “construct and present images of themselves for recognition in relation to other nations” (6)� Mediated sports are thus a crucial field for the cultivation of hegemonic frameworks of common consciousness, the foundation of all national politics� While scholarly analyses of sports have obliterated the mythology that sports can ever be apolitical, 5 the prevailing view in the media is that sport is a “harmless party providing important social release and cohesion in chaotic and harried postmodern times” (Wenner 6)� From this perspective, politics is an unwelcome intrusion that ruins the party� However, popular conceptions of “the political” rarely include the naturalized political acts perpetuating nationalist norms, 6 such as beginning sporting events with the national anthem and compelling players to stand or even sing� Instead, the idea of “politics” is only applied to those who challenge white, Christian, and patriarchal power structures� This challenge may be an explicit moral or ethical stance or may simply consist of being or acting “out of place�” This definition of politics is evident in one article from the archive, a 2009 interview with former DFB president Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder in the rightwing newspaper, Junge Freiheit. Then interviewer repeatedly criticizes sanctions against soccer fans who hurl racist abuse at athletes of color� The interviewer concedes that the heckling of Nigerian player, Adebowale Ogungbure, by imitating a monkey was “politisch unter der Gürtellinie” 7 but asks whether sanctions show that “Politik [ist] also inzwischen wichtiger als die Leistung der Mannschaft auf dem Platz? ” 8 In the familiar vocabulary of right-wing culture The Refusal to Sing: Affective Demands on Athletes of Color in German National Football 73 warriors across borders, the interviewer worries that “bald gelten auch nichtrassistische Aussagen als ‘rassistisch’” and that “Fußball wird zum Mittel, das Volk politisch korrekt zu erziehen” (Schwartz)� 9 Mayer-Vorfelder holds firm to the liberal democratic position that racism should not be tolerated, although he does state that players with a migration background “[müssen] sich auch zu unseren deutschen Grundwerten bekennen” 10 and he links this to the expectation that they sing the national anthem before games� In this example, sanctions against racist acts qualifies as political intervention, whereas requiring symbolic nationalist performance does not� The mere presence of athletes from minoritized groups in the symbolically laden roles of national athletes can be a political act triggering racist backlash� In more blatant examples this manifests in overt rejection, such as far-right AfD politician Alexander Gauland’s claim in 2016 that Germans accept Ghanaian-German player Jerome Boateng as a footballer, but “sie wollen einen Boateng nicht als Nachbarn haben” (qtd. in Wehner and Lohse). 11 When challenged, Gauland later absurdly claimed that he had no idea that Boateng was “ farbig ” (colored) when he made that statement (Dargent)� This disingenuous color-blind self-defense was belied further when he later responded to a question about players with immigrant ancestry by claiming that their presence meant that “eine deutsche oder eine englische Nationalmannschaft sind eben schon lange nicht mehr deutsch oder englisch im klassischen Sinne� Fußball ist letztlich eine Geldfrage und keine Frage der nationalen Identität mehr” (qtd� in Amann and Feldenkirchen) � 12 In a move the incorporates both racist notions of national identity and antisemitic tropes, Gauland argues that the presence of players of color is antithetical to Germanness and shows that the sport is corrupted by moneyed interests� More commonly, however, these racialized reactions appear in more subtle forms, such as the disproportionate policing and scrutiny of minoritized athletes’ performances on and off the field. The debates around the obligation of national players to sing the national anthem shows how celebratory coverage of new German diversity combines with narratives of suspicion and control� When the presence of minoritized bodies is a provocation, a small act of autonomy-the refusal to perform a symbolic act on demand-may be politically potent� The vaunted multikulti team of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa came to symbolize the strength of a new, inclusive Germany� 13 Turkish-German midfielder Mesut Özil emerged as a breakout national star� Özil and his German-born national teammates Jerome Boateng and Sami Khedira were widely lauded as “examples of successful integration�” The only two players who immigrated to Germany were Polish-born players, Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski� These players, who immigrated as ethnic-German Aussiedler, attracted less attention regarding “inte- 74 Kate Zambon gration,” suggesting that immigration itself was a less salient factor than apparent religious or racial difference. No single demographic characteristic unites all these players, except that they all carry some trace of transnational heritage� Those who were celebrated as “examples of integration” might have a white German parent, or they might not� They might have immigrated to Germany, or their family may have resided there for generations� They might be white (in the case of those on the team who actually immigrated), or they might be identifiable as people of color� They might be Christian, Muslim, or not religious at all� This diversity makes discussing the racial project evident in integration discourse and in this particular case difficult. 14 In contrast, the media’s division of players into unqualified Germans and “migrant” others was so reflexive it required little elaboration. While Germany celebrated the national team for its unprecedented diversity in 2010, observers in the public sphere began commenting on the practice of some of the team’s immigrant and visible minority players to focus in silence during the national anthem� This observation set the stage for heated recurring debates that reflect the surveillance and perpetual evaluation that accompanied the entrance of transnational Germans into the heart of national symbolic space� Before the turn of this century, the sports national anthem was not a significant object of media discussion� Archive searches in Der Spiegel return only sparse mention of the anthem and soccer before 2000� Searches of Der Spiegel’ s archive for the terms Fußball, singen, AND Nationalhymne returned only 12 results in its first 52 years of publication. From 2000 to 2019, the same search returned 93 results, two-thirds of which were written since 2010. The first spike in interest in this topic coincided with Germany’s preparation to host the 2006 World Cup� Before and during the tournament, the anthem appears most often as a naturalized part of football narration� Describing how the anthem plays with the subject standing hand-over-heart to sing is a standard element of the football story� Sometimes it simply sets the stage and others it provides the emotional apogee as the narrator or subject describes the dissolution of the self through the unifying power of the national ritual� A handful of articles summarize the history of the German anthem and its connection to national football, including the exuberant and politically problematic outbreak of the anthem- including the excised first verse declaring “ Deutschland über alles” -after West Germany’s surprising victory in the 1954 World Cup final. One of the powerful aspects of sporting spectacles is their recursive nature� Their retrospective, repetitive template allows myths and associations to be established in collective memory, whether celebrations of national euphoria, as in 1954, or patterns and stereotypes defining “the national” against its “others.” 15 Before 2010, when the players were almost exclusively white Germans, there was no sustained discussion about whether or how national players sang along with the anthem� The Refusal to Sing: Affective Demands on Athletes of Color in German National Football 75 Despite the relative lack of interest in players’ performance of the national anthem before the debut of the mulitikulti team, several of the earlier articles in the Spiegel a rchive provide elements of the script for future discussions� The clearest example comes from 1984 when the magazine celebrated that “Endlich singen Deutschlands Nationalkicker die Nationalhymne mit” before coyly asking if this might be “das Geheimnis des Sieges? ” (“Deutsche Töne” 227)� 16 This article includes the affective and logical narratives that echo through the post-2010 coverage, though with a very different tenor. The playing of the anthem is described as “bewegend” (moving) and the players praised according to how “kräftig,” “mit Herz,” and “voller Inbrunst” 17 their performances were� This article praises the nationalist vision of DFB President Hermann Neuberger, who lamented that Germans had become a “gesichtsloses Volk” and advocated change by turning the national team into an “Ersatzschule der Nation” (qtd in “Deutsche Töne” 228)� As became clear a generation later, when the faces representing the nation were no longer exclusively white, the demands for serving this nationalist pedagogical role intensified sharply. Another idea that became a staple of future anthem discussions is the idea that the performance of the anthem determines the outcome of the game� The article retrospectively declares that their zealous performance of the anthem made their victory against the “emotionsarmen schwedischen Geradeausguckern” (“Deutsche Töne” 227) 18 a foregone conclusion� The tone in articles in these earlier articles is playful and positive� After 2010, however, instead of occasional celebrations of those who sing, attention shifted almost exclusively towards those who did not, asking both implicitly and explicitly about their divided loyalties and suggesting, then demanding, obligatory performance� A custom search of the archives of 177 German newspapers 19 with the same search terms used above returned two articles before 2010 that discussed players who choose not to sing. The first, from the online news portal, News.de, in 2008, covers players’ statements about their preparations for the game during the anthem, focusing on their decision whether to sing along� The article mentions the foreign birth of three players, all ethnic-Germans from Poland� Miroslav Klose says that he sings the German anthem but does not know the words to the Polish anthem� The other two Polish-born players “halten es anders als Klose� Ihre Lippen bewegen sich nicht während der deutschen Nationalhymne” (“Fußballer und die Nationalhymne”). 20 The article then shifts to look at the future team, naming U-21 team members Sami Khedira and Ashkan Dejagah as two players who “lassen sich nicht vom Gesang der Mitspieler mitreißen�” 21 This article provides space for the players’ explanations of their decisions (which are discussed further below) and also notes that it is not a universal international norm that national athletes sing along� While the article does not pass judgement explicitly, the fact that 76 Kate Zambon the only names mentioned in the article are not “traditionally” German stands out and begs the questions that will become staples of future debates, namely about the dedication and loyalty of players bearing the traces of migration� The second article to focus on players choosing not to sing before 2010 foreshadows the ambivalence of the coverage to come� With the headline “Multi- Kulti-Mannschaft steht für erfolgreiche Integration” (Ritter), 22 the article from the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung about the U-21 national team turns the diversity of the team into a symbol of the openness of contemporary Germany� A quote from team manager Oliver Bierhoff touts diversity as evidence “das zeigt, welch integrativen Charakter der Fußball hat” (qtd� in Ritter)� 23 Like integration discourse more generally, where praise of individual success is always accompanied by reminders of indelible otherness, the question about players’ national loyalty is the unifying theme of the article� The lead claims that “Die deutsche Nationalhymne haben sie noch nicht verinnerlicht, doch die Entscheidung für ihre neue Heimat ist längst gefallen�” 24 Despite the spurious reference to a “new homeland” for players who were mostly born and raised in Germany, many of whom have at least one German parent, this lead seems to accept players’ choice to play for Germany as a statement of allegiance� At the same time, by opening with a patronizing and presumptuous reference to minority and immigrant player’s failure to “internalize” the national anthem suggests that their membership is not full-fledged. The rest of the article follows this pattern, apparently marshalling evidence that players belong on the national team while only players with transnational traces are forced to demonstrate their dedication. Not singing the German anthem looms as counterevidence that players with transnational heritage are forced to address� Figure 1: The caption for this photograph in Die Welt reads, “Schweiger und Sänger: Die deutschen Spieler mit Migrationshintergrund lauschen der Nationalhymne mit geschlossenen Lippen, der Rest singt inbrünstig mit�” (Spoerr) 25 The Refusal to Sing: Affective Demands on Athletes of Color in German National Football 77 These two articles presage the debate that broke in the public before the 2010 tournament when former national team member, trainer and DFB vice president, Franz Beckenbauer criticized the national players who chose not to sing along with the national anthem before games� The popular tabloid, Bild manufactured and cultivated the controversy starting with a comment from a reader who stated that it “irritated” him that not all of “our players” sing the German anthem (“Franz Beckenbauer fordert”)� Beckenbauer responded that the reader was right to be irritated and that all players have the obligation to sing along� As the manager of the national team in 1984, Beckenbauer joined DFB President Neuberger to introduce the expectation that players sing the anthem as a tactical, aesthetic, and nationalist tool� Again in the 2010 Bild interview, Beckenbauer cited aesthetic reasons (“[Es] ist optisch schöner, wenn alle mitsingen” 26 ) as well as claiming that when singing the anthem, “man dann eine ganz andere Einstellung hat, sich viel mehr identifiziert” 27 (qtd� in “Franz Beckenbauer fordert”) Beckenbauer’s elevated stature in German football as “Kaiser Franz” made his statements newsworthy� Other outlets picked up the story and Bild kept the topic in public view, surveilling “welcher Spieler singt und wer schweigt” (“Der Hymen-Streit”) 28 and asking about the obligation to sing at press conferences and interviews with team members� Bild did not manufacture the story alone, however� In 2009, team manager Oliver Bierhoff reported that the team had received letters complaining about the number of players on the U-21 team who did not sing the anthem (Theweleit). Bierhoff refused to lend these criticisms too much weight, however, saying that they also get letters complaining about players’ haircuts� Still, in mediated sports, the cameras slowly panning players’ faces during the anthem invite audiences to pass judgement� Bild simply choose to elevate this response, legitimizing the right of audiences to demand minority players perform national symbolic acts to justify their place on the team. Nevertheless, in 2010 the topic of the so-called Hymnenstreit (anthem battle) was eclipsed by enthusiasm for “mehr Leistung durch Vielfalt” (Ashelm)� 29 The performance-orientated approaches to national team diversity predicate the legitimacy of a minoritized athlete’s membership on the success of the team overall, meaning a poor team performance puts disproportionate scrutiny on players of color� At a fundamental level, all team members must earn their place based on performance. This is the definition of elite sports. However, commentators assessing that performance are rarely as objective or dispassionate as they claim� Furthermore, when cultural and ethnic essentialism is framed in positive terms, it obscures the harms of constructing an essentialized other� When the value of minoritized players is tied to the supposed competitive advantage of 78 Kate Zambon their essentialized cultural difference, that same cultural difference may be singled out for blame in the case of a loss� One article from the left-leaning weekly national newspaper, Die Zeit, demonstrates the tensions within this “hybrid vigor” theory of teambuilding� The article declared the “Erfolgsgeheimnis” (secret to success) of the junior national team to be its “bunte Vielseitigkeit” ( colorful versatility) (Theweleit)� Under a photo of Nigerian-German player Denis Aogo, the caption evokes both racial and cultural essentialisms with a play on the team’s jersey colors, stating “Schwarz und weiß sind die Farben der deutschen Mannschaft: Dennis Aogo hat sich deutsche Tugenden angeeignet und sich afrikanische bewahrt” (Theweleit)� 30 Despite Aogo’s birth in Germany to a white German mother, he is said to have “acquired German virtues” rather than ascribing them as part of his birthright� The reference to African virtues is equally dubious, demonstrating the imperialist tendency to treat the world’s largest continent as a single culture� The article discusses the paucity of players from a “rein deutschen Elternhaus” 31 and dissects the backgrounds of players to uncover cultural and natural virtues of their heritage� The players repeat these racialized essentialisms when pressed� Aogo is quoted as saying “Es heißt ja immer, dass Afrikaner eine starke Physis mitbringen und Europäer taktisch gut ausgebildet sind, eine Mischung kann da schon positiv sein für eine Mannschaft” (qtd� in Theweleit) 32 echoing classic dehumanizing white supremacist tropes associating whiteness with intelligence and blackness with physicality� The article names a “Schattenseite” (shadow side) of this new diversity, namely, that transnational players may choose to play for Germany’s opposition� From the reporter’s perspective, the threat is the possibility of dual loyalty� For minoritized players, however, this bargain entails the expectation that your cultural difference will yield victory, or it may be suspected as the cause of defeat� With this framing established, after the team’s worse-than-expected performance in the 2012 European Championship, the national anthem debate flared again with new fervor� As the public sought who to blame for the early exit, commentators raised questions about the team identification and commitment of those who do not sing the German anthem� While diversity in 2010 was praised as the source of better performance, the early exit prompted assessments that “die deutsche Tugend auf dem Platz ist weg” (“Weltmeister schlägt Alarm”)� 33 Subsequently, politicians and leaders in the DFB proposed a Singpflicht ( “singing requirement”) for all national team players, while the team’s coach at the time, Joachim Löw, defended the freedom of players to choose how they prepare for the game during the anthem (“Diskussion ums Halbfinal- Aus bei der EM”)� Although the former DFB president Mayer-Vorfelder was credited with beginning to scout new talent in immigrant communities after The Refusal to Sing: Affective Demands on Athletes of Color in German National Football 79 disappointing performances in 1998 and 2000, he emerged in 2012 as one of the most strident voices calling for the expulsion of players who refuse to sing� In an interview with Bild, Mayer-Vorfelder dismissed coach Löw’s statement that he cannot force players to sing: “Klar kann man die Spieler zwingen� Wenn sich einer der Spieler dann immer noch beharrlich weigert, dann wird er eben nicht mehr eingeladen� Und wenn Löw einem seiner Spieler sagt, dass er singen muss, weil er sonst nicht mehr nominiert wird, dann wird er ganz schnell springen” (qtd� in Schmidt and Vielberg)� 34 Previously, the illiberalism of forcing players to sing gave even Beckenbauer pause. In 2010, he qualified his demand that players sing, saying “Vielleicht ist es demokratisch, das Mitsingen jedem selbst zu überlassen� Wir haben ja viele Spieler mit einem Migrationshintergrund” (Ashelm)� 35 What appears to be a concession to minority players in the last sentence, is contradicted by the fact that the obligation to sing only became a contentious national debate once minority players were involved� Still, whereas Beckenbauer was able to recognize that forcing athletes to sing the anthem violates liberal democratic values, such concerns did not trouble Mayer-Vorfelder and the proponents of a Singpflicht after the team’s poor performance in 2012� Once firmly established in the public consciousness, the anthem debate was renewed again in anticipation of the World Cup in 2014 and the European Championship in 2016� Winning “Integration Prizes” and even the World Cup in 2014 did not protect minoritized athletes from perpetual policing� When a photo opportunity with the Turkish president unleashed a renewed debate about Mesut Özil’s “divided loyalties” during the 2018 World Cup, the question of his “refusal” to sing the national anthem once again took center stage� The calls for the forced performance of symbolic nationalism belie the common narrative that awareness of the genocidal potential of nationalist excesses still dampens nationalism in Germany� While the media set the stage for normalized symbolic nationalism in the 2006 tournament, pointed public demands for “heartfelt” and “ardent” performances of the national anthem only appeared after Germany’s team became more diverse� The discourse around requiring national players to sing the anthem reflects the contradictions of mediated sporting spectacles outlined at the beginning of this article� First, sports are idealized as somehow beyond ideology, despite being among the most potent forums of national symbolic reproduction� Second, mediated sports are dependent on affective storytelling for building meaning and holding audience attention, while they are idealized as a form of popular culture that is more “real” than others. These contradictions are exemplified in a pair of commentaries from Die Welt during the World Cup in late June 2014 that take opposing positions on the national anthem question� Kathrin Spoerr, editor for 80 Kate Zambon Die Welt, urged three of the most-frequently targeted players of color to sing the anthem in the form of an open letter� It is worth quoting an extended excerpt from the letter since it provides a striking example of racialized and gendered discourses in soccer and narrates how the mediated experience of sports feeds expectations of affective satisfaction. Lieber Mesut Özil, lieber Sami Khedira, lieber Jerome Boateng, ich verstehe nicht viel von Fußball, aber ein bisschen verstehe ich doch davon� […] Ich muss sagen, die Sache mit dem Zusammenspielen, die klappt in der deutschen Mannschaft ganz gut� Eine andere Sache klappt nicht so gut� Sie wissen schon, wovon die Rede ist, richtig, von der Nationalhymne. Alle Spieler singen die Hymne - nur Sie drei nicht� Sie schweigen� […] Ich kann nichts anders - ich muss mich fragen: Was wollen Sie uns mit Ihrem Schweigen sagen? […] Ich mag Sie drei wirklich gern, weil Sie so nett aussehen, weil Sie so schnell laufen können und weil Sie Tore schießen wollen, damit Deutschland die beste Fußballmannschaft der Welt wird� […] Aber dann sehe ich Sie stehen und schweigen. Die Kamera filmt die singenden Münder. Die singenden Spieler, den singenden Trainer, die singende Reservebank. Nur Sie drei kneifen die Lippen zusammen wie Teenager, die ihre Eltern dafür bestrafen wollen, dass sie nicht cool genug sind� Sie stehen da und schweigen Millionen begeisterte Landsleute vor dem Fernseher an, die sich in diesem Moment nichts sehnlicher wünschen als eine Gänsehaut� Die sich wünschen, mit Ihnen zu einer singenden deutschen Fußball-Schicksalsgemeinschaft verschmelzen zu dürfen, sogar Leute wie ich, die nicht in der Lage sind, einen Elfmeter von einem Freistoß zu unterscheiden� […] Sie drei stehen stumm da und machen die schöne Idee kaputt, dass wir mit der Hymne zu einem einigen Ganzen werden könnten� Oder könnte es sein, dass das alles nur ein Missverständnis ist? Lieber Mesut, lieber Sami, lieber Jerome, jedes Mal, wenn ich Sie schweigen sehe, frage ich mich, was Sie wohl denken, während Deutschland singt� Ich glaube, ich weiß es: Sie denken gar nicht an die Türkei, an Tunesien und Ghana� Sie denken nicht über ihre nationale Identität nach� Sie denken: Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit für das deutsche Vaterland� Stimmts? Wie wäre es, wenn Sie nächstes Mal beim Denken einfach den Mund aufmachen? 36 (Spoerr) This commentary is followed by a counterpoint by a male colleague, Holger Kreitling, who argues that performance on the field is what matters and that not singing does not mean that the players are not patriotic� He also points out that before the team’s victory in the 1974 final no one, including Beckenbauer, sang and the anthem was not an issue� Ultimately, he argues for a purist approach to the sport on its own terms� In contrast to the female author of the The Refusal to Sing: Affective Demands on Athletes of Color in German National Football 81 first position who thrice proclaims her ignorance of the sport and disinterest in soccer outside of the national team, the second author cares about results and substance over symbolism� This juxtaposition reinforces gendered expectations that women have little understanding of soccer and are only interested in the narratives, pageantry, and emotion of international games, whereas men have a deeper, more technical interest in the “real” aspects of the game� The World Cup is framed as an exceptional event, where “even women” become soccer fans and patriotic displays are increasingly not only safe and normal, but they are also obligatory. Spoerr drives this point home, writing, “Die Nationalhymne interessiert mich ungefähr genauso wie der Fußball, nämlich normalerweise gar nicht� Aber wenn Fußballweltmeisterschaft ist, dann interessiert mich beides, der Fußball und die Hymne�” 37 Spoerr expresses her entitlement to demand that players fulfill her desire for the affective satisfaction of uncomplicated, frictionless “collective effervescence,” to reference Durkheim’s seminal theory. Spoerr is angry that these three players of color have “destroyed the beautiful idea” of perfect national unity� Possibly recognizing a problem with explicitly singling out three minority players for rebuke, she attempts to show that she is not prejudiced against them by complimenting their physical appearance, speed, and effectiveness in raising Germany to the top of the global (sports) hierarchy� This comment falls squarely in the terrain of the positively framed racism that flourishes in sports, where minoritized athletes are fetishized for their almost preternatural physical prowess and lauded for their physicality rather than their tactical or intellectual abilities� 38 After sexually objectifying these players, the author further demeans Özil, Boateng, and Khedira by infantilizing them and accusing them of petulance and spite toward their “uncool parents,” presumably here embodied by white German society� This infantilizing informality is also evident in Spoerr’s use of the players’ first names. To avoid blatantly accusing them of secret disloyalty by thinking instead of their fathers’ homelands (Boateng and Khedira have white German mothers), she presumes to fill their silence with her wishful projection that they must be mentally singing along� Spoerr concludes with the demand that they should “just open their mouths” next time� Spoerr not only erases minority players’ speech on this specific topic, but she also takes the liberty of ventriloquizing their thoughts and demanding they act according to her expectations� Spoerr’s commentary perfectly demonstrates the intersection of sexist and racist frameworks around soccer. She justifies her claims in terms of harmless fun and positive, unifying feelings� Although this open letter is an extreme example in that it illustrates so many tropes in such an unvarnished manner, the assumptions and expectations underlying it run throughout the soccer anthem archive� 82 Kate Zambon Having been scrutinized and critiqued for their failure to properly perform patriotism from the beginning of their careers on national team, players with transnational heritage had publicly accounted for and defended their practices during the anthem on multiple occasions, explaining that they use that moment to focus or pray� The earliest explanations in the archive include a rebuke in 2008 from Podolski’s representative that it was his personal decision and need not be brought into the public� The personal and private nature of their pregame preparation is a common theme expressed by players� In the same article, U-21 national team member Ashkan Dejagah stated, “Ich bin kein großer Sänger� Das gehört nicht in die Öffentlichkeit. Es reicht, wenn ich weiß, wie stolz ich bin, für den DFB zu spielen”(qtd. in “Fußballer und die Nationalhymne”). 39 Mesut Özil’s answer in a 2010 interview likewise asserts the right of players to their own mental space before games, affirming that “Jeder muss für sich wissen, ob er mitsingt� Man muss ja nicht unbedingt die Mundbewegung machen, vielleicht singt einer auch von innen” (qtd� in Dobbert)� 40 Özil then explains his own mental preparation which involves mentally reciting specific prayers, after which he prays to remain healthy� He states, “Das gibt mir Kraft� Hab das noch nie vergessen� Danach kann ich befreiter spielen�” 41 Özil’s answer reflects the importance of the personal ritual involved in mental preparation for performance� For many players, consistency in pre-game preparation also involves an element of confidence boosting athletic superstition. From his time on the U-21 national team until he stepped in as temporary national team captain in fall 2014, Sami Khedira resisted relentless public pressure to abandon his own practice of preparation in favor of singing the anthem� Khedira stood firm stating in 2010, “Ich bin der Meinung, dass ich nicht mit Singen irgendetwas vorspielen oder künstlich demonstrieren muss” (qtd� in Kneer)� 42 Answering the barrage of criticism in 2012, Khedira denounced those who seek to “reduce” minoritized players to the decision not to sing, thereby suggesting that they are not real Germans (Hummel)� In defense of the legitimate place of players with transnational heritage on the national team in 2012, Khedira argued that “Es ist ein gutes Zeichen, wenn man die Nationalhymne singt. Aber man wird dadurch kein guter Deutscher� Ein guter Deutscher wird man, wenn man die Sprache gut spricht und die Werte lebt� Und das ist bei uns allen der Fall” (qtd. in “Debatte um Nationalhymne ‘überflüssig’”). 43 Khedira accepts not only the positive value of performing patriotism but also the basic notion that belonging as a German is defined by speaking “good German” and adopting normative values� While refusing to alter his own performance under public pressure, Khedira otherwise affirms hegemonic values and upholds national norms. Under a recurring onslaught of scrutiny, maintaining commitment to personal autonomy in pre-game preparation became an act of resistance� The rea- The Refusal to Sing: Affective Demands on Athletes of Color in German National Football 83 sonable and nuanced demands of players to be allowed freedom and privacy in their mental and physical preparations for games were difficult to directly contest. Instead, Mayer-Vorfelder ridiculed Khedira, scoffing that “das glaubt doch kein Mensch, dass Khedira nicht mitsingt, weil er so einen großen Respekt vor Tunesien hat” (qtd� in Schmidt and Vielberg)� 44 Where direct engagement with Khedira’s reasoning would leave him at a disadvantage, Mayer-Vorfelder turns incredulous and mocking, and distorts Khedira’s explanation of his practices� Khedira had mentioned that his transnational heritage plays into his decision but focused more on claiming the space of the national anthem as a time for his own focus and preparation to perform the work of “serving” the nation as a national player� Indeed, none of the players framed their actions as a political protest� They repeatedly made statements to assuage majority anxieties about divided loyalties and their “true” national identification. Nevertheless, the symbolic power of their insistence on their personal autonomy sparked anger, frustration, mocking and celebration when non-singing players changed or were absent� This was evident in the glee expressed by one Bild commentator when Khedira eventually sang after being named team captain (Draxler)� It is also evident in an article from early 2014 with the headline, “Warum alle Spieler die Nationalhymne mitsangen,” which celebrated the restoration of singing uniformity when the non-singing starters were absent for an international friendly match, resulting in a fully white German, anthem-singing lineup (Wolff). Descriptions of the national anthem spectacle in the print media are replete with physical and affective elements, including frequent reference to upright bodies, moving lips, shining eyes, and heaving chests� They employ emotional descriptors of the physical sensation of watching and participating in the national ritual of the sporting national anthem. On television, the visual and affective social process is reactivated every time the anthem plays, guided by the choices in camera angles and framing� Photographs freeze the action to be incorporated later in slideshows on news websites documenting “who sings and who stays silent,” to be contextualized with additional information about the player’s foreign “roots” (“WM 2014”)� The present article captures the discursive framing of this process in print media debates, but this is only the tip of the iceberg� Every time the anthem plays and the cameras close in to pan player’s faces, the audience is invited to scrutinize and interpret their emotions and motivations and to discuss them in their communities� Beyond the right to judge, media discourse affirms the public’s entitlement to command (minoritized) players’ bodies and to demand that they display their loyalty to the nation not only in their athletic performance, but through an explicitly nationalist display� 84 Kate Zambon Discourse around national sports reflects and reconstructs national politics of culture, race, and citizenship� It both symbolizes the optimism of national communities and reveals the fragility of support for celebrated “role models of integration�” The rise of integration discourse is integral in the normalization of a nationalism that centers white Christian identity� This is the case not only in Germany but throughout Europe as the cohesion of the European Union falters in the face of nationalist commitments to regulating the population through controls on migration and restrictions on the rights of minoritized communities� Germany provides a particularly valuable case, however, because its history of atrocities committed in the name of the nation makes symbolic nationalism a contentious topic that is subject to considerable public debate� These mediated incidents mobilize celebrity athletes and entertainers as examples for celebration or scrutiny for their roles in the project of constructing the new “colorful” German nation� Notes 1 For more on the political economy and cultural politics of media and professional sport, see Lawrence Wenner’s edited collection, MediaSport � 2 The broadest search was for the terms nationalhymne AND singen � Other, more targeted searches include Singpflicht AND Nationalhymne , and Nationalhymne AND Integration � Even in searches that excluded the search term Fußball , results were overwhelmingly related to soccer� 3 See Stehle and Weber’s “German Soccer, the 2010 World Cup, and Multicultural Belonging” and Zambon’s “Producing the German Civic Nation: Immigrant Patriotism in Berlin's World Cup Flag Fight” for a more detailed analysis of this time frame� 4 Despite having one of the world’s top-ranked teams, the women’s FIFA World Cup in Germany does not exert the same symbolic nationalist force as the men’s competition, conforming with gendered notions of who may represent the nation� The women are given comparatively little coverage, except after having won a tournament� 5 See Timm Beichelt’s excellent 2018 book, Ersatzspielfelder: Zum Verhältnis von Fußball und Macht � 6 See Michael Billig’s seminal work, Banal Nationalism � 7 In English, one would say “[hitting] politically below the belt�” All translations in this article are my own unless otherwise noted� 8 “Politics are becoming more important than the performance of the team on the field.” The Refusal to Sing: Affective Demands on Athletes of Color in German National Football 85 9 “Even non-racist statements will be considered racist” and that “soccer will be made into a tool to educate the people in political correctness�” 10 “must recognize our fundamental German values” 11 “They would not want a Boateng for a neighbor�” 12 A German or English National team has long ceased to be German or English in the classical sense� Football is ultimately a question of money and no longer a question of national identity�” 13 For three studies analyzing race and national identity in constructions of the multicultural national team in 2010, see Gehring, Stehle and Weber, and Zambon� 14 See Fatima El-Tayeb’s books European Others and Undeutsch � 15 See Carola Daffner’s article, “Football, Mythology and Identity in Sönke Wortmann’s Deutschland. Ein Sommermärchen ” 16 “Finally, the national team sings along with the national anthem� The secret to victory? ” 17 “powerful,” “heartfelt,” and “fervent” 18 “emotionless, staring Swedes” 19 See source list at https: / / onlinenewspapers�com/ germany�shtml� 20 21 “HSV-midfielder Piotr Trochowski und Bayern-striker Lukas Podolski both also born in Poland, do it differently than Klose. Their lips do not move during the German national anthem�” 21 “refuse to be caught up in their teammates’ singing” 22 “Multi-kulti-team stands for successful integration” 23 “which shows what an integrative character football has” 24 “They have not yet internalized the German national anthem, but the decision for their new homeland ( Heimat ) has long been made�” 25 “The silent and the singers: The German players with a migration background listen to the national anthem with closed lips, the rest sing along ardently�” 26 “It looks better when everyone sings along�” 27 “In 1984, I introduced the singing of the anthem, because I think that one has a completely different attitude, and a much greater identification. In addition, it’s visually nicer when everyone singes along�” 28 “which players sing and who stays silent” 29 “increased performance through diversity” 30 “Black and white are the colors of the German team: Dennis Aogo has acquired German virtues and preserved African ones�” 31 “purely German household” 32 “They always say that Africans bring a strong physique and Europeans are tactically well-educated� A mix of both can be positive for a team�” 86 Kate Zambon 33 “German virtue is gone from the field.” 34 “Of course, you can force players� If one of the players still stubbornly refuses, then he will no longer be invited [to play on the team]� And if Löw tells his player he must sing otherwise he won’t be nominated, then he will quickly jump to it�” 35 “Perhaps it is democratic to leave it up to every individual whether to sing� We do have many players with a migration background�” 36 “Dear Mesut Özil, Sami Khedira, Jerome Boateng, I don't understand much about soccer, but I understand a little� […] I must say, the business of playing together works well on the German team� Something else does not work so well� You already know what I am talking about, right, about the national anthem� All the players sing the national anthem-only you three don’t� You stay silent� […] But I can’t help it-I have to ask myself: What are you telling us through your silence? […] I really like you three, because you look so good, because you can run so fast, and because you want to shoot goals so that Germany can become the best in the world� But then I see you standing there silently. The camera films the singing mouths� The singing players, the singing trainer, the singing reserve bench� Only you three clamp your lips together like teenagers who want to punish their parents for not being cool enough� You stand there and shun the millions of enthusiastic countrymen in front of their televisions, who are yearning for nothing more deeply in that moment than to get goosebumps, who wish to be allowed to melt into a singing German community of destiny, even people like me, who can’t tell the difference between a penalty and a free kick� […] You three stand there speechless and destroy the beautiful idea that by singing the national anthem we can become a whole� Or could it be that this is just a misunderstanding? Dear Mesut, Sami, Jerome, every time that I see you remain silent, I ask myself what you must be thinking while Germany sings� I think I know: You aren't thinking about Turkey, Tunisia, and Ghana� You aren't thinking about your national identity� You think, “ Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit für das deutsche Vaterland (unity and justice and freedom for the German fatherland)�” Right? How about next time you think it, you just open your mouths? ” 37 “The national anthem is just as interesting to me as soccer, which is to say normally not at all� But during the World Cup, I am interested in both, soccer and the anthem�” The Refusal to Sing: Affective Demands on Athletes of Color in German National Football 87 38 See John Hoberman’s 1997 book, Darwin’s Athletes � 39 “I’m no great singer� That doesn’t belong in public� It’s enough that I know how proud I am to play for the DFB�” 40 “Everyone has to know for themselves whether they sing along� You don’t necessarily have to move your mouth, maybe some sing along silently�” 41 “It gives me strength� I’ve never forgotten to do it� Afterwards I can play more freely�” 42 “I am of the opinion that I don’t have to pretend or artificially demonstrate something by singing�” 43 “Singing the national anthem is a good sign, but that doesn’t make you a good German� You become a good German when you speak the language well, and you live the values� And that is the case with all of us�” 44 “No one really believes that Khedira doesn’t sing because he has some great respect for Tunisia�” Works Cited Amann, Melanie, and Markus Feldenkirchen� “AfD: ‘Boateng will jeder haben’�” Spiegel Online, 03 June 2016 . 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