Violence is an inherent human instinct that enabled us in previous years to fight enemies and defeat attacking predators. In our present age, we have understood that sports are a way
to release violent charges and this is one of the reasons for civil and global peace.
We also spent a long time on horseback and traveling between forests and deserts on foot.
All of this made physical activity a necessary daily routine,
and we did not need to practice sports
as we know them today in clubs, tournaments and stadiums.
We were originally created as active, moving creatures. Thousands of years ago, we were hunters, farmers, searching for food and warriors. We entered caves for a period of our history, then eventually we entered buildings, apartments and offices.
Our work did not shift to office work until the last hundred years, and this is a short stage in our long history that is estimated at tens of thousands of years.
Over time, there has been a glorification of sports and physical exercises
, for more than one reason, as sports and physical fitness increase
the ability of men and women to endure the hardships and costs of life,
and increase the ability of a person to win and fight wars.
It has also been noted that athletes have great sexual and emotional attraction, and they are also better able to solve problems and work within a team, especially those who practice team sports. All of this has increased people’s desire to practice physical activity in the current era.
Of course, practicing violence is often a bad thing, especially if it is directed
against oneself, causing depression, as the scientist Freud sees it. Violence is also harmful if it is directed towards another, who may be a member of society (and not against an enemy of the state or nation), and this is dangerous for civil peace.
In another field, many people see themselves, their orientations and affiliations, in teams that play football, basketball and other sports.
If there is a fan of a certain team who is very enthusiastic about their team and has violent feelings towards another team or towards what that team represents,
then the sports fields and stands will be filled with violent shouts and insults from the first team against the second team,
and the fields and stands will become arenas of violence, shouting, insults and hatred, with no beginning and no end. If things do not proceed in a disciplined manner,
the stands and stadiums may turn into arenas of fighting and “war” between people, and the role of sports
will change from a place to release violence from souls to a place to charge souls with hatred, spite and violence. Sociology also tells us that a group is more than a group of individuals,
because the feeling of strength usually felt by the presence of a person around his group,
his people, or his friends, instills in the soul a feeling of reassurance (sometimes false) and a feeling of confidence and indifference to the consequences,
and this is likely, if there is a mobilization of violent feelings from one audience towards another, to deteriorate matters to become a full-fledged war. What is happening in the Jordanian street, and other countries around the world, is an example of the following:
Exploiting people’s feelings of repression, anger and failure, which in turn leads to anger and violence, and to the thirst for any simple achievement or victory in life
(such as the victory of the team loved by the individual) in the match, then exaggerating that victory to
be a sign of elevation and superiority of the people of that fan over the people of the fans of the other team, and from here we see the destructive racist flavor of such situations in many countries.
I suggest involving a group of psychological specialists (psychiatrists and psychotherapists) with
the heads of the fans’ association, owners of sports clubs and heads of sports federations, in cooperation with the Ministry of Youth,
to reformulate the sports scene, so that sports return to being a field for venting violence and not igniting its flames.
Written by: Dr. Ahmed Al-Salem, Psychiatrist.
Laila Tarabishi, Psychotherapist.
