[Reader-list] If there were any doubts that Zidane was a hero, there are no longer

[Rana Dasgupta]

Dany Laferrière is a francophone novelist from Haiti now living between 
Montreal and Miami. His commentary on the Zidane "header", which I found 
on the blog of Alain Mabanckou, a wonderful Congolese novelist -

http://www.congopage.com/article.php3?id_article=3791

- is radical and fascinating, so I've done a rough translation.  Read 
the comment too.

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http://www.ranadasgupta.com/notes.asp?note_id=69

I did not sleep much last night for trying to understand Zidane’s 
gesture, especially since all the opinions I heard resembled each other 
as if only one person had watched the match. The more there are of us, 
the more we’re inclined to have the same opinion. I am always suspicious 
of a crowd that speaks with one voice. And everyone was feeling sorry 
for Zidane. An unworthy end to the career of a great champion. It’s 
strange, but this commentary seemed far too bourgeois to me. In fact 
people weren’t really sorry for Zidane: they were only speaking for 
themselves. Zidane was only a character from the fairy story they told 
themselves each night before going to bed. Hardly a month ago, Zidane 
was only an old, tired player. Now he’s a fallen knight.

In the old, more bloody fables of the Brothers Grimm, a red card ending 
was acceptable. But today, in this strange epoch when all humans seem to 
have drunk Disney milk in their childhood, only rosy endings are 
acceptable. Everything must finish happily. Our heroes must be loveable. 
Before putting them away in the cupboard of our happy memories. So what 
does that leave for Zidane? Zidane, the exemplary father, the discreet 
man who has led a faultless career? These are the descriptions people 
have stuck on him like medals.

Maybe it’s true, but what gets lost? What did he have to swallow before 
that fateful moment? What did he have to endure without ever saying 
anything before taking his life in hand again? Before becoming once 
again the young proud boy who played in the streets of Marseille? The 
one whom one could never insult with impunity about his mother or his 
race? Marseille is not a joke. The National Front is not far away. And 
Zidane is a child of that epoch. Has Zidane ever believed in the 
adulation of the crowd? That monster that kills what it loves. At one 
moment, he knows he will find himself looking at a man he left behind 
long ago for money and fame, and that man is himself, Zinedine Zidane. I 
don’t believe that the Italian player said to him anything that he could 
stand hearing. Simply, he felt that this was the moment. His last match, 
the finale of the World Cup, at the last moment. It was this moment or 
never. Otherwise, he had sold himself for ever.

Don’t speak to him of dignity. Dignity is precisely that gesture that he 
made to recover some of his honour. This was his moment. He had already 
given everything to his team. Now it was for himself. Eight seconds out 
of a career of nearly twenty years. Because if he didn’t do it then, it 
would all be over. Anyway, he was exhausted, and the team could do 
without him. I think that there are some moments in life which belong 
only to those who live them. And to no-one else. The moment when one 
refuses to play is always stupid in the eyes of others. But what value 
has the image of the pride claimed by the collectivity in the ace of the 
intimate pride of the individual? Because there are lots of people 
watching a game, they all believe that it’s only a game. Zidane’s act 
was the intrusion of weighty reality into the game. Zidane is not 
playing anymore. He breaks the codes with a blow of his head.

I remember the moment of Charlebois’s death-blow, when he threw his 
drums at the French public. In France, everyone was astonished by such 
behaviour. In Quebec, Charlebois instantly became a counter-cultural 
icon. They sensed something liberating in his gesture. For Zidane, it 
will be the same thing. Young rappers will surely introduce into their 
video clips the eight seconds where Zidane left the game to re-enter 
their stifling reality. For once, Zidane, who was legendary for never 
allowing his temperature to rise, embraced all those who do not know how 
to behave in public. His brothers from the street whose blood is still 
boiling.

Comment by "Sami"

“If there were any doubts about the fact that Zidane was one of the best 
players in the history of football, after the final there can be no 
more!” wrote the popular Russian daily, Komsomolskaia Pravda, before 
adding, “Only an epic hero, a titan, a Hercules could depart like that.” 
Dany Laferrière’s commentary, with his very personal sensibility, echoes 
that of many journalists around the world. Nine seconds which make an 
absolute human out of a being whose shoulders would have been crushed by 
the image of a god that was hung on him. The beauty of that gesture and 
its deep meaning are worth a world cup. For me, this entire World Cup 
could have been organized only so that we could see this unexpected 
coronation: this header that sought not the goal but a chest from which 
poisonous words flowed. For that alone, Zidane deserves the immortality 
that had already been predicted for him. As for the disappointment of 
others, they can do with it whatever they wish. They are truly some 
moments when others come after yourself, for they are not the essential. 
Especially when you understand their talent for condemning their 
instrumentalised heroes to absolute solitude.

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Rana Dasgupta
www.ranadasgupta.com