Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

Perhaps the ‘whole world’ now knows about the ‘house system’ used in English schools. One factor are the ‘houses’ in the Harry Potter novels: ‘Gryffindor’, ‘Hufflepuff’, ‘Ravenclaw’ and ‘Slytherin’. We are told that Gryffindor is a ‘better’ house than ‘Slytherin’, since we are shown the viewpoint of Harry and his friends.

On the surface of things, the Hogwarts school in the Harry Potter novels may be viewed as a type of parody of English Public schools.  In the Harry Potter novels it is the ‘Sorting Hat’ at Hogwarts that determines which of the four school ‘houses’ each new student belongs to.

Real-life House System

Without researching how this ‘sorting’ is actually done at public schools, I can relate here that at the Isis School, it was totally arbitrary which ‘house’ you ended up in. Of course, once you joined a ‘house’, you tended to identify with that House, and wanted your house to win at the annual sporting competition. 

I don’t intend to analyse here the Harry Potter novels, or English Public schools regarding the ‘house system’. However, it is fairly obvious that the ‘house system’ tends to promote so-called ‘clan-like’ behaviour or ‘us-and-them’. This obviously has educative aspects; the upper classes who attend Public schools belong to a very small minority ‘us’ (the Spartans). On the other hand, the Plebeians or ‘colonial’ subjects were the majority ‘them’. They were often thought of as‘ enemies’ that and have to be subjugated and controlled. 

The naming of ‘houses is perhaps often arbitrary in Public and private schools. Of course, the names of the ‘houses’ will seem more ‘weighty’ if they are related to historical or notable regional topics. 

For those readers who know a little about English history, they will recognize the names Lancaster and York from the fifteenth century’s War of the Roses. I’m not quite sure about how the House of Windsor fits into the picture. The house was established in the twentieth century and had German origins – ‘Windsor’ is an Anglicization of Saxe-Coburg. But I’m sure none of the Isis School pupils gave this much thought.

The ‘House System’ and Sports

Apart from fostering ‘clan-like’ behaviour, the house system also promoted interest in sports; which consequently, also fostered ‘clan-like’ and ‘animal-like’ behaviour. For instance, the crowds at some soccer matches between England and Scotland seem to resemble the war scenes in the film “Braveheart”.

In 1977, when Scotland beat England 2-1 at Wembley. The Scotland fans swarmed onto the pitch, ripping up the turf, and snapping a crossbar. In other words, sport is often symbolic of war between communities and nations. However, it is also often more than purely symbolic. The very foundations of the two Glasgow football clubs Celtic and Rangers are built on the religious division between Catholicism and Protestantism. Traditionally, Rangers supporters are Protestant, while Celtic fans support the Catholic Church. I will be discussing more about the impact of sports in current events in the bottom part of this post.

Normally, if you attended a state school, you couldn’t care less if your school lost 10-0 at soccer to the neighbouring school, as you did not feel any particular allegiance to the school. For us, it was different; you felt allegiance to your ‘house’. Although this may seem illogical to an outsider, when you are attending the school, you still want your ‘house’ to win; yes, even if the other houses had the better sportsmen. For example, Windsor had the best sportsman, Skipworth.

The Cross Country Race

Part of ‘character building’ at the school was doing sports in all weathers. I can remember playing football on a soccer field that was so muddy that the mud sucked the boots off your feet; when you kicked the ball hard, it would only travel three or four yards because it was either weighed down with mud, or got stuck in the mud. Perhaps the most ‘character building’ sport was the Cross Country Race. The race was certainly ‘cross-country’, as we ran up and down small hills in the woods, usually when it was raining.

The School Magazine also shows the results of the ‘gruelling’ Cross-Country Race. I came 10^th but that was perhaps ‘unfair’. Many of the boys in the race were from the form above me, such as the winner, Crompton. But in fact we had to compete with older boys in the form above us. So in actual fact I came 3rd in my class!³⁰⁴ Ok so I’m no Ron Clarke!³⁰⁵ But my mother always used to say “If you don’t blow your own trumpet no one else will!” 

Because it is only Yates and Sheppard in my class that finished in front of me – and they were quite athletic sportsmen! I came in front of the African-American Morrell who was quite well built. And I came in front of my friend Disley. He was ‘lazy’ and didn’t care about ‘sports’, unless it involved girls!

I thought I had to comment on this here because I don’t think I ever won a single sports competition – but I always wanted to compete! ☺ I was what you might say an ‘intrepid fox’. Despite never winning anything, I didn’t let defeat dampen my ardour! 

Sports and Gender

Like other schools during this period, team sports for girls and boys were gendered. I can remember playing ‘rounders’³⁰⁶ at primary school. However, at the Isis School and other secondary schools, that sport was reserved for girls. Comically, boys tended to ‘look down’ on girls’ sports as being for ‘softies’. This is ironic when you consider that rounders resembles baseball, which is a ‘macho’ game for men in the US.

Hockey was also a ‘girls’ game, but hardly a game for ‘softies’. Thus, at the Isis school, girls didn’t run in the cross-country race or play soccer, but played rounders and hockey. There were also other sports that girls and boys both participated in together such as swimming and athletics; for those, they did not compete against each other anymore.

One may ask why not – because if you look at the results of the top men and women athletes there is little difference. That is, a top woman athlete, say in the 100 metres race, can run faster than 99.99 %of most men.³⁰⁷

It would seem more fair to have three categories, boys, girls and mixed. Because many of the girls could beat the boys if given the chance. This is some kind of ‘ideological’ nonsense regarding the identity of the sexes. They believed that men are supposed to be tougher and faster even if this is not always the case. This could be an interesting proposition in the future; women soccer players playing in men’s teams. 

Sport-washing in the Past and Present

As mentioned earlier, I can’t enter into a long discussion of historical events so I will try to keep this brief. It is very clear that the Nazi regime committed numerous crimes before the Olympic Games.³⁰¹ However, this didn’t prevent so-called ‘democratic’ nations from attending this ‘sport-washing’ event. 

The goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practiced without discrimination of any kind. In the Olympic spirit, this requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.³⁰⁰ However, in reality, sport is often used to whitewash dictatorial regimes. An example is the 1936 Berlin Olympics which functioned as a publicity stunt for the dictatorial German Nazi government. Over the following decade, the world has seen how they exterminated millions of people.

Similarly, the recent Chinese winter Olympics (2022) seemed to aim to ‘cover up’ various Chinese human rights violations. It also seemed as a form of validation for the Russian invasion of Ukraine; interestingly, this has commenced immediately after the end of the winter  Olympics. As a result, millions of Ukrainians have been displaced. It also resulted to the wholesale murder and destruction in the Ukraine.

Perhaps the Chinese (and the Russians) had learnt from the Russian 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, which were used to discriminate against  gay athletes. As mentioned before here, I am not a professional global political analyst; but even the most stupid lay person must be aware of how the world of sport is indirectly involved in the whitewashing of regimes engaged in international acts of terror and murder. 

2022 World Cup

The world of soccer is doubly hypocritical in this context. While the Premier League in England has protested against racism and the illegal Russian invasion of the Ukraine, they nevertheless support the abuse of gay people, women and workers by agreeing to attend the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.  

Apart from using sport to ‘whitewash’ genocide (the Uighurs in China), illegal invasions of sovereign countries (the Russian invasion of Ukraine)³⁰², discrimination of gay people, women and workers (Qatar World Cup, 2022), sport is also used to launder the criminally amassed fortunes of oligarchs, such as Abramovich. 

More recently, British soccer is being used to ‘sport-wash’ murderous heads of state. The Saudi regime murdered the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.³⁰³ This has more or less been admitted by the American and British governments. Nevertheless, the regime has been allowed to buy the Premier League football club Newcastle United.

 In other words, the Saudia Arabian head of state Mohammed bin Salman, through this purchase, is trying to restore his image. However, what will this do to the reputation of the Premier League and the British government? 

Of course, the British government may have impounded the assets of Roman Abramovic. This was due to his close relations to a certain Russian war criminal. However, this has done nothing to curb the purchase of the Newcastle football club by the murderer, the Saudi Arabian head of state. The main reason for this is that Saudia Arabia is a western ally. This is what we cynically call ‘politics’ – or ‘strange bedfellows’.

Prejudices

In conclusion, to bring this long digression to an end, there is more to ‘sport’ than meets the eye. It is often the mere tool of political and economic machinations used to whitewash dictatorial governments, criminal capitalists, and to reinforce prejudices against various minorities. In other words, as of 14 May 2022, when Liverpool beat Chelsea in the FA Cup, the main discussions were of course about ‘this and that player’, goalkeepers, managers, penalties and so on (in the media).

Absurdly, the Russian illegal invasion of Ukraine resulting in the deaths of thousands, rape, torture, and the displacement of millions is mentioned as something which had affected the Chelsea team’s focus on the game! This is just too stupid beyond words. I won’t even bother to use an analogy here, as a means of explanation.   

Sources

³⁰⁰ https://olympics.com/ioc/beyond-the-games Read 28 March 2022. 

³⁰¹ https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/general-chronology-nazi-violence.html

³⁰² China Asked Russia to Delay Ukraine War Until After Olympics, U.S. Officials Say. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/us/politics/russia-ukraine-china.html Read 28 March 2022.

³⁰³ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/18/saudi-regime-newcastle-united-jamal-khashoggi-mohammed-bin-salman Read 28 March 2022. 

³⁰⁴ As mentioned elsewhere here – my close family have no ‘sports heroes’; but there are ‘sports heroes’ in my wider family, such as Sir Peter Heatly the Olympian swimmer and diver. Another is Michael Dixon, the cross-country skier and biathlete who represented Great Britain at six Olympic Games in cross-country skiing and biathlon.

I also seem to remember that my elder brothers Alistair and Sandy gained good positions in the school cross country races. Later in life, I completed the half-marathon in Sydney in 2011 with a reasonable time of under 2 hours.

³⁰⁵ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Clarke

³⁰⁶ Rounders is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams. Rounders is a striking and fielding team game that involves hitting a small, hard, leather-cased ball with a rounded end wooden, plastic, or metal bat. The players score by running around the four bases on the field. Played in England since Tudor times, it is referenced in 1744 in the children’s book A Little Pretty Pocket-Book where it was called Base-Ball.

The name baseball was superseded by the name rounders in England, while other modifications of the game played elsewhere retained the name baseball. The game is popular among British and Irish school children, particularly among girls. Edited from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rounders Read 17 May 2022.

³⁰⁷ The current record for the 100 metres is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988.