Politics and sports in the 90s
Whitney Houston’s powerful rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” before Super Bowl XXV was more than just pre-game filler.
The United States was 10 days into the Persian Gulf War on January 27, 1991. ABC’s cameras made sure to capture two American serviceman, one black, one white, in frame while Houston belted out the most impressive rendition of the anthem the world had ever heard. Houston closed by throwing her hands in the air as four F-16 fighter jets flew over Tampa Stadium.
The world was curious. For the first time, the Super Bowl was broadcast in Australia, Russia and large parts of Asia. How would America’s obsession with the grandiose be altered by the ongoing war?
Houston’s performance to start the decade was the beginning of things to come. Sports and Politics have always intersected. Hitler’s Olympics, the Moscow boycott and John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s Black Power salute are poignant moments in political history, made possible by the theatre created by sports.
This trend continued in the 90s, with war in the Balkans impacting more than borders.
Soccer in Yugoslavia was a source of contention even before the country broke out into civil war. In one example, a game between Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade devolved into fan violence in 1990. The riots spilled onto the streets of Zagreb.
The events at Maksimir Stadium that day had a lasting effect on the political discourse in the country. Croatian media blamed Serbian militiamen for instigating the violence while Serbs accused Croats of trying to destroy Yugoslavia from the inside.
On June 25, 1991, Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence, and the Yugoslav wars followed soon after.
Yugoslavia was barred from the 1992 European Championships as a result of the unrest plaguing the region. Denmark took their place and did the impossible, winning the tournament against almost insurmountable odds.
"We couldn't fail because there were no expectations. If we lost 5-0 three times then that would not have mattered," said midfielder Kim Vilfort.
The Balkans continued to ail.
Basketball stars Drazen Petrovic and Vlade Divac were torn apart by the war. Two friends found themselves on different sides of the conflict. The 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona featured an independent Croatia for the first time. Petrovic represented the new nation while Divac’s Yugoslavia was banned. They never reconciled: Petrovic was killed in a car accident in 1993.
Sports did not provide an elixir for the political chaos in the 90s. The nuances of this complicated relationship was best observed in South Asia.
India and Pakistan will forever intertwined due to Britain’s callous handling of partition. Cricket remains their shared love, and it was used as a tool for aggression and diplomacy in the 90s.
Tensions between the two nations were high when Pakistan’s president, General Zia ul-Haq, attended a test match between his nation and India in Jaipur. The Soviets had just invaded Afghanistan. Pakistan and India watched keenly, but avoided a skirmish of their own.
At that point it seemed cricket could be used as a positive tool for politicians, a chance to sit down and talk things out over tea. That changed in 1991, when a planned test match in Mumbai was abandoned when Hindu nationalists destroyed the pitch.
While politicians used the sport to glad hand and iron out future plans, extremists on both sides used cricket for equally nauseating goals. Hijacking the sport was the perfect vehicle for their malicious intentions.
For most of the 90s, India and Pakistan played against each other in neutral venues. Following Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to Pakistan in 1999, the Pakistani team toured India.
The Kargil war began soon after and a relationship that was already fractured became fully undone.
From the beginning of the decade to the end a series of major international events had direct ties to the sporting world. Whitney Houston’s impressive rendition of the Star Spangled Banner changed how we viewed nationalism in the scope of sports. After terrible incidents the United States found solace in the anthem - the Oklahoma City bombing and the World Trade Center attacks in 1993 especially. The anthem became more than just something to get through. The performance became an event in itself, beyond competition.
In its truest sense, sports allows us to root for a common cause. When wars, and politics conspire to elevate that rooting interest into a national cause, Pakistan and India are not playing to just win the game. The Test Match in Islamabad serves as a proxy for a much larger conflict.
War with a prettier face and, sometimes, less violence: Sports in the 90s pared down to its essence.