Imagine if everyone woke up this morning, and told everybody else – the truth.
Complete. Unvarnished. All of it.
Every office worker, cab driver, banker, head of state. Every street sweeper, teacher, patient, priest. Every faded seventies rock star, little kid in nursery school, soccer player, former president. Every pilot, hair dresser, jockey, lunch truck driver.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
On the first day, the effects – I believe – would be devastating.
Jobs would be lost, relationships shattered, buildings would burn and at least a few wars would break out. Economies would shudder, and absolutely every last human soul on the planet would have his or her world view alarmingly jarred.
And then … well, things would suddenly start to get better. With all that stuckness and deception thrown bare for the rubbish it is, people and groups and nations and whatever’s left would quietly start to claim their space, their rights – their share.
This would be a very bad day to be a dictator. Not a good day to be in charge of anything, really, given the sheer amount of double-speak and deception that holds up just about any human institution you would care to name.
In its own way, it would be every bit as disruptive as if the energy grid crashed, or the bank system failed. But somewhere, in the disillusionment and seemingly hopeless chaos, a strong and startling message would begin to emerge.
“I know what’s going on – and everybody knows what’s going on with me.”
Truth is dangerous, yes. But an absence of truth? Just take a moment and try to imagine how deep that really goes.
So – allow me to tie this to world soccer:
The ugly shadow of truth will fall across England’s 2018 World Cup-hosting bid later today.
The influential BBC television news program Panorama is going after FIFA corruption. Journalist Andrew Jennings – a persistent thorn in the side of both FIFA godfather Sepp Blatter and CONCACAF tin-pot Jack Warner – will be dealing truthbolts from the electronic mountain-top.
And, verily, the fear is upon the land, because in only three days, FIFA will decide whether to anoint England with soccer biggest, ripest, juiciest multi-mega-billion-pound plum.
A sharp debate has broken out, not only about corruption at the highest levels of the beautiful game, but also about … timing.
“If Blatter’s guilty, he’ll still be guilty next week,” the argument essentially runs. “Let’s not go carving a turkey that isn’t even on the table yet.”
If you do that, of course, and England gets the dance, and FIFA is corrupt, England will have clearly benefitted from FIFA’s corruption. But if the program airs, and Blatter goes old-testament on the English FA, a huge and shining opportunity – both sporting and economic – will have been lost.
But in the larger world, the time of caution is coming quickly to an end. At the speed of light and all around the world, we have entered the time of “truth.”
“Truth” in quotation marks, because not all “truth” is true. Anyone with a computer can send any old malarkey winging all across anywhere if a way can be found to have it go “viral.”
False viral messages are very effective. In politics, they can even got you elected. Put out the “truth” that Obama’s a socialist or most of a city’s budget is being chewed up by a gobble-crazy gravy train, and significant numbers of voters can effortlessly be swayed.
The biggest cause of this, I’m coming to feel, is that real truth isn’t enough of a habit. When truth doesn’t matter, “truth” can rule the day.
For that reason – fully acknowledging the risk to England – there couldn’t be a more perfect time for Andrew Jennings to saddle up his soccer-apocalypse horse.
Throw a thousand carbon arc lamps on Blatter, right before he hands out World Cup hosting duties for both 2018 and 2022. Can’t be more of a main plotline in FIFA HQ than these two decisions. Whatever corruption may be bubbling away out there comes to a rolling boil this Thursday.
You could even argue this could help England, given how Blatter would look if he slammed the door on the self-same nation that just slammed him.
The caution in this, of course, is that we don’t yet know what Jennings has got. There was plenty in his disturbingly brilliant 2006 book Foul! The Secret World of FIFA: Bribes, Vote-Rigging and Ticket Scandals.
The top three headlines on his transparencyinsport.org website this morning are “FIFA wars flare again: Will Asia unseat Blatter?”, “FIFA’s 10 Commandments: Does Sepp Blatter obey them?” and “Blatter & the Serial Murderer,” linking Our Sepp to former Liberian strongman and humanitarian Charles Taylor.
Today’s Panorama is not going to be a warm-fuzzy endorsement of Blattermania.
Truth can be ugly – and the consequences appalling. But we need it, and with every passing day of misinformation and chaos, we need it more and more urgently.
Corruption is a world problem, and soccer is a world game. What happens in any smaller world may yet help us all in the larger one.
I’m very intrigued to see Jennings play his hand. Blatter’s response – whatever form it takes – will be deeply instructive.
Onward!