Bearing Witness

At the advice of Jose Luis Blondet of the Mills Gallery, I picked up Remnants of Auschwitz by Italian philosopher, Giorgio Agamben. I have finished the first chapter titled The Witness (pdf here), in which a soccer game is described. I cannot help but think Auschwitz might be an extreme example—is there a perversity about being a fan (artist?) bearing witness to contemporary soccer games where so arguably so little (or perhaps much) is at stake? I have outlined excerpts and thoughts below beginning with the description of the soccer game that took place:

"...Levi recalls that a witness, Miklos Nyszli, one of the very few who survived the last 'special team' of Auschwitz, recounted that during a 'work' break he took part in a soccer match between SS and representatives of the Sonderkommando [SS euphenism "special team" of Jewish prisoners responsible for managing the gas chambers and crematoria] 'Other men of the SS and the rest of the squad present at the game; they take sides, bet, applaud, urge the players on as if, rather than at the gates of hell, the game were taking place on the village green" (Agamben 1999: 25)

I want to quickly (and insufficiently) address two ideas that Agamben discusses in this chapter:

1. Agamben brings up the idea of the "gray zone" (Originally an Essay "Gray-Zone" by Primo Levi, which discusses the the Sonderkommando) Levi's definition of "gray-zone" is a state in which ethics and power are blurry/complicit. Agamben notes that “This match might strike someone as a brief pause of humanity in the middle of an infinite horror. I, like the witnesses, instead view this match, this moment of normalcy, as the true horror of the camp” (Ibid.: 26). On its face, soccer is often viewed as democratic, a level playing field, but the game often only serves reminder/mask of a certain injustice.

2.  On the whole Remnants of Auschwitz is about bearing witness. Agamben brilliantly illustrates the paradoxes of what it means to bear witness, and how language disappears and is slippery in the face of the unspeakable. I am reminded of another essay I read: The Postcolonial and the Level Playing Field in the 1998 World Cup by Bea Vidacs. Vidacs recounts a match between Cameroon and Chile. During the game the Cameroon team scored a goal that was ultimately disallowed, thus losing the game to Chile, and were eliminated from the World Cup. Vidacs, living in Cameroon recounts the outrage, and shock at the injustice that followed. Vidacs is purposefully vague about what “really happened” on the field that day. Thousands of Cameroonians knew what happened, and all had borne witness. Furthermore the game served as a painful reminder to a bitter colonial history. I would argue that the purpose of being a sports fan is to bear witness to the sport narrative. This might be even more important for “underdog” teams. If no one will watch who will? On an international scale, the witness becomes burdened with the weight of history and politics.