Mao was a dictator (and it must be possible to say it)

BarcelonaAn innocent comment by Real Madrid player Kylian Mbappé on a television show, where he said that one of the memes of himself he likes the most is one in which his face merges with that of Mao Zedong, whom he described as a "dictator," has caused an authentic earthquake between China and the French footballer and, by extension, Real Madrid and the Spanish league. Aside from the withdrawal of some Chinese product sponsorships from the French star, the most forceful reaction has been that of Chinese television, which has cancelled the broadcasts of the Spanish league and any match in which Mbappé plays. The immediate reaction from Mbappé himself and the Spanish league has been to apologize, almost on their knees, with the hope that China does not carry out its threats and that there is no economic damage to the League.

It is curious to see a person like Javier Tebas, current president of the League and who in his youth was a member of Fuerza Nueva, apologizing because a player called the communist Mao Zedong a dictator. Especially because if there is an appellation that fits with great accuracy what the Chinese leader was, it is that of dictator. A dictator, furthermore, who was particularly bloodthirsty, since under his regime it is estimated that between 40 and 70 million Chinese died due to the famine caused by the collectivizations of the so-called Great Leap Forward and the purges and executions of the Cultural Revolution.

The fact that China forbids its citizens from criticizing the communist leaders of the past is a clear example of its dictatorial character, but the fact that it also wants to impose this vision on the rest of the world through economic blackmail is a line that we democrats cannot accept or normalize. Who is China to impose on a European citizen what they can and cannot say? Why must we accept that our right to freedom of expression is eroded and that history is manipulated? Mao Zedong was a dictator, and it must be possible to say so without any restriction.

Regrettably, the world of sports, and especially football, has entered an ultra-capitalist dynamic where all Western values take a backseat to the power of money. We saw this, for example, with the Qatar World Cup and women's rights, or also in the recent United States World Cup, where some delegations from Third World countries were humiliated by the American police with searches and vexatious treatment. What example is being set for future athletes? That he who pays calls the tune and that, therefore, you must renounce your individual rights so as not to annoy the autocratic regimes that fund you?

China uses its colossal economic power to impose its will. But there is a lack of self-esteem on the part of Europeans when it comes to defending values that we believed to be unquestionable. And in the same way that in 2015 millions of people all over the world said that "Je suis Charlie" (for the magazine Charlie Hebdo, attacked by jihadists for having published a caricature of Muhammad), now perhaps we should simply remember that Mao Zedong was a dictator.