Mariano Siskind, Harvard Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of Comparative Literatures, reflects on the political, social, and cultural implications of famed soccer star Diego Maradona’s life and death.
Mariano Siskind:
Maradona was the greatest football player in the history of the most popular sport in the world. He was Beethoven, and he was the Beatles, and he was Picasso, and he was Shakespeare, and he was [Porthos 00:00:36], and he was Joyce, and he was Miles Davis and Bill Evans together.
June:
Mariano Siskind, is Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, and of Comparative Literature at Harvard University. He also knows a lot about sports, particularly soccer. He wrote an article for ReVista's sports issue entitled, River Plate and the Depth of My Sorrow. I understand now that with the death of Diego Maradona, your sorrow has gone even deeper. Welcome Mariano, could you please explain to us who aren't experts on sports, who Diego Maradona was?
Mariano Siskind:
Thank you very much for having me and thinking of me for this podcast, June. It's a very sad couple of days for lovers of football. Maradona was... In my opinion, the greatest player who ever played the sport of football. Of course there are endless debates about Maradona and Pele. Now, Maradona, Pele, and Messi, for me, as much as I love all great football players, Maradona was by far the best. Which is not related to the World Cups or titles that they won or did not win, but an extraordinary ecstatic quality of his game. The death of Maradona was... It didn't surprise me and many others, but it might have surprised others who are less in touch with the world of football, and the social and political, and affective meaning that football has for so many around the world.
Mariano Siskind:
Up until yesterday, 160 newspapers had Maradona in their front pages, on Thursday. The death of the sports player... I don't think there are precedents of these other 160 newspapers around the world having most or the entire front page with different photos of Maradona, it shows quite exceptional the event of his death was. I think that it has to do with what he meant and represented beyond the world of football for people, as I said before, both in social and affective ways.
June:
Could you explain that to us? Why was he important in social and affective ways?
Mariano Siskind:
It has to be explained in different context, why he was important in Argentina and in Southern Italy, in Naples, in Napoli in particular, that requires one explanation, why he was important globally? And why he was important, I would say for the... What it's known as the Third World, or the Global South. In Argentina and in Italy, particularly in Napoli and in Southern Italy, he represented the colors of the Argentinian national jersey and colors of Napoli. He really identified with the teams where he played, in the CD in Napoli and the country in Argentina. He accomplished feeds that were unprecedented for, in the case of Argentina winning the World Cup for 1986 with a performance, it had not been seen since World Cups had been televised. Brazil arguably had the best teams in the history of the World Cup in 62 and 1970. Particularly 1970, Pele was by far the largest star in the world of soccer, in the World Cup of 1970. But, he was surrounded by at least five or six of the best players in the world playing for the same team at the same time, winning the World Cup almost easily without real competition.
Mariano Siskind:
What Maradona did in 1986 in the World Cup, was the most outstanding individual performance in a team sports. Games and championships are won by teams, not single players. Perhaps with the exception of Argentina in 1986 in Mexico. Maradona not only scored perhaps three or four of the most beautiful goals scored in the history of the World Cups, but the most important one. The Goal of the Century, the most amazing goal scored ever in the largest more meaningful stage. In the case of Napoli, he won two Italian titles for Napoli and one UEFA Cup, Napoli had never won anything before. Him in Italy is characterized by striking division between North and South, the powerful rich North and the poor relegated South. Maradona identified with the South, like Gramsci, when he wrote the famous essay, the Southern Question in Italy. Identified with the South, became the hero of the poor relegated South and defeated the North, the most powerful team of the North. One of the most powerful in Europe, Juventus and then Milan, to win two titles and a European Cup. Something that had never been done before, and it didn't occur after Maradona left.
Mariano Siskind:
But beyond, Maradona was always a very controversial, political, public personality, and outspoken, and proudly aware of his very, very, very poor origins. He was born in a "villa miseria," in a slum. His family didn't have enough money to feed Maradona's sisters and brothers. He often told the story of how, when he asked his mum, why wasn't she eating? She would say that, she had already eaten or she wasn't hungry. But it took him a while to realize that, there wasn't enough food for everyone, so she wouldn't eat so, the kids could it.
Mariano Siskind:
When he was 15 years old, he had his first pro contract in a team of [foreign language 00:12:29] in Argentinos Juniors. With the first money he earned, he bought his family a middle-class house in the neighborhood of La Paternal where Argentinos juniors was. He was always very aware, very proud and boastful about his humble, poor, miserable origins. Something that was repeated over and over, during these past few days after his death, and during his public funerals, was something like... Both in Buenos Aires and in Napoli, no one ever has made us happier than Maradona. Basically saying something like, we leave on unbearably, miserable experience with economic crisis after economic crisis, in a country or in a region that is always suffering socially, politically, economically, and soccer in general, and Maradona in particular was the source of our very few moments of happiness.
Mariano Siskind:
Globally of course, the importance of Maradona has to do with the fact that... There is something that is often missed in the U.S. We can talk later if you want, about the petty, awful, arbitrary, that came out in the New York Times on Thursday. Something that is often missed in the United States, which actually underscores the provincialism that is characteristic of the United States in the world. The way the U.S. misunderstands the world.
Mariano Siskind:
Football is the most popular sport in the world. When I say sport, it sounds like something that it may not be important enough. Football is the most popular cultural practice in the world. There's nothing that is more meaningful to more people around the world, particularly the... middle and lower classes, but not exclusively, of course, than football. And so, Maradona was the... As a character and as a player, the most... We can discuss more about these if you want, later, if there's time. I teach at Harvard a course on football as popular culture in terms of its cultural and political and aesthetic meanings. Of course, it's his death and his figure was important for anyone who was interested in the game.
Mariano Siskind:
Sorry, I'm extending myself a little bit here. For the Third World or the Global South, Maradona was immediately seen, particularly during the World Cup of 1986 in the famous game between Argentina and England, as the opportunity that Maradona took to slap the colonial power in the face. It's funny because in England, Maradona is revered. Today when Manchester City played its game, the Goal of the Century that was scored against England, was played in the stadium big screen after the minute of silence for his death. Maradona is revered, then there's the controversy about the Hand of God, and that's interesting in terms of the more realistic ways in which, sometimes soccer and human affairs are evaluated.
Mariano Siskind:
I'm always against more realistic interpretations of culture, politics, society. One chooses how to interpret the world against all forms of moralism. Maradona was seen across the Third World as a hero, precisely for scoring those two goals against this former colonial power. The case of Argentina in particular, the game took place four years after the Falklands War, "Guerra de las Malvinas." In general, the fact that he got away with scoring a goal with his hand in the most skillful, clever way, so that no one... Neither the referee or the linesman noticed it, and then scoring the most amazing, and wonderful, and aesthetic, and impossible goal in such a large stage in the quarterfinals of the World Cup. The Third World embraced him as one of their own hero. Anyone who has traveled around the Global South can testify to saying... One is from Argentina, and getting immediately as a response, "Maradona."
June:
Yeah.
Mariano Siskind:
"Madam, please welcome if you're from Maradona's country, then please come." All doors would open for you.
June:
Mariano, how does gender fit into all this? You talk about soccer being the most popular sport, how does it play out with gender?
Mariano Siskind:
I think that there are different aspects from the perspective of gender in relation to Maradona. I would say that, if we're talking about football as a social-cultural site, marked by the exclusion of women and the production of forms of toxic masculinity, I think that would be generally correct, but slightly dated. Football has changed around the world over the... I would say over the past 20 years, and still a genderized, practice to many extents, although in different parts of the world, that's very different. So, it would have to be analyzed in each different context. But historically, women have been excluded from the practice and the participation in the largest possible sense from the world of soccer.
Mariano Siskind:
As I said over the past 20 years, I think this has changed to a large extent, although it probably need another 20 years of change to make it a place not so much marked by exclusion of women. That's a long sociologically-oriented conversation. The other aspect in the case of Maradona is that, Maradona belonged to a social world where women were excluded from football and a world that was marked by violence against women. And so, there are many recorded instances where Maradona was violent against women, which is really, really bad, and unfortunate, and disappointing. But at the same time, the way that I think about it, is that Maradona was a very imperfect human being.
Mariano Siskind:
I would say however, that he was as imperfect as most of us. I hate the finger wagging about Maradona, the kind of morally virtuous [discourse 00:25:59] around Maradona saying, "Yes, he was a great player, but he was..." That was exactly going back to what I was saying before, that was exactly the obituary of the New York Times last Thursday. It's surprising to see the New York Times, the most imperfect of newspapers who has supported, imperialism, and bombings, and U.S. support of Tas and assassination around the world to say, "Yes, he was a great player, but his..." I don't remember what was the exact title, but it was something like, "But his legacy was marred by his addiction to drugs and his controversies."
Mariano Siskind:
I couldn't care less about his drug addiction, and the self-inflicted injuries, and how he would have been. This is something that he often said, that, "Imagine how good I would have been, if I hadn't been addicted to cocaine. Cocaine didn't help me in the sport. I was given a handicap when I was playing between..." His addiction began in 84 and went on through his entire life. When he was the best, when he did things that no one else had done before, he was actually giving his opponents an advantage, because he was an addict, wasn't a performance enhancing drug. I couldn't care less about his addiction. That is something that it's a disease, that millions and millions of people around the world suffer. I think the more realistic view of drug addiction is incredibly short-sighted and quite mediocre. Now, he had children he didn't recognize until very late in his life, there are incidents reported of violence against women, that are despicable of course.
Mariano Siskind:
There are two things that I would say, one is that, he was the most human and the most imperfect of gods. And that makes him all the more interesting and all the more as a figure to try to understand, and to read and interpret. And the second one, and the one that is the most important for me... An Argentinian Jew, who has been inside analysis for the past 35 years or so, is that, you don't choose who you love, you love who you love. You love imperfect people, and if you think that you can decide who you love and who you don't love, then you don't understand anything about love. When we cried for days for his death and with some of his goals and games, I think that, it's an expression of love for who you love and not... I think that many people will identify with having loved the right people or the wrong people in their lives, and that's, I think what Maradona means for all of us who cried for him when he died.
June:
Do you think that his imperfectness is precisely what attract people to him?
Mariano Siskind:
Only to some extent. One can identify with imperfect human beings, but Maradona is way more complex than that. It's not that people admire him because they see themselves in him, that's not true. You don't see yourself in a human imperfect god, but God, nevertheless. There's something that we do in our class on soccer. I teach one class on Maradona, it's called, the Global Game: Soccer, Popular Culture, and Politics. The whole class is meant to be an introduction to the humanities for students who usually, sometimes reject the humanities and go to classes of social sciences, and the sciences, and technology. It's a typical class of humanities where we think about philosophy, and literature, and film, and art, and aesthetics, and ethics through soccer. Soccer is the way in which we attract students to show them what the humanities does as a lens to read the world, anything really. He is not forgiven sometimes, that coming from the lowest, poorest socio-economical world, ascended to the highest possible plays of these human demigod, and that he did that, bringing the culture of the lower classes, the object, the...
Mariano Siskind:
I don't know how to say this word in English, [foreign language 00:34:49], a moral. Not immoral, but a moral worldview of those whose life is determined by the need of having to survive day-to-day. In the objection that has to do with the complete leisure of the moralistic limit border between good and evil. Maradona was a figure who did not embrace middle-class, "bushwa" moralistic view of life. I think that is something that is typical of the lower classes, and that is something that many people can't forgive him or forgive in his figure. They are a bit more comfortable if... Turning a blind eye when they think about Ben Carson, or Beethoven, or John Lennon. But he was Ben Carson, and John Lennon, and Beethoven, and Miles Davis, and... et cetera, et cetera. In relation to these precisely, is that my students read a fragment of Nietzsche, the Birth of Tragedy, to think about Maradona. Because in the Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche proposes to opposing figures, to think about human nature.
Mariano Siskind:
One is the figure of Apollo, the god of poetry, the god light, of well-being, the balance between the reason and affect, the self-control, the social order, being measured and containing wilder impulses, and Nietzsche opposes. He identifies the figure of Apollo with the state of the world, the state of modernity, the enlightenment. And he opposes to Apollo, the figure of Dionysus. Dionysus, the god of carnival, of festivity, of wine, of dance and music, of madness, of unrestrained sex, and intoxication, and uncontrolled freedom, and everything that lies beyond reason. On the one hand, the Apollonian, as the thinking versus the Dionysiac feeling, Apollonian self-control versus the Dionysiac passion, Apollonian calm reason and rationality versus the Dionysiac, instinct, and ecstasies, and chaos, and destruction.
Mariano Siskind:
For a nature, Apollo is a figure of order and morality and Dionysus is the figure of the freedom from morality and the good and the bad that comes when in the realm of pure feeling, and passion, and wine, and most important of all, excess. And so, I propose that Maradona is a perfect embodiment of the Nietzschean idea of the Dionysiac in culture. So, important. Imagine if we lived in a world of purely ruled by Apollo, by order, and reason, and morality, and so on and so forth. We have this excessive, chaotic, forces of creative destruction or destructive creation that break or molds and liberate us. Let's put it differently, allows us to imagine or to leave the carriers lead forms of excessive freedom that produced us new forms of social-cultural meaning. I propose that, Maradona is one of these historical figures. The other thing that I propose in the course is that, precisely because of these, Maradona can be read through the notion of the classical tragic hero. So, my students read the chapter on tragedy from Aristotle's Poetics. Try to understand the figure in front of them and it's quite amazing because, in tragedy first you have the establishment of the heroicity of the hero.
Mariano Siskind:
The hero is precisely like Maradona, the figure of a demigod is the son of a god and human. A demigod, a human god. There's a period in Maradona's life where he established his heroicity, I would say that's 1979, 1990. The classical Maradona, the moment when he emerges and wins the Youth World Cup in 1979 and becomes immediately the promise of the future of football. Placing a container of Juniors in Boca, in Barcelona, arrives in Napoli, becomes the hero of these relegated poor South, wins The World Cup of 86, wins two national titles in Italy and one European Cup, then plays the World Cup in Italy in 1990, where Argentina... He's injured and plays. There's this classical photo of Maradona's ankle, swollen like a grapefruit and after each of his games there, so the heroicity... Together with Caniggia they eliminate Brazil, with amazing goal that Maradona crafted and then Caniggia scored, and then eliminates Italy. The host nation was destined to own its own World Cup. In Napoli, in his own stadium, and the Italian fans from the CD crying because they were torn between their own god playing against his national team.
Mariano Siskind:
The whole setting of tragedies, then Argentina looses the final of the World Cup against Germany with a penalty that was kind of invented by the vocab. FIFA is a very corrupt... Maradona had denounced the leaders of FIFA over, and over again, between 86 and 90. FIFA hated Maradona, Germany had just been reunified in 89. The plug line was that, Germany had to win the World Cup. The game was awful, Germany was awarded a penalty kick that was totally made up, didn't exist and Germany won the World Cup. Maradona cried, Maradona insulted the Italian fans when they booed the Argentinian National Anthem, the establishment of Maradona's heroicity, 79, 1990. Maradona's tragic hero begins in 91, when he's suspended for testing positive from cocaine, goes on then he's disqualified from the World Cup of 94, also because of his addiction, until his death. What we do in the course, is that we read the way in which Aristotle conceptualizes this downfall of the tragic hero.
Mariano Siskind:
First, the notion of peripeteia, which is the heroes reversal of fortune that is brought about by what Aristotle calls hamartia. Hamartia is an error in judgment by the hero or by hubris, the excessive pride. Finally, the moment that it's called anagnorisis. Anagnorisis is the moment of recognition and acknowledgement by the tragic hero, that the downfall was caused by his own actions. That is a beautiful moment in Maradona, when he has his tribute game, he's good by game in the stadium of his team, in Argentina, in Boca Juniors, La Boca Buenos Aires, and at the end of the game, he has these beautiful poetic, because that's the other thing. He always crafted these poetic and dramatic phrases that remain in the popular consciousness. And he said, "I made mistakes and I paid a high price for them, but [foreign language 00:48:28]. But the ball is never stained." That moment of recognition, of acknowledging that his own excessive pride and errors of judgment, hamartia and hubris, brought him down this moment of peripeteia.
Mariano Siskind:
All these things, the Dionysiac figure, the heroes tragic fall, and being Beethoven, being the Beatles, being Shakespeare, these are the things that made people love him and admire him so much, not so much his imperfections. Yes, by all means they play a role there, but I think it's these complex and these much tied into the narrative ways, in which we understand the world for centuries and centuries. That's why he's so important.
June:
You've talked a lot about aesthetics, do you want to address that for a minute?
Mariano Siskind:
Yeah. In English, football is known as the beautiful game. I think aesthetics is... I'm a Professor of Literature and Culture, so of course I think aesthetics is absolutely central to an understanding of the world. There's something about football, I think life in general that... Let's stay within the realm of football. Football is like the performing arts, in football, there's plasticity interpretation, movement imagination. In football there are scripts for secondary players, there are role players in football. In every team Maradona played in the World Cup of 1986, the coach of Argentina's team was this hyper, cerebral, defensive, genius, called Carlos Salvador Bilardo, and Bilrado had invented new formation that didn't exist at least in world football, up to that point. Every player in the team had a very much rehearsed role to play. There was a script for them, but not for Maradona, not for Diego, but the other was you improvise, you do whatever you want.
Mariano Siskind:
Everyone had a script except for him. In his case, he was this imagination, overall plasticity plus contingency, it's wonderful. I recommend anyone who's interested to see the way he explains the Goal of the Century, which lasts, I think 10 seconds, the whole run, and what he thought, and what he did, and what he decided to do at each moment of these 10 seconds of his run between midfield and scoring the goal, and that's a true definition of genius. But genius in the moment of the performance, it's not like people like me who write. And so, you write the sentence and then you erase it, and then you write it again, and then you correct it, and then... Until you're happy with these verse, or with this sentence, or with these idea. In the performing arts, every performance is different, it's the moment. And it differentiates the geniuses and the excellent players.
Mariano Siskind:
There's a lot more to say about aesthetics, but I think that... There's a famous anecdote of Piazzolla, who didn't like soccer, didn't like football. But he was once in... I think in Paris, and Napoli was playing against, probably Paris Saint-Germain, and Maradona got the ball and they had one of the amazing gratuitous plays. You don't need to be beautiful to play beautifully, to win the game.
Mariano Siskind:
The aesthetic nature is always a form of surplus, but that was always for Maradona. Maradona did one of these wonderfully plastic moves and plays. It is said that, Piazzolla stood up in his seat and he shouted, "You are Nijinsky." Because, that's exactly right. It is like the most amazing impossible belly dancers. In the case of Maradona and in the case of geniuses, like I said before, the Nijinsky or Beethoven, or the Beatles, or... [foreign language 00:56:31] Is this aesthetic form that goes beyond the beautiful, that Immanuel Kant calls the sublime. Which is a moment that it's not just a beauty, what you're witnessing, but something that is beyond comprehension, and that is so strikingly strong, the feeling that you have for that beautiful event that you're witnessing. That for a moment, your whole subjectivity decomposes, you are undone in front of the sublime, you're transformed, you witnessed something that is aesthetic secular form of the divine. I think that applies to Maradona. Anyone who watched Maradona can understand what I'm saying.
June:
Mariano, as I listened to you explain us in terms of aesthetics and the sublime, I'm thinking back to our brief conversation when I set up this interview, and you said that you've been crying nonstop for two days. You stopped crying?
Mariano Siskind:
No, I haven't. I've been watching and reading obsessively. What I try to do, is to think about... I'm totally shocked and surprised about my emotional reaction to the death of Diego. My sons have come to me and said, "What's wrong?" And my wife's saying, "Come on. A little bit, I understand, but that's probably too much." It wasn't just me, it's not everyone, but I know lots of people who've been crying for days since we heard of the news of Maradona's passing. I try to think what is it about my own tears, my excessive reaction to his death, and about the public tears, look at people crying in the public sphere, crying at the center of the police. I think that, we are mourning something that is larger than the figure of Maradona. We're probably mourning a world that is lost to us, a world of a certain possibilities and experiences that in the 80s, we still thought it was possible.
Mariano Siskind:
Maradona was the catalyst for an experience of the common of community, which is impossible. How can you be in communion with a nation or with the world? I think that in those brief moments, different moments between... I don't know, between 79 and 90, or between 86 and 90, and it's not the whole time, it's these flashes of the possibility of something impossible, of the turning possible of the impossible that Maradona opened up for millions and millions of people around the world. We don't have anything like that today. I would say that he's lost to us. And also the idea of the... I could go on but I... Maradona represented for very brief moments. Like the other geniuses that I mentioned before the possibility of the impossible, and that has very important political and subjective implications. I think we are mourning and crying over the loss of the rendering possible of the impossible.
June:
Thank you.
Mariano Siskind:
Thank you very much June.
June:
You've been listening to Mariano Siskind. He's Professor of Romance Languages in the Literatures and a Comparative Literature at Harvard University. He also teaches a course on football. Thank you for being with us Mariano.
Mariano Siskind:
Thank you, June.