Here we go again. Another World Cup, another viral video of Japanese fans tidying up a stadium while the rest of the world claps and the British press wrings its hands over our ‘hooligan’ reputation. Today’s instalment features Qatari groundskeepers, Japanese supporters and a pointed plea from UK officials for English fans to ‘do it at home’. The subtext is clear: we are the barbarians; they are the civilised. But before we join the chorus of self-flagellation, let us pause to examine the historical and intellectual currents behind this fetishisation of litter-picking.
First, a dose of perspective. The Japanese cleaning ritual is admirable, certainly. It is also a deeply ingrained cultural practice, rooted in Shinto concepts of purity and a collectivist ethos that prizes social harmony over individual convenience. This is not a moral superiority; it is a cultural difference. To hold it up as a rebuke to British fans is to misunderstand the very nature of national character. The British relationship with public space, forged in the crucible of the Industrial Revolution, is different. Our pubs, our parks, our terraces have long been arenas of raucous, individualistic expression. That is not a flaw; it is a feature.
Yet the contemporary commentariat, in its relentless drive to find new ways to condemn the West, seizes upon such contrasts as evidence of British degeneracy. We are told we must learn from Japan, that we must adopt their ‘cleanliness’ as a measure of our moral worth. This is intellectual decadence of the highest order. It is the same impulse that drove Edward Gibbon to chronicle the fall of Rome: a civilisational fatigue that mistakes ritual purity for strength. The Romans, too, became obsessed with Eastern manners and morals, adopting exotic cults and customs as they lost faith in their own. We are witnessing the same phenomenon today.
Consider the irony: the very people demanding we emulate Japanese fans are often the same ones who decry the loss of British identity. They want us to be more like the Japanese, but also more tolerant, more diverse, more global. This is a contradiction that cannot hold. A nation cannot simultaneously abandon its traditions and acquire new ones from afar. It becomes a hollow shell, a consumer of other people’s cultures, a tourist attraction in its own right.
Let us also dispense with the notion that cleaning a stadium is a sign of high civilisation. Ancient Rome had public baths and a sophisticated sewer system; it also had bread and circuses. The Japanese themselves, for all their civility, have a dark history of imperialism and authoritarianism. The act of picking up litter does not absolve a nation of its sins, nor does it confer moral authority. It is a gesture, nothing more.
What rankles most is the hectoring tone of the coverage. ‘UK fans urged to do it at home,’ the headline read, as if we are unruly children in need of discipline. This is the voice of the managerial class, the same people who bring us nanny-state nannying and health-and-safety fascism. They have no faith in the British people, no pride in our culture. They see only deficits, failures, shortcomings. They are the new Puritans, preaching a gospel of self-improvement through foreign example.
I say let the Japanese clean their stadiums. Let them enjoy their viral fame. But let us not mistake a cultural quirk for a universal virtue. The British fan, for all his faults, brings passion, noise and a fierce loyalty to his club and country. He does not need to be lectured on litter. He needs to be celebrated for what he is: a living link to a tradition of working-class exuberance that has given the world football, rock music and the pub. That is something no amount of sweeping can replicate.
In the end, this entire controversy is a symptom of a deeper malaise: the loss of confidence in our own civilisation. When we stop apologising for who we are and start defending our peculiarities, we will have taken the first step toward recovery. Until then, we will continue to be lectured by people who prefer empty gestures over real culture. I, for one, will not be joining the clean-up crew. I will be watching the match.
