The news that record numbers of British fans are travelling to Niagara Falls for the World Cup has prompted the usual chorus of patriotic claptrap. ‘Our lads abroad!’ cry the tabloids. ‘Beating the queue!’ I suppose we should be grateful they’ve found a waterfall to gawp at rather than another beach to despoil. But let us not mistake this vulgar pilgrimage for some grand cultural exchange. It is instead a symptom of a deeper malaise: the collapse of authentic national identity into a mere consumer spectacle.
Consider the historical parallels. When the Roman Empire declined, its citizens retreated into empty entertainments. They built arenas, not aqueducts. They cheered gladiators, not philosophers. Today, we have our own arenas: the football stadium, the airport departure lounge, the international ‘fan zone’. And like those late Romans, we mistake movement for progress. The fact that 50,000 Britons have decamped to a Canadian provincial park is not evidence of a vibrant, outward-looking culture. It is evidence of a collective inability to sit still, to contemplate, to be.
Then there is the intellectual decadence. We are so desperate for meaning that we project it onto a torrent of water. ‘World Cup viewing spot debated,’ you say. Debated? By whom? By pundits whose sole qualification is an ability to shout over the roar of the falls? By politicians who see a photo opportunity amid the spray? This is not debate. This is noise. The Victorians at least had the decency to build railways and museums. We build viewing platforms and sell plastic ponchos.
Finally, consider what this says about national identity. We used to export goods, ideas, and institutions. The British Empire, for all its sins, was a project of transformation. We gave the world cricket, the steam engine, and the concept of fair play. Now we export only our worst instincts: queue-jumping, littering, and a juvenile obsession with ‘banter’. To see British fans gathered at Niagara Falls is to see a once-great nation reduced to a tourist attraction. We have become the very thing we once observed from a distance: a tribe in fancy dress, waiting for the next thrill.
And what of the falls themselves? They are a wonder of nature, a sublime reminder of the forces that shape our planet. But we cannot see them as such. We must sprinkle them with our mediocrity, rename them ‘World Cup Central’, and sell them to the highest bidder. It is the same impulse that turns Stonehenge into a car park and the Lake District into a theme park. We are incapable of simply beholding. We must consume.
So let the fans travel. Let them cheer. Let them post their selfies against the mist. I will stay here, in my study, with a glass of claret and a copy of Gibbon. For I have seen the future, and it is a queue for a public toilet in Ontario.
