Looking Forward To Past

By Celine Dion
December 30 2011

Those of you who read anti capitalist literature may have heard of ‘The Shock Doctrine’ by Canadian journalist Naomi Klein. Kleins’ premise is that governments exploit the calculated tactic of trauma and crisis on their subjects, via conflict, imprisonments, disasters, in order to impose their economic will on a pliable and disorientated people.

Klein’s metaphor is taken from the now discredited method of electric shock therapy on psychiatric patients, in order to ‘clear the slate’ of their troubled minds, and the military tactics of ‘shock and awe’ favoured by American military tacticians at the start of conflicts such as the Iraq War. In the actual words of shock and awe theorists, the intention of shock and awe is to ‘control the adversary’s will, perceptions, and understanding, and literally make an adversary impotent to react’.

The Tactics of Trauma

On a lower level, most of us will have seen, perhaps not even realising it, the tactics of trauma used in the workplace. As we are constantly informed, we live in times of ‘economic crisis’. The landscape is therefore ripe for sudden programmes of re-engineering by management consultancies, a calculated climate of fear of forced redundancies and ‘restructure’, and hey presto, by the end of the cycle, anyone left is ‘just glad to have a job’. They certainly won’t be poking their heads above the parapet to query pay freezes, removal of bonus and pension schemes, or the steady unravelling of what used to be seen as established terms and conditions of their employment.

This time last year, Arsenal sat at the top of the league, was famously ‘pushing for trophies on four fronts’ and could still boast the heavyweight European names Fabregas and Nasri in their ranks. Yet the fans generally speaking weren’t happy. Fans bemoaned a general lack of spending, embarrassing if still narrow defeats at home to West Bromwich, Tottenham and Newcastle, and the shared conviction that the club was standing still, if not actually going backwards.

Exit of the Heavyweights

A year on, and we have a team that sits fifth in the table, several points behind Tottenham. It has offloaded Fabregas and Nasri and replaced them with players worth approximately a third of their value, and we have a manager who freely concedes the title in December. Yet the fans consensus is, by almost total contrast, largely upbeat and positive.

How has the club manoeuvred this frankly astounding manipulation of fan opinion? Well, I think you know where I’m going with this.

The months of August & September were curious by the standards of any football club. Like Tariq Aziz in the final days of the old Iraqi regime, Wenger would appear on TV almost daily, rubbishing reports that Nasri and Fabregas were leaving, when it was common knowledge that they were. Gael Clichy was allowed to depart, as were many other former golden boys of the failed youth project such as Denilson and Bendtner. The season loomed nearer and nearer, yet apart from Gervinho and the bewilderingly long term purchase of Oxlade Chamberlain, nobody seemed to be coming in to bolster the squad.

The disciplinary shambles at Newcastle, then the subsequent debacle at Old Trafford, saw the club at rock bottom. My personal low point however, was the home game v Liverpool, where the club charged me 70 pounds to watch a team comprising faces from last years’ reserve team, and a comically disgruntled Samir Nasri, get beaten by a poor Liverpool team who never came out of first gear. The pubs and fan forums were enraged. And nobody, the players, the manager, or the board, escaped criticism. Make no mistake, rooted to the bottom of the table, the club were in crisis. 

Nobody will ever know the truth of what went on during that month. Wenger certainly won’t explain the thinking behind the sudden shopping spree on established, if middle of the road, professionals that preceded the closure of the transfer window. We certainly won’t get the truth via the forked tongue and meaningless platitudes of Gazidis. But it doesn’t matter, because the fans have done the boards’ job for them. Stumbling dazed and disorientated from the wreckage of the early season, and with a pleasing fortitude reminiscent of the blitz spirit, we have completely reconstructed our belief system and rhetoric around the club.

Fans reunited

Since the evolution of the internet and particularly twitter, it has become easier than ever to gauge the position of a football clubs fan base. And although they vehemently denied it to external observers such as Talksport, all out civil war split the Arsenal supporter community from approximately the Carling Cup Final to probably the 5-3 victory at Stamford Bridge. There were spikes in hostility after the Villa home game and the 8-2 defeat at the start of this season. The different camps, and their viewpoints, have been documented elsewhere, and there is no need to go into them. But what is astounding, is that it simply took a run of reasonable results against modest opposition, plus over a similarly crisis ridden Chelsea, for almost all parties to re-unite behind Wenger and apparently the club.

A great deal of emotional blackmail was put about by Arsenal during this period, including the pure theatre of corporate schmaltz that was our AGM. Much like a large company imploring its employees that ‘we are all in this together’ before posting huge share price increases, the clubs communications, Wenger’s, and Gazidis’, harnessed the theme of the global recession, and the financial irresponsibility that preceded it, then summoned forth the behemoth of Manchester City at every opportunity, in order to successfully persuade supporters that ours was the only true and decent way, whatever the hardships that might litter our path.

The Third Way

 And what an easy job they had, when one considers the number of Arsenal fans that, in their day to day communication on the internet, for all to see, claim ‘Transfer profit’ as one of Arsenal and Wengers’ great current achievements.

 Fully aware that the club finances underpin almost any debate between football supporters, and that Arsenal supporters are more financially aware than most, the club has engineered a kind of ‘third way’ where fans look at the balance sheet first and the scoreline second. Now I have yet to have anyone explain to me what possible benefit ‘transfer profit’ can have for the average football fan. But there it is, held aloft, and with great pride, by Arsenal supporters all over the world, instead of an actual trophy.

Banana or Champagne?

The language of Arsenal fans has changed. Where we used to marvel at champagne football, nowadays we revel in the teams ‘grit’ and ‘fighting spirit’. The spirit amongst fans after a fairly routine and uninspiring 2-1 victory against Norwich was genuinely celebratory. Two years ago, five points behind Tottenham at Christmas, and fifth place with five defeats, would be viewed as a disaster. Indeed, when Villa stood in front of us three seasons ago at the same stage, it WAS viewed as a disaster. But now we revel in our capability in catching up with the ‘big boys’ and genuinely look forward to the return of a 34 year old Thierry Henry. The fans sing ‘Yossi Benayoun’ to the tune of the Samir Nasri song, without any hint of irony. Like people delighting in the taste of a simple banana after the rationing of World War 2, the clubs fans have adopted an admirable ‘mustn’t grumble’ attitude, in the face of the insurmountable threat of the invading oil sheiks.

But has the landscape of football really changed so much? Manchester City are only one club, they can only have, at any one time, 20 or so top class players on their books. Chelsea can certainly pitch in with another 20, although as is very evident, they have their own problems. Paris St Germain have only very recently entered the picture, a major player has yet to be persuaded to join them. Other than that, it’s as you were.

 There are many, many top class players available to bolster the squad. Most importantly, to IMPROVE it. With only one top, established world class player at the club now there is surely not much of a wage structure to protect. There was supposedly a 20-40 million pound war chest available to Wenger before the Summer exodus started. We then made a profit on sales.

 Arsenal bring in three million pounds on some home games and over two on others. These figures aren’t adding up, money saved on sales could be used on wages. But ultimately why bother when people keep going to games, and seem quite happy not to have to compete. Sometimes I wonder whether, uniquely, in the modern age, the majority of fans would prefer to preserve Wengers’ image as an alchemist of unparalleled reputation, rather than spend like other clubs, and risk failure.

Wenger’s Magic Hat?

Having said all this, Wenger himself has done an excellent job this season. The debate as to whether he has the money and won’t spend it, or whether he is protecting something more sinister, is tired, and we won’t be given the answer for the time being. So taking his work at face value, after the rocky start, almost all his purchases have been a success, and he has proven many detractors wrong.

On a purely financial footing, he has again worked a miracle. Given that he does not appear able, for whatever reason, to attract a Gotze or similar, the team plays to its strengths and he has eradicated many of the defensive weaknesses of the last four seasons. And to be completely fair to Wenger, he could never have foreseen Wilsheres’ almost season long injury. There have been negative comments about Mertesacker but his errors are miniscule compared to the shambolic performances of Squillaci last year.

Everybody is happy with Santos, Jenkinson isnt’ half as bad as we feared, and Gervinho has enough about him to justify his outlay, and as we all know, he  will improve. But nobody embodies the current era like Mikel Arteta. If Arteta had replaced Fabregas and Nasri as our main midfield purchase three years ago there would have been a riot. But so comfortable are we with the clubs newly found modest status, that we praise him to the heavens. ‘Economical’, ‘Tidy’,’Hardworking’ ‘Busy’, ‘Defensively aware’ are all words that not only apply to Arteta but are used about the team as a whole, and not in a negative sense.

Passive Acceptance Fans in Shock?

But something had to get us to this state of passive acceptance. I am not for one minute suggesting Wenger lost games deliberately, or would have even have known how to have engineered the chaos of July and August. I am not necessarily suggesting that forces within the club engineered the chaos either.

 But consider this. Stan Kroenke is a venture capitalist in the platinum category and has generated his obscene wealth via the proceeds of a corporate and political ethos that very definitely will be familiar with the covert principles of ‘shock and awe’. The Arsenal machine, via its communications, marketing strategy, even its dwelling on the propaganda of the past in order to divert our attention from the present, is displaying all the signs of a calculating and cynical corporate machine. Do not assume that our football club is sacred and cannot be touched in the same way that, for example, our political and professional lives might be.

Think on it.