Football and beyond

I may be one of just a handful of people who is unmoved by the the football World Cup which has just begun.  I am unlikely to watch it, but if the England team does well then I will be happy for all its supporters, even though I feel more Welsh than English!

It is unusual, these days, for an event to unite a country as a major sporting event like this one does.  The death of Diana, Princess of Wales did, as had her wedding to Prince Charles years before,and opposition to the Iraq war brought together a large part of the British population for a short period of time.

Nowadays, apart from significant royal weddings and funerals, and sport, many of us live lives which are focused on our own affairs and there can be a sense of disconnection from what is going on beyond that.  It can take something like a major war, something that touches all of us somehow, to shake us out of our insularity and into a sense of being part of a shared community.

In a few weeks''s time the memories of the World Cup will be beginning to fade, the fans and the team will have returned and everything will be back to "normal".  The community spirit which it has engendered doesn't have to disappear, however.

In the last World War, the vast majority of the British population worked together magnificently, economising, helping each other, making sacrifices, supporting their soldiers and their leaders. Now, we have another war to fight, a war to bring pragmatism, fairness  and simplicity into the way the UK (and many other countries) conducts itself.  If all of us were able to accept the need for change and actively do what we can in our own lives to support the national need, with acceptance, it would truly be transformative.