Academic Laurent DuBois writes:
When you cheer on the [Belgium] Red Devils, you can’t forget that you are cheering for an idea rather than a reality, and that in a way that idea only exists on the football pitch.
The Belgium that takes shape on the pitch is actually so far from the nation it purports to represent. The team, at its best, is coherent, bringing together disparate languages and histories, a place where immigrant communities are not just welcome but understood as fundamental to the future of the nation.
Leftists love to build countries around ideas such as multiculturalism, multiracialism, communism, socialism, and the like. Rightists build nations for themselves and for their posterity.
