Who are these people and what are they doing.
It is a foundational belief of this series that there are meaningful differences between the peoples of the world.
That sounds like too obvious a point to waste time asserting but it is not a point that is made as...pointedly in books as in blogs because people who write books are smarter than people who write blogs and to make that point pointedly is to risk making value judgments about peoples, e.g. Americans are quiet, Muslims are pacifists, Chinese are extroverts, Swedes are musical, and you had better be right about that or you'll look stupid and even if you're right in making positive value judgments, as above, about some peoples it sounds like you're implicitly making negative value judgments about others and that sounds like nationalism, or racism, or ethno-centrism, or related hurtful isms and who are you calling un-musical, HUH? All of which I am* sincerely sensitive to because I don't like to make hurtful statements and because I don't like to look dumb but I will make value judgments upon sufficient foundation and risk sounding hurtful and dumb.
The people in the picture are Englishmen and they're doing the Poznan. I hold there sufficient foundation to assert that there are meaningful differences between Englishmen and other peoples.
I hold that there are only two peoples in the world who do the Poznan, not that other peoples can't do the Poznan, just that, as with Muslim Arabs and democracy, they choose not to. Those are still differences. I hold that there are only two peoples in the world who do the Poznan because, well, I know that actually, that is a statement of fact, not the product of deductive reasoning on my part. The English are one. The other are...the Poles. Ahh, well of course, the Poles--no, you didn't think that.
There is an eccentricity that is part of the stereotype of Englishmen, it is a charming, humorous eccentricity. One sees it in Dr. Samuel Johnson, in Sir Winston Churchill, in Charles Dickens' characters. And one sees it in the fans of Manchester City Football Club who do the Poznan.
In October 2010 Manchester City played a two-game series against Polish club Lech Poznan, one game in Poznan, one game in Manchester. When Lech (Poznan?) scored a goal, their fans turned their backs to the field, put their arms around each other's shoulders and jumped up and down...
Yes they did, I am not making that up. Yes, that is preposterous. No, I don't know why they do that. Neither did City fans. If this had happened in the American popular culture, if say, the Green Bay Packers were playing a game of (American) football against the Lech Poznan...Panthers, let's say, and Poznan (Lech?) had scored a touchdown and their fans had turned their backs to the field, put their arms around each other's shoulders and jumped up and down...well, the police might have been called or Army helicopters might have been summoned to douse the Poznans (Poznanians?) with Prozac but however that may be I am sure--I hold--that Packers fans would not have done what City fans did, which, according to the Daily Telegraph, was to "politely ask" (No they did not politely ask) the Poznanians what they were doing...and then emulate it.
"Aye mate, look at those blokes, what the 'ell are they doing?"
"I 'ont know, they daft."
"Hey Polack, what the 'ell are you doing?"
To me, to other Americans, to 99.9999% of the readers of this blog, there is no answer to that question that would have led to behavioral changes in us. To (blue) Mancunians that day however, and since, and to at least some other Englishmen (West Ham United supporters) it did; the answer to that question--whatever it was-- was inspiration, it touched that eccentric, batty, hilarious part of the soul of Englishmen.
There has been a lot of dancing of the Poznan in blue Manchester this past week. Last Tuesday at the City of Manchester Stadium, City qualified for the Champions League competition for the first time in its history. And yesterday at Wembley Stadium in London, City won the Football Association (FA) Cup, it's first since 1969 and the club's first major trophy in 35 years.
* "acutely and" removed May 18.
