If you’re the type of person who likes uninspired ethnic stereotypes, boy are you in luck – it’s World Cup season, and lame country-based jokes are all the rage. (Did the French team really surrender? Is the Polish team really dumb?) When it comes to trash-talking other countries, though, Americans are in a strange position: Our natural inclination toward chest-beating ethnocentrism is dampened by our collectively not having given a shit about soccer for, well, forever. So, during this week’s brutal German routing of the hometown Brazilian team, it’s not altogether surprising that US soccer fans went for the obvious, boring common denominator:
Must we though? #BRAvsGER #WorldCup pic.twitter.com/lSF9LDoHNr
— Neetzan Zimmerman (@neetzan) July 8, 2014
Way to punch down, guys. But that’s nothing compared to Bung Mokhtar Radin , a Malaysian member of parliament from the United Malays National Organization party, who took the Nazi ball and ran with it (is that a soccer joke? I don’t know. I don’t cares):
WELL DONE..BRAVO…LONG LIVE HITLER…
— Bung Moktar Radin (@MyKinabatangan) July 8, 2014
Hitler, of course, has been dead for decades.
In his defense, Bung explained:
I don’t know what’s wrong with people sometimes. Hitler is part of history and the German team fought like how he did.
I mean, jeez, what’s wrong with people sometimes, amirite?
The Washington Post speculates that:
Given [Bung’s] reputation for controversy (he once called a rival a “big monkey” during a parliamentary debate and has some interesting thoughts about female drivers), it’s tempting to believe the tweet was simply trolling.
It’s tempting.
Trolling or not, I’d rather we just chalk this up to the fact that soccer brings out the worst in everyone, and I thank god we’ve got four years of relative calm before we have to go through this mishugas again.
[via WP]
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