Why it's always conspiracy rather than cock-up for fascists

I was going to make fun of the North Korean Women’s Football Team and their officials for holding up the start of their match against Colombia for over an hour at Hampden Park yesterday because some idiot put their faces next to the South Korean flag on a video package shown on the big electronic screen inside the stadium. But that would be a bit rich coming from someone who lives in what is still – just about – a Western democracy. 

The great thing about democracies is that the cock-up theory of human behaviour prevails – and they have a collective sense of humour.

If someone had stuck British players’ faces next to the flag of a country we were officially at war with, they’d have rolled their eyes and laughed and got on with it. But, of course, they wouldn’t have been in danger of losing their liberty or their lives for doing so.

If the North Korea players had ignored the inadvertent insult and carried on regardless without taking time out to check up with the murdering swine who run their country what they should do, they might have been signing their own death warrants – and it must be hard to play your best when you’re wondering whether the fat little hereditary tyrant who, we’re told, vetted everyone connected with the team (even its specially-recruited “fans”) before they were allowed to travel abroad is at that very moment planning your demise.

A totalitarian state views itself as God. It is all-knowing, all-seeing, all-wise. What it can’t brook is the idea of luck – bad or good. If things go well, that’s down the state, in particular, the sensational brilliance of its leader – the embodiment of the state. When things go wrong it has to be down to enemies, external and internal: otherwise, it would have to be the fault of the leadership – and, as we know, totalitarian leaders don’t make mistakes.

The really sad thing about yesterday is that even walking off the pitch and getting orders from Pyongyang might not be enough to stave off reprisals. Just as the Soviet Union imprisoned or killed soldiers and civilians who had the misfortune to be overrun by the German troops during WWII, and just as Iraqi athletes were imprisoned and tortured if they failed to do well, I doubt the North Korean ladies will be let off the hook just because they were innocent of any wrong-doing.

Life without luck must be an absolute bitch.

The next time England footballers bleat about the pressure of a penalty shoot-out, they might wish to reflect on the sort of pressure routinely experienced by players from fascist states, whose very life might depend on the outcome.