We owe a great debt of thanks to John Terry. In his own inimitable style, in a clarity and eloquence far exceeding even the best of history teachers, Mr Terry has reminded us that Europe, with Britain as no exception, has a long, bloody five hundred year colonial history, and that that history has been singularly defined by a deep seated poisonous racism, a racism that persists at all levels of society to this very day. It’s in our police forces, in our media institutions, in all levels of government, left as well as right, and deeply ingrained throughout the entire social fabric of our imagined civilisation.

Head Teachers are tainted by it, Members of Parliament are tainted by it, your local white bobby is tainted by it, and of course our white middle class sports governing bodies simply ooze it. It is in the very DNA of our European being. No amount of global immigration, integration, assimilation, multiculturalism, and similar well-meaning platitudes and initiatives has been able to shake it. And when we delude ourselves that we are finally free of the debilitating toxins, along comes a streetwise history teacher, the likes of Mr Terry, to remind us all over again. What a history teacher he has proved to be.

What our eloquent Mr Terry would have said to Mr Ferdinand had he had more time, was that the white working class of Europe, and particularly Britain, has been sufficiently bought off with the spoils of empire so as not to question the morality of what our governments were up to. He would have patiently explained that our comfortable European existence relative to the four fifths of the world’s population, who continue to live in abject poverty, is principally at the expense of ‘people of colour’. He would have said, had he been allowed to develop his theme, that in order to justify the rape and pillage of other lands, and the genocide that took place across the Americas and Australasia, it was necessary to create and propagate the myth that Europeans were superior to those ‘people of colour’ to whom our European governments were busy subjugating. He would have explained to Mr Ferdinand that in order to square the circle of a Christian religion that preached love and harmony for all god’s children with the brutal expropriation of other peoples lands, a philosophy of racial superiority would have to be created. But not having sufficient time to elaborate these matters, he simply referred to Mr Ferdinand as a ‘fucking black cunt’.

John Terry, being an all rounded humanitarian philosopher would have preferred to sit down with Mr Ferdinand and anyone else who cared to listen, have a quite beer or two, and mull over these historical questions. But the ticking clock is a cruel master and both men had a big task in front of them, one that had to be completed within the proscribed ninety minutes. Unable to tease out the finer points of global history and the nature and origins of European racism on the football pitch, Mr Terry resorted to a convenient form of short-hand. Every geezer in every pub, and every school child throughout the land knew precisely what Mr Terry really meant to say. The message came across loud and clear: racism is still alive and well in this green and pleasant land, and I’ll still be representing my country in the forthcoming European Championships with or without the captain’s armband And the Chelsea fans will still love me. Message received loud and clear.

Of course John Terry is not the only person in English football to be well honed up on British and European history. The then manager of the English football team, Mr Capello, had no problems with Mr Terry’s poetic phrase. It seems the present manager, Mr Hodgson, also has no problems on this score. Chelsea football club, owner, administrators and fans obviously have no problem on this front. In fact, the general sentiment throughout the football world, with a few notable exceptions, is shake hands and get on with it. We have a global soap opera to run. Even the FA, who love to parade their ‘Kick Racism Out’ bandwagon, is content with a derisory slap on the wrist. They are quick to point out that the football terraces are far more wholesome places than they used to be in the bad old dark days. It could hardly be otherwise given the high proportion of talented black players in most professional football teams. But that is to miss the point completely. The poison of racism still runs deep; it’s still festering away in the European body politic, and as the economic crisis deepens, expect all the old poisonous racial crap to come creeping to the surface. Thanks to the likes of Mr Terry and Mr Suarez, we might all be a little better prepared when the thugs start to dust off their fascist jack boots. The European Romanies already know all about that as do the African migrants in Spain, Portugal and Greece. Thanks again Mr Terry for the salient history lesson.