For those of us fortunate enough to enjoy the stability and the security of the rule of law, it is difficult to imagine life without it. For though the media gives us a glimpse of the violence and the discord, this understanding barely scratches the surface of the toll chaos takes on societies afflicted by it. Ensconced in our comfort, we cannot conceive of never knowing if the police will protect our bodies, if the state will respect our rights, or if the institutions will allow us to provide for our families. And yet these are merely a handful of the potent fears that characterize life in countries teetering on the brink. This Mr. Powell captures admirably, albeit non-conventionally, through the enduring and universal lens of sport.
One of the most murderous cities in the world, Juarez, Mexico has virtually nothing to write home about. Its churches have been violated, its journalists have been butchered and silenced, its police have been bought. It is a land of broken dreams that, but for a quirk of fate, might have had a very different legacy. For it sits on the unfortunate side of the American border with Texas, a geographical reality that has bestowed upon it a very different political history, one that has shackled it with a legacy of corruption and revolution. But for all that Juarez has had its institutions undermined and its dreams twisted, one constant remains, one group of beleaguered souls in whom this battered place can invest some measure of their remaining hope.
The Juarez Indians, the city's soccer team, has, like its namesake, struggled for success. And yet, it experiences something of a miracle when it wins promotion to the first division of Mexican soccer. Mr. Powell, most recently a resident of Miami, relocates to Mexico to chronicle this development through the lens of the team's players, many of whom are not much better off than the residents they represent. Extortion, gang ties and poverty all stalk their steps, none of which aids their play which, for much of the season, is abysmal. Despite the best efforts of their world-class goalkeeper, the Indians surrender about as many goals as its town does bodies, creating a mid-season rift between team and town that speaks far more to Juarez's social problems than it does to the realities of sport. It's far from fair that a newly promoted soccer team bear the burdens of a broken town's dreams, but it does and they must forge from that burden something of which more than they can be proud.
The result of months of living in Juarez, This Love Is Not For Cowards is a mesmerizing piece of gonzo journalism. Calling to mind Charles Bowden's Murder City, Mr. Powell smoothly interweaves his chronicle of a soccer season with observations of Juarez itself, inadvertently creating a contest to see which can be more bleak. No surprise that the town, with its carbombs and its corpses and its cops who are either crooked or dead, wins the day. And yet, Mr. Powell so wonderfully captures the Indians, a team of earnest athletic young men who've devoted their lives to soccer, that their labors, their almost desperate need to succeed in the face of impossible odds, seems even more tragic. At least the efforts of the Indians comes from a place of honesty. The same cannot be said of the criminal, corporate and governmental elements of Juarez who do little to bring peace, much less healing, to this devastated place.
All the more tragic, then, when the team's shortcomings cause the town to scorn it. For Juarez simply cannot take another disappointment, another broken dream. It needs a win like no other place. And yet such are the limits of sport. For victories through athletics, though inspiring, are like orgasms. They are fleeting explosions of joy that cannot be sustained and that, when gone, leave one feeling exactly the same as they felt hours, days, months before. Sport cannot heal. Sport cannot mend. Sport can uplift for a time, but it is a shot in the arm, not a longterm solution. For that, other, darker, more difficult roads must be braved.
This Love Is Not For Cowards is searing work that does not provide us with a happy ending, with hope for the future. It respects us more than to lie to us. It is, instead, a piece of personal truth, an exemplar of a world it is the duty of humanity to make disappear into our past so that we all can enjoy a brighter, better future. (4/5 Stars)
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