Viva Bananas

05/02/2014 - 15h10

Dani Alves, the Brazilian fullback, who plays for FC Barcelona, set off a earthquake last Sunday when he picked up, peeled, and ate, a banana thrown at him as a racist insult, during a La Liga Championship football march at the El Madrigal Stadium in Villarreal, Spain.

FC Barcelona then turned the game around in the 83 minute when Lionel Messi, Barca's Argentinian forward, scored a goal to make it a 3-2 win for the Catalan team. It was a fitting outcome.

The gesture by Dani Alves has gone viral. His fellow Brazilian teammate, Neymar da Silva Santos Junior, posted a picture on instagram. It showed him with his young son, Davi Lucca. Neymar held a peeled banana.

Davi Lucca's peeled banana toy was as big as he is. Neymar has over 10 million followers on Twitter, and 4.6 million on instagram. His tag (in Portuguese, English, Spanish and Catalan) read: "We are all monkeys, we are all the same. Say no to racism!!"

The banana is in fact an inspired choice for any Brazilian. I will never forget my first visit to a Brazilian "feira livre" in Copacabana. I was used as a child to the rather tasteless bananas imported into post WW2 England from the then British colonies in the Caribbean.

I was astounded to encounter Brazilian bananas, which seemed to me to be infinitely varied in size, in colour, in shape, and in species, and all were incomparably tasty.

There is no doubt that racism exists in Brazil as well. Adilson Moreira, a brilliant young scholar from Minas Gerais, who is black, has just completed a doctorate at the Harvard Law School and now teaches at the Getulo Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo.

His thesis is a devastating history of the percistence of Brazilian racism and its manifesation in Brazilian legal practice.

Neymar's tweet may have been planned by his public relations adviser. But so what.

Dani Alves reactions to a racist insult, and Neymar's social media savvy, has already received support from Oscar, David Luiz, and Willian, at Chelsea, as well as from Matteo Renzi. the Italian Prime Minister, and has been seen by tens of thousands of people worldwide.

Which is good news: Viva Dani Alves; Viva Neymar; Viva bananas. In fact Brazil should introduce bananas as the informal symbol of this year's World Cup.