Just noticed this story on The National website, here in Abu Dhabi. I’m not even sure it made the print edition of the paper.

After TP Mazembe of the Congo lost in the Club World Cup championships game, according to the Agence France-Presse story, some fans rioted in Lubumbashi, the hometown of the Mazembe club as well as the capital of the Congolese province of Katanga.

And why were they rioting?

1. Because they were unhappy that their team lost to Inter Milan. As if they shouldn’t have seen that coming. But soccer fans can get like that, can’t they? All sports fans, but soccer fans, in particular. Limited information, limited experience, they love their team, it’s a focal point of civic and regional and even national pride, and their team gets hammered, and they go outside and break stuff. Sure.

2. This is the nutty reason. According to the AFP story, much of the violence was directed at businesses run by ethnic Chinese, who apparently live in Lubumbabshi in some numbers. The province of Katanga, remember, is rich in precious minerals, and the Chinese have been very active in setting up business in Africa to extract natural resource to fuel their economy. (Same thing King Leopold of Belgium did a century ago, when the little country was running the Congo.) OK, and follow me here … but apparently the rioters (who are also football fans) saw the game and (you’ll never believe this) thought the referee was the reason why Mazembe lost. As if. The referee. As if Samuel Eto’o and the overall talent level of Inter Milan did not make up for reasons 1, 2 and 3 why Mazembe lost. No, it was the referee … who is Japanese. And, apparently, the rioters thought the guy was Chinese, or just assumed, perhaps because almost all the east Asians they have ever seen in Lubumbashi are, in fact, Chinese …

So,  it’s kinda crazy. Soccer fans are nuts. And in a wired world, where even people in Lumbumbashi can see a soccer match live, on TV, and then take their frustrations straight into the street and start attacking the business of people who had nothing whatever to do with the match but look a bit like the referee …

Normally, this interconnectedness is a good thing. We know more about other people and places and we have at least the occasional ability to put things into context and be a little more calm. But in a place like Lubumbashi, which is pretty much at the end of the world (check the map!), nobody goes into the streets at all if word of the soccer match trickles in, say, a day later — like it would have even 15 years ago.

Interesting. Quite. A little creepy, too.