And so to the much anticipated World Cup, which after Scotland’s long wait of 28 years, starts for us in less than 24 hours.

I realise for some people this is a new experience and it is eagerly awaited. That euphoria of the qualification night was perhaps justified. There were three memorable goals (plus a scrappy one.)

However there was a sense of unreality about it all. It was the most surreal qualifying campaign I can recall. The 0-0 draw in the first game at the Parken Stadium in Copenhagen was deserved – in fact we might have snatched a win. But the wins against Belarus – both of them – were nervy affairs and we were maybe lucky not to drop two points against them at home. As for the home game versus Greece, we were never in it. How we managed to score three is beyond me. And Greece were way better than us for most of the away game. Indeed there is an argument that says Greece were actually the best side in our group. Belarus getting a draw at the Parken saved our bacon and set up the decider versus Denmark. Even on that night they got back to 2-2 and if they hadn’t had a man sent off…. But they did and so here we are.

I must admit it was a professional performance against Curaçao in the Hampden warm-up friendly (again helped by a red card for the opposition) and the one in the States versus Bolivia was simply very unScottish in its efficiency. I was left wondering just how good – or should that be bad? – Bolivia are.

The game against Haiti gives me the fear. These are the sorts of matches where we traditionally fall down. I’ll not be watching it live, it’s too late at night. I’ll take a win – any kind of win – though, and hope that would be enough to take into the knockouts, which really will be something to celebrate. No matter what, points gained versus Morocco or Brazil will be a bonus. We can hope.

However, those of us who are long in the tooth fear we know how this ends. With Scotland it’s usually in tears.

There was an interesting article in the Guardian of 16/9/15 where Timothy Snyder argued that the conditions necessary for the Holocaust of Jews (and others, but mainly Jews) by the Nazis to take place have largely been misunderstood.

Snyder sees it as crucial that in the areas where most killings occurred, principally in the lands of pre-war Poland, the Baltic States and what had been Soviet Belarus and Ukraine, the apparatus of the state was no longer functioning – had indeed been deliberately destroyed. This was the necessary precondition for the activities of the Einsatzgruppen and the SS to be so unconstrained.

Though Snyder’s focus is on Eastern Europe I found myself thinking that in Western Europe too the absence of state institutions was a factor contributing to whether or not transportations to the killing zones of those whom the Nazis saw as undesirables came about. In Denmark, where the king remained and most institutions stayed intact (at least until 1943,) most of the Jews escaped or survived. By contrast in the Netherlands, whose monarch went into exile in Britain, and in France, where the Third Republic collapsed and Vichy was a puppet, deportations were much easier and in some cases even facilitated.

We have seen the consequences of the absence of the state relatively recently in Afghanistan – the Taliban would not have come to power there if not for the chaos engendered by, first, the Soviet presence and then its retreat (effectively driven out by a mujahideen aided and abetted via US and Western support) – in the disarray of Libya and now in Iraq and Syria where ISIS/ISIL/Daesh would not have had the opportunity to grow as quickly or at all if there had not been the vacuum created by the destruction of the Iraqi state and the failure to replace it.

Contrary to what some libertarians appear to think it seems the state really is a force for good.

Postscript:- While looking over the above it also occurred to me that the killing fields in Cambodia, while a consequence of Pol Pot’s take-over, were also due to state collapse, in this case that of the pre-revolutionary government. I suppose too that La Terreur in revolutionary France and the turmoil in the former Russian Empire after the Bolshevik coup are examples of what happens when state organisation suffers disruption. To avoid chaos a polity requires not people with guns but checks and balances; plus a functional judicial system capable of holding those in power to account.