Writing and reading American football: culture, identity and sports studies.
Published in Sporting Traditions, 13:1 (1996), 109-127.
Mediated nostalgia, community and nation: a case study of print media representations of the Canadian Football League in crisis and the demise of the Ottawa Rough Riders 1986-1996.
Published in Sport History Review, 33:2 (2002), 120-135. Coauthored with Phil White.
This article examines the position of the Canadian Football League (CFL) in the context of 1990s Canada, the popular... more This article examines the position of the Canadian Football League (CFL) in the context of 1990s Canada, the popular discourses surrounding it of a nostalgia for an idealized Canada, and the crisis of Canadian identity as the Continent became increasingly integrated after the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Our focus is on a case study of the decline and eventual demise of the Ottawa Rough Riders, a CFL club located in the national capital that traced its roots to 1876, thus being almost as old as Canadian Federation. We examine the media framing of the decline and fall of the Rough Riders, laments for distinctive forms of Canadian sporting culture and the nostalgic frames in which the story was presented.
Football Is a Bad Religion by Barbara Ardinger
Originally published on the Feminism and Religion project
As soon as I read Carol Christ’s comments on football, I said, “Yeah! She’s totally right.” I keep asking people I... more
As soon as I read Carol Christ’s comments on football, I said, “Yeah! She’s totally right.” I keep asking people I know who watch football games what is enjoyable about watching large millionaires giving each other concussions. I understand that some sports demand skills I don’t possess, but football? What skills? It’s a mystery to me.
The characters in my new novel, Secret Lives, agree with Carol and me about the Super Bowl. The following excerpt comes from Chapter 21, “A World at War.” The Norns, in disguise as the Wintergreen Sisters, have come to town with the intention of taking power over the heras of the novel, the grandmothers who live in Long Beach, CA, and do magic. Our crones, however, have no intention of being taken over, or even seduced by promises of power, but when they meet on Super Bowl Sunday, 1990, they don’t yet know that the war on TV will be only a tiny fragment of the larger war that the Norns will soon wage against them using gigantic ravens and thunderstorms as their weapons.
Let’s listen in on “the girls.” (Madame Blavatsky is the circle’s familiar, a talking cat.)
Wittgenstein on the Gridiron: Gestures and Language Games in American Football
Term paper for my Wittgenstein conference course.
In this essay I will examine the sport of football as a case study for Ludwig Wittgenstein’s notion of... more In this essay I will examine the sport of football as a case study for Ludwig Wittgenstein’s notion of “language-games” as expounded in Philosophical Investigations. I will then go on to critically evaluate the extent to which some fairly common movements in football, such as head-fakes, might count as linguistic practice or gesture, and whether they might be better understood as non-lingustic indicators of action. I will argue that such movements are best understood as “instruments” or “elements” of language, but that the context in which they are performed is based on non-linguistic indication or inference.
Download (.docx) Punishing the foreigner: Implicit discrimination in the Premier League based on oppositional identity
Co-authored with Thomas Grund and J. James Reade
We present the first empirical study to reveal the presence of implicit discrimination in a non-experimental setting.... more We present the first empirical study to reveal the presence of implicit discrimination in a non-experimental setting. By using a large dataset of in-match data in the English Premier League, we show that white referees award significantly more yellow cards against non-white players of oppositional identity. We argue that this is the result of implicit discrimination by showing that this discriminatory behaviour (i) increases in how rushed the referee is before making a decision, and (ii) it increases in the level of ambiguity of the decision. The variation in (i) and (ii) cannot be explained by any form of conscious discrimination such as taste-based or statistical discrimination. Moreover, we show that oppositional identity players do not differ in their behaviour from other players along several dimensions related to aggressiveness and style of play providing further evidence that this is not statistical discrimination.
Conservative Saudi crown prince endorses female participation in Olympics
By James M. Dorsey
Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud has approved plans for the... more
By James M. Dorsey
Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud has approved plans for the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom to send female athletes to the Olympics for the first time at the London Games in a move that counters fears that he would be a less progressive ruler than ailing King Abdullah, according to Saudi-owned Al Hayat newspaper.
In doing so, Prince Nayef, the kingdom’s long-serving interior minister who is widely viewed as a conservative even by Saudi standards and is closer than the king to the country’s powerful, austere Wahhabi clergy, is bowing to pressure from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that threatened to bar Saudi Arabia from the London games if it failed to field female athletes.
The decision is likely to be welcomed by liberal Saudis who worry that once he succeeds King Abdullah he will prove to be more susceptible to demands of the clergy who adhere to the teachings of the 18th century puritan warrior-priester, Mohammed Abdul Wahhab to reverse the process of gradual political, economic and social reforms initiated by King Abdullah. In an illustration’s of the clergy’s conservatism, Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti Abd al-Aziz bin Abdullah recently called for the destruction of all churches in the Arabian Peninsula.
The decision by Prince Nayef is likely part of a concerted government effort to fend off a possible popular uprising in the kingdom similar to those sweeping large parts of the Middle East and North Africa by catering to youth sentiments and growing female demand for sporting opportunities.
Prince Nayef earned a reputation as a hardliner most recently for his crackdown on Al Qaeda militants in the kingdom. By the same token, he oversaw a largely successful rehabilitation program that guided the return to society of former Al Qaeda operatives.
Al Hayat said that Prince Nayef’s approval was conditioned on women competing in sports that "meet the standards of women's decency and don't contradict Islamic laws." It was not immediately clear which sports the crown prince had in mind.
Al Hayat reported Prince Nayef’s decision a day after the IOC reported that progress had been made in negotiations with Saudi Olympic officials on sending female athletes and officials to the games.
Saudi Arabia alongside Qatar and Brunei has never included women in its Olympic teams. IOC officials believe that Qatar and Brunei will also be fielding women athletes in London for the first time.
“The IOC is confident that Saudi Arabia is working to include women athletes and officials at the Olympic Games in London in accordance with the international federations' rules," the IOC said.
Earlier, IOC President Jacques Rogge said in an interview with The Associated Press that he was "optimistic" that Saudi Arabia would send women to London. "It depends on the possibilities of qualifications, standards of different athletes. We're still discussing the various options," Mr. Rogge said.
He said a decision would be finalized within a month to six weeks, but "we are optimistic that this is going to happen."
The apparent IOC success in nudging Saudi Arabia into complying with the committee’s charter contrasts starkly with world soccer body FIFA’s failure to hold the kingdom to its obligation. Saudi Arabia fields a men’s soccer team but restricts if not bans women’s soccer.
FIFA’s failure to pressure Saudi Arabia also contrasts with its recent effort to ensure that observant Muslim women can play professional soccer by lifting its ban on women wearing the hijab in favour of a headdress that fulfils the cultural needs of Muslim players and meets safety and security standards.
International human rights group Human Rights Watch last month accused Saudi Arabia of kowtowing to assertions by the country's powerful conservative Muslim clerics that female sports constitute "steps of the devil" that will encourage immorality and reduce women's chances of meeting the requirements for marriage.
The Human Rights Watch charges contained in a report entitled “’Steps of the Devil’ came on the heels of the kingdom backtracking on a plan to build its first stadium especially designed to allow women who are currently barred from attending soccer matches because of the kingdom’s strict public gender segregation to watch games. The planned stadium was supposed to open in 2014.
The report urged the International Olympic Committee to require Saudi Arabia to legalize women's sports as a condition for its participation in Olympic games.
Saudi women despite official discouragement have in recent years increasingly been pushing the envelope at times with the support of more liberal members of the ruling Al Saud family. The kingdom's toothless Shura or Advisory Council has issued regulations for women's sports clubs, but conservative religious forces often have the final say in whether they are implemented or not.
In a sign that efforts to allow and encourage women's sports are at best haphazard and supported only by more liberal elements in the government, the kingdom last year hired a consultant to develop its first national sports plan - for men only. There is no legal ban in on women’s sports in Saudi Arabia where the barriers for women are rooted in tradition and the kingdom’s puritan interpretation of Islamic law.
The pushing of the envelope comes as women are increasingly challenging other aspects of the kingdom's gender apartheid against the backdrop of simmering discontent in Saudi society over a host of issues.
Manal al-Sharif was detained in May of last year for nine days after she videotaped herself flouting the ban on women driving by getting behind a steering wheel and driving. She was released only after signing a statement promising that she would stop agitating for women's rights.
A group of women launched earlier this year a legal challenge to the ban asserting that it had no base in Islamic law.
Opposition to women's sports is reinforced by the fact that physical education classes are banned in state-run Saudi girl’s schools. Public sports facilities are exclusively for men and sports associations offer competitions and support for athletes in international competitions only to men.
The issue of women's sport has at time sparked sharp debate with conservative clerics condemning it as corrupting and satanic and charging that it spreads decadence. Conservative clerics have warned that running and jumping can damage a woman's hymen and ruin her chances of getting married.
One group of religious scholars argued that swimming, soccer and basketball were too likely to reveal “private parts,” which includes large areas of the body. Another religious scholar said it could lead to “mingling with men.”
To be fair, less conservative clerics have come out in favour of women's sports as well as less restrictions on women. In addition, the newly appointed head of the kingdom's religious vigilantes is reported to favour relaxation of the ban on the mixing of the sexes.
In defiance of the obstacles to their right to engage in sports, women have in recent years quietly been establishing soccer and other sports teams using extensions of hospitals and health clubs as their base.
Prince Nayef’s decision has revived hope that 18-year old equestrienne Dalma Rushdi Malhas who won a bronze medal in the 2010 Singapore Youth Olympics in which she participated at her own accord would be among the first Saudi women athletes to compete at an Olympic games. Expectations that she would be competing in London were dashed recently when the Saudis qualified an all-men team qualified for London’s jumping competition.
James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.
Incremental Functional Grammar and the language of football commentary
Published in C.S. Butler, M.Á. Gómez-González and S. Doval-Suárez (eds), The dynamics of language use: functional and contrastive perspectives, Amsterdam: Benjamins. 113-128.
The article investigates the notion that the grammatical characteristics of spoken utterances vary with the time... more The article investigates the notion that the grammatical characteristics of spoken utterances vary with the time pressure under which they are produced. Within the framework of my Incremental Functional Grammar, which takes acts of utterance to consist of one or more sequentially produced subacts (i.e. actions of predication or of reference), the hypothesis arises that a TV football commentary will display different degrees of grammatical complexity according to the amount of time pressure felt by the speaker at different points in the broadcast. I take time pressure to correlate with various subgenres of the commentary. The results confirm the hypothesis but also reveal the role of formulaicity and time-conditioned limited consultation of the semantic and structural modules of the grammar.
Likely cancellation of Egyptian league sparks violence debate and fears for club solvency
By James M. Dorsey
The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) is likely to cancel this season’s suspended... more
By James M. Dorsey
The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) is likely to cancel this season’s suspended Premier League in a move designed to prevent further violence in the wake of this month’s riot in Port Said that left 74 militant soccer fans dead but threatens to put the country’s clubs in financial jeopardy.
Concern that the league will be annuled has been fuelled by the cancellation of the Egyptian national team’s scheduled friendly matches against Uganda, Guinea and Niger and the postponement until June 30 of an African Cup of Nations qualifier against the Central African Republic on instructions of the interior ministry. Once new dates have been agreed, the qualifier may be played in Qatar to ensure security.
The decision on the national team’s matches suggests that the interior ministry and the EFA have backed away from an earlier plan to allow resumption of league matches behind closed door on March 15 when the 40-day period of mourning for the dead soccer fans ends.
Club officials are pressing the EFA to follow the example of the Tunisian soccer association that earlier this month ordered its league to play behind closed doors. The federation reversed its decision days later under pressure from its members and has since authorized resumption with fans attending matches. Some argue that cancellation of the Egyptian league would hand a victory to the instigators of the Port Said incident.
"The Interior Ministry's letter, which demanded that Egypt's friendly games be cancelled, came as a killer punch to our plans to resume the competition. We have no option but to follow the instructions of the authorities. We will wait to see whether security will improve. I hope the authorities will reverse that decision soon, because cancelling the league will have dire consequences on Egyptian football on all fronts,” said acting EFA president Anwar Saleh in an interview with state-owned newspaper Al Ahram.
The fate of the Premier League season has been hanging in the balance since early this month when 74 people, mostly militant fans of crowned Cairo club Al Ahly SC, were killed in a riot immediately after a match against Port Said’s Al Masry SC.
The fans or ultras – well-organized, highly politicized, street battle hardened militant groups modelled on similar organizations in Serbia and Italy – believe that security forces failed to intervene in the brawl as punishment for their key role in last year’s overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak and their hard line opposition since then to military rule. Ultras battled security forces on a weekly basis during the soccer season in the last four years of Mr. Mubarak’s rule in a bid to deprive his regime from controlling the beautiful game.
An Egyptian parliamentary inquiry into the deaths in Port Said blamed fans and lax security for the worst incident in the country’s sports history. The inquiry’s preliminary report also suggested that unidentified thugs had been involved in the violence.
Egyptian judicial sources said they expected that security officials would be among 50 suspects who will be referred for criminal proceedings in connection with the incident.
Several key Al Ahly players, including Mohamed Abou Treika, Mohamed Barakat, Ahmed Fathi and Emad Mete'b, have said they will not play until the results of the official investigation are announced.
Some players favour cancellation of this season’s league despite the financial risk to clubs on the grounds that the risk of renewed violence is too high and that they won’t have sufficient time to recover from the trauma of the Port Said incident and to prepare for matches.
"It's impossible to resume the Premier League this season,
because there won’t be time to clear the backlog of matches. I’m not against the resumption of sports activities after the end of the mourning period, but resuming the Premier League will only cause more chaos,” said Al Ahly goalkeeper Ahmed Naggi.
Egyptian clubs as well as the fans fear that the clubs which last year suffered financially because of a three-month suspension of the league in the walk-up to and aftermath of Mr. Mubarak’s downfall could be bankrupted by a cancellation of the leagues.
The clubs which have yet to be professionally restructured so that they can become truly financially independent are currently dependent for their revenues on advertising and sponsorship.
The Mubarak regime, which saw soccer as a tool to shore up its tarnished image, distract attention from unpopular policies and a means to manipulate national emotions, had little interest in allowing clubs to be independent, self-sufficient entities.
In an alliance of strange bedfellows critics of the interior ministry’s apparent intention to cancel the league include both clubs owned by the police and the military as well as Al Ahly which sees the cancellation as handing victory to the security forces whom it holds responsible for the deaths of its supporters .
"Life must go on, despite this catastrophe. But I don’t mean that resuming the Premier League means forgetting the victims of Port Said. Rescinding the League will cause Egyptian clubs many technical and financial problems. Resuming the League is something urgent for all the workers in local sports associations,” Helmi Toulan, coach of Ittihad al-Shorta, the Premier League team owned by the police, whom many Egyptians despise as the enforcers of Mr. Mubarak’s regime and hold responsible for the Port Said incident, told Melody Sports TV.
Farouq Gaafar, coach of El-Jaish, one of several clubs owned by the military, suggested in an echo of Mr. Mubarak’s approach that "the resumption of the Premier League will help people overcome their grief, provided that there is adequate security.”
Underlying the debate about the fate of the league and the political implications of the Port Said incident is the growing gap between Egyptian public opinion and the youth and soccer fan groups that were at the core of last year’s protests that toppled Mr. Mubarak. A majority of Egyptians eager to see their almost bankrupt country return to normalcy and economic growth have come to see the youth and soccer fan protests in support of an end to military rule and the dismantling of the Mubarak order that often escalate into vicious street battles with security forces as an obstacle.
“Our young people would not have reached this feeling of desperation, if they had not been abandoned by others, who, a year ago joined them in celebrating the toppling of the Mubarak regime. Although they shared the same aspiration that this moment would be the start of building a free, democratic and progressive country, the majority of the Egyptians seem not to have the strong will and persistence to continue the momentum until their dream comes true.
It is only those youthful enthusiasts that launched this revolution, who were eager to continue their efforts to fulfil its goals Instead of appreciating their exertions and the great sacrifice they have continued to pay for the welfare of the whole nation, we have allowed some malicious campaigns to distort their image and depict them as thugs some of the time and rioters most of the time. What is even worse is to accept the accusations being directed to them as agents of some foreign powers seeking the downfall of Egypt and its divisions into small states, without thinking of the price young Egyptians might pay in confronting the military or civil police. They are subjecting themselves to the risk of death or serious injuries that might disable them for the rest of their life,” said Manal Abdul Aziz writing in The Egyptian Gazette.
James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.
‘Sectarianism’ and Scottish football: Critical reflections on dominant discourse and press commentary
by john kelly
Published in hard journal copy in December 2011.
This article provides a critical discourse analysis of Scottish newspaper reports relating to football and... more This article provides a critical discourse analysis of Scottish newspaper reports relating to football and ‘sectarianism’ in Scotland. It claims that there is a powerful and longstanding ideological ‘framing’ of sectarianism in sections of the Scottish press that is latently power-laden. This discourse attempts to construct and reaffirm a unified non-sectarian core identity that ‘real’ and ‘authentic’ Scots (should) share in opposition to a set of sectarian ‘others’. The various connotations attached to sectarian and sectarianism, together with their use in particular ways that reflect an ideological hegemony, are illustrated. Much of the press treatment of sectarianism is shown to lack sensitivity to the historical, hierarchical and relational aspects of religious, political and ethnic identities in Scotland.
‘Sectarianism’ and Scottish football: Critical reflections on dominant discourse and press commentary
by john kelly
Published in hard journal copy in December 2011.
This article provides a critical discourse analysis of Scottish newspaper reports relating to football and... more This article provides a critical discourse analysis of Scottish newspaper reports relating to football and ‘sectarianism’ in Scotland. It claims that there is a powerful and longstanding ideological ‘framing’ of sectarianism in sections of the Scottish press that is latently power-laden. This discourse attempts to construct and reaffirm a unified non-sectarian core identity that ‘real’ and ‘authentic’ Scots (should) share in opposition to a set of sectarian ‘others’. The various connotations attached to sectarian and sectarianism, together with their use in particular ways that reflect an ideological hegemony, are illustrated. Much of the press treatment of sectarianism is shown to lack sensitivity to the historical, hierarchical and relational aspects of religious, political and ethnic identities in Scotland.
Observing Football Supporters: An Investigation into the Relationship between Collective and Personal Identity
by Neil Cook
A participant observation was conducted at four Premier League football matches and data was collected concerning the... more A participant observation was conducted at four Premier League football matches and data was collected concerning the participants estimated age as well as their gender, styles of dress, location in stadium, small group composition and details of their interactions both individually and collectively. These details included reactions to other crowd members, verbal and non-verbal communications, normative and anti-social behaviour before and after the game and reactions to the stages of play. Data was coded initially and patterns highlighted from which interpretations were made using hermeneutical analysis informed by Psychological theories about group behaviour and identity with relation to crowds in particular. It was found that there was strong evidence supporting social identity theory, in particular the self-categorisation aspect, and role conflict theory in the behaviours of participants suggesting that their individual identities were transformed into a collective identity by virtue of their involvement in a crowd environment.
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French women groups protest FIFA decision to endorse hijab
By James M. Dorsey
Three French women’s organizations have expressed concern and disappointment with world... more
By James M. Dorsey
Three French women’s organizations have expressed concern and disappointment with world soccer body FIFA’s endorsement of a proposal to lift the ban on women players wearing a hijab, an Islamic hair dress, on the pitch.
“To accept a special dress code for women athletes not only introduces discrimination among athletes but is contrary to the rules governing sport movement, setting a same dress code for all athletes without regard to origin or belief,” the three organizations said in an open letter to FIFA president Sepp Blatter.
Anne Sugier, president of the League of International Women’s Rights (LDIF) founded by Simone de Beauvoire, said in an email that she had sent the letter together with the heads of FEMIX’SPORTS and the French Coordination for the European Women’s Lobby, following publication on December 19 of the FIFA executive committee decision in The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.
FIFA endorsed at its December 16-17 executive committee meeting in Tokyo the proposal to lift a controversial ban on women wearing a hijab in a move that brings closer a resolution to demands by religious female Islamic soccer players that they be allowed to wear a headdress in line with their interpretation of their faith.
FIFA said it would submit the proposal put forward by Asian Football Confederation (AFC) vice president Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, a half-brother of Jordanian King Abdullah, to the International Football Association Board (IFAB), which governs the rules of association soccer.
IFAB is expected to discuss the proposal that calls for the sanctioning of a safe, velcro-opening headscarf for players and officials at its next scheduled meeting on March 3. England alongside FIFA, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland form the secretive IFAB.
The FIFA endorsement follows an earlier approval of the AFC proposal that resulted from a workshop convened in October in Amman by Prince Ali that was attended by prominent soccer executives, women players and coaches, including head of FIFA’s medical committee Michel D’Hooghe, AFC vice president Moya Dodd, members of FIFA’s women committee and representatives of the soccer bodies of Jordan, Bahrain, Iran and England.
The dispute over observant Muslim women player's headdress led in June to the disqualification of the Iranian women’s national team after they appeared on the pitch in the Jordanian capital Amman for a 2012 London Olympics qualifier against Jordan wearing the hijab. Three Jordanian players who wear the hijab were also barred.
The three women’s organizations said FIFA’s acquiesce in the AFC’s assertion that the hijab, a headdress that complies with Islamic law that obliges women to cover their hair, ears and neck, as a “cultural rather than a religious symbol” and therefore did not violate IFAB rules was unacceptable.
The letter suggests that FIFA and AFC efforts to reach a compromise between world soccer rules and Islamic law followed by conservative female Muslim players was, likely to meet resistance from non-Muslim women’s and feminist groups. It is a battle between value systems in which conservative female Muslim players demand a right and non-Muslim women activists seek to impose what they see as a universal value.
Ironically, the two opposing groups may find common ground when it comes to Iran, which welcomed world soccer’s efforts to seek a compromise, but is likely to remain in the firing line because of its imposition of the hijab on its players rather than allowing it to be an individual voluntary decision. Iran is further likely to run afoul of world soccer because of its insistence that visiting foreign women soccer teams dress in accordance with the Islamic republic’s interpretation of Islamic law.
The three women’s organizations charged that the FIFA decision constituted an effort to kowtow to the most conservative Islamic states, presumably a reference to Iran and Saudi Arabia, which effectively bans women’s sports.
“To pretend that hijab is a cultural and not a religious symbol is not only preposterous, but untrue… You neither can put aside the fact that the conflict that has opposed FIFA to the Iranian regime is linked to Tehran’s will to impose its own religious law to women’s sport,” the organizations said in their letter.
They charged that Iran rather than seeing the hijab as a cultural symbol was seeking “to impose a political religious outfit for women, that covers entirely their body… Sport must stay clear of political and religious interfering. Its aim also is to eliminate all forms of discrimination. FIFA ruling is about to abandon this noble aim and FIFA will be accountable for that,” the organizations said.
James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.
Governing Mega-Events: Tools of Security Risk Management for the London 2012 Olympic Games and FIFA 2006 World Cup in Germany
Will Jennings and Martin Lodge. (2011). ‘Governing Mega-Events: Tools of Security Risk Management for the London 2012 Olympic Games and FIFA 2006 World Cup in Germany’, Government and Opposition 46(2): 192-222.
Mega-events represent a special venue for the practice of risk management. This paper analyses the management of... more Mega-events represent a special venue for the practice of risk management. This paper analyses the management of security risks in the case of two sporting mega-events, the London 2012 Olympic Games and the FIFA 2006 World Cup in Germany. To what extent do strategies and practices of risk management resemble each other across events? And what explains similarities or differences in the tools of risk management observed in each of these cases? First, this paper explores three theoretical explanations of choice of particular policy tools or instruments. Second, it introduces the tools of government approach (Hood 1983) as a means to conduct direct comparative analysis of risk management across political and organisational settings and over time. The tools used for security risk management at the two mega-events are then compared and the different logics of tool choice are evaluated. This analytical approach offers a basis for future comparative enquiry into tools of risk management used in public and private organisations. The empirical findings highlight the particular importance of national political systems in influencing tool choice.
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Heroes of the Coliseum
by Heather Reid
Snippet view from the book Football and Philosophy
College football players may reasonably be compared to gladiators. Like the ancient fighters, they don appropriate... more College football players may reasonably be compared to gladiators. Like the ancient fighters, they don appropriate “armor” and perform dangerous battles in arenas resembling (and occasionally named after) after Rome’s Coliseum. Their contests are followed with interest by masses of passionate spectators, who regard the athletes’ performance as an inspiring representation of their community’s competitive virtues and noble fighting spirit. But this ancient-modern resemblance carries over to College Football’s darker side, as well. Roman Gladiators were generally poor and disenfranchised, held fewer rights than normal citizens, faced grave physical danger, and were exploited for profit and political power. College football players often compete out of financial necessity, have fewer rights than normal students, face grave (if rarely mortal) physical danger, and are exploited by their universities for profit and power. Considered from the perspective of the Stoic philosopher, Epictetus, the athletes may achieve virtue and happiness despite their predicament. Following the Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius, however, those with the power improve the situation also have a moral obligation to do so.
Syrian goalkeeper emerges as protest leader in embattled city of Homs
Sunday, November 13, 2011
By James M. Dorsey
The goalkeeper of the Syrian national Under-23... more
Sunday, November 13, 2011
By James M. Dorsey
The goalkeeper of the Syrian national Under-23 soccer team as well as well as for the Al Karama soccer club in Homs, a focal point of the eight-month old uprising against embattled President Bashar al-Assad, is emerging as a leader of the protests in the city’s Al Bayyadh district.
Abd al Basset Saroot appeared briefly on Saturday on Al Jazeera wearing a bandana and talking on a mobile phone to confirm that his brother and 11 others had been killed in the government’s brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters. Mr. Saroot said he was standing in the place where the 12 people died as he was speaking to Al Jazeera. He held up for the camera empty shells, which he described as the "Iranian heavy weapons" with which the protesters were attacked.
A video uploaded on You Tube suggests that Mr. Saroot’s home was destroyed in the attack:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtu-SchzMrU
Speaking hours before the Arab League gave Syria three days to halt its brutal crackdown before it suspended the country’s membership and imposed sanctions on the Assad regime, Mr. Saroot called on the League to let the UN Security Council deal with Syria if it were unable to do so itself.
"We have become too used to hearing about the issuing of resolutions which are never implemented," Mr. Saroot said, adding that too many had already been killed. The United Nations estimates that 3,500 people have died since protests erupted in March. The Arab League gave Syria the three-day deadline that ends on Wednesday after Syria flouted an earlier agreement to end the crackdown and negotiate an end to the crisis.
Mr. Saroot asserted in a You Tube video several months ago that the Assad regime was accusing him of being a Salafi, a fundamentalist who seeks to emulate life as it was in the time of the Prophet Mohammed, and was seeking to turn Syria into a Salafi state.
“This accusation was made when we took to the streets, demanding freedom for the Syrian people. I am now wanted by the security agencies, which are trying to arrest me. I declare, in sound mind and of my own volition, that we, the free Syrian people, will not back down until our one and only demand is met: the toppling of the regime. We are not Salafis, and there is no truth to the regime's claims about armed groups or a Salafi emirate,” Mr. Saroot said.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah18KsnupEQ
In August, Mr. Saroot reported on YouTube that Syrian security forces had arrested national soccer goalkeeper Mosab Balhous on charges of sheltering armed gangs and possessing suspicious amounts of money. He said Mr. Balhos too had been accused of participating in anti-government protests and wanting to establish an Islamic emirate in the city of Homs.
In a column in the London-based Arabic daily Al Quds al Arabi, Elias Khoury describes a documentary entitled Al Waar (Rocky Terrain) by an anonymous Syrian filmmaker that portrays Mr. Saroot as a leader of the protests and a composer of some of its slogans and songs. “His features are Bedouin, he is a thirsty person who is not satisfied with only freedom … It is he who composes for the nocturnal gatherings for a popular festival in the suburbs of Homs where the air bears bullets. The slogans are an appeal by a decapitated nation and the will of a people determined not to bow to anyone,” Mr. Khoury writes.
"Go is the cry of the brave, A cry of the city with Bedouins, A cry of all religions, The cry of Syria and the land it covers: Let them leave him and his dogs and the destruction they have wrought," the film quotes the chants of the protesters crafted by Mr. Saroot.
Mr. Khoury describes Mr. Saroot as the protagonist of the film whose voice challenges the Assad forces’ weaponry. "Our weapon is our voice," Mr. Saroot says in the film.
The film describes how the regime has put a reward of one million Syrian pounds ($20,000) on the heads of alleged Salafis like Mr. Saroot. The goalkeeper smiles at the word Salafi and chants: “Shed tears, shed for the young victims and Syria.”
Throughout the film a picture of Bashar al-Assad superimposed on that of his father, Hafez al-Assad, constitutes the background with the words, ‘Assad or nothing,’ a play on the slogan that accompanied the portrait of Hafez during his rule: ‘Our leader in eternity and beyond.’
James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.
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