call for papers-Metamorphosis of the Arab World-Political Geography and Alternative Maps
by barış çoban
Metamorphosis of The Arab World:
Political Geography and Alternative Maps
Editors: Barış Çoban, Barış Erdoğan
The so-called "Arab Spring", recent social movements in the Arab world, which can also be described as the "return of the oppressed", have attracted international attention on the Middle East and Arab world. The Middle East, North Africa and Turkey have been profoundly affected by this political and social metamorphosis. The objective of this project is to discuss “metamorphosis of the Arab world” in the context of international relations, politics, sociology, economics and communications and so on by the contribution of several academicians, researchers, politicians and journalists.
The geography of the Arab world is in a process of metamorphosis and consequently traditional structure of the Arab world, its power structure, power relations, politics and social relations have been fluctuated by the hand of the global super power(s). In fact, “All that is solid melts into air", this expression summarizes clearly what is happening in the Middle East and North Africa. The possible outcomes and/or result of this ongoing process are vague, and it needs to be discussed with its all aspects.
As a result, our focus is on “metamorphosis” of the Middle East and the Arab world, since it simultaneously means “metamorphosis” of the world. This book project aims to address and discuss transformation and subsequent reformation of societies and changes in the political geographies and mental maps of the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey from past to present with a multi-voice and multi-layer approach.
(Papers can be submitted in English, French and Turkish)
Deadline for Abstracts: June 10, 2012
Deadline for Full Paper: December 25, 2012
(Please use APA style)
E-mail:
barishc@gmail.com
baris.erdogan1974@hotmail.com,
Editors:
Barış Çoban (Assoc. Prof. Dr., Department of Communication Studies, Dogus University, Turkey)
Barış Erdoğan (Assist Prof. Dr., Department of Political Sciences, Yeni Yuzyil University, Turkey)
Métamorphose du monde arabe:
Géographie politique et des cartes alternatives
Editeurs: Barış Çoban, Barış Erdoğan
Les mouvenents sociaux recents apparus dans une large partie du monde arabe, appellés communement «printemps arabe», peuvent également être décrit comme le «retour de l'opprimé», ont attiré l'attention internationale sur le Moyen-Orient et le monde arabe. Le Moyen-Orient, l'Afrique du Nord et la Turquie ont été profondément touchés par cette métamorphose politique et sociale. L'objectif de ce projet est de discuter «la métamorphose du monde arabe » dans le contexte des relations internationales, politique, sociologie, économie et communication et ainsi de suite par les biais de la contribution de plusieurs universitaires, chercheurs, politiciens et journalistes.
La géographie du monde arabe est dans un processus de métamorphose et par conséquent la structure traditionnelle du monde arabe, sa structure de pouvoir, les relations de pouvoir, la politique et les relations sociales se sont gravement écroulés par la main de la(des) puissance(s) mondiale(s). En fait, «Tout ce qui est solide se dissout dans l'air", cette expression résume bien ce qui se passe au Moyen-Orient et Afrique du Nord. Les résultats possible et / ou résultat de ce processus en cours sont vagues, et ils doivent être discuté dans tous ses aspects.
Par conséquent, nous nous concentrons sur la métamorphose du Moyen-Orient et du monde arabe, puisqu'elle constitue à la fois la métamorphose du monde. Ce projet a pour objectif d'aborder et discuter de la transformation et la réforme de ces sociétés ainsi que les modifications de la géographie politique et cartes mentales du Moyen-Orient , de l'Afrique du Nord et de la Turquie du passé au présent, avec un multi-voix et une approche multicouche.
Transmission des propositions et date limite
Vorte propositions doit etre transmise a baris.erdogan1974@hotmail.com ou barishc@gmail.com au plus tard le 10 juin 2012. Les articles peuvent être rédigés en anglais, français ou en turc
ECHEANCIERS
- Date limite de réception des propositions : 10 juin 2012
- Date limite de réception des articles : 25 décembre 2012
Information technique
Les propositions, d’un maximum de deux pages, en format Microsoft Word ou PDF, 12 points, devront contenir: le titre de la proposition; le sujet; le nom de l’auteur ou des auteurs; l’institution ou organisation à laquelle vous êtes attaché
Articles
- les articles ne pourront dépasser, avec leur bibliographie, 30 000 caractères, espaces non compris;
- ils devront inclure un résumé de 150 mots maximum qui devra être présenté en français, en anglais ou en turque;
Editeurs :
Dr. Barış Çoban, maitre de conférence, le département de communication, l’Universite de Doğuş, Turquie.
Dr. Barış ERDOGAN, maitre de conférence adjoint, le département des relations internationales l’Université de Yeni Yüzyıl, Turquie.
Arap Dünyasının Dönüşümü:
Siyasetin Coğrafyası ve Alternatif Haritalar
Editörler: Barış Çoban, Barış Erdoğan
Arap ülkelerinde yaşanan ve “Arap Baharı” olarak adlandırılan, “bastırılmış olanın geri döndüğü” kitle hareketleri sonrasında tüm dünyanın gözü yeniden Ortadoğu ve diğer Arap ülkelerine odaklandı. Ortadoğu, Kuzey Afrika ve Türkiye yaşanan siyasal ve toplumsal bu dönüşümden derin bir biçimde etkilenmekte. Bu sürecin uluslararası ilişkiler, siyaset, sosyoloji, ekonomi ve iletişim vb. alanları bağlamında tartışılmasını amaçlayan bu kitap projesi, farklı disiplinlerden akademisyen, araştırmacı, siyasetçi ve gazetecilerin katkılarından oluşacaktır.
Söz konusu coğrafyada bir yılı aşkın bir süredir küresel iktidar(lar)ın da farklı biçimlerde müdahil olduğu toplumsal hareketler geleneksel iktidar yapılarını, siyaset biçimlerini ve toplumsal ilişkileri parçalamakta. Ortadoğu ve Kuzey Afrika’da “katı olan her şey buharlaşmakta”. Bu coğrafyada kurulma aşamasında olan yeni düzende siyasi ve sosyal aktörlerin bu buharlaşmanın ardından nasıl bir katılaşma süreci izleyeceği ise şimdilik belirsiz ve üzerinde çok boyutlu olarak düşünülmesi gereken bir konu.
Sonuç olarak, odak noktamız Ortadoğu’nun ve Arap Dünyasının dönüşümüdür, çünkü bu dönüşüm eşzamanlı olarak dünyanın dönüşümüdür. Bu kitap projesi Ortadoğu, Kuzey Afrika ve Türkiye coğrafyası bağlamında tarihten günümüze siyasal ve zihinsel haritaların değişimi ve toplumların dönüşümünü çoksesli, çok katmanlı bir yaklaşımla ele almayı ve tartışmayı amaçlamaktadır.
(Makaleler Türkçe, İngilizce, Fransızca dillerinde yazılabilir)
Makale Başlığı ve Özeti Gönderimi Son Tarih: 10 Haziran 2012
Tamamlanmış Makale Gönderimi Son Tarih: 25 Aralık 2012
(Makaleler APA formatına göre yazılacaktır.)
İletişim:
barishc@gmail.com
baris.erdogan1974@hotmail.com
(Barış Çoban, Doç. Dr. Doğuş Üniversitesi, Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi, İletişim Bilimleri Bölümü)
(Barış Erdoğan, Yrd. Doç. Dr., Yeni Yüzyıl Üniversitesi, İktisadi İdari Bilimler Fakültesi, Uluslararası İlişkiler Bölümü)
call for papers-
Metamorphosis of the Arab World-
Political Geography and Alternative Maps
Metamorphosis of the Arab World-
Political Geography and Alternative Maps
Métamorphose du monde arabe:
Géographie politique et des cartes alternatives
Arap Dünyasının Dönüşümü:
Siyasetin Coğrafyası ve Alternatif Haritalar
Download (.doc) The struggle for Syria: Iran-Qatar Ties Come under Stress
By James M. Dorsey
Synopsis
The struggle by Syrian opposition... more
By James M. Dorsey
Synopsis
The struggle by Syrian opposition forces to topple the Assad regime is sharpening tensions between Iran and Qatar and threatens sectarian fault lines elsewhere in North Africa and Middle East. Qatar increasingly becomes a potential target for retaliation should the US and/or Israel attack Iranian nuclear
facilities.
Commentary
RELATIONS BETWEEN Iran and Qatar, once the closest across the Persian Gulf next to Oman, have deteriorated in recent months to the point that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cancelled a planned trip to Doha in November 2011. Iran has also embarked on a campaign of anti-Qatari rhetoric usually reserved for its most bitter rivals, the United States and Saudi Arabia.
For much of the past decade, Qatar’s foreign policy aimed to maintain good relations with all parties by positioning itself as a mediator in multiple disputes including Iran’s troubled relations with the US and a majority of Gulf states as well as between rival Palestinian factions and warring factions in Sudan.
Fraying close ties
Qatar’s lead however in isolating internationally the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Iran’s closest Arab ally, and arming his opponents has broken the back of traditionally close Qatari-Iranian relations. It has ended years of Iran bending over backwards to avoid animosity with Qatar despite the Gulf state’s increasingly open backing of US and European efforts to force the Islamic republic to halt its nuclear enrichment programme and Saudi-led efforts to stymie Iranian influence in the Middle East and North Africa.
Among the smallest of the Gulf states, Qatar is particularly exposed because of its joint ownership with Iran of the South Pars/North Field gas field in the Gulf. Tehran has recently accused Qatar of pilfering the field and poaching Iranian skilled personnel to exploit the fact that it is far more advanced than the Islamic republic in developing its part of the field because of the debilitating impact of the UN sanctions. The accusation echoes Saddam Hussein’s justification for Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait and recalls disputed occupation of three islands belonging to the United Arab Emirates.
A potential target for retaliation
Iran is unlikely to repeat Saddam’s disastrous adventure that sparked a US-led allied attack on Iraq. Nonetheless, the assertions raise Qatar’s ranking on the list of potential targets for retaliation should Israel and/or the US decide to use military force to disrupt Iran’s nuclear programme. They also significantly undermine Qatar’s role as a back channel to reduce tension between Iran and its US and Saudi detractors.
Iranian media and political leaders have denounced Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and his ruling family as illegitimate. They have accused the emir of being in league with the West and Saudi Arabia to ensure that pro-Western regimes emerge from the popular revolts sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. They have condemned him for allowing the sale of alcohol and pork to expatriates in violation of Islamic law. The allegations echo criticism of the emir’s policies by conservative segments of Qatari society but are unlikely to curry favour with regime opponents in a country that adheres to Saudi Arabia’s austere Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, even if it’s in a more liberal fashion.
Iran’s stepped up attacks on Qatar underline the importance it attributes to the survival of the Assad regime. The Islamic republic had consistently looked the other way in the past five years as Qatar realigned its policy toward Iran in line with US and Saudi pressure on Teheran.
Close Qatari-Iranian relations, only rivalled in the Gulf by those between the Islamic republic and Oman, date back to Qatar’s refusal to back Iraq in its war against Iran in the 1980s; its rejection as a member of the UN Security Council of a resolution in 2006 that imposed initial sanctions on Iran against its nuclear enrichment programme; and its 2007 invitation to Ahmadinejad to attend an Arab summit in Doha, to the consternation of some of its closest Arab allies.
Bending over backwards
As a result, Iran was willing to ignore Qatar’s subsequent support for ever harsher UN sanctions against Iran as well as its participation last year in the Gulf Cooperation Council’s intervention in Bahrain to suppress a predominantly Shiite Muslim uprising against the island’s minority Sunni Muslim rulers. In fact, the two countries went significantly further in cementing their relations with the conclusion of a defence agreement two years ago and a subsequent Iranian naval visit.
The reversal in Iranian willingness to indulge Qatar also underscores the rise of the country’s hardliners who last month won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections. The voices in Tehran that continue to see virtue in Qatar’s ability to be a back channel are being drowned out by the anti-Qatari rhetoric.
Iran, squeezed by the damaging of Assad as an effective ally and increasing US pressure as manifested in President Obama’s decision to sanction buyers of Iranian crude, appears to be signalling that it sees offence rather than negotiation and compromise as its best chance to beat ever harsher efforts to force it to reverse course.
Mounting anti-Qatari rhetoric narrows Iran’s ability to keep communication lines open to its detractors and sharpens sectarian fault lines in the Middle East and North Africa at a time that Syria is increasingly becoming a proxy war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in the region.
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.
EFA cancels Egyptian league for security and political reasons
By James M. Dorsey
The Egyptian Football Association (EFA), acting on instructions of the interior... more
By James M. Dorsey
The Egyptian Football Association (EFA), acting on instructions of the interior ministry, has cancelled the rest of this season's league matches in the wake of rioting at a match last month that killed 74 people and injured hundreds of others in a move that is apparently designed to further isolate militant soccer fans and fails to hold the police and security forces to their responsibility to maintain law and order.
The league has been suspended since February 1, the day that 74 people, mostly militant soccer fans of crowned Cairo club Al Ahly SC, were killed in Port Said immediately after a clash with supporters of the Suez Canal town’s Al Masri SC in the worst incident in Egypt’s sporting history, the most lethal since last year’s overthrow of president Hosni Mubarak, and the deadliest soccer incident worldwide since 1996.
Many believe that the incident in which security forces failed to intervene was an attempt to punish the Ahly fans and send a message to other groups of ultras – well-organized, highly politicized, street battle-hardened soccer fan groups modeled on similar organizations in Serbia and Italy – for their key role in last year’s toppling of Mr. Mubarak and opposition since to Egypt’s military rulers. It came as registration started for candidates for Egypt’s first post-Mubarak presidential election in May.
EFA spokesman Azmy Megahed said the season would not resume because there was not enough time to play the league games before the national team begins training for the 2013 African Cup qualifiers and this year's London Olympics.
Mr. Megahed said that 18 teams, divided into two groups, would compete in a friendly Martyrs Cup tournament in empty stadiums later this month intended to raise money for families of those killed in the Port Said violence and to appease sponsors. He said Al Masri would not be participating in the cup.
“This tournament is aimed at lessening the effects of the league’s cancellation on the clubs and sponsors. Some clubs initially objected to the proposal to cancel the league but they eventually accepted it after the interior ministry said it would not secure the matches,” Mr. Megahed told Al Ahram newspaper.
The EFA, whose board was dismissed after the Port Said incident, is expected to announce within days how it will penalize Al Masri for the violence. Prominent soccer figures have called for the relegation of the team to a lower division.
The decision ends weeks of debate on whether the league should be resumed. Various clubs as well as media organizations campaigned for resumption of the league because they feared the financial consequences of a suspension. Egyptian soccer clubs have suffered significant financial losses as a result of last year’s suspension for three months in the walk-up and aftermath of Mr. Mubarak’s overthrow and repeated orders to play matches behind closed doors as a result of clashes between the ultras and security forces.
Al Ahly, one of Africa’s most crowned clubs which traces its roots to opposition to the government to when it was founded more than a century ago as a meeting place of opponents of the British colonial administration and the monarchy, favored cancellation of the league. A number of Al-Ahly players, including Mohamed Abou Treika, Mohamed Barakat, Ahmed Fathi and Emad Mete'b, said they would not play matches because of low morale and because no one had yet been brought to justice for the bloodshed in Port Said.
Egypt's lawmakers are investigating who was behind the deadly violence. Preliminary results blamed fans and lax security for the incident and suggested that unidentified thugs had been involved in the violence, fueling reports that the violence had been planned rather than spontaneous.
Senior interior ministry officials said last week that those suspected of responsibility for the Port Said violence, including security officials, would be formally charged within days. Authorities have so far detained 54 people on suspicion of complicity.
The EFA decision may have been the soccer body’s only option but raises significant questions. It highlights the deteriorating security in the Arab world's most populous country as instability continues nearly a year after Mr. Mubarak was swept out of power in a popular uprising.
The lack of security is fueled by the reluctance of the police and security forces to enforce law and order in a bid to change the image of law enforcement agencies, which are widely perceived as henchmen of the Mubarak regime. As a result, the police over the past year have been more interested in avoiding clashes with groups that played key roles in the overthrow of the president, including the incident in Port Said, than in carrying out their duties in the belief that this would help them reposition themselves and that insecurity would emphasize the need for a police force to prevent the country from drifting into chaos and anarchy.
The league suspension spotlights the military rulers’ failure to reform the police and security forces and ensure that they carry out their responsibility to ensure law and order. Some in Egypt believe that the suspension in a soccer-crazy country is also designed to further isolate the ultras and youth groups that were at the core of the popular uprising that toppled Mr. Mubarak. The groups have lost popularity in recent months in a country that has become protest weary and yearns for a return to normalcy and economic growth. Anti-government protests and violent clashes with security forces stand in the way of focusing on the economy.
James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer
New Perspectives on the Sociology of the Arab Spring - mark II
Published on TheGWPost, 01/12/2011
This is a follow-up article (mark II) to “The Sociology of the Arab Spring: A Revolt or a Revolution?”, which took a... more This is a follow-up article (mark II) to “The Sociology of the Arab Spring: A Revolt or a Revolution?”, which took a sociological approach in explaining the Arab uprisings, that spread throughout the Middle East since the end of the last year, and reached a conclusion on whether the Arab Spring consists of revolts or revolutions.
Lebanon employs soccer in bid to reduce threat of spill over of Syrian violence
By James M. Dorsey
Soccer is rallying divided Lebanon scarred by years of bitter civil war at a time that... more
By James M. Dorsey
Soccer is rallying divided Lebanon scarred by years of bitter civil war at a time that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s sectarian-tainted brutal crackdown threatens to spill into the streets of Lebanese cities.
In a bid to build on Lebanese rallying around their flag in December after the Lebanese national soccer team defeated South Korea 2:1 in a 2014 World Cup qualifier, Education Minister Hassan Diab called this week on private and public schools to allow students to go home early on Wednesday so that they can cheer their squad as it plays the UAE in Abu Dhabi. A win against favourite UAE could guarantee Lebanon a spot in the fourth and final round of qualifiers for the Brazil World Cup.
In a country where almost every facet of life is defined by sectarian fault lines, Lebanon’s defeat of South Korea in December brought tens of thousands of fans into the streets of the Lebanese capital Beirut waving the country's red and white flag with a green cedar in the middle. Traffic came to a halt and for a moment sectarian differences that have deeply divided the country for decades were superseded by a sense of national pride.
"Sports can do what religion and politics can't, gather the Lebanese people around a common thing. The national team changed the point of view to many football fans, and it united them for one goal, to participate in World Cup 2014. This was a very good step to help people to leave their political and religious views behind and watch their team without reverting to riots or gang wars,” The Associated Press (AP) quoted Lebanese supporter Serge Mghames as saying at the time.
Just how fragile that sense of unity is was highlighted when earlier this month fighting erupted between supporters of Mr. Assad, and those who oppose his regime in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli where a single street divides Jabal Muhsin, populated by members of the Syrian leader’s Alawite sect, from Sunni Muslims in Bab al-Tabbana who have close ties to their Sunni brethren across the border in Syria.
Three people were killed and many more were injured in 24 hours of fighting. Walls riddled with bullets and damaged buildings betray the intensity of the fighting.
The government hopes that a surprise defeat of the UAE could revive the soccer-inspired sense of national unity and prove stronger than sectarian animosity that is never far from the surface.
That however is a tall order in a country of four million that is divided among 18 Muslim and Christian sects and scarred by 15 years of civil war that ended with a fragile peace in 1991.
If the experience of Iraq whose national team became Asian champion in 2007 at a time that the country was wracked by sectarian bloodshed or Abbas Suan, a devout Palestinian Israeli Muslim who refused to sing the Hatikva, Israel’s national anthem, when it was played before a game but in 2006 united Israeli Jews and Arabs by securing with a last minute equalizer against Ireland Israel’s first chance in 35 years to qualify for a world cup is anything to go by soccer’s unifying effect is lost as soon as the team no longer performs.
The government’s effort is further complicated by the fact that sectarianism is so deeply rooted in the country’s game that the government banned fans from attending domestic league matches in the wake of the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Harriri and violent clashes between fans
following the 2006 war between the Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah and Israel.
The government lifted the ban on fans in October of last year, but by then the damage had been done. The ban devastated the game: its domestic league whose clubs are closely tied to sectarian and political interests all but collapsed and the national team was drained of potential talent. Clubs became financially even more dependent on their sectarian and political sponsors, allowing them to manipulate the game to their own ends.
The grip of sectarian and political sponsors is strengthened by the fact that corporate sponsors like Coca Cola are forced to simultaneously support Christian, Sunni and Shiite teams to avoid being accused of favouring one community above the other. As a result, Lebanon fell in world soccer body FIFA’s rankings from 125 to 178 but has rebounded to 111 with its defeat of South Korea.
"Politics came into football and destroyed it," said Rahif Alameh, secretary-general of the Lebanese Football Association, who dates the "death of football" to 2001, the year when the government intervened in a murky match-fixing scandal rather than the 2005 ban on fans. That was when Lebanon's political-religious leaders began treating the association as a pie to be carved up in line with Lebanon’s sectarian system of power sharing.
The Hariri family’s Future or March 14 Movement, for example, sponsors several clubs. Rafik Hariri’s purchase in 2003 of Nejmeh, Lebanon’s most popular team made it the last to succumb to sectarianism. The first non-Christian club to be founded in Lebanon, Nejmeh lost its Shiite Muslim fan base with the acquisition by Mr. Hariri. The former billionaire prime minister initially ventured into sports as a moneymaking venture, but later turned his teams into vehicles for consolidating his Sunni Muslim support.
"Football had just (become an extension) of politics. Everything in Lebanon is politicized, the air we breathe is politicized.,” Mr. Alameh said.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that the various teams within a political block – the Hariri’s pro-Western and pro-Saudi March 14 Movement or Iran-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah’s pro-Syrian March 8 Movement – support each other by not fielding their best players when one of their associated clubs needs a win to progress in a championship or avoid being relegated.
American University of Beirut political scientist Danyel Reiche describes professional sports and particularly soccer in Lebanon in an essay in Third World Quarterly as the sector with the most “direct confrontation among the different sectarian and political groups“ because “whereas the political system prevents sects from competing with each other there are no separate sectarian (sports) leagues.” Quoting George Orwell, Mr. Reiche says Lebanese soccer amount to “war minus the shooting.”
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.
Egyptian striker Zidan highlights post-revolt transition problems by calling Mubarak father
By James M. Dorsey
Egyptian soccer star Mohamed Zidan in controversial remarks in
a television... more
By James M. Dorsey
Egyptian soccer star Mohamed Zidan in controversial remarks in
a television interview put his finger on the problem Egypt and other post-revolt Arab countries face in transition from an autocratic to a more open society and the battles to be fought on the soccer pitch.
In an interview with satellite channel CBC Egypt, Mr. Zidan, a striker in the Egyptian national team and for Germany’s FSV Mainz 05, focused attention on the neo-patriarchal role of Arab autocrats as their nation’s father figure, the refusal of a majority of soccer players and managers to join the region’s anti-autocratic revolts and the deep-seated rivalry between crowned Cairo clubs Al Ahly SC and Al Zamalek SC despite the fact that militant soccer fans of both clubs stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the mass protests last year that forced president Hosni Mubarak out of office.
“I kissed Mubarak’s hand when he honoured Egypt after the 2010 African Cup of Nations as I saw him as a father of all Egyptians,” said Mr. Zidan said reflecting the attitude of most soccer players and managers in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world.
Egyptian soccer players stood aside during the mass protests while some prominent managers, including then starred national coach Hassan Shehata and twin brother Ibrahim and Hossam Hassan, who were at the time a Zamalek board member and the team’s coach openly supported Mr. Mubarak, only to be later blacklisted by the protesters.
Mr. Zidan’s description of Mr. Mubarak as a father echoed repeated statements last year by the Hassan brothers and others who said they supported the objectives of the anti-government protesters, but were concerned about the impact on soccer and believed that Mubarak had served his country and should be treated with respect.
Elsewhere, Libyan soccer players only joined the rebels four months into the NATO-backed armed revolt against Moammar Qaddafi when family and friends of theirs were killed in the fighting. In Bahrain where majority Shiite Muslim national soccer team players and other sportsmen organized their own protest against the minority Sunni Muslim government, the royal family failure to ensure equal rights for the religious minority meant that the king was not perceived as the country’s father figure.
Abdelbasset Saroot, a 20-year old player for Syria's national Under-23 team who is one of the leaders of the protest in the embattled city of Homs, is perhaps the foremost exception to the rule.
At the heart of the failure of soccer players and managers to join the popular revolts sweeping the Middle East and North Africa is what Palestinian-American historian Hisham Sharabi call neo-patriarchy in a controversial book published in 1992 that is still banned in many Arab countries. Mr. Sharabi argued that Arab society was built around the "dominance of the Father (patriarch), the centre around which the national as well as the natural family are organized. Between ruler and ruled, between father and child, there exist only vertical relations: in both settings the paternal will is absolute will, mediated in both the society and the family by a forced consensus based on ritual and coercion."
In other words, Arab regimes franchised repression so that in a cultural patrimonial society, the oppressed participated in their repression and denial of rights. The regime is in effect the father of all fathers at the top of the pyramid. In the words of Egyptian journalist Khaled Diab quoted by journalist Brian Whitacker in a book exploring the nature of Arab soicety, Egypt's problem was not simply an aging president with little to show for himself after almost thirty years in power, but the fact that "Egypt has a million (president Hosni) Mubaraks.”
As a result, the patriarchal values that dominate soccer in addition to its popularity made it the perfect game for neo-patriarchs. Their values were soccer's values: assertion of male superiority in most aspects of life, control or harnessing of female lust and a belief in a masculine God. The identification of the presidents of Egypt, Iran and Yemen - Mubarak, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Abdullah Ali Saleh - as well as Libyan leader Colonel Moammar Qaddafi’s son, Al Saadi al Qaddafi, with their country’s national teams turned their successes and failures into barometers of how their regimes were faring.
It also meant that managers were either appointed or approved by the Middle East’s and North Africa’s autocratic regimes while players were feted by autocrats and showered with gifts including expensive real estate and cars as well as significant amounts of cash for their successes on the soccer pitch.
With the region’s militant soccer fans or ultras – highly politicized, well organized street battle-hardened groups modelled on similar groups in Serbia and Italy – likely to refocus their attention on the beautiful game after having played a key role in revolts that toppled various Arab autocrats and a year of vicious street battles with security forces in downtown Cairo, Mr. Zidan’s remark highlights the strained relations between fans who view themselves as their club’s only truly supporters, players and managers in the region’s post-revolt soccer.
To the ultras, players are hired guns willing to switch allegiances for money while management consists largely of corrupt appointees of autocratic regimes. Al Ahly ultras unfolded a year ago a huge banner addressed to players during their team’s friendly against Harras El-Hodoud that read: "We followed you everywhere but in the hard times we didn't find you." Many reject Egypt’s national team as ‘Mubarak’s team’ rather than that of the nation. Players have since the overthrow of Mubarak pressured the ultras unsuccessfully to moderate their support tactics that include the use of fireworks, flares, smoke guns and abusive chanting because the clubs were being penalized.
In the interview, Mr. Zidan attempted to explain his failure to acknowledge the 74 soccer fans who died in a lethal clash in Port Said earlier this month immediately after a match between Al Ahly and the Sue Canal city’s Al Masry SC. His failure to do so highlighted the intense rivalry between Ahly, established in the early 20as an Egyptians-only meeting place for opponents of Britain's colonial rule as well as the monarchy that was toppled in 1952 and Zamalek, the pro-monarchy club of the British imperial administrators and military brass as well as the Cairo upper class. Their rivalry was so deep-seated that matches between them became the world’s most violent derby.
Ironically it was Mr. Mubarak that brought the arch rivals together.
For the first time in the two clubs’ history, Mr. Mubarak emerged as the figure that fans of both clubs hated more than they hated each other. As a result, ultras of the two clubs joined forces last year on Cairo’s Tahrir Square to throw the country’s father figure off his pedestal.
“I really didn’t mean to provoke the emotions of the Egyptians,” Mr. Zidan said apologizing for his lack of empathy with the killed Ahli fans. “I was really close to a move to Ahly in the past and I respect the club and its fans,” Mr. Zidan insisted.
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.
Ultras call for retaliation as parliament blames fans and security for Port Said deaths
By James M. Dorsey
An Egyptian parliamentary inquiry into this month’s death of 74 soccer fans in the Suez... more
By James M. Dorsey
An Egyptian parliamentary inquiry into this month’s death of 74 soccer fans in the Suez Canal city of Port Said has blamed fans and lax security for the worst incident in the country’s sports history. The inquiry’s preliminary report also suggests without going into detail that unidentified thugs were involved in the violence that erupted at the end of a match between Port Said’s Al Masri SC and crowned Cairo club Al Ahli SC.
The report is scheduled to be debated in parliament on Monday. It was drafted by a committee headed by Ashraf Thabet, the assembly’s first deputy speaker and a member of the Salafist Al-Nur Party, which is believed to enjoy backing from Saudi Arabia and advocates adherence to Islam in line with 7th century practices at the time of the Prophet Mohammed.
A controversial member of Al Nur, Salafist preacher Sheikh Abdel Moneim El-Shaha, was last week attempting to talk his way out of reports that he had condemned soccer as a sin and said that the 74 fans were killed because they had been watching a forbidden form of entertainment. Mr. El-Shaha charged that he had been misquoted.
The parliamentary report is unlikely to reduce tension between the fans or ultras – militant, well-organized, highly politicized, street battle-hardened soccer support groups modelled on similar organizations in Serbia and Italy – and Egypt’s ruling military and security forces. At least 16 people were killed in the wake of the Port Said incident in six days of fighting between security forces and youths seeking to storm the interior ministry in central Cairo.
The military last week said troops and tanks would ensure security in advance of a general strike last weekend called by activists and youth groups to demand the immediate return of the military to their barracks and the formation of a civilian government. The failure of the strike on the first anniversary of the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak after religious leaders called on Egyptians to ignore it signalled the increasing isolation of the ultras – the military’s most militant opposition – and other activists who led the protests that forced the Egyptian leader to resign after 30 years in office.
Ultras Ahlawy, the Al Ahli support group that lost scores in the Port Said incident, called in a statement on Facebook on the eve of the release of the parliamentary report for retaliation against those responsible for the death of their comrades. The statement also called for the cleansing of the interior ministry, under which the security forces, the focus of their animosity whom they accuse of engineering the fatal brawl, resort.
The interior ministry or dakhliya symbolizes for many ultras their battle for karama or dignity. Their dignity is vested in their ability to stand up to the dakhliya, particularly in the wake of Port Said; a sense that they no longer can be abused by security forces without recourse; and the fact that they no longer have to pay off policemen to stay out of trouble.
“This Wednesday will mark two weeks since the passing of some of Egypt’s finest youth. They died because they refused to live without dignity and screamed loud calling for freedom,” the Ultras Ahlawy statement said.
It demanded an investigation of what it alleged was the failure of the interior ministry and the security forces to ensure safety and security during the match in which Port Said defeated Al Ahli 3:1 as well as “the cleansing of the ministry of interior and a full reconstruction of its system.”
The ultras further demanded that authorities drop references to involvement of a “third” party in the incident, a reference to the military’s attempt to position the Port Said incident as part of a foreign conspiracy to destabilize post-revolt Egypt. The ultras said they would not “accept the outcome of an investigation that blamed an anonymous (group for an incident) that wasted the lives of the martyrs.” They demanded the immediate arrest of the culprits whom they said were known to authorities “so as not to put us in the position of taking the right (into our own hands).”
While the Ultras Ahlawy charge that security forces failed to intervene in the lethal attack on their members and accuse thugs hired by the government of instigating the incident they also appeared to agree with the parliamentary inquiry’s conclusion that television footage documents the involvement of Al Masri fans in the attack on them. Ultras Ahlawy believes it was targeted because of its key role alongside other ultras groups in the toppling of Mr. Mubarak and its opposition since then to military rule.
Leaders of the ultras suggested that the incident was intended to exploit waning public support for the ultras, which were revered for their fearlessness, years of confrontation with security forces in the stadiums, role in manning defending Tahrir Square during the anti-Mubarak protests last year and militant support of their clubs. Their militancy and contentious street politics is however increasingly out of step with the mood in a country that is protest weary, retains confidence in the military despite its brutality, is frustrated that its revolt has not produced immediate tangible economic fruits and yearns for a return to normalcy so that Egypt can recover economically.
Deputy Parliament Speaker Thabet said in parliament Sunday that the Port Said incident had been sparked in part by incitement on sports TV channels. Disclosing details of the inquiry, he charged that thugs and hard core soccer fans had taken "advantage of the tension surrounding the game to achieve some political gains," but gave no details. Mr. Thabet promised to release the names of the instigators a later stage. He said 12,000 tickets had been sold for the match but 18,000 spectators had been admitted to the stadium.
Mr. Thabet said fans were not inspected while entering the stands and there was a lack of order inside and outside the stadium. "Security facilitated, allowed and enabled this massacre," he said, adding that security forces ignored mounting tension in advance of the Al Masri-Al Ahli match. "Both ultras and thugs attacked Ahly fans and this is part of Ultras' culture," he said.
Mr. Thabet acknowledged that similar pitch invasions had occurred in Port Said in the past year. Like in stadiums elsewhere in Egypt, security was often lax and security forces where more interested in avoiding clashes with fans in a bid to shore up their tarnished image as the Mubarak regime’s henchmen than in ensuring security. The Port Said incident has sparked suspicion that more than just laxness was involved because stadium exits that were normally open had been locked and because security forces refused to intervene despite the fact that the brawl had turned lethal.
The parliamentary inquiry also took the Egyptian Football Association (EFA) to task for violating world governing body FIFA’s security standards that call for monitoring by a security official of the security and political situation before, during and after a match.
The charge cast a further shadow over FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s demand for the reinstitution of the EFA board that was last week dismissed by the government in the wake of the Port Said incident. Mr. Blatter’s charge that the dismissal constituted political interference rings hallow given that the board consists of Mubarak appointees who furthered the ousted president’s efforts to control and manipulate the game to his political benefit. It also rings hallow given the fact that despite a nominal 2013 FIFA deadline for a restructuring of Egyptian soccer FIFA essentially tolerated the fact that the vast majority of Egyptian premier league clubs fail to meet the soccer body’s criteria for league membership.
FIFA sources said the Mr. Blatter’s demand was part of a flawed communications strategy designed to position the FIFA president as a leader and defender of soccer in a bid to repair the reputational damage he suffered as a result of a series of scandals in the last year that have rocked the soccer body and tarnished its image and that of its president. One source described the strategy as dating from the 1930s.
The sources said FIFA’s announcement that it was donating $250,000 to the families of those who died in Port Said was part of Mr. Blatter’s strategy. They noted that it was being handled personally by the FIFA president rather than the soccer body’s emergency committee and doubted that there was a mechanism to distribute the funds. In a separate move, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) which is headed by a controversial Blatter ally, Issa Hatou, said it was donating $150,000.
In the first regional fallout of the Port Said incident, Tunisia’s interior ministry ordered that all league matches be played behind closed doors because of concern about deteriorating security. Le Presse sports editor Sami Akrimi said the decision stemmed from the failure of the Tunisian soccer body to work with fan groups to ensure security.
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.
China Needs to Change Mideast Foreign Policy
By James M. Dorsey
China’s decision to veto a condemnation of Syria’s regime at the United Nations... more
By James M. Dorsey
China’s decision to veto a condemnation of Syria’s regime at the United Nations Security Council is just the latest signal that illustrates the need for a fundamental change in Chinese foreign policy.
The question is no longer whether officials in Beijing will abandon the principle of non-interference in other countries’ affairs to protect their expanding interests around the globe. The question is when.
China joined Russia in vetoing last weekend’s resolution partly for fear that backing the UN’s rebuke of a government’s brutal suppression of its people may come back to haunt China itself, given its treatment of Tibetans and of Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang autonomous region.
Yet China’s economic growth and associated need to secure resources increasingly have been at odds with this long-standing policy of being aloof. That’s especially true in the resource- rich region that stretches from the Atlantic coast of Africa to Central Asia and the subcontinent, much of which is now in revolt.
Over the past year, a series of incidents in the region have tested China’s non-interference policy, but without serious damage to the country’s image. With China’s veto of the UN resolution on Syria, Chinese determination to cling to a principle rooted in 19th-century diplomacy seems set to backfire.
Painted Into Corner
Rather than portray China as a global power that seeks good relations with all and -- unlike the U.S. -- doesn’t meddle in other countries’ affairs, last weekend’s veto of a relatively toothless condemnation of the regime in Damascus has painted China into a corner. The nation now appears to support an international pariah that brutally suppresses its people, a stance that risks roiling ties with some of China’s most important energy suppliers in the Arab League, which sponsored the defeated UN resolution.
In Libya, China initially avoided its policy dilemma. There, the Chinese abstained from voting on a UN resolution that effectively authorized international military intervention in Libya on humanitarian grounds. Chinese diplomats then went a step further. They supported a Security Council resolution that imposed an arms embargo and other sanctions on the regime of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, and endorsed referral of the regime’s crackdown to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
China cultivated relations with both Qaddafi’s embattled regime and the Benghazi-based rebels. Yet that evenhanded approach didn’t prevent the rebels from threatening a commercial boycott, particularly after they found documents purporting to show that Chinese defense companies had discussed the supply of arms with Qaddafi operatives. A Chinese Ministry of Commerce delegation visited Libya this week in a bid to recover at least some of the losses that China, Libya’s biggest foreign contractor, suffered with the evacuation last year of 35,000 workers who were servicing $18.8 billion worth of contracts.
The Arab revolt is certain to force not only a revision of China’s policy of non-interference but also of the employment practices of Chinese companies. With new and long-standing governments in the region desperate to reduce unemployment -- a key driver of the revolts -- authorities in Libya and elsewhere are likely to demand that Chinese construction companies employ local, rather than imported, labor.
Social Media Criticism
Moreover, Chinese authorities have twice in recent days come under criticism in the country’s social media for the government’s inability to protect workers abroad after 29 Chinese nationals were kidnapped by rebels in Sudan’s volatile South Kordofan province, and an additional 25 were abducted by restive Bedouin tribesmen in Egypt’s Sinai Desert. The critics charged that as a superpower, China needed to project its economic, as well as its military, muscle to stand up for those who put their lives at risk for the national good -- much like the U.S. sent Navy Seals to rescue two hostages in Somalia.
Censors were quick to remove the critical messages from social media because they touched a raw nerve. A policy of winning friends economically rather than make enemies by flexing military muscle is increasingly inconsistent with China’s dislike of appearing weak and vulnerable. National pride was at stake. The dilemma sparked public debate, with official media saying China needs time to build the necessary military capability to intervene when its nationals are in jeopardy, while others argue that China’s inaction may encourage further attacks.
The need for a revised approach to the Middle East and North Africa, as well as countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, will become increasingly clear as China boosts its investment in Central and South Asian nations before the scheduled 2014 withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, where China has secured oil and copper rights.
Reports that China is considering establishing military bases in Pakistan’s insurgency-plagued northwestern tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan, and a naval base in the Balochistan port city of Gwadar, could create further pressure for change. China holds the Pakistan-based East Turkestan Islamic Movement responsible for attacks last year in Xinjiang’s city of Kashgar. Defeating the movement is key to Chinese plans to keep regional trade and energy flowing, and the bases in Pakistan may tempt China to take on a role as local policeman.
If it takes an event to drive a change of China’s foreign policy, Yemen may prove to be the spark. With $355 billion worth of trade with Europe and a quarter of China’s exports traveling through Bab el Mandeb -- the strait that separates Yemen from Somalia and Djibouti -- China cannot afford a collapse of law and order in Yemen. The crisis-ridden country is countering multiple threats, including an al-Qaeda insurgency after mass protests and intercommunal fighting that forced the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh and paved the way for elections later this month.
Policy Breached Before
China has breached its non-interference policy to respond to these pressures in the recent past. Its deployment of naval vessels off the coast of Somalia to counter piracy, for example, constituted the first Chinese venture of its kind.
But China’s status as an emerging economic superpower demands that it become a more muscular global actor to pursue its interests. Ultimately that will mean taking positions on domestic disputes and conflicts around the world that have a bearing on China’s global national-security interests, the very opposite of the stance it adopted on Syria. Similarly, China will need to maintain military bases in key regions that serve to secure Chinese demand for natural resources, and to satisfy domestic calls to ensure the safety of its nationals abroad.
In short, China will have to use virtually the same tools employed by the U.S., shouldering the risks of a foreign policy that is interest-driven and therefore, at times, contradictory.
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.
Port Said helps forge bridges and reopens fault lines in Egypt
By James M. Dorsey
With the street battles in Cairo between militant soccer fans and protesters becoming... more
By James M. Dorsey
With the street battles in Cairo between militant soccer fans and protesters becoming ever more vicious, the death of 74 supporters of crowned Cairo soccer club Al Ahli SC in Port Said is sparking a reconciliation among once implacable foes while at the same time solidifying emerging fault lines in Egyptian society.
Budding ties between arch rival ultras – militant, well-organized, highly-politicized, street-battled hardened soccer fans – of Al Ahly and its arch rival, Cairo’s storied Al Zamalek SC, have been boosted by the lethal incident in Port Said.
Ultras of the two Cairo teams who had battled one and other for years stood a year ago for the first time in their five-year old history shoulder-to-shoulder on Tahrir Square manning the front lines of the protests that forced President Hosni Mubarak to resign after 30 years in office. They were the first to absorb attacks by security forces and Mubarak loyalists.
Throughout the year, ultras of both teams repeatedly found themselves on the same side against a common enemy during the storming of the offices of the hated State Security Service, which has since been renamed the National Security Force; protests demanding the resignation of the now dismissed board of the Egyptian Football Association (EFA); the storming of the Israeli embassy in Cairo last September; and vicious street battles in November and December in streets near Tahrir in support of their call for an immediate return to their barracks of Egypt’s military rulers. Some 50 people died and more than 1,000 were wounded in those clashes.
With many Egyptians convinced that the incident in Port Said constituted a planned, deliberate targeting of the Al Ahly ultras, ultras of all stripes see the incident as an attack on all ultras in a bid to break their resolve as the most militant opposition to the military’s designs to shape the future of Egypt in its image in a bid to preserve their Mubarak era perks and privileges.
As a result, ultras of Al Ahly and Al Zamalek are again together braving tear gas and birdshot in their effort to storm the interior ministry in central Cairo, under which the hated police and security forces resort. At least 12 people have been killed and hundreds wounded.
Ironically, the Port Said tragedy immediately after a match in which the city’s Al Masri SC defeated Al Ahly, may help restructure strained relations in Egyptian soccer and launch it on a badly needed road of reform.
The failure of the overwhelming majority of players to support last year’s uprising against Mr. Mubarak had further strained relations with the ultras who view themselves as the only true supporters of their clubs. To them, players are hired guns willing to switch allegiances for money while management consists largely of corrupt Mubarak appointees. Al Ahly ultras last March unfolded a huge banner addressed to players during their team’s friendly against Harras El-Hodoud that read: "We followed you everywhere but in the hard times we didn't find you."
Players have since pressured the ultras unsuccessfully to moderate their support tactics that include the use of fireworks, flares, smoke guns and abusive chanting because the clubs were being penalized.
However, in a sign of the changing times, the Al Ahly ultras this weekend apologized on an especially created Facebook page named “We are sorry Shika” to Zamalek winger Mahmoud Abdel-Razek aka Shikabala, widely viewed as Egypt’s top player, for routinely abusing him verbally during their clubs’ derbies. The abuse frequently lead to Shikabala and Al Ahly fans trading insults in heated exchanges.
Responding in an interview on the Zamalek club’s website, Shikabala welcomed the apology. “Despite the cruelty of what happened in Port Said, this disaster played a role in uniting the fans of all clubs. It might be a turning point in ending intolerance and hatred in Egyptian football. I will go to the Ahly club along with my teammates to offer our condolences to the families of Port Said martyrs. The fans of Ahly are my brothers. I hope Ahly and Zamalek fans can sit together in the stands without barriers," he said.
Players, fans and clubs may also find common ground in opposing a demand by Sepp Blatter, the president of world soccer body FIFA that the government reinstates the EFA board dismissed in the wake of Port Said on the grounds that its firing constituted political interference. Clubs and fans have been demanding the resignation of the board for the past year. Mr. Blatter’s call rings hallow given that the board consists of Mubarak appointees who further the ousted president’s efforts to control and manipulate the game to his political benefit.
It also rings hallow given the fact that despite a nominal 2013 FIFA deadline for a restructuring of Egyptian soccer FIFA essentially tolerated the fact that the vast majority of Egyptian premier league clubs fail to meet the soccer body’s criteria for league membership. These criteria include that an owner can only have one club in the league – several Egyptian premier league teams are military owned --; must have its own stadium – virtually no club does and if it does as in the case of Wadi Degla was not allowed by the security services to use it; and should be financially self-sufficient – few Egyptian clubs are.
If Port Said is setting the stage for a reordering of Egyptian soccer, it is also reinforcing emerging fault lines in a country that is protest weary, retains confidence in the military despite its brutality, is frustrated with the lack of immediate economic benefit from the revolt and yearns for normalcy so that Egypt can return to economic growth.
The public mood increasingly meant that the ultras, revered for their fearlessness and contribution to the ousting of Mr. Mubarak, were growing isolated with the public opting for electoral politics and turning its back on contentious street politics. Port Said brought the ultras out of their isolation with thousands of
Egyptians in recent days joining their efforts to seek retribution by attacking the interior ministry.
It also sparked counter demonstrations. “Those who love Egypt should not destroy it” and "Police or people…we are all Egyptians," demonstrators chanted demanding a ceasefire between the ultras and the security forces. Residents on Cairo’s Mansour and Mohammed Mahmoud streets, the scene of the battles, complain barricades erected by the security forces and the clashes were disrupting daily life in their neighborhood.
Various groups including relatives of Port Said casualties, members of parliament and the imam of Tahrir Square’s Omar Markram mosque, Mazhar Shahin have been seeking to negotiate a ceasefire. Ahmad Maher, a leader of the April 6 movement that played a key role in the uprising against Mr. Mubarak, suffered a fractured skull and concussion when he was hit by a rock while trying to negotiate a truce.
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.
Egypt One Year On: Stark Message for Arab Revolutionaries
By James M. Dorsey
EGYPT’S MILITARY council, backed by Islamist and secular political parties, has upstaged... more
By James M. Dorsey
EGYPT’S MILITARY council, backed by Islamist and secular political parties, has upstaged the 25 January celebrations of the anniversary of the protests that ousted President Hosni Mubarak even before the party gets underway. The military pre-empted plans by the revolutionary youth and militant soccer fan groups whose mass protests early last year forced Mubarak from office by announcing that they would organise their own celebration together with the Muslim Brotherhood on Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
The military’s co-opting of the celebrations is certain to dash hopes of the protesters to exploit the anniversary to launch what they call a second revolution that would force the armed forces to immediately relinquish power. Instead, it is likely to seal their defeat in a country that has grown tired of demonstrations, still largely reveres the military despite its brutal response to anti-government protests late last year and wants to see tangible results of its revolt.
The military’s move also signals the primacy of electoral over contentious politics in post-autocratic transition societies with the backing of the Brotherhood, which emerged as Egypt’s foremost political grouping with some 40 per cent of the vote in the first post-Mubarak elections. The Brotherhood’s backing of the military celebration is significant given its demonstrated ability to fill Tahrir Square and mobilise opposition against the military if it wanted to.
The military is sending a stark message not only to Egyptian youth and soccer fan groups that established political organisations with well-oiled party machines rather than newly emerging political forces will shape the country’s future. The message is also to protesters elsewhere in the region that unless they can match their mobilisation and street skills with the art of electoral politics and backroom horse trading they too will be relegated to the sidelines of history.
Much of the youth and soccer groups’ criticism of the post-Mubarak transition rings true even if does not resonate with a majority of the population. They accuse the military of subverting a promised transition to real democracy in a bid to preserve its political and economic perks and interests and employing to do so the same if not worse repressive measures than the Mubarak regime. Scores have been killed in protests since Mubarak’s downfall, thousands injured and some 12,000 people, including activists, bloggers and soccer fans dragged in front of military courts.
The one joker in the military’s plans to upstage the youth and soccer fan groups and give them the death knell is the spectre of violent confrontation during the celebrations. Fear of a repeat of the bitter street battles that took place between security forces and soccer fans in November and December last year could persuade many Egyptians to steer clear of Tahrir Square on 25 January. Egypt’s military ruler, Field Marshall Mohamed Hussein Tantawi issued a thinly veiled warning to the youth and soccer fan groups days before the 25 January celebrations that Egypt faced unprecedented “grave dangers” but that the military would protect it. The statement, echoing Mubarak’s tactic of distracting attention from domestic issues by invoking an alleged foreign threat, was contrived to rally public opinion against the protesters.
A failure to rally the masses would dent the military’s efforts to maintain the high ground and would boost revolutionary moves to thwart its plans. Nonetheless, the youth and soccer fan groups are on treacherous ground. They have lost much of the popular support they enjoyed in the run-up to and immediate aftermath of Mubarak’s ousting. Their refusal to surrender Tahrir Square in favour of traditional politics has won them few brownie points with the public. Their marginalisation is compounded by the fact that men and women perceived to be honest and of faith have emerged victorious in the election, raising hopes that government will be free of nepotism and corruption.
Revolutionaries in other Middle Eastern and North African societies in transition may well conclude from the Egyptian experience that it is a fatal mistake to simply topple an autocratic leader and not to push for the ultimate uprooting of a failed system. It promises to make transitions even more contentious and could inspire the kind of resilience and determination displayed by protesters in Syria who have refused to give ground to a ten-month old brutal government crackdown that has already cost some 5,000 lives.
Protesters across the Middle East and North Africa like their counterparts in other parts of the world have mastered the art of seemingly leaderless revolt and exploitation of new technology. However, the lesson of Egypt is that they will also increasingly have to harness the skills of traditional politics and face up to the reality of realpolitik to ensure that they not only win a battle but also the war.
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.
Egypt suspends soccer matches in anticipation of protest anniversary clashes with ultras
By James M. Dorsey
The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) has delayed the 16th round of Premier League... more
By James M. Dorsey
The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) has delayed the 16th round of Premier League soccer matches in a bid to prevent the pitch from becoming an anti-military rallying point during this week’s celebrations of the eruption of protests a year ago that toppled President Hosni Mubarak.
The delay, a year after the EFA suspended professional soccer for three months in the walk-up to and aftermath of the ousting of Mr. Mubarak, is part of a concerted effort to reduce the risk of clashes between militant, violence prone soccer fans and security forces.
The military announced late Saturday that it had granted amnesty to 1,950 people, including activists and soccer fans detained during clashes in past months with security forces in a nother move designed to avert violence during the anniversary celebrations.
Matches will resume on January 27, two days after the celebrations on January 25, the first of 18 days of mass anti-government protests last year that forced Mr. Mubarak to resign after 30 years in office.
Egypt’s military rulers who succeeded Mr. Mubarak with a pledge to lead the country to free and fair elections see the celebrations as a means of cementing their position in advance of horse trading with the Muslim Brotherhood, which was confirmed this weekend as the winner of the country’s first Mubarak election.
They hope that the celebrations will further isolate the youth and soccer fan groups or ultras – militant, highly politicized, violence-prone supporters of Cairo’s two main soccer teams that are modelled on similar groups in Italy and Serbia -- that formed the core of the anti-Mubarak protests and have since repeatedly clashed with security forces over their demand that the military return to the barracks.
Revered by activist youth, the soccer fans and youth groups that spearheaded Mubarak’s overthrow have lost significant support of a public that has grown tired of the political turmoil wracking Egypt and a year later has yet to see a tangible improvement of their social and economic situation. The military continues to be popular despite its brutal response to post-Mubarak protests and many Egyptians are for now willing to give it and the Brotherhood the benefit of the doubt.
The youth and soccer fan groups fear that the military and the Brotherhood, which controls about half the seats in parliament, will cut a deal under which in return for the military’s acceptance of the Islamists’ electoral victory they would support the military’s candidate for president in presidential elections scheduled for June.
The postponement of the soccer matches reflects the government and the EFA’s concern that the soccer fan and youth groups will use the January 25 celebrations to press their demand for the immediate return of the military to its barracks – a demand that is strengthened by the fact that the country now has an elected parliament.
The military has been reluctant to surrender power as long as its privileged political and economic position, involving exemption from civilian oversight and the maintenance of a commercial conglomerate that accounts for anywhere between 10 and 25% of Egypt’s GDP, is not guaranteed.
The Brotherhood’s actions over the last year, including its support for this week’s military-led celebrations and a declared willingness to grant the military immunity, suggests that it is willing to accommodate the military despite a statement in recent days by its leader, Mohammed Badie, that the incoming parliament will scrutinize the military's budget and hold the army accountable for mistakes made during the last year’s transition.
Scores have been killed, thousands wounded and thousands more dragged in front of military courts in the last year as a result of clashes between soccer fans and other youth groups and security forces.
Fears of renewed clashes this week are reinforced by a growing sense that the militant soccer fans’ raison d’etre increasingly has become their deep-seated hatred of the police and the Central Security Force (CSF) rather than a political vision for the future of Egypt.
“If you went to a stadium and saw how some policeman riding a horse could lash ultras members with a whip for no apparent reason, you would understand the nature of the relationship between the police and ultras groups. This terrible relationship between both sides is the result of the constant brutality ultras have long been subject to. They do hate the police and would engage with them on every possible occasion, and that’s by far justifiable considering the treatment they have been receiving,” Al Ahram Online quoted Ahmed Gafaar, a nephew of Zamalek football legend Farouk Gafaar and one of founders of the Ultras White Knights (UWK), the fan group of crowned Cairo club Al Zamalek SC.
The ultras, steeled by years of almost weekly clashes with security forces in stadiums during the Mubarak era, played a key role in breaking the barrier of fear as tens of thousands of protesters poured into Cairo’s Tahrir Square in late January of last year where they stayed for 18 days until Mubarak resigned. They formed the protesters’ front line when security forces and Mubarak loyalists attacked the protesters.
The ultras have since Mr. Mubarak’s departure joined other youth groups in often violent anti-military clashes with security forces and were welcomed as the revolt’s shock troops by protesters being attacked by the CSF.
The ultras “would step in whenever they see police forces brutalising people anywhere, whether from their own or not. They would take advantage of their experience in fighting with the CSF to stand up against them, and protect the other side,” Mr. Gafaar said.
Ahmed Ezzat, the general coordinator of the Popular Committees for Protecting the Revolution, added speaking to Al Ahram Online: “All demonstrators always welcome the Ultras members in Tahrir Square. They are highly organised and are not looking for any media attention. They have the tendency to struggle in hard times; they are perceived to be comrades in the project of the revolution and have robustly supported the revolutionaries all along.”
The military and the EFA fears that attitude could spark riots on January 25. Says Mohamed Gamal Beshir, another UWK founder and author of the recently published book, Kitab Al Alutras (Book of the Ultras): “No one knows how January 25 will turn out.”
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.
Lebanese-Syrian soccer qualifier serves as barometer of troubled relations
By James M. Dorsey
A recent Lebanese-Syrian Asia Cup qualifier serves as an ironic barometer of troubled... more
By James M. Dorsey
A recent Lebanese-Syrian Asia Cup qualifier serves as an ironic barometer of troubled relations between the two countries seeking to chart their individual futures as well as that of their uneasy relationship.
Soldiers armed with machine guns controlled the entrances to the Rafik Hariri Stadium where the match was being played in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon named after a prime minister who was assassinated in 2005 allegedly with tacit Syrian complicity if not active participation. A United Nations tribunal last year indicted four members of Syria’s foremost Lebanese ally, Shiite militia Hezbollah, on charges of killing Mr. Hariri in a massive car bombing. Both Syria and Hezbollah have repeatedly denied involvement in the death of Mr. Hariri.
The killing of Mr. Hariri sparked massive anti-Syrian demonstrations that forced Damascus to withdraw its troops after 30 years from Lebanon. It also paved the way for the formal establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries after Syria dropped its refusal to formally recognize Lebanon as an independent state rather than a part of Greater Syria. Syria accredited Lebanon’s first ambassador to Damascus days before the match and welcomed a rare visit to Damascus by the Lebanese defence minister Elias Murr, who blames a failed 2005 attempt on his life on Syrian intelligence.
The massive security operation in a stadium bereft of spectators reflected the near civil war in Syria where a brutal government crackdown has failed to repress a ten month-old popular uprising against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad as well as the ripples of the revolt in Lebanon as a result of Hezbollah’s unqualified support for the Syrian leader.
Nevertheless, the very fact that Syria allowed its national team to travel abroad and that the match was the first in many years to be played on Lebanese soil rather than on neutral ground elsewhere in the Middle East speaks volumes about Syria’s relationship with Lebanon, one of only three Arab League countries to have voted against sanctioning the Assad regime for its brutality. More than 5,000 people are believed to have died in Syria since the uprising began in March of last year.
The fact that Syria allowed its national soccer team to Lebanon contrasts starkly with Syria’s refusal late last year to participate in the Arab Games in Bahrain for fear that some of its athletes might defect and confidence that Lebanon would not welcome any player seeking asylum.
Only two Syrian soccer players – national Under-23 goalkeeper and music composer Abd al Basset Saroot, a leader in the rebel stronghold of Homs, and national team goalkeeper Mosab Balhous who reportedly has been incarcerated since August on charges of sheltering armed gangs and possessing suspicious amounts of money – are known to have joined the revolt against Mr. Assad’s regime.
Syria placed its confidence in Lebanon despite deep-seated distrust between the two countries spilling regularly onto the soccer pitch. Suggesting that the Assad regime was so desperate for a victory in a bid to shore up its tarnished image, Lebanon accused Syria in November of fielding six players in an Under-19 Asian Football Championship qualifier whose ages had been falsified to qualify them for the team. The incident came two months after world soccer body FIFA barred Syria from competing for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil after the country’s national team fielded an unnamed ineligible player in a qualifying match against Tajikistan.
Syria, despite beating Lebanon 2:0 in this week’s Asia Cup qualifier, attacked Lebanon for its lack of hospitality and for having caused eight Syrian players to have food poisoning.
"We were treated with intentional carelessness by our hosts. There is no excuse for it, and brotherly countries should not be dealt in that way," Syrian Football Association executive Bahaa al-Omary told the BBC.
The Syrian defeat of Lebanon put paid to a rare moment of Lebanese unit sparked in a country where almost every facet of life is defined by its sectarian fault lines by the Lebanese team’s defeat in December of South Korea in a 2014 World Cup qualifier. The estimated 60,000 fans in Beirut’s Cite Sportive stadium shifted from sectarian chants to egging on their team with roars of “Minshan Allah, Libnan yallah” – “For God’s Sake, Lebanon Come On” – as soon as the Lebanese scored their first goal.
The fan support boosted Lebanese soccer, devastated by a ban on fans attending league matches in the wake of Mr. Hariri’s killing that was only lifted in October. As a result, Lebanon’s domestic league has all but collapsed and the national team drained of potential talent
“Politics came into football and destroyed it,” said Rahif Alameh, secretary-general of the Lebanese Football Association, who dates the “death of football” to 2001, the year when the government intervened in a murky match-fixing scandal rather than the 2005 ban on fans. That was when Lebanon’s political-religious leaders began treating the association as a pie to be carved up, just as they share power among Muslim and Christian communities.
Mr. Hariri, for example, sponsored several clubs and bought Nejmeh soccer club, Lebanon’s most popular team, which was largely cross-sectarian, but had always attracted much Shiite support. Mr. Hariri initially ventured into sports as a moneymaking venture, but later turned his teams into vehicles for consolidating his Sunni Muslim support.
Similarly, virtually every Lebanese soccer club is identified in sectarian and political terms — Maronite Christian, Sunni, Shiite, Druze or Armenian with certain political factions — even if the team’s players are religiously mixed.
“Football had just (become an extension) of politics. Everything in Lebanon is politicized, the air we breathe is politicized,” The Associated Press quoted Mr. Alameh as saying.
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.
Debate questions emir’s powers to shape Qatar’s positioning as a sports hub and sponsor of revolts
By James M. Dorsey
Qatar’s debate about allowing alcohol and the sale of pork amounts to far more than a... more
By James M. Dorsey
Qatar’s debate about allowing alcohol and the sale of pork amounts to far more than a discussion about adherence to the energy-rich Gulf state’s constitution and laws; it is a debate about the powers of the country’s ruler and its national identity.
The outcome of the debate will not only determine the future of Qatar’s effort to become a global sports hub – a key pillar of the national identity Emir Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani is seeking to shape – but also its positioning as a forward-looking sponsor of change in a region stretching from the Atlantic coast of Africa to the Gulf that is wracked by anti-government protests and convoluted transitions to more open societies.
It is a debate that is being closely monitored by critics of world soccer body FIFA’s decision to award Qatar the hosting of the 2022 World Cup; a wide-range of sports officials and athletes who anticipate a Qatari bid for the 2020 Olympic Games and the 2019 World Athletics Championships; and policy makers and pundits across the globe.
Caught on camera by CBS News in April of last year, US President Barak Obama described Sheikh Hamad as “a big booster of democracy all throughout the Middle East,” but noted that “he himself is not reforming significantly.” Mr. Obama suggested that Qataris with a per capita annual income of $145,000 felt little urge to rock the boat. Emir Hamad has since Mr. Obama’s quip announced elections next year for a royal advisory body. Qatar’s debate on moral mores nontheless appears to contradict Mr. Obama’s assessment.
The debate attracted international attention following last month’s unexplained banning of alcohol in restaurants on Qatar’s man-made island, The Pearl, which says it aims to “redefine an entire nation” and is popular with Qatar's growing expatriate community, as well as online calls by Qatari nationals for a boycott of state-owned Qatar Airways because of its serving on-board of alcohol and recent introduction of the sale of pork in a shop it owns in the capital Doha.
The debate about the country’s national identity is particularly sensitive given that Qatari nationals account for approximately only one quarter to one third of the country’s 1.7 million inhabitants with foreign labour and expatriates forming a majority at a time that the relationship between rulers, governments and the public across the Middle East and North Africa is being redefined.
“Our goal is to create a dialogue that resonates with and talks to the youth. This is an opportunity to inspire and engage young people…. Sports are at the heart of Qatar’s development… Sports like education and arts are part of our national identity,” Noora Al Mannai, CEO of Qatar’s bid to win the right to host the 2020 Olympic Games, told a recent brainstorm in Qatar designed to define the role of government, NGOs and business in sports.
Ms. Al Mannai said “empowering young people” was one reason for the bid alongside Qatar’s efforts to mediate conflicts and reduce regional obesity and diabetes levels.
The ban of alcohol on The Pearl extends beyond public venues to the kitchen, where one resident, Jenifer Fenton, writing on Arab News Blog, said it could also not be used for cooking.
Restaurateurs and residents have yet to receive a justification for the ban. The ban does not affect major hotels in Doha that are allowed to sell alcohol to non-Muslims or the Qatar Airways shop that sells alcohol and pork to licensed foreign nationals for private consumption.
Speculation about the reasoning includes the ruler and the government wanting to project a more pious image in advance of the country’s first election of a royal advisory body to rumours of a financial dispute between the government and the resort’s developers.
Qatar has long sought to differentiate its interpretation of the teachings of the 18th century puritan warrior priest, Mohammed Abdul Wahhab, from that of strict Saudi Arabia where in contrast to Qatar women are severely restricted and Islamic law is rigorously applied to all not just Muslims and Saudi nationals.
The debate is likely to engender empathy in the Gulf and elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa as Islamist forces emerge as winners from the popular revolts sweeping the region.
Nonetheless, it has sparked concern among secularists in Tunisia where the Islamist Ennahada party won the first elections following last year’s overthrow of President Zine el Abedine Ben Ali that the country may focus more on relations with the Gulf than on its traditional ties to Europe. Ennahada officials were quick to assert during Sheikh Hamad’s recent visit to Tunisia to mark the first anniversary of the toppling of Mr. Ben Ali that the country would not jeopardize its relations with Europe but was basing its foreign policy on achieving the revolution’s goals.
Qatari critics of alcohol argue that the emir’s tolerance violates the country’s constitutions and laws which do not grant the emir the prerogative to allow its sale or consumption. In doing so, the critics are implicitly sparking a rare debate about the powers of the ruler.
Hassan Al Sayed, a professor of constitutional law and former dean of the College of Law at Qatar University, says according to Ms. Fenton, that there is no Qatari law that allows for the sale of alcohol and that in fact several laws, including the constitution, criminalize it. Even “if there is any decision coming for example from the Emir or any department here (legalizing alcohol)… no in fact, this is not okay and this is against the law,” Ms. Fenton quotes Mr. Al Sayed as saying.
Mr. Al Sayed says that for Qatar to legally allow the sale and consumption of alcohol it must change its constitution, which in article 1 stipulates that “Islam is the State’s religion and the Islamic Sharia is the main source of its legislations.” Mr. Al Sayed argues that the legal ban applies also to free zones the government said it would create for fans attending the 2022 World Cup.
A majority of Qataris is likely to oppose constitutional reform out of fear that the country would lose its Islamic identity, a key element in the national identity it is trying to shape.
Restaurant executives are optimistic that the ban will be lifted and that Qatar is not on the verge of declaring itself dry. The recent resignation of Khalil Sholy, the managing director of United Development Company (UDC), the developer of The Pearl, has fuelled hopes of a resolution.
That however could take several months. UDC said in a statement posted on the Qatar Exchange that Mr. Sholy will retain his powers as managing director and president for three months “to assist the person who will be elected by the board of directors to fill the position.”
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.
Alcohol ban raises specter of problems for Qatar’s hosting of 2022 World Cup
By James M. Dorsey
A ban on alcohol on Qatar’s man-made The Pearl Qatar island coupled with the naming of a... more
By James M. Dorsey
A ban on alcohol on Qatar’s man-made The Pearl Qatar island coupled with the naming of a large mosque after the founder of a puritan strand of Islam and online protests against various state-owned companies highlights domestic opposition to some of the Gulf state's more forward looking policies as well as freedoms for soccer fans it is expected to host during the 2022 World Cup.
Qatari officials have said that the 500,000 soccer fans expected to descend on their country during the World Cup will be allowed to consume alcohol in designated zones. Alcohol is currently served exclusively in hotels and sold in a Qatar Airways–owned shop only to expatriates who hold a license.
The banning of alcohol on the island, whose restaurants are popular with Qatar's growing expatriate community, was introduced in advance of the Al Kass International Cup, a ten-day
Under-17 soccer tournament, involving top world clubs such as Paris Saint-Germain, Brazil's Vasco De Gama (Brazil), Juventus, Ajax, FC Barcelona, Japan's Kashima Antlers and Egypt's, Al Ahly. It also came as senior international figures gathered in Doha at Qatar's invitation to brainstorm over the role of sports in society and what governments, NGO's and the private sector should do to promote sports.
Business at restaurants on the Pearl has dropped as much as 50 percent as a result of the ban. “Obviously the business has dropped; by half… for some restaurants, probably even more,” said Sumeet Jinghan, country manager of Foodmark, whose brands include Carluccio’s, The Meat Company and Mango Tree.
Mr. Jinghan said Foodmark had suspended plans to open two more restaurants and a club on the Pearl, home to an estimated 41,000 residents, until it became clear whether the ban was permanent or not.
The ban did not immediately affect the Al Kass tournament which attracted primarily only local spectators. The competition offers Aspire Qatar, the Gulf state's youth team, whose players include young Qataris as well as youths from Africa, Asia and Latin America selected in a yearly talent search from among some 500,000 aspiring soccer playing kids to compete against some of the world's best teams.
The tournament is one initiative in Qatar's emphasis on sports as a cornerstone of its foreign policy, development and effort to shape the energy-rich nation's national identity at a time that youth-driven popular revolts have toppled the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and pushed embattled autocrats in Syria and Yemen to the brink. Qatar’s Al Jazeera television network has played an important role in the revolts with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad accusing it of instigating and encouraging the protests against his regime.
“Our goal is to create a dialogue that resonates with and talks to the youth. This is an opportunity to inspire and engage young people…. Sports are at the heart of Qatar’s development… Sports like education and arts are part of our national identity,” said Noora Al Mannai, CEO of Qatar’s bid to win the right to host the 2020 Olympic Games. Ms. Al Mannai said “empowering young people” was one reason for the bid alongside Qatar’s efforts to mediate conflicts and reduce regional obesity and diabetes levels.
If sports are for Qatar’s leaders a key tool in forging national identity, banning alcohol is its equivalent for more conservative and nationalist forces in the Gulf state.
"I don't see a reason to have alcohol. It impacts very negatively on locals. Locals are not happy with it," The Wall Street Journal quoted Qatari writer Abdul Aziz Al Mahmoud as saying.
Conservative Qataris worry that an increasing number of their compatriots, often dressed in full-length robes, the Gulf's national dress, drink publicly in hotels and bars. "It is a taboo in Qatar to see somebody wearing the national dress and drinking," said Hassan Al Ibrahim, a Qatari commentator, according to the Journal.
Conservative fears in a nation where locals account for at best one third of the population were further inflamed when the Qatar Distribution Company, a Qatar Airways owned-retail shop, introduced pork alongside the alcohol it was already selling to expatriates. The introduction was one spark of an online call to boycott the airline.
Qatar’s The Peninsula daily reported that a group of some 500 Qataris had called for a boycott of the state-owned airline, a major tool in the positioning of the Gulf state as a global travel hub, in protest against its serving of alcohol on flights, high fares and failure to allocate more jobs to Qatari nationals. The protesters’ campaign featured the Qatar Airways logo with a no entry sign superimposed on it. It followed a similar protest in recent months decrying telecommunications services.
Qatar Airways has declined to comment on why its store had started to sell pork.
"I never thought the day would come that I have to ask the waiter in a restaurant in Qatar what kind of meat is in their burgers," said a Qatari on Twitter.
"Ppl don't get it. Its not about the pork—its about us feeling more & more like a minority—in our own country,” tweeted another Qatari.
The banning of alcohol as well as the shutting down of a weekly party on the Pearl, a development that bills itself as the Arab Riviera; the naming of a mosque in memory of Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab, an 18th century warrior priest whose austere, puritan interpretation of Islam life shapes life in Saudi Arabia and inspires Qatari cultural traditions; and the online protests are likely issues that opponents of Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup will seize on in so far failed attempts to get the awarding by world soccer body FIFA reversed.
Al-Wahhab’s puritanism created the cradle of Salafism – an Islamic trend that propagates a return to the way of life at the time of Islam’s first 7th century caliphs and has emerged as a power political force in post-revolt Egypt. Saudi Arabia recently officially embraced Salafism as a key element in its soft power strategy aimed at countering Iran’s perceived revolutionary Islamic appeal as well as the wave of anti-government protests sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. The embrace also constitutes a response to Qatar’s idiosyncratic foreign and domestic policies.
That response is likely to sharpen the battle lines within Qatar as the Gulf state prepares to host perhaps not only one but two of the world’s biggest sporting events in the next decade.
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.
Somali women basketball team defeat The Jihadists: 1:0
By James Dorsey
The Somali national women’s basketball team hard fought defeat last week of Qatar in the... more
By James Dorsey
The Somali national women’s basketball team hard fought defeat last week of Qatar in the Arab Games constituted more than just a badly needed morale boost for the country wracked by an Islamist insurgency: it put Somali women on par with soccer in standing up to the Islamists’ brutal suppression of sports for both men and women.
"Words can't describe how I felt. We were all jumping up and down, there were tears in the girls' eyes -- history was made right there," CNN.com quoted Canadian-born Somali team member Khatra Mahdi as saying after her team’s 67:57 victory/
The sky blue-clad team’s triumph in the tournament came three months after Al Shabab, an Al Qaeda-affiliated jihadist group that controls significant chunks of Somalia, threatened much like they did with soccer officials and players, women basketball players with death if they failed to give up the sport.
The focus on basketball was no coincidence. Basketball is Somalia's second most popular sport after soccer and alongside soccer and handball only one of three sports played by women in Somalia.
Like the Somali national soccer team, the women’s basketball team is forced to train at home in the heavily fortified, bullet ridden, police academy in the Somali capital Mogadishu under the command of Colonel Ahmed Hassan Maalin – the city’s barrel-chested, thinly moustachioed, fatigues-clad police chief -- to escape the wrath of Al Shabab.
Inside the academy, team members sprint across the court, dressed in loose fitting tracksuits, T-shirts and headscarves, in the presence of hundreds of policemen. When they leave to return home they make sure that they are covered in a bid to remain unnoticed.
Paradoxically, the anti-basketball campaign puts Al Shabab at odds with Al Qaeda. It contrasts starkly with Al Qaeda’s efforts in recent months to project a kinder, gentler image in Somalia by distributing aid to famine victims.
The emphasis on women constitutes an expanded enforcement of the Shabab's extreme interpretation of Quranic guidelines on sports that in recent years focused primarily on efforts to ban soccer for men as well as women.
The Shabab’s focus not only contrasts with Al Qaeda's effort to project a different image after having lost much of its appeal with its attacks on Arab residential compounds and luxury hotels in the first half of the last decade and being even more sidelined by this year's Arab revolt sweeping the Middle East and North Africa.
It also highlights differing attitudes not only with Al Qaeda but also with other militant Islamist groups such as Palestine's Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah but also militant Islam’s love-hate relationship with ball games.
Soccer doesn’t fit into Al Shabab or, for that matter, the Taliban’s vision of an Islamist society. Soccer distracts the faithful from worshipping Allah, competes with the militants for recruits and lends credence to national borders at the expense of pan-Islamist aspirations for the return of the Caliph who would rule the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims as one. It also celebrates peaceful competition and undermines the narrative of an inevitable clash of civilizations between Islam and the West.
Al Shabab mentor and Taliban ally Osama Bin Laden, like many jihadists, nonetheless worshiped the game only second to Allah. He saw it as a useful bonding and recruitment tool that brought recruits into the fold, encouraged camaraderie and reinforced militancy among those who have already joined. The track record of soccer-players-turned suicide bombers proves his point.
The Al Shahab's revived effort to impose a ban on women's sports harks back to a decision in 2006 by the Somali Islamic Courts Union (ICU), an Islamist group that briefly ruled Somalia that condemned it as "a heritage of old Christian cultures" and "un-Islamic."
Initially an armed wing of the courts, the Shabab emerged as a force in their own right with the US-backed Ethiopian invasion that forced the courts out of power.
Suweys Ali Jama, the captain of the Somali national women's basketball team captain is one of Al Shabab’s favourite targets. "I will only die when my life runs out – no one can kill me but Allah … I will never stop my profession while I am still alive. Now, I am a player, but even if I retire I hope to be a coach - I will stop basketball only when I perish," Ms. Jama told InterPress Service last year.
Ms. Jama's deputy, Aisha Mohammed, whose mother once played for the national team has in Al Shabab’s view two strikes against her. Not only is she a woman athlete, but she plays for the Somali military women's basketball team.
Ms. Mohammed, according to IPS, quotes the Shabab as telling her: "You are twice guilty. First, you are a woman and you are playing sports, which the Islamic rule has banned. Second, you are representing the military club who are puppets for the infidels. So we are targeting you wherever you are."
In a feisty retort, Ms. Mohammed asserts that "I am a human being and I fear, but I know that only Allah can kill me."
Somali Basketball Federation deputy secretary general Abdi Abdulle Ahmed told IPS that some women had left the national team as a result of the Al Shabab threats. Sport executives estimate that some 200 women stopped playing basketball when the initial 2006 ban was announced.
As a result, Somali Basketball Federation president Hussein Ibrahim Ali argues that his national women's team plays for much more than a trophy when it competes internationally.
"The world knows that Somalia has undergone hardships. When our women play internationally, it is great publicity for the whole country and, in particular, for the basketball federation," Mr Ali 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.
Lebanese soccer unites (briefly) deeply divided nation
By James M. Dorsey
In a country where almost every facet of life is defined by its sectarian fault lines,... more
By James M. Dorsey
In a country where almost every facet of life is defined by its sectarian fault lines, soccer is at least temporarily performing where politicians and religious figures have failed: rallying a divided country scarred by years of bitter civil war around a symbol of national unity.
Soccer’s achievement stems from its defeat of South Korea in a 2014 World Cup qualifier. It took a first goal from defender Ali al-Saadi to convince the 60,000 fans in Beirut’s Cite Sportive stadium to shift from sectarian chants to egging on their team with roars of "Minshan Allah, Libnan yallah'' - "For God's Sake, Lebanon Come On'' – to historic 2-1 win over their favoured Asian opponents.
Tens of thousands of fans poured into the streets of the Lebanese capital waving the country's red and white flags with a green cedar in the middle. Traffic came to a halt and for a moment sectarian differences that have deeply divided the country for decades were superseded by a sense of national pride.
However to cement its achievement on and off the soccer pitch, the Lebanese national team would have to score the one more point it needs against a so far winless United Arab Emirates squad. If that fails, it could still make it to the fourth qualifying round if Kuwait follows its example and upsets South Korea’s apple cart.
"Sports can do what religion and politics can't, gather the Lebanese people around a common thing. The national team changed the point of view to many football fans, and it united them for one goal, to participate in World Cup 2014. This was a very good step to help people to leave their political and religious views behind and watch their team without reverting to riots or gang wars,” The Associated Press (AP) quoted Lebanese supporter Serge Mghames as saying.
If the experience of Iraq whose national team became Asian champion in 2007 at a time that the country was wracked by sectarian bloodshed or Abbas Suan, a devout Palestinian Israeli Muslim who refused to sing the Hatikva, Israel’s national anthem, when it was played before a game but united in 2006 Israeli Jews and Arabs by securing with a last minute equalizer against Ireland Israel’s first chance in 35 years to qualify for a world cup is anything to go by soccer’s unifying effect is lost as soon as the team no longer performs.
For Lebanese soccer to succeed where the game ultimately failed in countries like Iraq and Israel is a tall order against the backdrop of bitter feuds between Lebanon’s four million inhabitants who are divided among 18 Muslim and Christian sects and 15 years of civil war that ended with a fragile peace in 1991.
That peace has this year repeatedly been put to the test with militant Shiite group Hezbollah supporting embattled President Bashar al-Assad in neighbouring Syria and a United Nations-backed tribunal indicting four members of the group on charges of involvement in the 2005 assassination of former Sunni Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Hezbollah has denied involvement in the killing and has vowed never to turn over the suspects.
If that were not enough of a challenge, Lebanon’s national team would find it difficult if not impossible to significantly undermine sectarianism which is so deeply rooted in the country’s game that the government banned fans from attending domestic league matches following Mr. Harriri's assassination.
"There are no guarantees in football. We can only guarantee that we will go about our job in a professional manner. We are in good form, but don't write off the Emirates,'' said Theo Bucker, the national team’s German coach, sounding a cautionary noted according to FIFA.com.
The government lifted the ban on fans in October, but by then the damage had been done. The ban devastated the game: its domestic league all but collapsed and the national team was drained of potential talent. As a result, Lebanon fell in world soccer body FIFA’s rankings from 125 to 178 but has rebounded to 111 with its defeat of South Korea.
"Politics came into football and destroyed it," said Rahif Alameh, secretary-general of the Lebanese Football Association, who dates the "death of football" to 2001, the year when the government intervened in a murky match-fixing scandal rather than the 2005 ban on fans. That was when Lebanon's political-religious leaders began treating the association as a pie to be carved up, just as they share power among Muslim and Christian communities.
Mr. Hariri, for example, sponsored several clubs and bought Nejmeh soccer club, Lebanon’s most popular team, which was largely cross-sectarian, but had always attracted much Shiite support. Mr. had Hariri initially ventured into sports as a moneymaking venture, but later turned his teams into vehicles for consolidating his Sunni Muslim support. Virtually every Lebanese soccer club is identified in sectarian and political terms -- Maronite Christian, Sunni, Shiite, Druze or Armenian with certain political factions -- even if the team’s players are religiously mixed. Those identities have been reinforced by the aftermath of Mr. Hariri’s assassination.
"Football had just (become an extension) of politics. Everything in Lebanon is politicized, the air we breathe is politicized.,” Mr. Alameh told AP.
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.
Protest proves beneficial to North African soccer performance
By James M. Dorsey
Protest is good for soccer. It enhances performance despite the hardship of civil strife... more
By James M. Dorsey
Protest is good for soccer. It enhances performance despite the hardship of civil strife according to an analysis of the performance of six North African national soccer teams before and after pro-longed mass protests that demanded regime change in their countries.
Matthew Barrett, a sports sponsorship professional, concluded in an analysis published on FootballSpeak.com that Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, Morocco and Algeria, five nations that experienced political upheaval in 2011, had performed significantly better in terms of average points per match following the protests or in Sudan’s case, the cessation of South Sudan, compared to 2010, the year before the unrest. Egypt, , which won the African Cup three times in row, but failed to qualify for the 2012 finals was the exception that confirmed the rule.
The six national teams, Mr. Barrett, calculated, played 53 matches since the series of Arab uprisings erupted in Tunisia a year ago, in which they scored 87 goals with an average of 1.64 goals per match and won 45% of all games played. By comparison, the same teams played 60 matches in the year before the revolts in which they scored 79 points with an average of 1.32 per game and won 33% of the games played.
The teams performed better even though professional soccer was suspended for months in several countries, including Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria during the protests in a bid to prevent the soccer pitch from becoming an opposition rallying point. The enhanced performance occurred further against the backdrop of a rift in various countries between fans, who played key roles in the protests, and a majority of players who opted to either remain aloof, and not take sides or in some cases to come out in support of the embattled autocrat.
The improvement in performance constitutes an apparent triumph of national identity over internalized neo-patriarchism, which characterizes Arab autocracies and means that players and managers more often than not identified with the autocratic leader as a father figure. It also highlights the debilitating effect that politically motivated autocratic interference in the game had on performance.
Libyan goalkeeper Samir Aboud suggested that enhanced performance was the result of post-revolt national teams having a sense of truly playing for their country rather than their ruler when he said after a draw against Zambia that allowed Libya to progress towards the 2012 African Cup finals that “this is for all Libyans, for our revolution.” Libya’s Brazilian coach, Marcos Paqueta, added that his squad was "not only playing for football success but for a new government and a new country”.
Nabil Maalouf, coach of Esperance Sportive de Tunis, which this year won the African Champions League, noted that “the events at home really stimulated our team and we believe that the players felt greatly liberated after what happened." Defender Khalil Chammam concluded that “one positive thing from the revolution was that, although we suffered a lot, those changes and the suffering made us stronger -mentally and physically."
The triumph of national identity over neo-patriarchism symbolized by the post-Qaddafi Libyan team flying the pre-Qaddafi Libyan flag and singing a new national anthem enabled Libya to remain undefeated in competitive matches since the country’s autocratic leader, Moammar Qaddafi, was toppled earlier this year. That is no mean fete for a team that was dominated for years by Al Saadi al Qaddafi, the Libyan leader’s cruel and mercurial son with soccer ambitions of his own, who equated its success with that of his father’s regime and its failures as unacceptable poor reflections on the regime.
Interpol has issued an international arrest warrant for Saadi on charges of misappropriation of soccer funds and armed intimidation of players and officials who has sought refuge in neighboring Niger. In a separate case, Saadi is under investigation by Libyan authorities for the 2005 murder of an anti-Qaddafi player.
The impact of neo-patriarchism that turned players into celebrated figures who went victorious were showered with expensive gifts meant that the Libyan team meant was during the revolt increasingly split between supporters of Mr. Qaddafi and players who lost close ones among the NATO-backed rebel forces in the war against Qaddafi loyalists. The team’s captain denounced the rebels as dogs and rats, language used by Mr. Qaddafi to describe his opponents, while the goalkeeper and three other players defected together with 14 club players to the rebels four months into the rebellion.
The Libyan team’s rising star contrasts starkly with the fact that like Sudan it had barely ever registered on the radar of African soccer prior to the wave of protests that have swept the Middle East and North Africa in the past year and led to the overthrow of not only Mr. Qaddafi but also the leaders of Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, far-reaching political reform in Morocco, continued unrest in Algeria and the carving out of an independent state of South Sudan.
The Algerian national squad, with anti-government protests moving this year from the streets back into the stadiums after having forced the government to lift the 19-year old state of emergency, won three of its five matches to emerge at the top of its group, according to Mr. Barrett, who calculated that it had scored 1.75 points per game as opposed to 1.25 last year. For its part, Sudan qualified as a runner-up in its group, achieving a 53 percent win ratio with 1.79 points per game as opposed to a 25 percent win ratio and 1.13 points per match a year earlier.
Egypt is the exception to the rule that autocratic interference diminishes and protest enhances performance. In the days of ousted President Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s national team coached by the legendary Mubarak loyalist Hassan Shehahta won the African Cup three times in a row but this year failed for the first time in 29 years to qualify for the tournament’s finals.
There is no immediate explanation for why Egypt’s performance has been markedly weaker. Granted, Egypt’s transition from autocracy to a more open political system has been messy and bloody with soccer fans remaining engaged in bitter battles to force the country’s military rulers to relinquish power. Transition has however been messy in most countries with the exception of Tunisia, yet all have displayed performances beyond expectation.
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.
Tahrir and Change Squares: Two Models of Subverted Revolts Share
By James M. Dorsey
Synopsis
Continuing demonstrations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and... more
By James M. Dorsey
Synopsis
Continuing demonstrations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and Sanaa’s Change Square represent the protracted struggle for power in the Middle East-North Africa region: one against the dominant military, the other against the reincarnated regime of an
ousted president. Both also show how Saudi-led efforts to support Egypt’s military-led regime and Yemen’s newly appointed government have deprived protesters of the fruits of their revolt.
Commentary
THE POPULAR revolts in Egypt and Yemen have been put on the defensive by a combination of Islamist electoral success and Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) support for Egypt’s military and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Despite
being under siege, Saleh has been showing an uncanny ability to neutralise a GCC-negotiated agreement that would ease him out of office by February.
Islamists have successfully exploited Egypt’s first post-revolt election to marginalise the protesters on Cairo’s Tahrir Square, who battled with security forces last month, resulting in 42 dead. The Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafi Al Nur movement
together won an absolute majority in the first two of three rounds in the first parliamentary elections since President Hosni Mubarak was ousted last February. The final outcome will be determined in a third round of voting in January.
From square to ballot box
The intial election result has positioned the Salafis as the main competitor of the protesters on Tahrir Square in challenging establishment political parties and forces,whether remnants of the ancien regime, the country’s military rulers or the Muslim
Brotherhood (MB), with the MB being viewed by many as the opposition wing of the old established order. The new parliament is expected to appoint most of the members of the committee that will be tasked with drafting a new constitution in advance of a presidential election in June 2012.
The electoral success of the MB and their rivals, the Salafis – a heterogeneous movement of fundamentalist Muslims who want to return to the practices of Islam’s 7th century Caliphs -- has shifted the battle against the old regime, the military rulers
and established political parties, from the square to the ballot box.
The military, despite contradictory statements on whether it would recognise the election result by allowing parliament to exercise power, sought to reinforce that shift in bitter battles with protesters camped out in front of the newly appointed prime
minister’s office. At least 10 people were killed and more than 300 wounded in ongoing clashes. The military is trying to move the protesters away from the prime minister’s office and out of the square in the belief that a majority of Egyptians, by casting
their vote, have opted for electoral politics.
The Egyptian military and the Salafis may be on opposite side of the fence, but they both in their respective ways serve Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) efforts to blunt the edge of popular revolts sweeping the Middle East that have also toppled the leaders of Tunisia and Libya, forced the exit of Yemen’s President Saleh and pushed Syria to the brink of civil war. Both the military council and Salafis are supported by the
Saudis through US $4 billion in assistance to the military regime and reported funding for the Salafis through public and private donations.
The Salafis electoral success however constitutes a mixed blessing for the Saudis. The participation of a strand of Islam closely associated with that of the kingdom implicitly challenges Saudi assertions that democracy contradicts Islam.
Backfiring in Yemen
While the Saudi strategy is effectively rendering the Egyptian protesters marginal, it is backfiring in Yemen where a GCC-negotiated agreement for Saleh’s departure from power has enabled him to maintain his grip even though he has officially handed over to his vice-president. Since his return from medical treatment in Riyadh Saleh’s agreement to leave office following an election scheduled for February 2012 leaves him enough time and space to consolidate his power instead. He has also authorised his vice-president to appoint a new cabinet -- in violation of the constitution.
Under the GCC agreement Saleh gets to remain in Yemen with immunity from prosecution, while his family members retain control of key military units and his vice-president becomes president for the next two years as a new constitution is drafted.
All this has stiffened the opposition of the protesters on Sanaa’s Change Square who reject the deal. Unlike the protesters on Tahrir Square who have faded from public view, the protests on Change Square have been reinforced by the recent awarding of a Nobel peace prize to a Change Square leader Tawakkol Karman.
Their resolve is further strengthened by the failure of the energy-rich Gulf states to alleviate the economic suffering in the Arab world’s poorest state. Though Yemen, far more than Egypt, is dependent on foreign aid for relief, the Gulf states have refused
Yemen’s repeated appeals for improved access of Yemeni workers to GCC labour markets. These have been restricted since the expulsion in the early 1990s of one million Yemenis
from Saudi Arabia in retaliation for Yemeni support of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Opening up labour markets would allow labourers to send remittances back to a country in economic collapse.
One striking exception, and a model for what Saudi Arabia and other GCC states could do to prevent further destabilisation of Yemen and a potential threat to Gulf security, is an
initiative by a foundation headed by the wife of the emir of Qatar, Sheikha Moza. Her foundation acts to create jobs in Yemen, whose labour force is largely under-skilled and where youth
unemployment is estimated at 50 per cent, to increase vocational training in Yemen and incubate start-ups.
Islamist tide
Nonetheless, on both Tahrir Square and Change Square, protesters have found themselves marginalised. The main factors behind this marginalisation are the established political forces
with the political machinery and experience to exploit the transition for their own ends, and the Saudi-supported Salafis who are riding the Islamist tide sweeping the region. The fate of
the Tahrir Square protesters will depend on whether the elections, due to end in mid-January, are perceived as having advanced the revolt’s cause.By contrast, Sanaa’s Change Square still has wind in its sails. There is a growing perception that the GCC agreement has failed to oust Saleh while Yemen’s wealthy neighbours stand by as the country sinks into a deeper morass. As a result Change Square seems to have a longer lease of life than its more famous counterpart in Cairo.
James Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS),
Nanyang Technological University. He has been a journalist covering the Middle East for
over 30 years.
Striker Mohammed Ghadir puts Israeli anti-racism to the test
By James M. Dorsey
Maccabi Haifa striker Mohammed Ghadir believes that he and Beitar Jerusalem, the bad boy... more
By James M. Dorsey
Maccabi Haifa striker Mohammed Ghadir believes that he and Beitar Jerusalem, the bad boy of Israeli soccer, are a perfect match.
"I am well suited to Beitar, and that team would fit me like a glove. I have no qualms about moving to play for them," Mr. Ghadir is quoted by Israeli daily Ha’aretz as saying. Beitar has a large squad, a significant fan base, wide media coverge and lacks talented strikers, he says.
There is only one hitch: Beitar doesn’t want Mr. Ghadir. Not because he’s not an upcoming star and not because they wouldn’t need a player like Mr. Ghadir but because the striker is an Israeli Palestinian. "Our team and our fans are still not ready for an Arab soccer player," Ha’aretz quotes Beitar’s management as saying. The club prides itself on being the only top league Israeli club to have never hired a Palestinian player in a country whose population is for 20 per cent Palestinian and in which Palestinians play important roles in most other top league teams.
The Beitar management may be right in its approach, not because the team has a point in picking its players on racial grounds but because it prides itself on its bad-boy racist image and is under no pressure to change its ways despite Israeli legal restrictions on discrimination in the work place, the Israel Football Association being the only Middle Eastern soccer body to have launched a campaign against racism and Palestinian tax money contributed to the funding of this year’s refurbishing of Jerusalem stadiums.
Beitar has argued that it has broken no laws by not having hired Palestinian players because no Palestinian has ever solicited at the risk of being a target of the club’s racist attitude. Mr. Ghadir’s desire to play for Beitar puts paid to that argument.
“Now an extraordinarily courageous Arab player has stood up, and fearlessly indicated that he is not afraid to play for Beitar. The Jerusalem squad did not assent to his request - not because he lacks sufficient talent, but because he is an Arab. This is a mark of Cain for Beitar Jerusalem and its fans, and also for the city of Jerusalem, the state of Israel and its legal system, the Israel Football Association and also for the media, which continues to cover this soccer team. Day by day, we reinforce and popularize this loathsome form of racism,” said Ha”aretz columnist Yoav Borowitz in a recent article entitled ‘Kick racism out of Beitar Jerusalem soccer team.’
Established in 1936 and supported by Israeli right wing leaders such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Beitar traces its roots to a revanchist Zionist youth movement. Its founding players actively resisted the pre-state British mandate authorities. Its fans shocked Israelis when they refused to observe a moment of silence for assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who initiated the first peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
Beitar has the worst disciplinary record in Israel’s top league. Since 2005 it has faced more than 20 hearings and has received various punishments, including points deductions, fines and matches behind closed doors because of its fans’ racist behaviour. Beitar’s matches often resemble a Middle Eastern battlefield. It’s mostly Sephardic fans of Middle Eastern and North African origin, revel in their status as the bad boys of Israeli soccer. Their dislike of Ashkenazi Jews of East European extraction rivals their disdain for Palestinians.
In some ways, Mr. Ghadir’s interest in transferring from Maccabi Haifa to Beitar has an element of going from bad to worse. Israeli police said in October that it suspect militant right-wing Jewish fans of Mr. Ghadir’s own team of painting slogans reminiscent of language used by Jewish settlers on buildings in the town of Bat Yam and Muslim and Christian graves in Jaffa, the formerly Palestinian part of Tel Aviv that today is home to both Israelis and Palestinians. The slogans asserted that "Maccabi Haifa doesn't want Arabs on the team," "Death to Arabs," and "Rabbi Kahane was right," a reference to the late leader of the outlawed extreme right-wing Jewish Defence League (JDL) who was assassinated in New York in 1990. The perpetrators signed the slogans as “Haifa supporters.”
Militant soccer fan racism is encouraged by far-right wing politicians such as National Union deputy Michael Ben-Ari, a proponent of expelling all Palestinians from Israel, who this year proposed legislation that would require members of Israeli national sport teams to sing the national anthem and recognise Israel as a Jewish state. The latter demand is rooted in an Israeli desire backed by Mr. Netanyahu to impose recognition of the Jews’ historic right to settle Palestine and block recognition of Palestinian rights to return to lands within Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
Mr. Borowitz noted that “Jerusalem mayor, Nir Barkat, who cultivates an image as a tolerant, modern public servant, has yet to utter a word on this topic. He has done nothing to alter Beitar's racist, discriminatory policy. Avi Luzon, chairman of the Israel Football Association, also remains inert on this issue; and the association's court has never lifted a finger to challenge Beitar's racism. Meantime, Israel's media continues to cover the team's games, and barely addresses the racism issue. Could an English or French soccer squad get away without putting a black or Jewish player on the field throughout its history? How would its fans respond to that? Would football associations in such countries countenance such blatantly racist policy?”
Mr. Borowitz notes further that Jerusalem’s 280,000 Palestinian residents contributed to the NIS 100,000,000 ($27 million) in taxpayer’s money allocated for stadium renovations this year. “Yet this contribution does not entitle the city's Arabs to representation, even of the most minimal sort, on Jerusalem's sole team in the nation's top league,” Mr. Borowitz said.
The importance of Palestinian players to Israeli soccer was driven home to Israelis in 2005 when Abbas Suan, a devout Muslim who refused to sing the Hatikva before a game, achieved for a brief moment what politicians in more than a half-century had not: he united Israeli Jews and Arabs by securing with a last minute equalizer against Ireland Israel’s first chance in 35 years to qualify for a world cup. The game earned him the nickname The Equalizer and made him an Israeli hero; his cheery face and toothy smile featured in ads for the state lottery.
That sense of unity was short-lived. When Suan set foot on the pitch in Israel a week later as captain of Bnei Sakhnin, an Israeli Palestinian team, Jewish fans of Beitar Jerusalem, Israel’s most nationalistic club, booed him every time he touched the ball. “Suan, You Don’t Represent US,” blared a giant banner in the stadium. Fans shouted, “We hate all Arabs.”
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.
Anti-Syrian soccer protests in Iran position Azeris as potential pawn in Syrian strife
By James M. Dorsey
Stadiums in the northwestern city of Tabriz, capital of Iran’s predominantly Azeri... more
By James M. Dorsey
Stadiums in the northwestern city of Tabriz, capital of Iran’s predominantly Azeri minority, have emerged as a platform for protest against Iranian government policies and demands for greater rights for the country’s Turkic minority.
In the latest protest, supporters of Tabriz’s Traktorsazi Tabriz Football club, a flashpoint of East Azerbaijan Provinces’s identity politics owned by state-run Iran Tractor Manufacturing Company (ITMCO), unfurled Azeri nationalist banners and burnt images of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Sahand Stadium during a Pro League match against Mes of Sarcheshmeh.
The embattled Syrian leader is Iran’s closest ally in the Arab world and alongside Russia his most important supporter despite Iranian and Russian calls on Mr. Assad to find a negotiated solution to his country’s eight-month old crisis. Protesters have displayed remarkable perseverance with almost daily protests against Mr. Assad’s regime in the face of a brutal military crackdown that has so far killed some 5,000 people according to
United Nations estimates and wounded thousands more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ib8vMsd1tM&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIIVKgeRiiI
The anti-Syrian protest followed nationalist and environmental demonstrations in recent months in Tabriz’s Bagh Shomal and Yadegar-e-Emam stadiums that have raised the spectre of ethnic strife in the Islamic republic and make the Azeris a potential pawn in any escalation of tension between Turkey, Iran and Syria.
Turkey has repeatedly hinted at intervening in Syria but has so far shown no real appetite to do so in part due to concern that a post-Assad Syria would descend into even greater chaos because of the lack of unity among the president’s opponents and fears that escalated conflict could send hundreds of thousands of refugee across its border in a replay of a decade ago, when some 500,000 Kurdish refugees from Iraq’s Saddam Hussein fled to Turkey in the aftermath of the Gulf War.
Underlying Turkish concerns is the fact that the Syrian opposition has so far also not been able to bridge the country’s multiple sectarian fault lines and that increased sectarian strife could spill over into Turkey, where Kurds constitute an estimated 20 percent and Alevis, a Shiite Muslim sect, another 20 percent of the population. Insurgents of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which waged a 16-year long war against Turkey in the 1980s and 1990s have stepped up attacks on Turkish targets in recent months.
Turkish officials believe the PKK enjoys Syrian and some degree of Iranian support. They note that strident Turkish criticism of Mr. Assad and demands by Turkish leaders, including President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that he step down as well as tacit Turkish support for the Free Syrian Army (FSA) have prompted Syria and Iran to halt their cooperation with Turkey aimed at curbing Kurdish militants. The FSA made up of primarily low level defectors from the Syrian military have attacked Syrian targets in what they say is a campaign to protect the Syrian protesters.
The Azeris would be Turkey’s card in any escalation that would spark a tit-for-tat proxy war between Turkey, Syria and Iran. The soccer protests in Tabriz signal a rise in Azeri nationalist sentiment and suggest that Turkey could retaliate against Iranian support of the PKK by fueling that sentiment in Eastern Azerbaijan which borders on the former Soviet Turkic republic of Azerbaijan, a close Turkish ally.
Supporters of Traktorsazi wore shirts with the Turkish and Azerbaijan flags and raised the Azerbaijani flag during their club’s match in November against Fajr-e Sepasi of Shiraz, according to Iranian Azeri nationalists and various Iranian blogs.
“The main (Iranian concern) is that the idea of Turkism is strengthening in South Azerbaijan,” News.Az, a pro-Azeri news website, quoted Saftar Rahimli, a member of the board of the World Azerbaijani’s Congress, last month as saying. Mr. Rahimli was referring to Eastern Azerbaijan by its nationalist Azeri name. A conservative, pro-Iranian website, Raja News, accused the soccer fans of employing “separatist symbols,” shouting separatist slogans and of promoting “pan-Turkish” and “deviant objectives during the match.
Last month’s protests followed similar demonstrations in September and October sparked by a refusal by the Iranian parliament to fund efforts to save the environmentally endangered Lake Orumiyeh.
Anti-government protests also erupted in Tehran’s Azadi Stadium during last month’s 2014 World Cup qualifier against Bahrain and at a ceremony in May to commemorate that late Nasser Hejazi, an internationally acclaimed Iranian defender and outspoken critic of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
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.