Misyurov D.A. Dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas // Credo New. 2012. №2
The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with... more The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with dominant and the non-dominant elements; universal formula; formula with symbolic weight of elements; tautological formula. For example, it suggests an opportunity to use the dialectical formulas for modeling and artificial intelligence creation, etc.
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![](http://photos.academia.edu/337116/202023/393785/tiny_mariafelicia.de_laurentis.jpg?1326314467 "<strong>Mariafelicia De Laurentis</strong><br/>University of Naples "Federico II""){kind=small}
Download (.doc) Displacement and statecraft in Iraq: Recent trends, older roots.
by Ali Ali
Published in the International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies Volume 5 Issue 2 (2011).
This article discusses the relationship between state formation and refugees, linking statecraft - the 'art' of state... more This article discusses the relationship between state formation and refugees, linking statecraft - the 'art' of state building - and displacement in post-2003 Iraq. It uses the testimonies of displaced Iraqis now living in Syria to show how parties and militias in Iraq targeted specific groups, including religious minorities such as the Mandaeans. They created new forms of exclusion, forcing some communities to flee. In some cases, they compelled people to leave abruptly; in others, hostile forces gradually encroached upon the target groups. Some organizations had their origins in pre-2003 dynamics and were not the first in Iraq to use displacement as a means to implement a political design.
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Espacio de Palabras y rituales de solidaridad en Atocha
by Gérôme Truc
Published in Cristina Sánchez-Carretero (ed.), "El Archivo del Duelo. Análisis de la respuesta ciudadana ante los atentados del 11 de marzo en Madrid", Madrid, CSIC, 2011, p. 207-227.
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Beitar Jerusalem fans beat Jewish musician for protesting against their racism
By James M. Dorsey
Militant supporters of storied but controversial Beitar Jerusalem Football Club known... more
By James M. Dorsey
Militant supporters of storied but controversial Beitar Jerusalem Football Club known for their anti-Palestinian, anti-Ashkenazi Jewish attitudes harassed and beat a middle-aged Jewish woman who objected to their anti-Arab slogans in the second such attack in less than a month, according to Haaretz newspaper.
Contrary to last month’s assault by the Beitar fans on Palestinian shoppers and workers in a Jerusalem mall, police launched an immediate investigation. The Israeli police force was heavily criticized for failing to initially intervene or investigation the mall incident.
The attacks as well as the police’s laxity have outraged many Israelis and raised questions about the moral fiber of a society that tolerates such incidents as well as a soccer club that is unashamedly racist.
Jerusalem musician Reli Margalit was attacked after she objected to dozens of Beitar fans chanting anti-Arab slogans as they marched on Sunday to Jerusalem’s Teddy Kollek Stadium for a match against Hapoel Acre that Beitar won 1:0.
"I heard cries of 'Death to the Arabs,' and since I was still incensed by the Malha Mall attack, I decided that I had to confront them now. I made a sign reading 'Down with Beitar's racism.' I believed that since I'm not a young woman and since I was alone, at worst it would come to curses, no more," Ms. Margalit told Haaretz.
Her assumption proved to be wrong. "Within seconds they surrounded me and started spitting at me. They took away my sign, and one of them - actually an older fan - hit me on the head with the pole of his flag. None of the fans protected me, and one girl showed up and tried to argue with me,” she said.
Police said they had escorted the militants for part of their march but had not heard racist slurs in the fans’ chants.
In a repeat of Beitar’s standard response to the racism of its most militant fans, spokesman Assaf Shaked said the team "cannot be responsible to all its supporters' actions."
Mounting Beitar fan aggression and violence is believed to stem from the growing influence among the club’s fans of a group known as La Familia that is dominated by supporters of Kach, the outlawed violent and racist party that was headed by assassinated Rabbi Meir Kahane. Beitar’s management has so far failed to stymie the group’s influence.
The incidents occurred in what City University of New York scholar Dov Waxman described in a recent article in The Middle East Journal as an atmosphere of escalating tension between Jews and Palestinians in Israel. “Attitudes on both sides have hardened, mutual distrust has intensified, fear has increased, and political opinion has become more militant and uncompromising….Jews and Palestinians are currently on a collision course, with potentially severe consequences for their continued peaceful co-existence, as well as for stability and democracy in Israel,” Mr. Waxman wrote.
The incidents further highlight the failure of the Israeli Football Association (IFA), the only soccer body in the Middle East and North Africa to have launched a campaign against racism and discrimination, to rein in the Beitar fans and curb the club’s submission to its supporters’ racist attitudes. With the worst disciplinary record in Israel’s Premier League, Beitar has faced since 2005 more than 20 hearings and has received various punishments, including point 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.
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.
Beitar is Israel’s only leading club never to have signed an Israeli Palestinian player because of fan pressure despite the fact that Palestinians are among the country’s top players. Maccabi Haifa striker Mohammed Ghadir recently put Beitar on the spot when he challenged the club to hire him despite its discriminatory hiring policies. The club refused on the grounds that its fans were not willing to accept a Palestinian player.
Beitar fans shocked Israelis several years ago when they refused to observe a moment of silence for assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who initiated the first peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
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.
(2012) Un exemple d'écosophie des risques industriels
Published in "Chimères", 76, 2012, p. 41-52.
En prenant appui sur une enquête anthropologique de terrain réalisée de 2005 à 2007 dans la zone industrielle de... more En prenant appui sur une enquête anthropologique de terrain réalisée de 2005 à 2007 dans la zone industrielle de Marseille/Fos-sur-Mer, cet article propose quelques exemples pour illustrer les manières dont différents dispositifs de sécurité peuvent articuler des questions techniques, liées à la nature des menaces, avec des enjeux de pouvoir, des visions du monde et des rapports sociaux, des manières de traiter les informations ou de composer avec une émotion comme la peur. Ces dispositifs étant eux-mêmes instables, nous verrons ensuite comment leur détraquement peut paradoxalement assurer le fonctionnement de la société de contrôle des risques.
Understanding Conflict Resolution from the Inside Out OR Why 800 Pound Gorillas Aren’t Great Mediators
Imagine you are a party to mediation and you arrive at your mediation session only to be faced with an 800 pound... more
Imagine you are a party to mediation and you arrive at your mediation session only to be faced with an 800 pound gorilla, in a suit of course, who will be your mediator so you ask yourself,
“Can a gorilla be a mediator?” This article examines the philosophical and theoretical foundations of human conflict, reviews some of the thinking about mediation in the last 30 years, and introduces the author's "critical incident and intervention approach" to working with conflict.
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Il potenziale conflitto con l'estraneo - Andrea Villa
by Andrea Villa
Andrea Villa, Il potenziale conflitto con l'estraneo, in "Rivista di Studi Politici", Vol. 22, n. 3-2010, pp. 137-157. (ISSN 1120-4036)
Traendo spunto dallo studio realizzato da Norbert Elias all'interno della classe operaia anglosassone, l'articolo... more Traendo spunto dallo studio realizzato da Norbert Elias all'interno della classe operaia anglosassone, l'articolo analizza il tema delle stigmatizzazioni che emergono dai differeziali di potere (interdipendenze) che sempre si possono osservare tra insiders ed outsiders. Obiettivo di questo studio è porre in rilievo il tema - storicamente e socialmente situato - del potenziale conflitto con l'estraneo, con particolare riferimento alla convivenza interetnica tra autoctoni e migranti.
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Movimenti e soggetto nella sociologia di Alain Touraine - Andrea Villa -
by Andrea Villa
Andrea Villa, Movimenti e soggetto nella sociologia di Alain Touraine, Relazione presentata al XXIV Convegno nazionale della Società Italiana di Scienza Politica, Università IUAV, Venezia (2010). (Atti Convegno)
Obiettivo di questo paper è quello di proporre un’analisi sulle conseguenze teoriche connesse alla codificazione –... more Obiettivo di questo paper è quello di proporre un’analisi sulle conseguenze teoriche connesse alla codificazione – ovvero alla presenza/assenza – di concreti e produttivi rapporti conflittuali nel tessuto socio-culturale contemporaneo. Infatti, si ritiene che il beneficio di questa impostazione possa essere quello di consentire un’analisi approfondita circa la tenuta di alcune categorie concettuali tipiche dell’opera tourainiana, alla luce della centralità attribuita dallo stesso autore alla dimensione del soggetto personale – inteso, dal mio particolare punto di vista interpretativo, come dimensione dell’azione umana nella modernità e/o nella, contemporaneità – cercando di non trascurare la portata ed il significato di quella provocazione, rivolta (più che altro) alle cristallizzazioni del pensiero accademico, che noi ritroviamo spesso sotto il nome di «fine del sociale».
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Stepping up Sanctions: Arab and Turkish Pressures on Syria
By James M. Dorsey
Synopsis
Pressure is mounting on Turkey to lead a potential military... more
By James M. Dorsey
Synopsis
Pressure is mounting on Turkey to lead a potential military intervention to stop the bloodletting in Syria. However, sanctions by Arab states and Turkey on the regime of President Bashar al-Assad could become an effective policy tool.
The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is looking to Turkey rather than the United States and Europe to intervene militarily to stop the Assad regime’s violent suppression of a nine-month-old rebellion. In meetings with Turkish officials, the leader of the MB, Mohammad Riad Shakfa, and representatives of the Syrian National Council have urged Turkey to enforce a no-fly zone above Syria and, if military intervention becomes unavoidable, they want Turkey to take the lead.
Turkey is already providing tacit support to the rebel Syrian Free Army, which has a camp on the Turkish side of the border and in recent days has staged more deadly attacks on Syrian military targets. Turkey has also allowed the political opposition to use Istanbul as a base.
Turkish Dilemma
Nonetheless, despite Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly emotional denunciations of the Assad regime, Ankara is finding it difficult to step up the pressure on Syria without risking Turkish interests in the short term. Turkey’s reluctance so far to impose sanctions of its own when the Arab League is about to step up to the plate, risks its losing the moral high ground it achieved in part by taking the lead in condemning the Syrian crackdown and demanding that Israel lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Erdogan has so far been long on rhetoric and short on actions, partly because of differences between the government and the military. While Erdogan describes Syria’s crisis as Turkey’s “internal problem”, army chief of staff General Necdet Ozel recently insisted that it was “primarily the internal problem of that country”. As a result, Erdogan, in addition to holding back on sanctions and dropping plans to create a humanitarian buffer zone on the Turkish-Syrian border, has yet to fulfill his promise to visit camps for Syrian refugees in eastern Turkey.
Turkish officials fear that imposing sanctions, let alone overt military intervention, could open Pandora’s Box with Syria and its ally Iran; Tehran could be pushed to increase its support for the Turkish Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) that has already stepped up its attacks on military targets in southeastern Turkey. In return, Turkey would have to step up its retaliation against PKK bases in northern Iraq and support unrest in some of Iran’s more restive provinces such as Eastern Azerbaijan whose majority Turkic population resents Persian rule. All in all, the crisis in Syria would risk becoming a regional conflagration.
The Arab League’s new assertiveness in Syria offers Turkey a way out of its dilemma and could help increase the pain level of sanctions to a degree that may bring Assad to the negotiating table. The Syrian leader has so far rejected Arab calls for a halt to the violence and has shown disdain for the League’s plan to impose sanctions of its own and taking Syria to the United Nations Security Council.
Worsening economy
Nonetheless, Arab and Turkish sanctions would boost those already enforced by the US and Europe on Syria’s banking and oil sector; halt imports of non-oil products from Syria, which constitute the bulk of the country's exports; shut down one of Syria’s last links to the international banking network; and prevent its government and businesses from opening letters of credit.
Oil production is dropping as Syria finds it increasingly difficult to find buyers for its 140,000 barrels of crude oil per day and has been unable to pay oil majors Shell and Total for their production.
As a result, petroleum products such as diesel for heating are becoming scarce and Syria increasingly cannot foot its bill for imports. Syria’s state-owned oil company Sytrol last week cancelled a tender for the sale of 50,000 tonnes of fuel because of a lack of buyers. Swiss refiner Petroplus announced that it had replaced Syrian oil with Iraqi product. Government and private investment moreover has come to a halt, tourism has evaporated, industrial production is down, agriculture is impeded by military operations and unemployment has jumped to 25 per cent.
China has already expressed support for the Arab League’s pressure on Syria. Arab and Turkish sanctions would make it more difficult for Russia and India in particular as well as Western companies that supply and maintain Internet surveillance systems in Syria to spoil the game. The sanctions may not be enough for the regime to crumble, but they would be sufficient to force it to look for a political rather than a military solution that could drag the region into a war.
More than symbolic act
To be sure, making Turkish and, even more so, Arab sanctions stick could be easier said than done. Banks in Lebanon, the pillars of the Lebanese economy, are likely to be reluctant to apply the sanctions, arguing that they would have to violate the country’s stringent privacy laws. The government is unlikely to want to rock either its economic boat or relations with its big brother neighbour.
Nevertheless, the chances of Syria becoming a rare case where sanctions work are enhanced by the fact that the planned sanctions enjoy the support of significant parts of the population.
They have, however, so far failed to create a sense of unity against a common enemy that is responsible for people’s misery. In fact, it is Syrians opposed to the Assad regime that are demanding tougher sanctions and tougher actions. For once, tough sanctions applied by a majority of the international community could constitute more than a symbolic act and avert the risk of a military conflict that escalates into regional 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.
EFA hints at renewed suspension of soccer as militants clash with security forces on Tahrir Square
Monday, November 21, 2011
By James M. Dorsey
Egyptian Football Association (EFA) president Samir... more
Monday, November 21, 2011
By James M. Dorsey
Egyptian Football Association (EFA) president Samir Zaher has hinted that Egypt may for the second time this year postpone or suspend professional soccer league matches because of the political unrest in the country and the role of militant soccer fans in clashes with security forces.
Mr. Zaher’s suggestions came on the third day of mass demonstrations in Cairo and other Egyptian cities calling for an end to military rule. The protests that escalated into fighting on Cairo’s Tahrir Square as well as in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, in which at least 11 people were killed and hundreds of others wounded are in demand of an end to military rule.
Many Egyptians fear that the military that took over in February from ousted President Hosni Mubarak with a pledge to lead the country to democracy within six months is determined to hold on to power with a democratic façade on which they can impose their will.
Highly politicized, militant, street-battle hardened soccer fans joined the protests in Cairo late on Saturday forcing police and units of the paramilitary Central Security Force to initially retreat in a replay of demonstrations early this year that forced Mr. Mubarak to resign in which the soccer fans or ultras played a key role. The EFA at the time suspended professional soccer for a period of three months in a bid to prevent the soccer pitch from becoming an opposition rallying point.
Military police using tear gas and rubber bullets Sunday evacuated briefly evacuated Tahrir Square pushing protesters into a warren of nearby streets and alleys but the protesters led by the fans or ultras – militant soccer fan groups modelled on similar organizations in Italy and Serbia –- retook it later in the evening. Protesters and security forces clashed again on Monday.
Mr. Zaher said the EFA would meet with representatives of the military-appointed government to discuss next month’s scheduled resumption of Premier League matches. Egypt launches on November 28 a phased parliamentary election that will last in to January. Many fear that the clashes on Tahrir Square are a forewarning of violence that could occur in the election period, the first polling since Mr. Mubarak’s downfall.
“Egypt is going through a critical phase that could have an impact on the future of football in the country. As a football official, I am urging all those who are involved in the game in Egypt to unite for the sake of keeping the sport alive. We will be calling for a meeting involving club officials and higher authorities in order to discuss the current situation and plan for the future of Egyptian football,” Mr. Zaher told a press conference in Cairo.
There is little chance that the ultras will heed Mr. Zaher’s call.
The ultras view Mr. Zaher as a corrupt remnant of the Mubarak regime and have repeatedly demanded his resignation.
Militant supporters of crowned Cairo club Al Ahly unfurled a huge banner denouncing the EFA as thieves and taunting the EFA and Mr. Zaher as remnants of the corrupt Mubarak regime at a premier league match earlier this month. Amid a flurry of fireworks, the fans also took the media to task for supporting government efforts to curb their militant ways of cheering their team with fireworks, flares, smoke guns and loud chanting.
In response, Mr. Zaher warned that the disturbances caused by the militants could lead to a suspension or cancellation of the current premier league season. The EFA recently ordered Al Ahly and its arch rival Al Zamalek to play two home matches behind closed doors because of militant fan conduct.
The EFA has been trying unsuccessfully for some time to curb politically motivated militant soccer fan activism that since early September resulted in repeated clashes with security forces in which more than 150 people have been wounded as well as the fans participating in the storming of the Israeli embassy in Cairo in which three people died and some 1,200 others were wounded.
Fourteen soccer fans are standing trial in two different cases for the riots. The courts are scheduled to issue verdicts by the end of the month.
In response to the EFA measures, fans of Al Ahly arch Cairo rival Zamalek invaded earlier this month Cairo Stadium during their teams match against Ittihad al-Shorta, the premier league team owned by the police. Dozens were arrested in clashes with security forces. Local TV channels broadcast images of riot police armed with batons carrying a limp body up the stairs of the stadium.
“It is very difficult to continue playing amid these troubles. We tried to prevent riots, but supporters considered the punishments provocative. What Zamalek supporters did is a violation of all rules. Where is the security necessary to continue the league?” Mr. Zaher said at the time on Egyptian TV.
In a statement, the Ultras White Knights (UWK), the militant Zamalek support group responded to Mr. Zaher, saying that “these people are remnants of the former regime. They will not determine our destiny. We suffered a lot from injustice and repression in the past, but we stood up to that with pride. We fought with all our might to maintain our principles and freedom. We thought justice and freedom would come after our revolution. We will continue in our defence of freedom even with our blood. Our war with the EFA will continue until we win and see the corrupt people in prison.”
That war has now taken on bigger dimensions. Mr. Zaher’s suggestion that the premier league could be postponed or suspended will fuel militant soccer fan convictions that the EFA president is a stooge of the former regime its military successors. Increasingly, the militants believe that it will take putting an end to military rule to clean up Egyptian soccer.
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 bolster protesters in battles on Cairo’s Tahrir Square
Monday, November 21, 2011
By James M. Dorsey
Militant soccer fans bolstered this weekend the... more
Monday, November 21, 2011
By James M. Dorsey
Militant soccer fans bolstered this weekend the ranks of demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square demanding an end to military rule in a re-enactment of the protests that ousted President Hosni Mubarak in February.
Like early this year, the ultras – militant, highly politicised, violence-prone fan groups modelled on similar organizations in Serbia and Italy – took the lead in confronting military police seeking to clear Tahrir Square. Within an hour of their arrival on late Saturday afternoon, police retreated from the square as battles continued for several hours on the side streets.
“The Ultras are here. I know that because they're the only ones facing the CSF (Egypt’s paramilitary Central Security Force) with force while singing their (anti-security police) hymns,” tweeted a protester from Tahrir. “The ultras are kicking the police’s ass,” tweeted another protester.
The ultra’s sayaadin or hunters similar to the battles in February on Sunday hurled tear gas canisters fired by the police back into the ranks of the law enforcers. The tactic that worked against Mr. Mubarak’s police and security forces early this year failed however to stop the military police from forcing demonstrators out of the square in a mass stampede.
Nonetheless, once they had regrouped, the ultras led thousands of protesters back into Tahrir. The ultras quickly erected barricades in preparation of expected further clashes that this weekend caused at least one death and the injuring of hundreds of others.
Protesters had called for the street battle-hardened ultras to join them as the battle for Tahrir raged through the afternoon on Saturday, with skirmishes spreading through Cairo's warren of tight streets and smaller squares.
The ultras - supporters of arch rival, crowned Cairo clubs Al Ahly SC and Al Zamalek SC – played a key role in the protests that toppled Mr. Mubarak. They have since been vocal in their demand that the military which succeeded the ousted president stick to its pledge to lead Egypt to elections within six months. That timetable has already slipped with the first stage of elections scheduled for November 28, nine months after the downfall of Mr. Mubarak.
Ultras have clashed repeatedly with security forces in recent months and in September led protesters in an attack on the Israeli embassy in Cairo that forced Israel to evacuate its diplomatic personnel. Israel’s ambassador returned to the Egyptian capital this weekend.
Fuelled by a belief that they own the stadium as the only unconditional supporters of their team, the ultras garnered their street fighting experience in years of weekly battles with the police and rival fans. Much like hooligans in Britain whose attitudes were shaped by the decaying condition of stadiums, Egyptian ultras were driven by the Mubarak regime’s attempt to control their space by turning it into a virtual fortress ringed by black steel.
The struggle for control produced a complete breakdown, social decay in a microcosm. If the space was expendable, so was life. As a result, militant fans would confront the police each weekend with total abandonment. It was that abandonment that won them the respect of many Egyptians and that they brought early this year and again on Sunday to Tahrir Square. It was also coupled with their street battle experience what enabled them to help protesters early this year break down barriers of fear that had kept them from confronting the regime in the past and cemented resolve this weekend on Tahrir Square.
The joining of forces of arch rival ultras from Ahly and Zamalek, who for much of the past decade fought one another viciously early this year in the struggle to topple Mr. Mubarak and again this weekend serves as an indication of how deep-seated the demand is for the military to relinquish control.
Disillusion with the military that was celebrated at the time of Mr. Mubarak’s demise because of its refusal to back the president and open fire on the demonstrators has been undermined by the fact that the military since taking over the reins has stumbled from crisis to crisis and extended the period for a handover of power until 2013 when Egyptians will elect their president on the basis of a new constitution to be drafted by an elected constituent assembly. Anger at the military was fuelled by the military’s tabling early this month of supra-constitutional principles that it wanted to be binding on the commission that will draft the new constitution and that would have allowed the armed forces to impose their version of democracy based on continued military.
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.
Did Algeria dope its World Cup soccer team to distract attention from protests?
Friday, November 18, 2011
By James M. Dorsey
Arab autocratic regimes responded back in the 1980s... more
Friday, November 18, 2011
By James M. Dorsey
Arab autocratic regimes responded back in the 1980s to a wave of Islamist-inspired protests with little less brutality than some have done this year, but in the case of Algeria perhaps with greater ingenuity in a bid to engineer an Algerian soccer success that would distract attention from the protesters’ grievances.
While Syria brutally suppressed an Islamist uprising in 1982 in the city of Hama killing at least 10,000 people, members of Algeria’s national soccer team believe that they were secretly doped to enhance their performance. The players who played for Algeria in the 1982 and 1986 World Cups at a time of a series of protests in the country charge that eight of the team’s members have handicapped children that have been born since the tournaments. They are demanding an investigation. Algeria’s soccer federation has yet to comment.
"We have serious doubts over the effects of medication that we were given during training camps. We just want the truth,” said former defender Mohamed Chaib, a father of three girls born with muscular dystrophy, in an interview with Agence France Press.
One of Mr. Chaib’s daughter died in 2005 at age 18. Medical tests found no abnormalities either with him or his wife.
Whether doped or not, the Algerian squad delivered a performance in 1982 at a time that protests erupted in the city of Oran and spread in 1985 to Algiers and Setif in 1986 that many Algerians still cherish. In front of 25,000 fans at the El Molinon stadium in Gijon, Algeria's Desert Warriors turned soccer on its head, defeating favourite West Germany 2-1. Duke University’s Laurent Dubois quotes an Algerian commentator as wondering at the time whether German children were asking their fathers: “Dad, where’s Algeria?”
The match is widely viewed in Mr. Dubois’ words as “the most infamous case of collusion in the history of the World Cup.” Mr. Dubois writes on his blog, Soccer Politics/The Politics of Football that “Austria and Germany made sure Algeria didn’t advance by playing a game that produced exactly the score needed for the two of them to go on. The incident is widely remembered today — FIFA responded by having the final matches in the group stages played at the same time, to try and prevent it from happening again — but the full weight of the action, and its symbolism, is sometimes overlooked. Two European teams colluded to make sure a non-European team was stopped.
Djamel Menad, a striker in the 1986 cup, said his daughter born in 1993 suffered from agenesis of the corpus callosum, a condition that causes seizures and muscle weakness. Mr. Menad said it seemed unlikely to be a coincidence that several other players his age had children with disabilities and blamed the medications doctors handed out. "Since I discovered I was not alone, I began to ask myself questions. They gave us drugs and vitamins to battle for energy loss after training and matches," Mr. Menad said.
Former midfielder Mohamed Kaci Said, the father of a 26-year-old disabled daughter, told Algerian newspaper El-Khabar that “doubts persist until an enquiry has been opened and the truth told." He said he was shocked when his daughter was born and some thought he and his wife, who is of Turkish origin, may have been related. Mr. Said said that foreign medical staff may have used players as guinea pigs to test drugs similar to what Soviet sports doctors were reported to be doing at the time.
Players said they could not recall the medications but suspect that caused their children’s birth defects. Some said doctors never gave them their medical files, El Watan newspaper reported.
Ali Fergani, who captained the team in 1982, dismissed the players’ suspicions. "The number of players who are parents of disabled children is minimal compared to the total number of players selected," he said, insisting that all medical staff had been Algerian nationals and that he recalled being given only Vitamin C.
Mr. Fergani insisted that Algeria had defeated the tournament’s favourite, West Germany, because “we played a different type of football, which had never been seen before. It was a concoction of German, French and Latin styles."
The calls for an investigation come as anti-government protests that erupted in Algeria early this year as part of the wave of uprisings sweeping the Middle East and North Africa have fizzled out on the streets of Algerians towns and cities but are alive and kicking in the country’s soccer stadiums where football fans regularly take on President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the military and the Islamists.
Algeria’s political geography of protest has however changed since the street manifestations early this year. Algeria is now surrounded by three nations in transition: Libya, Tunisia and Morocco where the king has pre-empted protesters by pushing forward with constitutional reform. Disgust with the ruling military’s nepotism, corruption and inability to provide sufficient jobs fuelled by the success of their brethren in the region ultimately runs deeper in Algeria than fears of renewed confrontation with the military or uncertainty over the Islamists real aims.
"Our songs focus on current events, on politics and the economy. We sing about politicians, about security, about terrorist attacks. We criticize the current government as well as the extremists of the (outlawed) Islamic Salvation Front. We also criticize the high cost of living in Algeria and the privileges enjoyed by the country’s elite, who send their children abroad to study while so many young Algerians are unemployed and live in poverty," said Amine T., a supporter of popular Algiers club Union Sportive de la Medina d'Alger (USMA).
In a region dominated by autocratic rulers bent on controlling the soccer pitch and benefitting from its popularity to polish their tarnish image, Algeria is among the most advanced in encouraging the emergence of soccer as a professional sport. As a result of the regime's reduced involvement in the sport, soccer fans have a tacit understanding with authorities under which they can say what they like as long as they keep their protests confined to the stadium.
"It’s not so much our slogans that worry the authorities, it’s how many of us there are. For example, when riots erupted in the Algiers neighborhood of Bab el-Oued earlier this year, the Algerian Football Federation temporarily suspended matches.
They did this because they were worried that if the police couldn’t control a few dozen youths in the street, they certainly wouldn’t be able to control 60,000 football fans leaving a stadium. I think that the authorities don't actually have a problem with our chants: if we get our anger out inside the stadium, then that’s it, we don’t cause any trouble outside," Amine T. 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.
Mounting Israeli-Iranian Tension: Turkey in the Middle
By James M. Dorsey
Synopsis
Israeli and Iranian sabre-rattling, coupled with... more
By James M. Dorsey
Synopsis
Israeli and Iranian sabre-rattling, coupled with Turkey's determination to keep relations with Israel in deep freeze as it pressures Tel Aviv to lift its blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, threaten to undermine Turkey’s influence in the Middle East and North Africa.
Commentary
THE FALLOUT from last year's killing by Israeli forces of nine Turkish nationals aboard a Turkish aid ship seeking to run Israel's blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip continues to dog Ankara’s heels as it emerges as a regional leader in the Middle East and North Africa.
Senior Turkish officials reiterated at the Istanbul Forum recently their refusal to reverse their downgrading of diplomatic relations with Israel to the level of second secretary and their suspension of all military cooperation as long as Israel fails to apologise and offer compensation for the death of the Turkish activists and maintains its blockade of Gaza. The officials said that despite Israeli assistance to Turkey's earthquake-stricken eastern region, their terms for a normalisation of relations were non-negotiable.
To drive the point home, Turkey last week allowed two Irish and Canadian-flagged aid ships to set sail for Gaza from a Turkish port for a renewed attempt to run the Israeli blockade. The two ships were intercepted by Israel and escorted to the port of Ashdod. By ensuring that the two ships were flying foreign flags and had no Turkish nationals on board, Turkey sought to avoid an armed confrontation with Israel.
Israel imposed a naval blockade on Gaza after Hamas seized control of the territory in June 2007, saying it is necessary to prevent weapons being supplied to militants in the Strip. Critics of the sea and land blockade say it is collective punishment of Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants.
Turkey had earlier vowed to have Turkish warships accompany Gaza-bound aid ships to avoid a repetition of the May 2010 attack. The nine Turks aboard the Mavi Marmara, lead ship of last year's flotilla, were killed by Israeli forces who boarded the vessel in international waters. Israel asserts that the activists were armed and that Israeli forces had acted in self-defence.
Closing doors
Turkey's harsh response to the incident has garnered it wide support across the Arab and Muslim world at a time when the Middle East and North Africa is racked by mass anti-government protests. However it has complicated Turkey’s efforts to shield itself against being drawn into the region's multiple conflicts.
As a result, Turkey has little ability to bring Israel and Iran back from the brink of a military confrontation; and the escalating conflict could damage Turkey's projection of itself as a regional Islamic, democratic, economic and military power.
Turkish concerns that its hard line towards Israel could lead it into a corner stem from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to seek approval from his cabinet for a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Netanyahu sees Iran as the foremost existential threat to the Jewish state.
His request follows Israel's successful test-firing of a long-range missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead as well as a series of Israeli Air Force long-range attack drills in cooperation with their Italian counterpart, including one late October at a NATO base in Italy. The Israeli military has also practised a mass evacuation of civilians in case of an attack in areas near Tel Aviv. The Israeli exercises were held in an advance of the expected release this week of an International Energy Agency (IEA) report on Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
Siding with Iran
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Selahi responded defiantly to the test-firing of the Israeli missile as well as the military exercises, asserting that his country was prepared for a possible Israeli attack. Anticipating Turkey's dilemma in case of an Israeli attack, Salehi suggested that Turkey would have no choice but to support Iran against Israel.
While Turkish defence and military officials have little doubt that Israel would prevail in a military confrontation with Iran, even if it is unlikely to fully destroy Iran's decentralised and heavily fortified nuclear facilities, they worry about the effects of likely Iranian retaliatory attacks against Israel as well as US targets in the Gulf and Afghanistan, for that would escalate the confrontation with Iran.
Turkey would increasingly be seen in Tel Aviv and Washington as not only having turned on Israel –often a yardstick in the West for assessing Turkish foreign policy - but also having sided with the enemy. Turkish officials and analysts fear that this could result in covert support for Kurdish guerrillas who have stepped up their attacks on Turkish military targets in south-eastern Turkey. It could also endanger Turkish security cooperation with Iran in combatting Kurdish insurgents.
Turkey’s dilemma is heightened by the fact that increasingly it is being viewed in the Middle East and North Africa as a counterweight to Iran. Turkey has dashed Iranian hopes that it would find an ally in Erdogan’s Islamist government. Instead, Turkey’s pluralist democracy constitutes a popular alternative to Iran’s harsh, repressive regime, bolstered by Turkey’s hard line towards Israel.
Turkey and Iran have further lined up on opposing sides of the Syrian divide with Turkey supporting opposition against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Iran’s closest ally in the Arab world. In response, Iran has sought to portray Turkey as part of a US-Israeli-Saudi conspiracy to stymie the wave of popular revolts in the Middle East and North Africa in a bid to prevent them from spreading to the oil-rich Gulf.
Members of Erdogan’s ruling party have criticised him for responding emotionally to Israeli policies and have urged him to repair relations with Israel, while remaining critical of Tel Aviv. This is to ensure that Turkey is not painted into a corner by mounting tension in the region but can truly act as a bridge across the West-East divide as well as the region’s fault lines. They key to Turkey’s role may indeed lie partially in Israel but Turkey has only a limited window of opportunity to keep the door open.
James M. 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.
Israeli MP drafts legislation obliging players to recognize Israel as a Jewish state
Monday, November 7, 2011
By James M. Dorsey
Proposed legislation by extreme nationalist Israeli... more
Monday, November 7, 2011
By James M. Dorsey
Proposed legislation by extreme nationalist Israeli parliamentarian Michael Ben-Ari that would require members of Israeli national sport teams to sing the national anthem and recognise Israel as a Jewish state threatens to weaken the country’s soccer team and further isolate Israel internationally.
Mr. Ben-Ari, a member of the far-right National Union, who is widely seen as having inherited the mantle of Rabbi Meir Kahane, the assassinated racist leader of the Jewish Defence League, tabled his proposal as the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, returned from a three-month recess.
The proposed bill is part of a slew of nationalist legislation on the Knesset’s agenda that includes a draft law tabled by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is our Home) Party that would make a commitment to Israel and its Jewish character a condition for citizenship.
An estimated 20 per cent of Israelis are Palestinians who are largely committed to the existence of the state, but feel that it discriminates against non-Jews and that emphasizing its Jewish character is intended to exclude them. Mr. Ben-Ari’s proposal as well as other draft legislation is certain to reaffirm that sense.
Mr. Ben-Ari’s proposal is in line with Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state as part of any Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement.
The demand, rooted in an Israeli desire 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, goes far beyond earlier Israeli demands for recognition of Israel as a state. That recognition by the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Palestine Authority formed the basis for the last two decades of failed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Mr. Ben-Ari’s proposal, which has sparked intense debate in Israel, would contrast starkly with accepted practice in soccer powerhouses such as Germany and France. Immigrant and foreign players in the French and German national teams often refrain from singing their team’s national anthem. German national team coach Joachim has Low noted that the players identify with Germany as much as they do with their heritage.
If adopted Mr. Ben-Ari’s law would mean that the three Israeli Palestinian members of the 21-man national soccer team – Beram Kayal, Taleb Twaitha and Ali Ottman – would withdraw.
In a stinging commentary in the liberal Israeli daily Haaretz entitled ‘Sport and Racism / Hatikva ueber alles?’ – a word play on the Israel national anthem and the German anthem at the time of the Nazis -- prominent Israeli sports writer Uzi Dann warned that Mr. Ben-Ari’s proposal “is as surreal as it is dangerous. The second part of Ben-Ari's proposal - that Israeli Arabs players be forced to sign an oath of allegiance - is the epitome of fascism.”
Mr. Dann noted that “to demand that Beram Kayal sing ‘The Land of Zion and Jerusalem’ is ridiculous; to insist that Taleb Twatiha joins in when his teammates sing about the yearning of the Jewish spirit is a cheek; and to force Ali Ottman to mumble something about being a free nation in our land is an own goal.”
The journalist went on to say that “once, we could be sure that such surreal proposals were thrown onto the parliamentary garbage heap. Today, however, anything is possible. If Ben-Ari's bill becomes law, Israel, which once took pride in the separation of sports and politics, will be the only country on earth with such a discriminatory and racist law. And soccer is one of the areas in which the authorities have made a genuine effort to inculcate equality among all Israeli citizens.”
If adopted, Israel would likely be sanctioned by world soccer body FIFA and European soccer body UEFA – Israel plays since 1994 in European competitions after it was booted out of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) several years earlier because Middle Eastern teams refused to play against it – and would likely face legal challenges in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
“That's all we need. But the point here … is that the national team needs its Israeli Arab players more than they need the national team. Israel depends on them and relies on them and is a far worse team without them. Not only is Ben-Ari a racist, he's damaging the national team,” Mr. Dann said.
The importance of Palestinian players 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 Arab 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.”
Mr. Suan, an advocate of Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation, an independent Palestinian state and a solution for Palestinian demands to recover land and homes lost when Israel was founded, took the insults in his stride. “I ignore them,” he insisted. “They’re not worth my attention. They portray me as an Arab in a Jewish country. They try to put me in one group, but I represent both."
Mr. Suan’s Beit Sakhnin is a story in itself. So is that of Beitar Jerusalem. Together their stories chart the fault line between Israelis and Palestinians. Beit Sakhnin is a model of coexistence: a majority of Israeli Arabs with some Jews and foreigners.
The club, the first Israel-Arab team to become an Israeli champion, and Mr. Suan did wonders for Arab pride and self-confidence. They also spotlighted the divisions in Israeli and Arab society. "Our problem is that the Arabs say we are traitors and Israelis think we are Arabs," said Palestinian building contractor Mazen Ghaneim and former Bnei Sakhnin chairman.
Bnei Sakhnin’s success has nonetheless enabled it to build bridges where heads of state and diplomats have failed. It won the club funding from oil-rich Qatar to build its own stadium, the Arab world’s only direct investment in Israel, and prompted Arabs from countries formally at war with the Jewish state to defy bans on travel to Israel to attend the team’s matches.
Beitar Jerusalem’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.
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’s war reaches a feverish pitch when the team plays Bnei Sakhnin. Fans chant racist, anti-Arab songs and denounce the Prophet Mohammed. In response, Beit Sakhnin’s predominantly Palestinian fans sing Islamic and anti-Israeli chants. The outbursts have prompted the Israeli Football Association to become the Middle East’s only governing soccer body to launch a campaign against racism and discrimination and made Israel the only nation in the region to have charged fans with shouting racist remarks.
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.
Soccer: A Middle East and North African Battlefield
For much of the past three decades, soccer constituted the only major battleground that rivalled Islam in the creation... more
For much of the past three decades, soccer constituted the only major battleground that rivalled Islam in the creation of alternative public space in a swath of land stretching from the Gulf to the Atlantic coast of Africa. Away from the glare of the international media, soccer provided a venue to release pent-up anger and frustration and struggle for political, gender, economic, social, ethnic and national rights. By the time the Arab revolt erupted in December 2010, soccer had emerged as a key non-religious, non-governmental institution capable of successfully confronting security force-dominated repressive regimes and militant Islamists.
Increasingly over the past two decades, soccer became a high-stakes game, a political cat-and-mouse contest between fans and autocrats for control of the pitch and a counterbalance to jihadi employment of soccer as a bonding and recruitment tool. All participants in the game banked on the fact that only soccer could capture the deep-seated emotion, passion and commitment evoked by Islam among a majority of the population in the Middle East and North Africa.
As a result, professional soccer inevitably emerged as an early casualty when protests spilled into the streets. Suspending league matches is one of the first steps embattled Middle Eastern and North African leaders take when mass anti-government protests erupt. They understand the soccer pitch's potential as an opposition rallying point.
Syria's indefinite suspension of professional soccer in early 2011 in advance of the government's violent crackdown pushed anti-government protests back into the mosque. With soccer stadiums inaccessible to the public and serving as detention centres and staging points for security forces, protests more often than not start at a mosque, the only remaining place where people can gather in numbers.
The suspension of professional soccer when protests initially erupted in Tunisia, Egypt and Algeria meant that militant, highly politicised, violence-prone soccer fans shifted their protest from the stadium to the square. They often played a unique role in helping protesters seeking to rid themselves of the yoke of repressive rule, economic mismanagement and corruption to break through the barrier of fear erected by neo-patriarchal autocrats that had condemned them to silence and passivity until then.
Neo-patriarchy is what makes Arab authoritarianism different from dictatorships in other parts of the world. Dictatorial regimes are not simply superimposed on societies gasping for freedom. Arab autocracies may lack popular support and credibility but their repressive reflexes that create barriers of fear are internalized and reproduced at virtually every layer of society. As a result societal resistance to and fear of change contributed to their sustainability.
In a controversial book published in 1992 that is still banned in many Arab countries, Palestinian-American historian Hisham 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. Thus 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.” With other words, Arab regimes franchised repression so that 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, 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.
In breaking through the neo-patriarchal barriers of fear, militant soccer fans extended the tradition of soccer’s close association with politics across the Middle East and North Africa that is evident until today in derbies in Amman, Tehran, Riyadh and Cairo, home to the world's most violent encounter on the pitch.
Their battle on the pitch is not just about the political and economic future of the region. It is also a battle that challenges gender prejudice in asserting women's rights to play the game against the odds of legal restriction, social pressure and religious dress codes. And it is a cornerstone in efforts by the stateless -- Palestinians and Kurds -- to obtain a state of their own or by minorities like the Berbers, Iranian Azeris and Israeli Palestinians to assert their identity.
In this essay, I discuss the role of the soccer pitch as a venue for resistance to autocratic regimes and a battlefield for greater political freedom and economic opportunity, statehood, identity politics, and gender rights as well as an arena of competition with militant jihadists. This positions soccer as a platform on which multiple political battles are fought in both autocratic Middle Eastern and North African societies as well as those that enjoy some degree of political openness.
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The Changing Role of Ethnicity in Ethnic Conflicts: The Cases of Cyprus and Sri Lanka
Dissertation, marked with distinction, for the attainment of an MA in International Relations and Strategic Studies, University of Birmingham. Part of it will hopefully get published in a peer reviewed journal. For more info contact zenonas.tziarras@hotmail.com
Ethnic conflicts are the conflicts in which the clashing interests of the conflicting parties are expressed in ethnic... more Ethnic conflicts are the conflicts in which the clashing interests of the conflicting parties are expressed in ethnic terms; but to what extent is ethnicity the underlying cause of such conflicts? In an effort to answer this fundamental question this dissertation addresses the changing role of ethnicity in ethnic conflicts, and how this complicates conflict resolution strategies with regard to the cases of Cyprus and Sri Lanka. Through the comparison of these two cases there can be identified a pattern that shows how ethnicity’s prominence changes overtime and how common historical experiences play an important part. Further, this comparative analysis examines which, and how different factors and policies, intensify ethnic identities and exacerbate ethnic conflict in each case individually. It is argued that although the role of ethnicity could change or evolve during the course of an ethnic conflict, it essentially characterises the nature of the conflict and not its root causes. Other root causes are explored as opposed to ethnicity such as political and economic factors, horizontal inequalities, the role of education, the exploitation of ethnic identity by elites, the colonial history, nationalism, etc. The conflicts in question are seen as historical processes, during which not only their character, but also their nature has been affected. Given that the role of ethnicity in ethnic conflicts does not remain unchanged, the most prominent characteristic of the conflict should be identified in order for more effective resolution strategies to be formulated.
Palestine unveils sports plan in effort to further state- and nationhood
Saturday, October 29, 2011
By James M. Dorsey
Palestine is scoring points on and off the... more
Saturday, October 29, 2011
By James M. Dorsey
Palestine is scoring points on and off the soccer pitch as it seeks to employ sports to further its bid for statehood, ensure international support in its struggle against the debilitating effects of Israeli occupation and initiate a social revolution at home.
The Palestinian effort kicked into high gear this month with the unveiling of an ambitious ten-year plan backed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Palestine Authority to develop sports and a women’s friendly soccer match against world champion Japan.
The plan drafted by Spanish consultants hired by the IOC, which calls for a €61 million investment in sports facilities, was presented this week to donors by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, foreign minister Riyad al-Malki and Jibril Rajoub, who doubles as head of the Palestine Olympic Committee and the territory's soccer association.
"This is a breakthrough. Sports is a Palestine Authority priority alongside transportation and water," gushed Jerome Champagne, a former political advisor to world soccer body FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who now advises the Palestine Authority on sports, after the presentation in Ramallah.
Mr. Champagne said he expected funding for the ten-year plan to be made available at the next meeting of Palestine's donors. That could take a little while with the United States delaying the convening of the meeting to stymie European Union efforts to play a more important role in the Middle East.
Effected by the global financial crisis donors could also
ultimately prove to be less generous than Palestinians hope.
Diplomatic representatives of the United Nations, Spain, France, Italy, Britain and Brazil welcomed the plan but stressed at the meeting in Ramallah what they were already doing to support Palestinian sports rather than what they would do. To be fair, the diplomats were not the ones that control their countries' purse strings.
The Palestine Authority's emphasis on sports and the presentation of its ten-year plan could however not have come at politically convenient time for Palestine Authority.
To be sure, the plan has been long in the making and Palestine has come a long way since becoming in 1998 the first nation without a state to become a member of FIFA. In the last year, Palestine has played its first World Cup and Olympic qualifiers on Palestinian soil. Its national women's soccer team is breaking taboos in a traditionally conservative society.
Nonetheless, President Mahmoud Abbas' Palestine Authority has been politically weakened by its inability to force Israel to make concessions the Palestinians need to agree to a revival of peace talks and Israel's boost of Hamas with this month's swap of Israeli Staff Sergeant Gilad Shalit for more than 1,000 Palestinians incarcerated by Israel.
In emphasising sports and identifying with it, the authority is following in the footsteps of other Middle Eastern leaders who saw soccer, the region's most popular sport, as a tool to polish their tarnished images and distract attention from discontent with government policies. But in contrast to those leaders, they are promoting sports on a far more popular and transparent level and in ways that benefit the public and push the social envelope.
"We want this (plan) to be seen as an integrated part of our national development plan, an indispensable component," Mr. Fayyad told the diplomats, describing the sports initiative as "a hopeful enterprise." He said recalling his recent attendance at a soccer match that sports provides "a sense of joy, happiness of the people with just being there."
"We are witnessing a different kind of revolution... We are allowing people to release fears. They have the right to fight to achieve self-determination in sports like in any other field," added Mr. Malki.
The development plan is designed to project Palestine internationally as a nation and a state, strengthen nation-building and social development at home and focus attention on the debilitating effects of Israeli travel restrictions on Palestinian athletes. "For me, sport is a tool to realise the Palestinian people's national aspirations by exposing our cause through sports. I think that the ethics of sports and football is a rational and humanitarian way to convince the international community that we deserve freedom and independence," said Mr. Rajoub who doubles as Palestine Olympic Committee and Football Association czar.
Mr. Rajoub, a former Palestinian security chief with a military bearing who spent 17 years in Israeli prison, met his Israeli Olympic Committee counterpart for a third time this year in advance of the launch of the plan to discuss cooperation in easing the restrictions on athletes as well as the movement of sports materials. The two committees established a hotline to facilitate the movement of athletes stuck at Israeli checkpoints on the West Bank. They also looked at ways of enabling travel between the West Bank and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Despite goodwill, the effort has so far produced limited results. Palestinians are waiting to see whether the processing three months ago of their last shipment from FIFA through Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport in less than a week constitutes a change in Israeli attitudes. Until then shipments were held up for up to six months, incurring storage and other costs for the Palestinians that amounted to a multi-fold of the value of the goods shipped.
There has however been only limited improvement in athletes' ability to move around the West Bank or between the Palestine Authority-controlled region and the Gaza Strip. "The problem is the Israeli committee is not the relevant authority for the movement of people and equipment. We are trying, but I don't want to embarrass anyone," Mr. Rajoub says.
Nonetheless, soccer officials and players concede that crossing checkpoints has become somewhat easier this year. They attribute it primarily to improved security with Israel less concerned about the threat of terrorist attacks being launched from the West Bank. In addition, the PFA has created sleeping quarters in the Faisal Hussein Stadium so that players can get together to train without worrying whether they will be able to return home.
The perceived easing has done little for 13 of the 25 members of the Palestinian national soccer team who hail from Gaza. Goalkeeper Assem Abu Assi thinks of his wife and son in Gaza whenever the Palestinian flag is raised at an international match. Mr. Abu Assi has not seen them in four years because of an Israel refusal to grant him a travel permit. Mid-fielders Maali Kawari and Ismail Al Amur too have not been allowed to return for visits to Gaza.
"My dream is to just play football with my family watching in the stadium. It has never happened. Happiness is never complete. I'm always only half happy," Mr. Abu Assi says.
He and his co-players see soccer however as more than just a game. It constitutes their contribution to achieving Palestinian statehood. "Raising the Palestinian flag on the roof of a house in Palestine is a big issue. It is an even bigger issues when we raise the flag as a state outside the country," Mr. Abu Assi says. "Soccer is a way to build a state. When we go to India or Thailand, we put Palestine on the map," adds Mr. Kawari. "The Israelis know that sport is good for Palestinians. That's why they try to limit our success," Mr. Al Amur chips in.
The problems implementing the Palestinian sports development plan are further illustrated by FIFA and Palestinian efforts to get Israeli approval for the import of Jordanian personnel and materials to build two FIFA-funded soccer playing grounds in the Palestinian West Bank towns of Qalqilya and El Bireh. "The Israelis do not allow us to start the project. Our deadline is at the end of the year. Otherwise we lose the project," says Nabhan Khraishi, a PFA media advisor.
Mr. Khraishi says the Israeli authorities are delaying the El Bireh project because it is too close to the Israeli settlement of Psagot. The Israelis fear that the gathering of excited fans so close to one of their outposts could spark anti-Israeli protests at a time that anti-government protests are sweeping the Middle East and North Africa.
The struggle for state and nationhood is not only one in which Palestinians confront the Israelis. It is also a struggle for the kind of society Palestinians want their country to be. That is nowhere more true than with the right of women to play soccer.
The national women's team faced two obstacles when it met world champion Japan earlier this month on the soccer pitch in Hebron, the West Bank's most conservative town that unlike Ramallah, Bethlehem or East Jerusalem does not count Christians among its residents. The match moreover underscored differences within the Islamist movement with the city's Hamas mayor supporting the women's team and the local Hizb ut Tahrir movement opposing it.
Hizb ut Tahrir websites denounced the team as "naked bitches" even though they wore leggings and at least one of the squad's players dons a hijab, an Islamic headdress that covers the hair, ears and neck. Hizb ut Tahrir imams denounced the match from the pulpit in their mosques; school principals in Hebron banned their students from attending the match warning them that they would burn in hell if they went to the stadium. The PFA was forced to bus in supporters.
Crowds cheered the team as they left the stadium even though they lost to Japan with a whopping 19:0. The team, which unlike its opponent is made up of university students rather than professionals, recovered in a second match, losing only 4:0 from the world champion. "It was a social revolution. We broke the barrier and taboo when we went to Hebron and Nablus (a conservative city in the north of the West Bank). The whole barrier collapsed" Mr. Rajoub says.
It no doubt was the beginning of a social revolution, however one that has yet to play out. A majority of the players in Palestine's six women soccer clubs as well as its national team are Christians rather than Muslims. Yet, even players from Christian families often fight battles at home to be allowed to play. Claudia Salameh, a 21-year old business administration student, said her family wanted her to stop when she got engaged but that her fiancé had supported her. Other players report similar splits in their families.
"Things are changing. It depends on what area of the country. Lifestyles are changing. Three years ago it was unacceptable for girls to walk in the streets with shorts. It was unacceptable to play soccer, run or ride a bicycle in shorts. Now it is ok in Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jerusalem," Ms. Salameh said.
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
Israel and Hamas: A new equation for Mid-East peace?
By James M. Dorsey
Synopsis
Israeli and Palestinian hardliners rather than moderates are... more
By James M. Dorsey
Synopsis
Israeli and Palestinian hardliners rather than moderates are serving each other's purpose in the Middle East conflict. That is the underlying dynamic of the political calculations of both Israel and Hamas in the recent lop-sided swap of an Israeli soldier for over a thousand Palestinian prisoners.
Commentary
THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN peace process remains frozen with little, if any, prospect of it gaining momentum. President Mahmoud Abbas' effort to achieve United Nations recognition of Palestinian statehood in a bid to break the logjam is mired in diplomatic red tape and likely to be foiled by a United States
veto if it comes up for a vote in the Security Council.
True to form, hardliners on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide are finding common ground where moderates are grasping for straws. In doing so, they are reaffirming a long-standing fact of life of the Israeli-Palestinian equation: hardliners can serve each other’s needs to mutual benefit without making the kind of wrenching concessions that thwart the ambitions of
peacemakers and moderates on both sides.
The prisoner swap in which Israel bought freedom for now Staff Sergeant Gilad Shalit after five years in Palestinian captivity in exchange for the release of 1,027 prisoners - many of whom were responsible for deadly attacks on Israelis - is the latest example of sworn enemies finding it easier to do business than those who advocate compromise and living in peace and harmony side by
side.
No peace works for all
Underlying, the swap is a belief on the part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas that there is no realistic chance for an agreement on peace terms that would be acceptable to both Palestinians and Israelis. Given the nature of his coalition government, Netanyahu has so far been unwilling or unable to give Abbas the bare minimum he would need to push forward with peace without at least the tacit backing of Hamas.
While Netanyahu officially refuses to negotiate with Hamas, for its part, Hamas refuses Israeli conditions for its inclusion in a peace process. These are that it recognises Israel's right to exist, abandons its armed struggle and accepts past Israeli-Palestinian agreements. If anything, the fact that it has achieved a
tangible victory with the release of prisoners belonging to both Hamas as well as Abbas' Fatah movement has reinforced the Islamist movement’s conviction that its hard line is paying off.
Netanyahu has strengthened Hamas in its conviction not only by excluding Abbas from the prisoner swap. He has also done so by undermining the Palestinian president with his decision to build a new Jewish settlement on the southern edge of Jerusalem and granting legal status to settlements established without his government’s approval. Abbas has made an Israeli freeze on settlements his core pre-condition for revival of peace talks with
the Israelis, to no avail.
Temporary arrangements suit all but Abbas
Unlike Abbas, Netanyahu has made his most hardline critics part of his coalition. Netanyahu and Israel’s right-wing moreover agree on fundamentals: a rejection of an Israeli return to the borders prior to the 1967 conquest of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem and a perception of a nuclear-armed Iran as the foremost threat to the existence of the Jewish state. Hamas rather than Abbas offers Netanyahu the space to build Israeli policy on those two principles. Hamas’ refusal to meet Israeli conditions for peace negotiations proves the Israeli prime minister’s assertion that Israel has no Palestinian partner with
which it can do business.
At the same time, Hamas has proven that it can and will
make temporary arrangements with Israel like the prisoner swap or a ceasefire that safeguards Israeli towns from Palestinian rocket attacks.
Hamas has moreover, contributed its bit to weakening Abbas by effectively thwarting the Palestinian leader’s efforts at reconciliation so that Palestinians can confront Israel with a unified front.
The possibility of Hamas’ external wing moving its headquarters from Syria, Iran’s closest ally in the Arab world, to post-Mubarak Egypt, which facilitated the prisoner swap, further serves Netanyahu’s purpose of clearing the deck for possible pre-emptive military action against Iran. Lingering in the background is uncertainty of what Israel’s immediate neighbourhood
may look like. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is battling for his survival with no sign of the eight months of mass anti-government protests subsiding despite a brutal crackdown. Jordan’s King Abdullah has so far been able to contain demands for political reform and greater economic opportunity.
Israeli military: the joker in the pack
Ironically, Israel’s military and former senior Israeli military commanders constitute the greatest threat to Netanyahu’s policy designs and may offer Hamas its best chance yet of becoming a player in peace talks with Israel as well as the dominant force in Palestinian politics. While Israel’s military
appears split on the prospect of a pre-emptive strike against Iran, at least half of the retired leaders of Israel’s military and intelligence services have publicly rejected Netanyahu’s strategic thinking.
Perhaps, most vocal among them is Meir Dagan, a former head of Mossad, who has not only criticised Netanyahu’s hard line toward Iran but also called for Israeli acceptance of a nine-year old Saudi peace plan endorsed by all Arab states. That peace plan offers Israel full diplomatic relations in exchange for a
complete withdrawal from Palestinian lands occupied in 1967.
No doubt Dagan, Hamas’ nemesis who is credited with the death of hundreds of its operatives, has political ambitions as well as the military credentials that Netanyahu lacks. His willingness to entertain the Saudi proposal would open the door to Hamas to take its seat at the table. That could well lead to a new chapter in Israeli-Palestinian relations.
James M. 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.
Islamists fare well in an Arab world in revolt
By James M. Dorsey
The score is 1:0 in favor of the Islamists in this month’s Arab revolt match.
By James M. Dorsey
The score is 1:0 in favor of the Islamists in this month’s Arab revolt match.
Islamists emerged from Tunisia’s first post-revolt election as the country’s foremost political force set to play a key role in drafting the country’s new constitution. With Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi dead, jockeying for political position has begun in earnest and Islamists who played an important part in eight months of fighting that led to his demise are demanding their share of power.
Hamas, the Islamist grouping that controls the Gaza Strip, has significantly strengthened its position at the expense of its arch rival Al Fatah headed by Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas with the freeing of Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit from five years in captivity in exchange for the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prison.
Islamists also stand to gain in Syria as the country moves ever closer to armed conflict between the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and protesters who increasingly feel that turning the other cheek in the face of a brutal government crackdown is neither paying them dividends on the bloodied streets of Syrian towns and cities nor in terms of support from the international community.
The rise of the Islamists in the wake of popular revolts sweeping a conservative swath of land stretching from the Atlantic coast of Africa to the Gulf hardly comes as a surprise in a world in which the mosque was the only ideological opposition platform that alongside the soccer pitch provided a valve for the release of pent-up anger and frustration.
Gas and oil-rich Algeria, potentially the next Arab state to be shaken by the revolt to its core, could well prove a litmus test for the Islamists. Memories of the bitter civil war in the 1990s that pitted the military against Islamists who emerged victorious from the ballet box has so far dampened enthusiasm for renewed confrontation in a country that is simmering with discontent and that already witnessed initial mass anti-government protests early this year. The protests have since fizzled out on the streets of Algerians towns and cities but are alive and kicking in the country’s soccer stadiums where football fans regularly take on President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the military and the Islamists.
For Algeria, however, the political geography of protest has changed. Algeria is now surrounded by three nations in transition: Libya, Tunisia and Morocco where the king has preempted protesters by pushing forward with constitutional reform. Disgust with the ruling military’s nepotism, corruption and inability to provide sufficient jobs fueled by the success of their brethren in the region ultimately runs deeper in Algeria than fears of renewed confrontation with the military or uncertainty over the Islamists real aims.
"Our songs focus on current events, on politics and the economy. We sing about politicians, about security, about terrorist attacks. We criticize the current government as well as the extremists of the (outlawed) Islamic Salvation Front. We also criticize the high cost of living in Algeria and the privileges enjoyed by the country’s elite, who send their children abroad to study while so many young Algerians are unemployed and live in poverty," said Amine T., a supporter of popular Algiers club Union Sportive de la Medina d'Alger (USMA).
In a region dominated by autocratic rulers bent on controlling the soccer pitch and benefitting from its popularity to polish their tarnish image, Algeria is among the most advanced in encouraging the emergence of soccer as a professional sport. As a result of the regime's reduced involvement in the sport, soccer fans have a tacit understanding with authorities under which they can say what they like as long as they keep their protests confined to the stadium.
"It’s not so much our slogans that worry the authorities, it’s how many of us there are. For example, when riots erupted in the Algiers neighborhood of Bab el-Oued earlier this year, the Algerian Football Federation temporarily suspended matches. They did this because they were worried that if the police couldn’t control a few dozen youths in the street, they certainly wouldn’t be able to control 60,000 football fans leaving a stadium. I think that the authorities don't actually have a problem with our chants: if we get our anger out inside the stadium, then that’s it, we don’t cause any trouble outside," Amine T. said.
"The chanting of the fans in stadia has continued to replicate the political situation," adds Loughborough University professor Mahfoud Amara, writing in the July edition of The Journal of North African Studies. "Football is becoming one of the few (allowed) spaces for people to express their frustrations overt the socio-economic and political conditions.”
The question is whether the Algerian government will continue to tolerate the stadium protests as its neighbors forge their way towards a more open society and how much longer the protesters will accept being confined to the stadium. Discontent with the government is already spilling out of the stadiums with small protests occurring on a daily scale over the lack of water, housing, electricity or calling for higher wages. A quarter of the population lives under the poverty line and unemployment is rampant.
"The country is on the edge of an explosion, the regime has only held on by spending billions, but for how long? This is just a postponement," said Sherif Arbi, a pro-democracy activist.
President Bouteflika has long justified his repressive regime with the fight against Al Qaeda’s affiliate in northwest Africa, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. That argument is rapidly wearing thin. For the Islamists, Algeria constitutes an opportunity not only to further spread their wings but also to further demonstrate that pluralism has become an integral part of their political reality.
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
Somali jihadists focus on banning women's sports rather than famine
By James M. Dorsey
While Al Qaeda is projecting a kinder, gentler image by distributing aid to famine... more
By James M. Dorsey
While Al Qaeda is projecting a kinder, gentler image by distributing aid to famine victims, its local Somali affiliate, the Al Shabab, are ensuring strict adherence to a five-year old ban on women's sports.
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 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 with Al Qaeda and other militant Islamist groups such as Palestine's Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah with regard to the importance and the role
of sports in Islamist ideology and strategy.
Al Qaeda and Al Shabab represent two sides of 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.
Nonetheless, in a break with its indiscriminate shedding of bloodhuman life, Al Qaeda recently sent a representative to a camp of Somali refugees fleeing the famine in their tortured country to distribute humanitarian aid.
Already wracked by an Islamist insurgency whose leaders differ little in with Afghanistan's Taliban, Somalia recently has also been hit by a famine that is worst in areas controlled by the Al Shabab, which five years ago aligned itself with Al Qaeda. The United Nations estimates that thousands have already died in the famine and that some 750,000 more could lose their lives in the coming months.
As a result, Al Qaeda's distribution of aid throws into sharp relief, Al Shabab's refusal to allow Western air groups to help alleviate suffering and its effort instead to ensure adherence to its strict precepts that not only ban women's sports, but soccer for men as well as women as well as bras and music.
The contradictions were most evident when Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri's representative, Ali Abdulla Al Muhajir, recently presided over the distribution of mounds of grain, powdererd milk and dates in an Al Shabab-run camp on the outskirts of marked. The food was marked “Al Qaeda campaign on behalf of Martyr Bin Laden. Charity relief for those affected by the drought," Mr. Al Muhajir told his starving listeners: “Our beloved brothers and sisters in Somalia, we are following your situation on a daily basis.”
Speaking in American-accented English, Mr. Al Muhajir said the aid had been purchased by "brothers in Al Qaeda" who although separated from the refugees by thousands of kilometres had them "consistently in our thoughts and prayers.”
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.
Much like they did with soccer officials, Al Shabab operatives have begun threatening women basketball players with death if they fail to give up the sport. The focus on basketball is 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.
Somali national women's basketball team captain Suweys Ali Jama is one of their 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 recently told InterPress Service.
Ms. Jama's deputy, Aisha Mohammed, whose mother once played for the national team, has 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."
Together with the national soccer team, Ms. Jama and Ms. Mohammed's basketball team trains behind the bullet-ridden walls surrounding the Somali police academy. Dressed in loose fitting tracksuits, T-shirts and headscarves, women players sprint across the court in the presence of hundreds of policemen. They leave the academy covered to return home from training as a safety measure.
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.
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 Singapore's Nanyang Technological University and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.