Qatari Olympic women athletes spotlight Wahhabi schism
By James M. Dorsey
The question for Qatari sprinter Noor al-Malki is not whether she will be part of the... more
By James M. Dorsey
The question for Qatari sprinter Noor al-Malki is not whether she will be part of the first group of Qatari women to ever compete in a global sports tournament at the 2012 London Olympics but how she will handle the fact that the competition will take place during Ramadan.
The question whether Ms. Al-Malki would be able to compete was resolved when Qatar, alongside Saudi Arabia and Brunei the only nation never to have been represented by women in a global sporting event, decided last year to allow women to compete in the London Olympics.
The decision was the result of Qatar’s concerted effort to become a sports power and mounting international pressure on the International Olympic Committee (IOC), not to allow countries to compete that discriminate against athletes on the basis of gender.
It saved Qatar, already threatened with a global trade union campaign against its hosting of the 2022 World Cup because of the conditions under which it employs foreign labour, from becoming the target of yet another attack on its reputation, already dented by controversy over its successful campaign to win the right to host the World Cup. The bruising debate over the soccer tournament bid contributed to the International Olympic Committee’s decision to eliminate Qatar as a candidate for the 2020 Olympics.
The debate also highlights the major divide among Wahhabis, followers of 18th century puritan warrior priest Mohammed Abdul Wahhab, with Saudi Arabia, the only other country besides Qatar with a majority Wahhabi population, and the IOC still struggling barely two months before the opening of the London Olympics to find a formula that would circumvent the kingdom’s conservative opposition to women’s participation.
A Human Rights Watch report released in February, called on Saudi Arabia to protect women's equal right to sports and urged the IOC to live up to its charter, which prohibits discrimination, or face a ban similar to that imposed on Afghanistan in 1999 partly for its exclusion of female athletes.
For Ms. Al-Malki, the Qatari decision means that she is grappling beyond wanting to perform at the London Olympics with the requirement to fast during the 30 days of Ramadan during which the tournament will be held. If the decision to allow women to compete may have been difficult because of mounting conservative opposition to Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani’s liberal policies designed to position his tiny gas-rich Gulf state on the world map, resolving the issue of Ramadan coinciding with the Olympics is easy.
While Islamic law does not grant athletes dispensation from fasting during Ramadan, it does allow travellers to break the fast during their journey provided they catch up once they return home. Ms. Al-Malki will be travelling during the Olympics.
That is a luxurious position to be in compared to her Saudi counterparts who still do not know whether they will be going to London. Initial Saudi suggestions that the kingdom would for the first time send female athletes to the Olympics were dashed when Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud declared in April that “female sports activity has not existed (in the kingdom) and there is no move thereto in this regard. At present, we are not embracing any female Saudi participation in the Olympics or other international championships.”
The IOC has rejected Saudi suggestions that Saudi women living abroad be allowed to compete under the Olympic flag rather than as part of the official Saudi delegation.
"It's not an easy situation. There is a commitment. We're working steadily with them to find a good solution,” conceded IOC President Jacques Rogge at a recent news conference. "We are continuing to discuss with them, and the athletes are trying (to qualify). We would hope they will qualify in due time for the games."
With few Saudi women athletes likely to qualify for the Olympics, the IOC has gone out of its way to encourage participation by suggesting that they would be exempted from qualifying standards and granted entry under special circumstances.
Saudi women participation appears however increasingly unlikely with conservative opposition making it difficult for the government to back down at a time that it is rallying the wagons to shield itself against the wave of anti-government protests in the Middle East and North Africa that has already sparked increased political activism and mobilisation in the kingdom. At his news conference, Mr. Rogge declined to discuss possible penalties if the kingdom refused to include women in its Olympic team.
The Saudi government has recently employed the clergy to condemn the protests that have already toppled the autocratic leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen and brought Syria to the brink of civil war, which, according to some, are the result of the mingling of the sexes in sports.
Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Sheikh denounced the protests earlier this month as sinful. "The schism, instability, the malfunctioning of security and the breakdown of unity that Islamic countries are facing these days is a result of the sins of the public and their transgressions," Sheikh Abdulaziz said.
Such sins include, according to Imam Abu Abdellah of As-Sunnah mosque in Kissimee, Florida, speaking in a video posted on the Internet, the mixing of the sexes at sports events. “In the past it was only men, now it is almost half half (in stadiums). Allah knows what happens afterwards. Either way it is bad. Either people go out, they are sensing and partying and drinking and all that, so that’s negative. And if they don’t, they go out and they demonstrate and they’re angry and they destroy property and they destroy cars and they destroy people’s business. Either way its haram (forbidden), things have to be done in moderation,” Abu Abedallah said.
Sheikh Abdullah bin Suleiman Al Manei, a member of the Gulf Kingdom’s supreme scholars committee and an advisor to King Abdullah warned that “the spread of such (bad) acts on play fields is a clear indicator of a decline in moral values and the transformation of sport from fair competition into bigotry.”
James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a consultant to geopolitical consulting firm Wikistrat.
Grievances Against the GOP from a (former?) Republican Woman by Katie German
Originally posted on the Feminism and Religion Project
This article is cross-posted at Confessions of a Thinking Woman.
I was raised in a conservative, Republican, military family. I support personal freedom and personal responsibility. I... more
I was raised in a conservative, Republican, military family. I support personal freedom and personal responsibility. I support the military. I support a balanced budget. I support individual rights and the constitution. I support small government. But I find myself increasingly separated from the Republican Party, and this is why:
I cannot align myself with a party that repeatedly acts to restrict the rights of women, to deny women protection from abuse and violence, and to trample the rights of women to make their own medical decisions. I cannot support a party where individual rights and freedoms are only protected for people with a penis (so long as they are not gay).
Advancing International Criminal Law. The Special Court for Sierra Leone Recognizes Forced Marriage as a ‘New’ Crime against Humanity
published in Journal of International Criminal Justice 6 (2008), 1033-1042
The Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) in Brima, Kamara and Kanu recognized that forced... more
The Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) in Brima, Kamara and Kanu recognized that forced marriages may amount to crimes against humanity, falling under the sub-heading of ‘other inhumane acts’. This decision is to
be welcomed because the practice of forced marriage is not adequately described by existing categories of sexual crimes. As forced conjugality results in particular psychological and moral suffering for the victims, it is argued that this heinous
practice may be more appropriately pursued as a separate crime, under a definition that describes the entirety and complexity of the criminal conduct. The SCSL decision
may also be important for its impact on the activities of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The widespread practice of forced marriage presently features in all the situations being investigated by the ICC and the inclusion in the ICC
Statute of the offence of forced marriage as a separate crime against humanity could be discussed during the Review Conference in 2009.
Download (.pdf) AFC puts Iran on the spot on women’s rights
By James M. Dorsey
Iranian women soccer fans have set their hopes on the Asian Football Confederation (AFC)... more
By James M. Dorsey
Iranian women soccer fans have set their hopes on the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to return them to the terraces after having been banned from stadiums for years to prevent them from looking at men’s bodies.
The women expect the AFC’s insistence that Iran adhere to the Asian soccer body’s standards when it hosts this fall the AFC Under-16 Championship to grant them access to matches during the tournament but would like to see that spark a permanent lifting of the ban imposed after the overthrow of the Shah in 1979.
"So far as AFC is concerned, there should be no sex discrimination regarding the presence of men and women at stadiums," AFC Director of National Team competition Shin Mangal was quoted as saying by Shiite news agency Shafaqna.
The AFC said it had received assurances from Ali Kaffashian, the head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Football Federation (IRIFF) that it would comply with AFC regulations.
The AFC quoted Mr. Kaffashian as saying at the drawing of the groups for the tournament that the IRIFF is “fully ready to follow all the requirements and instructions from AFC.” The Iranian soccer boss repeated his position in remarks to Iranian reformist newspaper Sharq.
In an editorial the newspaper said "the youth championships could create a great change in Iranian football. They are an excellent opportunity."
The IRIFF’s apparent willingness to counter Iranian policy and adhere to international standards has sparked significant domestic debate that pits conservatives against liberals.
Proponents of a permanent lifting of the ban are weakened by a power struggle within Iran’s soccer elite.
Two proponents of lifting the ban are at each other’s throats.
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an avid soccer fan who at times micromanages the affairs of the IRIFF and six years ago unsuccessfully attempted to lift the ban, is trying to get Mr. Kaffashian’s re-election in March as head of the Iranian soccer body annulled by the courts.
Mr. Ahmadinejad’s attorney general has argued that Mr. Kaffashian could not hold public office as a former civil servant even though that was not an issue four years ago when he was first elected with the president’s backing.
Mr. Ahmadinejad turned against Mr. Kaffashian because Iranian soccer has failed to perform internationally under his leadership. The president had hoped to shore up his tarnished image and dropping popularity by associating himself with the country’s most popular sport. For that tactic to work, he needed a soccer success that Mr. Kaffashian failed to deliver.
In effect, Mr. Kaffashian is the fall guy for the failure of successive national coaches to deliver performance even though Mr. Ahmadinejad took a direct interest in their appointment. The coaches failed to take Iran to the 2010 World Cup finals or triumph in the 2011 Asian Cup. Iran still stands a chance for qualifying for the 2014 Brazil World Cup but that will do Mr. Ahmadinejad little good after his supporters were trounced in parliamentary elections in March.
Mr. Ahamdinejad, however, also turned against Mr. Kaffashian because the soccer pitch on Mr. Kaffashian’s watch has repeatedly in Tehran and Tabriz, the capital of East Azerbaijan, has become a venue for protest against his government. The government, aware that the pitch was an important incubator of the revolt that toppled Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and has played a role in popular revolts elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa, last year suspended soccer matches in Tehran during celebrations of the anniversary of the Islamic revolution.
While Iran is almost certain to comply with AFC rules to ensure that it does not lose the hosting of the games, more difficult will be turning the breaching of the wall into its destruction. It would not be the first time that Iran opportunistically complies with international soccer requirements only to return its discriminatory practice afterwards. Iran allowed women into the stadium during World Cup qualifiers played in the country in 2007 but maintained the ban for all other matches.
"Women looking at a man's body, even if not for the sake of gratification, is inappropriate. Furthermore, Islam insists that men and women should not mix," said Grand Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani back in 2006 when Mr. Ahmadinejad failed to get the ban lifted permanently.
Mr. Ahmadinejad’s effort was in part sparked by the fact that significant numbers of Iranian women were succeeding to circumvent the ban by sneaking into stadiums dressed as men.
The practice attracted attention when Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi won international acclaim for his documentary Offside that tells the story of a group of young girls who dress up as boys to pass through stadium gates only to be detained. A second more recent movie, Shirin Was A Canary, recounts the tale of a girl who is expelled from school for her love of soccer.
James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a consultant to geopolitical consulting firm Wikistrat.
Politics and Gender: Advancing Female Political Participation in the Kingdom of Bahrain
Paper presented at the Political Socialization and the Emerging Political Actors in in the Middle East Conference, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland, 18-20 May 2011
The aim of this paper is to assess the prospects of women empowerment in politics in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Due to... more
The aim of this paper is to assess the prospects of women empowerment in politics in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Due to the social, economic and political changes experienced in Bahrain at the beginning of the 21st century, women's role in society has been constantly growing; their role in politics however lags behind.
Female participation in society is a new phenomenon in the Gulf region and it requires an in-depth analysis. It has been observed that the unprecedented economic boom in the 1970’s did not really open doors for female participation in Bahrain's society. In the 1970’s women made up only for 4 % of total workforce in Bahrain (Supreme Council for Women, 2001). Ross (2008) argued that oil rentierism is the cause of limited economic and political participation of women in the Middle East. Oil industry requires male labor and reduces female activity in the workforce. Consequently, women concentrate on running the households, which leads to higher fertility rates and limits possibilities of information exchange and thus political organization. In 2008, female participation in workforce rose to around 30% (Dunne, 2008). Fertility rates dropped from 7.09 children per woman rate in 1960’s to 2.29 in 2007 (World Bank, 2009). Women accounted for 70% of all university graduates (Bahrain Economic Development Board, 2009). It is no surprise that with better education and more prominent role in economics, female aspirations in the field of politics are on the rise. Furthermore governmental policies aim at reinforcing the position of women in society.
Women emancipation has been an important part in the governmental agenda as part of a broader strategy of development of the country, branded as Economic Vision 2030. In 2002 women were granted universal suffrage as well as the right to stand for elections to the lower house of the Bahrain Parliament. Women were subsequently appointed in high public offices. Cabinets in 2002 and 2006 included women as minister of health, minister of social affairs and minister of culture and information. Women were also appointed in the Shura Council, the upper chamber of the Parliament. In 2000 first woman represented Bahrain as ambassador. Establishment of the Supreme Council for Women in 2001 also marked the importance of women empowerment. This governmental organization advisory to the king, aims at improvement of skills of women, creation of job opportunities as well as promotion of awareness programs among women.
A slowly growing grassroot movement includes women's non-governmental associations as well as individual activists. Bahrain Businesswomen’s Society, Bahrain Women's Association for Human Development, Bahrain Women’s Association or Women’s Petition Committee aim at promotion of gender equality but also, in the case of three latter cases, protection from unjust treatment and abuse.
Based on the analysis of the 2002, 2006 and 2010 municipal and parliamentary elections, we observe however a number of factors, which account for poor results of female candidates in general elections. These are, between the others, patriarchal societal structure, impact of religion as well as reluctance of major political parties to endorse female candidates in general elections. Until now only one woman managed to secure a parliamentary seat in 2006 and in 2010; both times she was however running uncontested in her district. The first female municipal candidate was elected only in 2010.
In this paper we analize the impact of governmental policies as well as the activity of women's NGOs and women's grassroots movement and provide scenarios of possible change of societal attitudes that would allow a greater female participation in politics.
Bibliography
BAHRAIN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT BOARD (BEDB). (2009). Bahrain leads the way in building capabilities of women. Retrieved January 6, 2010, from www.bahrainedb.com
DUNNE, M. (n.d.). Women's Political Participation in the Gulf: A Conversation with Activists Fatin Bundagji (Saudi Arabia), Rola Dashti (Kuwait), Munira Fakhro (Bahrain). Retrieved December 11, 2009, from Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Web site: http://www.carnegieendowment.org/
ROSS, M. L. (2008). Oil, Islam, and women. American Political Science Review, 102(1),107-123.
SUPREME COUNCIL FOR WOMEN. (2001). Statistics on Bahraini Women. Bahrain: SCW.
WORLD BANK (2009). World Bank Development Indicators. Washington: The World Bank.
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The Rhetoric of Freedom of Religion in the Debate about Contraception Coverage By Elise M. Edwards
Originally published on the Feminism and Religion project
Does freedom of religion include the right to impose your religious views on your employees? Should freedom of... more
Does freedom of religion include the right to impose your religious views on your employees? Should freedom of religion exempt you from financially contributing to a medical benefit for your employees that you consider sinful?
According to an Associated Baptist Press article, Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, “called a new rule [by the Obama Administration] requiring insurance plans to cover birth control — including those paid for by religious employers that believe artificial birth control is a sin — a ‘horrible decision’ that poses a problem not just for faiths that object to birth control” in the January 28 broadcast of Richard Land Live. Land believes that this policy infringes on religious freedom. (Note that the health care policy does exempt houses of worship and religious organizations that employ primarily those of the same faith, but not organizations like hospitals and colleges that employ and serve people of all faiths, or no faith. An article by Religion News Service, posted here, also on a Baptist media outlet, explains the policy in more depth.)
Christianity and the Rights of Women
In John Witte, Jr., and Frank Alexander, eds., Christianity and Human Rights: An Introduction (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 302-319.
Christianity, like other religious traditions, has often had an ambivalent relationship to women’s rights. While some... more Christianity, like other religious traditions, has often had an ambivalent relationship to women’s rights. While some passages in the New Testament prescribe for women a posture of submission, subjection, silence, and subordination, others hold out the tantalizing prospect of equality. When it comes to the rights of women, Christianity is rife with dualities of subordination and liberation, equality and difference, sacrifice and virtue, creation and redemption. In this chapter, I provide a brief historical overview how Christian women, both comfortably ensconced and sometimes alienated from the tradition, have addressed, resisted, and reconciled these tensions. I relate these historical struggles to the ongoing evolution of women’s rights in the international human rights frameworks established in the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1981, the International Conference on Population and Development at Cairo in 1994, and the Fourth World Conference on Women at Beijing in 1995. From these historical and contemporary tensions between Christianity and the human rights of women, I distill some key tensions in the relationship between Christianity and women’s rights that continue to be present, even as Christian women around the world today are advocating both for women’s rights and wider frameworks of “third generation” human rights with the potential to benefit all humanity.
FELIU, L. "Feminism, Gender Inequality and the Reform of the Mudawana in Morocco", The Scientific Journal of Humanistic Studies, Year 4, no. 6, March 2012, pp. 101-111.
During the last decades, Moroccan women have turned into important agents of change in front of a situation of... more During the last decades, Moroccan women have turned into important agents of change in front of a situation of discrimination and social injustice. The analysis of the struggle focused on the legislative reform of the Mudawana shows: First, the representatives of the Moroccan feminism choose to accept a series of traditional values and cultural identities as a legitimate frame of reference, specially the one referent to the Islamic frame. Second, the division between secular or Islamic feminism does not endure a rigid differentiation between an emancipatory program and a continuism in "tradition". Third, the question of the reform of the Mudawana has been highly politicized both by the State agents and by all kinds of political and social movements. And finally, the struggle for the emancipation of women cannot dissociate from the general struggle for democratization in politics and in the set of society.
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Saudi imams warn against mixing of sports, politics and protest
By James M. Dorsey
Saudi and ultra-conservative imams have warned in separate statements against the mixing... more
By James M. Dorsey
Saudi and ultra-conservative imams have warned in separate statements against the mixing of sports and politics and protests against autocratic regimes, which, according to some, results from of the mingling of the sexes in sports.
The warnings come against the backdrop of Saudi efforts to shield the Gulf from the wave of popular uprisings sweeping the Middle East and North Africa, renewed focus on the role of militant soccer fans opposing military rule in Egypt and pressure on the kingdom to allow women to compete for the first time in an international tournament during the London Olympics.
Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Sheikh quoted in the kingdom's Al Watan newspaper warned that the protests that have already toppled the leaders of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen and brought Syria to the brink of civil war were sinful. "The schism, instability, the malfunctioning of security and the breakdown of unity that Islamic countries are facing these days is a result of the sins of the public and their transgressions," Sheikh Abdulaziz said.
Such sins include, according to Imam Abu Abdellah of As-Sunnah mosque in Kissimee, Florida, speaking in a video posted on the Internet, the mixing of the sexes at sports events. “In the past it was only men, now it is almost half half (in stadiums). Allah knows what happens afterwards. Either way it is bad. Either people go out, they are sensing and partying and drinking and all that, so that’s negative. And if they don’t, they go out and they demonstrate and they’re angry and they destroy property and they destroy cars and they destroy people’s business. Either way its haram (forbidden), things have to be done in moderation. These are the things that are associated with sports that the believers have to be careful with,” Abu Abedallah said.
“So there is nothing wrong with watching and practicing your favourite sport as long as you adhere to the norms. When it comes to the way you dress and the way you behave, where you’re going to be, what are you going to be listening to; are you going to be mingling in crowds you are not supposed to be mingling with? All of those things do matter when you are practicing or you are watching your favourite sport,” the imam said.
The clerics’ statements came as Saudi Arabia prepares for a summit of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in which it hopes to foist closer political and military cooperation on its largely reluctant co-members Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and the UAE. Bahrain, which last year brutally squashed with Saudi assistance an uprising against its minority Sunni Muslin rulers, is likely to be the only GCC state to fully endorse the notion of a political union.
The statements also come as International Olympics Committee president Jacques Rogge is under pressure to make good on his pledges earlier this year to stand for gender equality by banning Saudi Arabia from this year’s London Olympics if it fails to field women athletes. A Human Rights Watch report released in February, called on Saudi Arabia to protect women's equal right to sports and urged the IOC to live up to its charter, which prohibits discrimination, or face a ban similar to that imposed on Afghanistan in 1999 partly for its exclusion of female athletes.
With Qatar and Brunei expected to have women athletes for the first time this year in their delegations, Saudi Arabia would be the only country in the world that still refuses to allow women to compete. The kingdom has recently hinted that it would not stand against Saudi women living abroad competing, but would not field athletes from the kingdom itself.
In separate statements, two Saudi religious scholars admonished soccer players that bad behaviour could lead to a ban on public attendance of matches. It was not immediately clear what incidents of bad behaviour they were referring to.
Sheikh Abdullah bin Suleiman Al Manei, a member of the Gulf Kingdom’s supreme scholars committee and an advisor to King Abdullah warned that “the spread of such (bad) acts on play fields is a clear indicator of a decline in moral values and the transformation of sport from fair competition into bigotry. The continuation of these bad phenomena which pose a threat to the ethical values of our sons makes the attendance of these matches a hateful thing. This means that going to these matches could become prohibited because what is happening there has a strong negative impact on the society.”
In a statement of his own, Sheikh Abdullah Al Mutlaq, another member of the supreme committee, denounced players for allegedly faking incidents in a bid to get a referee to award a penalty in their team’s favour. “These are acts of deception, which is hated and forbidden in Islam…..the sin becomes worse when the player swears by Allah falsely…players should refrain from such wrong acts as they have become a bad example for the young generation,” Sheikh Al Mutlaq said without reference to specific incidents.
James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a consultant to geopolitical consulting firm Wikistrat.
Patients' rights, caregivers' dilemmas
by Reuben Wong
Published in 'CENTRES' (Centre for Biomedical Ethics, NUS) newsletter, 11, March 2012, pp.8-9. (From Training Session for Kandang Kerbau Hospital “Management of Menstrual Problem for young female patient with intellectual disability” workshop, 24 November 2011).
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"We Couldn't Just Throw Her in the Street": Gendered Violence and Women's Shelters in Turkey
by Kim Shively
Published as a chapter in Anthropology at the Front Lines of Gendered-Based Violence, Jennifer R. Wies and Hillary J. Haldane, eds. pp. 71-90. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.
This chapter discusses the success and limitations of the Turkish state shelter system for victims of domestic... more
This chapter discusses the success and limitations of the Turkish state shelter system for victims of domestic violence. The chapter aims to demonstrate how these shelters are explicitly and implicitly based on a notion of domestic/gendered violence that is broader than in Western conceptions. In Turkey, the new laws and institutions established to deal with domestic violence have largely been borrowed from European precedents in a process of “transplantation” – a strategy Sally Engel Merry has outlined in her book Human Rights and Gender Violence. Due to pressure from the European Union accession process that has required Turkey to match its legal system to European standards, the importation of domestic violence/gender violence laws into Turkish Civil and Penal Codes has been relatively successful – that is, follows the European models closely. The chapter traces the rewriting of the Civil and Penal codes in recent Turkish history to show how the legal standards have changed in favor of women who are victims of domestic violence. Unlike the legal code amendment process, though, the chapter argues that the transplantation of the institutional models, in particular the state women’s shelters, has been a much more complicated procedure. Based on research conducted in state women’s shelters in Izmir Province, Turkey, in 2004, 2006 and 2007, I discuss the fact that most residents of the state shelters have not fled forms of intimate partner violence. Thus, the shelters do not function primarily as “battered women’s” shelters, as are the European institutions they are modeled on. Rather, the shelters most often deal with women who are suffering from more generalized, structural forms of gendered violence, such as exclusion from education and the means of economic independence, and from a shortage of institutions that serve the needs of poor women. In sum, while the Turkish shelters may fall short of Western expectations in that only 10% of the residents are victims of intimate partner violence, they serve the needs of women who suffer from gendered violence in its broadest sense.
Do Man-Made Laws Trump the Authority of Jesus? Reflecting on the Meaning of Humility, Priestly Service, and the Issue of Women’s Ordination by Michele Stopera Freyhauf
Originially published on the Feminism and Religion Project
Maundy Thursday – the imitation of Jesus’ act of service and submission is re-created. Controversy surrounds the... more
Maundy Thursday – the imitation of Jesus’ act of service and submission is re-created. Controversy surrounds the “disciples” – must they be all men? Are women allowed? Who steps into Jesus’ role? Men, women, or both? Why, when it comes to imitating the act of humility and priestly service (rooted in our baptismal call), does a distinction of gender need to made at all?
As I progressed towards the intersection, I looked up to witness a grand procession of men dressed in white albs with stoles that often contained subtle hints of gold, worn in a manner to distinguish their role as priests and deacons. They moved slowly down the sidewalk entering the Cathedral to begin their celebration of the Chrism Mass – a celebration of priesthood and priestly service within the Diocese where all priests and deacons gather to celebrate and re-affirm their commitment to ministry and service to the Church. It is also during this Mass that the oils used in sacramental celebrations, used by each church, are blessed by the Bishop.
Married Women’s Citizenship in the United States for a Century and a Half: An Overview
by Journal of Research on Women and Gender
Bruce H. Seger, Esq., University of Bridgeport and Suffolk County Community College
The bias against independent citizenship for married women in America was evident
from the first major... more
The bias against independent citizenship for married women in America was evident
from the first major Naturalization Act of 1790 to the 1907 Expatriation Act which took
over a decade to repeal. For a century and a half after the Independence of the American
Colonies from Great Britain, laws and policies in the United States continued to be
influenced by British derivative law with some unique American interpretation. The
ideology of John Locke concerning the ideals of subjugation and the tenets of marital
British law regarding coverture and legal rights of married women professed by Sir
William Blackstone laid the groundwork for America’s view of married women’s
citizenship. The subsequent naturalization acts based on these ideologies and the failed
court cases attempting to reverse these laws allowed for the passage of the Expatriation
Act of 1907 which forced married women to forfeit their United States citizenship due to
the ethnicity and/or race of their husbands. Although the Cable Act of 1922 gave the
opportunity of individual citizenship for married women, it provided it inequitably. It
wasn’t until more than a decade after the Cable Act that some of the deficiencies of the
Act were revised. The inequities were recognized by some who prior to and throughout
this period, as a result of their writings and court cases, highlighted the unequal treatment
of married women, but the resistance, inertness and agendas of American leaders
continued. It was not until the middle of the 20th Century that many of the inequities were
corrected. This paper examines the provisions and ramifications of the major federal acts
and laws affecting citizenship of married women, their possible historical intent, and the
writings, testimonies and court cases of individuals who brought to the fore awareness of
the inequalities of married women’s citizenship.
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Egyptian feminists challenge militant soccer fan chauvinism
By James M. Dorsey
An Egyptian feminist group has challenged militant soccer fans that played a key role in... more
By James M. Dorsey
An Egyptian feminist group has challenged militant soccer fans that played a key role in toppling president Hosni Mubarak to recognise women's rights to unrestricted protest.
The challenge exposes conservatism that is deeply rooted in Egyptian society and cuts across ideological, cultural and religious fault lines. It lays bare differing interpretations of concepts such as diversity, freedom and faith and highlights a battle by women who were prominent in the campaign to overthrow Mr. Mubarak to have their rights recognised in post-revolt Egypt.
The women confront a conservatism that pervades the Middle East and North Africa as illustrated by the recent creation of a soccer league in the United Arab Emirates that allows women to play behind closed doors in the absence of men as well as Saudi Arabia's struggle with the International Olympic Committee's demand that it include women among its athletes at this year's London Olympics.
UAE and Kuwaiti royals joined prominent foreign representatives this week at a two day conference to encourage women’s participants in sports and the launch of the Fatima Bint Mubarak Women's Sports Awards, named after the third wife of the founder of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who heads the Family Development Foundation.
Egyptian women are battling to have their rights acknowledged on two fronts: recognition by their often socially conservative revolutionary male counterparts as well as Egypt's post-Mubarak military rulers who have systematically humiliated detained women protesters by subjecting them to virginity tests. A court this week acquitted a military doctor who conducted the tests.
More secular Egyptian women fear that the rise of Islamists further threatens achievement of their rights. Islamists have dissolved the Women's Council, charging that it was a creation of Suzanne Mubarak, the ousted president's widely despised wife. Islamist members of parliament have also proposed the establishment of a family ministry that would operate in accordance with Islamic law and roll back legal advances introduced by the Mubarak regime.
The feminists issued their challenge in response to a decision by the ultras -- militant, highly politicised, soccer fans -- to allow women to participate in their 16-day old sit-in in front of parliament only during daytime and to ban them at night starting from 22:00.
The ultras are demanding justice for 74 of their comrades who died in a soccer brawl in the Suez Canal city of Port Said that they believe was instigated by the government in retaliation for their role in the ousting of Mr. Mubarak and their militant opposition to his military successors.
In a statement quoted on the Egyptian news website Bikya Masr, the Independent Egyptian Women's Union said that those "who carry the flame of liberty against the oppressive powers should respect it first." They said that their understanding of diversity and faith ruled out restricting women's right to protest.
The battle for women's rights is one that is being waged by different women's groups -- secular and religious -- whose definition of women’s rights varies both among Middle Eastern and North African groups as well as Western ones.
Western groups objected last month to a decision by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) to allow observant Muslim women to wear a headdress that meets their religious and cultural requirements as well as safety and security standards.
The decision by the IFAB, which governs the rules of professional soccer, was intended to open opportunity to a large number of observant Muslim women who had been excluded from a professional career because of what they saw as a conflict between the rules of their faith and the rules of the game.
The conservatism is most deep-seated in Saudi Arabia, home to Wahhabism, one of the world's most puritan and restrictive interpretations of Islam that allows women to travel abroad only with the permission of a male guardian and bans them from driving. The kingdom, under threat of exclusion from the London Olympics if it fails to field women athletes and pressured by human rights groups has responded publicly with a series of test balloons on how to respond.
Saudi officials first leaked a story earlier this year about a plan to build the kingdom’s first stadium especially designed to accommodate women who are currently barred from attending soccer matches because of the kingdom’s strict public gender segregation. The planned stadium was supposed to open in 2014. Saudi media subsequently reported that the plan had been shelved.
Deputy education minister for female student affairs Noura al-Fayez said in two letters addressed to Human Rights Watch that the government was working to set up a “comprehensive physical education programme”, including sports facilities and a health and nutrition awareness scheme “as part of its national strategy for physical education for boys and girls”, according to the daily al-Watan newspaper. Ms. Al-Fayez said physical education for girls was under consideration “as one of the priorities of the ministry's leadership”.
The letters didn’t stop Human Rights Watch from accusing Saudi Arabia in a report of kowtowing to assertions by the country's powerful conservative Muslim clerics that female sports constitute "steps of the devil" that will encourage immorality and reduce women's chances of meeting the requirements for marriage.
The kingdom’s toothless Shura or Advisory Council moreover issued regulations for women's sports clubs, but conservative religious forces often have the final say in whether they are implemented or not. Saudi Arabia’s official sports body, the General Presidency of Youth Welfare, presided by a member of the royal family, Prince Nawaf Bin Faisal, only caters to men. As a result, the kingdom last year hired a consultant to develop its first national sports plan - for men only.
Al Hayat newspaper, owned by a Saudi royal, reported last month that Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud had approved plans to send female athletes to the London Olympics. That report was quickly squashed with the media quoting Prince Nayef as reversing his statement.
Prince Nawaf subsequently went a step further by telling a news conference: “Female sports activity has not existed (in the kingdom) and there is no move thereto in this regard. At present, we are not embracing any female Saudi participation in the Olympics or other international championships.”
Despite Saudi women in the kingdom pushing the envelope by forming private clubs of their own, Prince Nawaf asserted that the demand for women’s participation came from Saudi women living abroad. He said the kingdom would work to ensure that expatriate Saudi women seeking to compete in the Olympics on their own account rather than as official delegates would do so “in the appropriate framework and comported with Islamic law.” He said he was working with the Saudi mufti and religious scholars to guarantee that nothing “infringed upon the Muslim woman.”
Saudi Arabia adopted a similar approach at the Youth Olympics in 2010 where Saudi equestrian participated without official endorsement and won a bronze medal in show jumping. It was not immediately clear whether the approach would this time be sufficient to remove the IOC’s threat of excluding the kingdom from the Olympics.
The evident debate about women’s rights to sports is part of a far broader discussion about the position of women in Saudi society. In an unusually frank interview with the BBC, Princess Basma Bint Saud Bin Abdulaziz lambasted the kingdom’s discriminatory policies and called for the drafting of a constitution that would treat men and women equally as well as sweeping reforms, including “abusive” divorce laws, an education system that teaches “that a woman's position in society is inferior” and "that the angels will curse her if she is not submissive to her husband's needs," and a social affairs ministry that “is tolerating cruelty towards women rather than protecting them.”
To be sure the conservatism that inhibits women’s rights has support among conservative segments of the Middle East and North Africa’s female population. Three Emirate women, have launched, according to a report in The National, a behind closed doors soccer league in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the far more liberal UAE alongside the country’s national women’s team because they had no opportunity to play in an environment that banned men.
"There are some girls that don't mind playing in front of men. But there is a huge percentage of Emirati women who can't play in front of men because of cultural reasons. Those in the community who want to play the sport after university don't have a place to go. It's all open and there isn't really a place for the sport to be developed," said government employee Mariam Al Omaira, a founding partner of Irada (Determination) Sports Development Company.
The league has 84 players spread over six teams.
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.
Making an American Feminist Icon: Mary Wollstonecraft’s Reception in US Newspapers, 1800-1869
History of Political Thought, forthcoming
This article examines Mary Wollstonecraft's public reception in American newspapers from 1800 to 1869. Wollstonecraft... more This article examines Mary Wollstonecraft's public reception in American newspapers from 1800 to 1869. Wollstonecraft was portrayed to the American public as a philosopher of women’s rights, a new model of femininity, and a pioneer of women’s political activism. Although these iconic uses of Wollstonecraft were regularly negative, they grew more positive as the women’s rights movement gained steam alongside the abolition movement. This study thus shows the significance of Wollstonecraft in early representations of women’s rights issues and debates in the US, and underscores the role of journalistic media in the spread and growth of feminism.
Women’s human rights- The global intersection of gender equality, sexual and reproductive justice, and healthcare
by Journal of Research on Women and Gender
Catherine Hawkins, Texas State University-San Marcos
The need to make a concrete connection between human rights and women’s rights is ironic considering that one half of... more The need to make a concrete connection between human rights and women’s rights is ironic considering that one half of humanity is female. Gender inequality is the most pressing contemporary human rights issue, including disparities in education, employment, healthcare, power and decision-making, violence, and poverty that impact billions of women and girls from every part of the world throughout their lifetime (UN Statistical Division, 2010; UNWomen, 2011a). Despite a long and documented history of virtual “gendercide” against women and girls, this disparity has been treated as non-existent or ignored or, if acknowledged, regarded as unimportant or insignificant by the global community. Led by the United Nations (UN), there is a growing global human rights effort to redress deeply rooted gender inequality. This paper will focus on sexual and reproductive health, examining both the extent of the problem and exploring some real and potential solutions. Specific topics addressed include an overview of gender-based inequality, female reproductive justice and healthcare, a brief history of women's health rights, the UN human rights framework, current global human rights initiatives focused on women, and action taken by women human rights defenders.
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Middle East looms large at FIFA Executive Committee meeting
By James M. Dorsey
The Middle East and North Africa loom large as FIFA's executive committee meets in... more
By James M. Dorsey
The Middle East and North Africa loom large as FIFA's executive committee meets in Zurich this week against the backdrop of a call for sweeping reforms of the world soccer body that would involve investigating Qatar’s successful but controversial bid to host the 2022 World Cup, lethal violence and blatant political interference in Egyptian soccer and progress in advancing women's rights.
The call for an investigation of Qatar is believed to be one recommendation in a report by FIFA’s governance committee headed by Swiss lawyer and criminology professor Mark Pieth. The committee was created last year to propose reforms in the wake of the worst corruption scandal in the world soccer body’s 108-year old history.
Qatari national and FIFA vice president Mohammed Bin Hammam was last year banned for life from involvement in professional soccer on charges of bribery and corruption. Mr. Bin Hammam, who has denied the allegations and is fighting the ban, was the highest of several executives who were penalized or resigned to evade punishment.
Qatar, despite the downfall of Mr. Bin Hammam, evaded investigation of its World Cup bid with the backing of FIFA president Sepp Blatter notwithstanding calls for an inquiry by a British parliamentary committee as well as the former head of the German soccer federation.
Qatar, the first Middle Eastern nation to host the world’s largest sporting event, has denied allegations that it bribed members of the FIFA executive committee. The Qatari bid committee seemingly squashed charges of wrongdoing when it produced a disgruntled former employee who confessed to have forged documents leaked to the media that suggested that it had violated FIFA bid rules.
Mr. Pieth’s recommendations, if adopted by the FIFA executive committee, would then have to be approved by the soccer body’s general assembly scheduled to be held in May. The recommendations also include appointing independent directors as members of the executive committee, transparency over FIFA salaries and the creation of an external judicial body to address corruption issues. They also call for the probes of the multiple FIFA scandals in the last two years, including the awarding of the world cups to Qatar as well as Russia.
“We have looked closely at the way allegations regarding those World Cup host selections have been dealt with and we have not been satisfied with the level of investigation which has taken place,” former British attorney general Lord Goldsmith, a member of Mr. Pieth’s governance committee, told The Daily Mail.
FIFA’s tarnished credibility is similarly on the line with the blatant interference of Egypt’s military rulers in the dealings of the Egyptian Football Association (EFA) following last month’s lethal clash in a stadium in the Suez Canal city of Port Suez that left 74 people dead, mostly militant supporters of crowned Cairo club Al Ahly SC.
The Egyptian government has dismissed Mr. Blatter’s denunciation of its dismissal of the EFA board that had been appointed by the regime of ousted President Hosni Mubarak. The dismissal added insult to injury in the face of the world soccer body’s by and large long-standing refusal to fight political interference in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa.
Indeed, the government went beyond replacing the EFA board to dictating to its newly appointed protégés the penalties to be meted out to Al Ahly and Port Said’s Al Masri SC for the clash that many believe was pre-planned and designed to punish militant, highly-politicized soccer fans for their key role in the mass protests that ousted Mr. Mubarak and their opposition to his military successors.
The EFA banned Al Masri from playing in Egypt’s premier league for two seasons, one of which was cancelled as a result of the Port Said incident, and closed the city’s stadium for three years. The soccer body further instructed Al Ahly to play four matches behind closed doors and suspended the club’s Portuguese coach Manuel Jose as well as midfielder Hossam Ghaly for an equal number of games in a decision that in close coordination with Egypt’s military rulers failed to address the underlying causes of the soccer violence and satisfied no one.
Al Ahly said it would appeal the measures to FIFA and the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration of Sport and would boycott EFA competitions until the rights of the victims of Port Said have been secured. Hundreds of Al Ahly supporters are camping out in front of parliament in Cairo in support of their demand for swift justice for the perpetrators of Port Said.
Egypt’s attorney has charged 75 people, including nine security officials, in connection with the incident. Al Ahly fans noted that the security personnel appeared to be getting off lightly with charges of negligence while Al Masri supporters were the ones largely accused of murder.
The EFA ruling conformed to an earlier comment by Egyptian prime minister Kamal El-Ganzouri who last week after a meeting with senior soccer and security officials called in violation of
FIFA’s ban on political interference on the EFA to ensure that its punitive measures would “neither be lenient nor excessive.” Following the announcement of the EFA measures, Mr. Ganzouri acknowledged that the EFA had awarded Al Masri “the minimum penalty.”
The government’s approach as well as the EFA ruling reflect a refusal to address the deep-seated animosity between security forces and militant soccer fans stemming from years of almost weekly clashes in Egyptian stadiums as well as the growing frustration among youth groups and soccer fans who were at the core of last year’s popular revolt that they are being marginalized while the aims of their uprising are being shunted aside in favour of vested interests. Like in the case of Port Said, FIFA looked the other way as Egyptian soccer was increasingly politicized by the Mubarak regime and did little to halt its control of the EFA as well as of premier league clubs.
On a positive note, FIFA earlier this month backed a decision by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) to allow observant women Muslim players to wear a headdress that meets the requirements of their faith as well as safety and security standards. The campaign, spearheaded by FIFA vice president Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, a half-brother of Jordanian King Abdullah, marks one of several recent advances in securing women’s right to professional sports.
Apparently successful pressure by the International Olympic Committee on Saudi Arabia to field for the first time women athletes at this year’s Olympic Games in London raises questions about FIFA’s failure so far to do the same with regard to women’s right to play soccer in the kingdom.
International human rights group Human Rights Watch last month accused Saudi Arabia of kowtowing to assertions by the country's powerful conservative Muslim clerics that female sports constitute "steps of the devil" that will encourage immorality and reduce women's chances of meeting the requirements for marriage. In defiance of obstacles to their right to engage in sports, women have in recent years quietly been establishing soccer and other sports teams using extensions of hospitals and health clubs as their base.
The Human Rights Watch accusation followed Saudi Arabia backtracking on a plan to build its first stadium especially designed to allow women who are barred from attending soccer matches because of the kingdom’s strict public gender segregation to watch games. The planned stadium was supposed to open in 2014. It also comes as the kingdom is drafting a national sports plan – for men only.
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.
Conservative Saudi crown prince endorses female participation in Olympics
By James M. Dorsey
Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud has approved plans for the... more
By James M. Dorsey
Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud has approved plans for the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom to send female athletes to the Olympics for the first time at the London Games in a move that counters fears that he would be a less progressive ruler than ailing King Abdullah, according to Saudi-owned Al Hayat newspaper.
In doing so, Prince Nayef, the kingdom’s long-serving interior minister who is widely viewed as a conservative even by Saudi standards and is closer than the king to the country’s powerful, austere Wahhabi clergy, is bowing to pressure from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that threatened to bar Saudi Arabia from the London games if it failed to field female athletes.
The decision is likely to be welcomed by liberal Saudis who worry that once he succeeds King Abdullah he will prove to be more susceptible to demands of the clergy who adhere to the teachings of the 18th century puritan warrior-priester, Mohammed Abdul Wahhab to reverse the process of gradual political, economic and social reforms initiated by King Abdullah. In an illustration’s of the clergy’s conservatism, Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti Abd al-Aziz bin Abdullah recently called for the destruction of all churches in the Arabian Peninsula.
The decision by Prince Nayef is likely part of a concerted government effort to fend off a possible popular uprising in the kingdom similar to those sweeping large parts of the Middle East and North Africa by catering to youth sentiments and growing female demand for sporting opportunities.
Prince Nayef earned a reputation as a hardliner most recently for his crackdown on Al Qaeda militants in the kingdom. By the same token, he oversaw a largely successful rehabilitation program that guided the return to society of former Al Qaeda operatives.
Al Hayat said that Prince Nayef’s approval was conditioned on women competing in sports that "meet the standards of women's decency and don't contradict Islamic laws." It was not immediately clear which sports the crown prince had in mind.
Al Hayat reported Prince Nayef’s decision a day after the IOC reported that progress had been made in negotiations with Saudi Olympic officials on sending female athletes and officials to the games.
Saudi Arabia alongside Qatar and Brunei has never included women in its Olympic teams. IOC officials believe that Qatar and Brunei will also be fielding women athletes in London for the first time.
“The IOC is confident that Saudi Arabia is working to include women athletes and officials at the Olympic Games in London in accordance with the international federations' rules," the IOC said.
Earlier, IOC President Jacques Rogge said in an interview with The Associated Press that he was "optimistic" that Saudi Arabia would send women to London. "It depends on the possibilities of qualifications, standards of different athletes. We're still discussing the various options," Mr. Rogge said.
He said a decision would be finalized within a month to six weeks, but "we are optimistic that this is going to happen."
The apparent IOC success in nudging Saudi Arabia into complying with the committee’s charter contrasts starkly with world soccer body FIFA’s failure to hold the kingdom to its obligation. Saudi Arabia fields a men’s soccer team but restricts if not bans women’s soccer.
FIFA’s failure to pressure Saudi Arabia also contrasts with its recent effort to ensure that observant Muslim women can play professional soccer by lifting its ban on women wearing the hijab in favour of a headdress that fulfils the cultural needs of Muslim players and meets safety and security standards.
International human rights group Human Rights Watch last month accused Saudi Arabia of kowtowing to assertions by the country's powerful conservative Muslim clerics that female sports constitute "steps of the devil" that will encourage immorality and reduce women's chances of meeting the requirements for marriage.
The Human Rights Watch charges contained in a report entitled “’Steps of the Devil’ came on the heels of the kingdom backtracking on a plan to build its first stadium especially designed to allow women who are currently barred from attending soccer matches because of the kingdom’s strict public gender segregation to watch games. The planned stadium was supposed to open in 2014.
The report urged the International Olympic Committee to require Saudi Arabia to legalize women's sports as a condition for its participation in Olympic games.
Saudi women despite official discouragement have in recent years increasingly been pushing the envelope at times with the support of more liberal members of the ruling Al Saud family. The kingdom's toothless Shura or Advisory Council has issued regulations for women's sports clubs, but conservative religious forces often have the final say in whether they are implemented or not.
In a sign that efforts to allow and encourage women's sports are at best haphazard and supported only by more liberal elements in the government, the kingdom last year hired a consultant to develop its first national sports plan - for men only. There is no legal ban in on women’s sports in Saudi Arabia where the barriers for women are rooted in tradition and the kingdom’s puritan interpretation of Islamic law.
The pushing of the envelope comes as women are increasingly challenging other aspects of the kingdom's gender apartheid against the backdrop of simmering discontent in Saudi society over a host of issues.
Manal al-Sharif was detained in May of last year for nine days after she videotaped herself flouting the ban on women driving by getting behind a steering wheel and driving. She was released only after signing a statement promising that she would stop agitating for women's rights.
A group of women launched earlier this year a legal challenge to the ban asserting that it had no base in Islamic law.
Opposition to women's sports is reinforced by the fact that physical education classes are banned in state-run Saudi girl’s schools. Public sports facilities are exclusively for men and sports associations offer competitions and support for athletes in international competitions only to men.
The issue of women's sport has at time sparked sharp debate with conservative clerics condemning it as corrupting and satanic and charging that it spreads decadence. Conservative clerics have warned that running and jumping can damage a woman's hymen and ruin her chances of getting married.
One group of religious scholars argued that swimming, soccer and basketball were too likely to reveal “private parts,” which includes large areas of the body. Another religious scholar said it could lead to “mingling with men.”
To be fair, less conservative clerics have come out in favour of women's sports as well as less restrictions on women. In addition, the newly appointed head of the kingdom's religious vigilantes is reported to favour relaxation of the ban on the mixing of the sexes.
In defiance of the obstacles to their right to engage in sports, women have in recent years quietly been establishing soccer and other sports teams using extensions of hospitals and health clubs as their base.
Prince Nayef’s decision has revived hope that 18-year old equestrienne Dalma Rushdi Malhas who won a bronze medal in the 2010 Singapore Youth Olympics in which she participated at her own accord would be among the first Saudi women athletes to compete at an Olympic games. Expectations that she would be competing in London were dashed recently when the Saudis qualified an all-men team qualified for London’s jumping competition.
James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.