The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

Egyptian striker Zidan highlights post-revolt transition problems by calling Mubarak father

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 06:58:15 PST

By James M. Dorsey

President Mubarak fetes a player (Source: Al Ahram)

Egyptian soccer star Mohamed Zidan in controversial remarks in a television interview put his finger on the problem Egypt and other post-revolt Arab countries face in transition from an autocratic to a more open society and the battles to be fought on the soccer pitch.

In an interview with satellite channel CBC Egypt, Mr. Zidan, a striker in the Egyptian national team and for Germany’s FSV Mainz 05, focused attention on the neo-patriarchal role of Arab autocrats as their nation’s father figure, the refusal of a majority of soccer players and managers to join the region’s anti-autocratic revolts and the deep-seated rivalry between crowned Cairo clubs Al Ahly SC and Al Zamalek SC despite the fact that militant soccer fans of both clubs stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the mass protests last year that forced president Hosni Mubarak out of office.

“I kissed Mubarak’s hand when he honoured Egypt after the 2010 African Cup of Nations as I saw him as a father of all Egyptians,” said Mr. Zidan said reflecting the attitude of most soccer players and managers in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world.

Egyptian soccer players stood aside during the mass protests while some prominent managers, including then starred national coach Hassan Shehata and twin brother Ibrahim and Hossam Hassan, who were at the time a Zamalek board member and the team’s coach openly supported Mr. Mubarak, only to be later blacklisted by the protesters.

Mr. Zidan’s description of Mr. Mubarak as a father echoed repeated statements last year by the Hassan brothers and others who said they supported the objectives of the anti-government protesters, but were concerned about the impact on soccer and believed that Mubarak had served his country and should be treated with respect.

Elsewhere, Libyan soccer players only joined the rebels four months into the NATO-backed armed revolt against Moammar Qaddafi when family and friends of theirs were killed in the fighting. In Bahrain where majority Shiite Muslim national soccer team players and other sportsmen organized their own protest against the minority Sunni Muslim government, the royal family failure to ensure equal rights for the religious minority meant that the king was not perceived as the country’s father figure. Abdelbasset Saroot, a 20-year old player for Syria's national Under-23 team who is one of the leaders of the protest in the embattled city of Homs, is perhaps the foremost exception to the rule.

At the heart of the failure of soccer players and managers to join the popular revolts sweeping the Middle East and North Africa is what Palestinian-American historian Hisham Sharabi call neo-patriarchy in a controversial book published in 1992 that is still banned in many Arab countries. Mr. Sharabi argued that Arab society was built around the "dominance of the Father (patriarch), the centre around which the national as well as the natural family are organized. Between ruler and ruled, between father and child, there exist only vertical relations: in both settings the paternal will is absolute will, mediated in both the society and the family by a forced consensus based on ritual and coercion."

In other words, Arab regimes franchised repression so that in a cultural patrimonial society, the oppressed participated in their repression and denial of rights. The regime is in effect the father of all fathers at the top of the pyramid. In the words of Egyptian journalist Khaled Diab quoted by journalist Brian Whitacker in a book exploring the nature of Arab soicety, Egypt's problem was not simply an aging president with little to show for himself after almost thirty years in power, but the fact that "Egypt has a million (president Hosni) Mubaraks.”

As a result, the patriarchal values that dominate soccer in addition to its popularity made it the perfect game for neo-patriarchs. Their values were soccer's values: assertion of male superiority in most aspects of life, control or harnessing of female lust and a belief in a masculine God. The identification of the presidents of Egypt, Iran and Yemen - Mubarak, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Abdullah Ali Saleh - as well as Libyan leader Colonel Moammar Qaddafi’s son, Al Saadi al Qaddafi, with their country’s national teams turned their successes and failures into barometers of how their regimes were faring.

It also meant that managers were either appointed or approved by the Middle East’s and North Africa’s autocratic regimes while players were feted by autocrats and showered with gifts including expensive real estate and cars as well as significant amounts of cash for their successes on the soccer pitch.

With the region’s militant soccer fans or ultras – highly politicized, well organized street battle-hardened groups modelled on similar groups in Serbia and Italy – likely to refocus their attention on the beautiful game after having played a key role in revolts that toppled various Arab autocrats and a year of vicious street battles with security forces in downtown Cairo, Mr. Zidan’s remark highlights the strained relations between fans who view themselves as their club’s only truly supporters, players and managers in the region’s post-revolt soccer.

To the ultras, players are hired guns willing to switch allegiances for money while management consists largely of corrupt appointees of autocratic regimes. Al Ahly ultras unfolded a year ago a huge banner addressed to players during their team’s friendly against Harras El-Hodoud that read: "We followed you everywhere but in the hard times we didn't find you." Many reject Egypt’s national team as ‘Mubarak’s team’ rather than that of the nation. Players have since the overthrow of Mubarak pressured the ultras unsuccessfully to moderate their support tactics that include the use of fireworks, flares, smoke guns and abusive chanting because the clubs were being penalized.

In the interview, Mr. Zidan attempted to explain his failure to acknowledge the 74 soccer fans who died in a lethal clash in Port Said earlier this month immediately after a match between Al Ahly and the Sue Canal city’s Al Masry SC. His failure to do so highlighted the intense rivalry between Ahly, established in the early 20as an Egyptians-only meeting place for opponents of Britain's colonial rule as well as the monarchy that was toppled in 1952 and Zamalek, the pro-monarchy club of the British imperial administrators and military brass as well as the Cairo upper class. Their rivalry was so deep-seated that matches between them became the world’s most violent derby.

Ironically it was Mr. Mubarak that brought the arch rivals together. For the first time in the two clubs’ history, Mr. Mubarak emerged as the figure that fans of both clubs hated more than they hated each other. As a result, ultras of the two clubs joined forces last year on Cairo’s Tahrir Square to throw the country’s father figure off his pedestal.

“I really didn’t mean to provoke the emotions of the Egyptians,” Mr. Zidan said apologizing for his lack of empathy with the killed Ahli fans. “I was really close to a move to Ahly in the past and I respect the club and its fans,” Mr. Zidan insisted.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Likely cancellation of Egyptian league sparks violence debate and fears for club solvency

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 23:09:39 PST

Al Ahli fans seek to escape the Port Said stadium (Source: Reuters)

By James M. Dorsey

The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) is likely to cancel this season’s suspended Premier League in a move designed to prevent further violence in the wake of this month’s riot in Port Said that left 74 militant soccer fans dead but threatens to put the country’s clubs in financial jeopardy.

Concern that the league will be annuled has been fuelled by the cancellation of the Egyptian national team’s scheduled friendly matches against Uganda, Guinea and Niger and the postponement until June 30 of an African Cup of Nations qualifier against the Central African Republic on instructions of the interior ministry. Once new dates have been agreed, the qualifier may be played in Qatar to ensure security.

The decision on the national team’s matches suggests that the interior ministry and the EFA have backed away from an earlier plan to allow resumption of league matches behind closed door on March 15 when the 40-day period of mourning for the dead soccer fans ends.

Club officials are pressing the EFA to follow the example of the Tunisian soccer association that earlier this month ordered its league to play behind closed doors. The federation reversed its decision days later under pressure from its members and has since authorized resumption with fans attending matches. Some argue that cancellation of the Egyptian league would hand a victory to the instigators of the Port Said incident.

"The Interior Ministry's letter, which demanded that Egypt's friendly games be cancelled, came as a killer punch to our plans to resume the competition. We have no option but to follow the instructions of the authorities. We will wait to see whether security will improve.

I hope the authorities will reverse that decision soon, because cancelling the league will have dire consequences on Egyptian football on all fronts,” said acting EFA president Anwar Saleh in an interview with state-owned newspaper Al Ahram.

The fate of the Premier League season has been hanging in the balance since early this month when 74 people, mostly militant fans of crowned Cairo club Al Ahly SC, were killed in a riot immediately after a match against Port Said’s Al Masry SC.

The fans or ultras – well-organized, highly politicized, street battle hardened militant groups modelled on similar organizations in Serbia and Italy – believe that security forces failed to intervene in the brawl as punishment for their key role in last year’s overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak and their hard line opposition since then to military rule. Ultras battled security forces on a weekly basis during the soccer season in the last four years of Mr. Mubarak’s rule in a bid to deprive his regime from controlling the beautiful game.

An Egyptian parliamentary inquiry into the deaths in Port Said blamed fans and lax security for the worst incident in the country’s sports history. The inquiry’s preliminary report also suggested that unidentified thugs had been involved in the violence.

Egyptian judicial sources said they expected that security officials would be among 50 suspects who will be referred for criminal proceedings in connection with the incident.

Several key Al Ahly players, including Mohamed Abou Treika, Mohamed Barakat, Ahmed Fathi and Emad Mete'b, have said they will not play until the results of the official investigation are announced.

Some players favour cancellation of this season’s league despite the financial risk to clubs on the grounds that the risk of renewed violence is too high and that they won’t have sufficient time to recover from the trauma of the Port Said incident and to prepare for matches.

"It's impossible to resume the Premier League this season, because there won’t be time to clear the backlog of matches. I’m not against the resumption of sports activities after the end of the mourning period, but resuming the Premier League will only cause more chaos,” said Al Ahly goalkeeper Ahmed Naggi.

Egyptian clubs as well as the fans fear that the clubs which last year suffered financially because of a three-month suspension of the league in the walk-up to and aftermath of Mr. Mubarak’s downfall could be bankrupted by a cancellation of the leagues. The clubs which have yet to be professionally restructured so that they can become truly financially independent are currently dependent for their revenues on advertising and sponsorship.

The Mubarak regime, which saw soccer as a tool to shore up its tarnished image, distract attention from unpopular policies and a means to manipulate national emotions, had little interest in allowing clubs to be independent, self-sufficient entities.

In an alliance of strange bedfellows critics of the interior ministry’s apparent intention to cancel the league include both clubs owned by the police and the military as well as Al Ahly which sees the cancellation as handing victory to the security forces whom it holds responsible for the deaths of its supporters .

"Life must go on, despite this catastrophe. But I don’t mean that resuming the Premier League means forgetting the victims of Port Said. Rescinding the League will cause Egyptian clubs many technical and financial problems. Resuming the League is something urgent for all the workers in local sports associations,” Helmi Toulan, coach of Ittihad al-Shorta, the Premier League team owned by the police, whom many Egyptians despise as the enforcers of Mr. Mubarak’s regime and hold responsible for the Port Said incident, told Melody Sports TV.

Farouq Gaafar, coach of El-Jaish, one of several clubs owned by the military, suggested in an echo of Mr. Mubarak’s approach that "the resumption of the Premier League will help people overcome their grief, provided that there is adequate security.”

Underlying the debate about the fate of the league and the political implications of the Port Said incident is the growing gap between Egyptian public opinion and the youth and soccer fan groups that were at the core of last year’s protests that toppled Mr. Mubarak. A majority of Egyptians eager to see their almost bankrupt country return to normalcy and economic growth have come to see the youth and soccer fan protests in support of an end to military rule and the dismantling of the Mubarak order that often escalate into vicious street battles with security forces as an obstacle.

“Our young people would not have reached this feeling of desperation, if they had not been abandoned by others, who, a year ago joined them in celebrating the toppling of the Mubarak regime. Although they shared the same aspiration that this moment would be the start of building a free, democratic and progressive country, the majority of the Egyptians seem not to have the strong will and persistence to continue the momentum until their dream comes true.

It is only those youthful enthusiasts that launched this revolution, who were eager to continue their efforts to fulfil its goals Instead of appreciating their exertions and the great sacrifice they have continued to pay for the welfare of the whole nation, we have allowed some malicious campaigns to distort their image and depict them as thugs some of the time and rioters most of the time. What is even worse is to accept the accusations being directed to them as agents of some foreign powers seeking the downfall of Egypt and its divisions into small states, without thinking of the price young Egyptians might pay in confronting the military or civil police. They are subjecting themselves to the risk of death or serious injuries that might disable them for the rest of their life,” said Manal Abdul Aziz writing in The Egyptian Gazette.

Revealing picture of Tunisian-German midfielder fuels debate about political Islam

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 21:42:30 PST

Revealing pictures sparks journalist arrests and fuels debate on political Islam

By James M. Dorsey

This week’s arrest of three Tunisian journalists for publishing a revealing picture of a Tunisian soccer player with his girlfriend has deepened secular distrust of Tunisia’s Islamist-led post-revolt government and fueled debate in the Middle East and North Africa and beyond about the true intentions of Sunni Muslim Islamist parties that are emerging as victors from the Arab revolt.

The three journalists, the first to be detained since mass demonstrations toppled President Zine el Abedine Ben Ali a year ago, were arrested on orders of the public prosecutor for publishing a picture of Tunisian-German Real Madrid midfielder Sami Khedira dressed in a tuxedo with his hands covering the breasts of his otherwise naked German model girlfriend, Lena Gercke.

The three journalists – Attounisia newspaper publisher Nasreddine Ben Said, editor-in-chief Habib Guizani, and foreign editor Hedi Hidhri – are being held on charges of offending public morality.

Their arrest has focused the immediate debate on Islamist intentions on the threat of a media crackdown to ensure that publishing adheres to religious morals as defined by the country's new Islamist rulers. It follows the pressing of charges against a local television channel for showing Persepolis, a film whose animated depiction of God outraged conservative Salafi Islamists who propagate a .return to the 7^th century way of life in the time of the Prophet Mohammed.

Last month, hundreds of journalists demonstrated outside the office of the prime minister to demand an end to restrictions on media freedoms after the appointment of government officials and editors to state television positions.

Fears of a crackdown come a year after Tunisia’s popular revolt was liberated from Mr. Ben Ali’s tight censorship.

“The Islamists don’t like the media and are trying to control it,” says Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, the leader of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party. Mr. Chebbi, a proponent of replacing the Islamist Ennahada party led government with a national unity government.

“There is still place for other political forces, they just need to consolidate themselves.”

Mustafa Tlili, the founder of the New York-based Center for Dialogues and an advisor to United Nations General Assembly chairman Nassir Abdelaziz Al–Nasser of Qatar, charges that Islamists are hijacking the revolts staged by protesters whose “slogans were secular for freedom, liberty and dignity… Those that staged the revolution see it being stolen and hijacked…Tunisia’s environment is the Mediterranean and Europe. The Islamists discourse is to withdraw Tunisia from its natural environment and make it adopt Islamist values that are not those of the majority of Tunisians. They reject these values because they are not part of their daily life or vision of Islam,” Mr. Tlili says.

Messrs Tlili and Chebbi, speaking in Sochi, Russia at a Valdei Discussion Club meeting on the revolts sweeping the Middle East and North Africa, made their remarks days after five secular Tunisian political parties announced that they would merge into a single coalition in an effort to counter the moderate Islamist Ennahada party that last October won Tunisia’s post-Ben Ali election.

In a statement, Tunisia's journalists' union called for the "immediate release of all journalists and the rejection of intimidation against reporters." Thousands of Tunisians endorsed a campaign on Facebook in support of the journalists and to defend freedom of expression.

The government has repeatedly denied accusations it is seeking to stifle the media.

Ennahada officials acknowledge that they are fighting a battle to channel expectations of their rank and file and demonstrate their commitment to a pluralist, democratic society. In perhaps his last article before his sudden death of an asthma attack, revered New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid quoted Ennahada official Said Ferjani said history would judge his generation not on their ability to take power but rather on what it did with power.

“I can tell you one thing, we now have a golden opportunity. And in this golden opportunity, I’m not interested in control. I’m interested in delivering the best charismatic system, a charismatic, democratic system. This is my dream,” Mr. Ferjani said.

Human Rights Watch condemns Saudi restriction of women's sports

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:13:06 PST

Players of private King's United women's team train

By James M. Dorsey

International human rights group Human Rights Watch has 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 new report entitled “’Steps of the Devil’ comes 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.

"The glaring absence of a Saudi female athlete at the Olympics cannot go on much longer," Human Rights Watch researcher Christoph Wilcke, the report's principle author, said in a presentation of the report. ''We have listened to Saudi promises for decades. This is not good enough."

IOC spokesman Mark Adams in an emailed response to the call said that persuasion had proven to be "more effective. We've already seen them send a woman athlete to the Youth Olympic games so we are confident that we will make progress.”

The Human Rights call follows a warning last year by Anita DeFrantz, the chair of the International Olympic Committee's Women and Sports Commission, that Saudi Arabia alongside Qatar and Brunei could be barred if they did not send for the first time at least one female athlete to the London Olympic games.

Qatar, the only other country whose indigenous population are largely Wahhabis, adherents of the puritan interpretation of Islam predominant in Saudi Arabia, has agreed to field a women's team in London has increased the pressure on the kingdom to follow suit.

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.

"Nobody is saying completely 'no' to us," Associated Press quoted Reem Abdullah, the 33-year old founder, coach and striker of private women’s soccer team Jeddah King's United who is a leader in the campaign to allow women to participate in sports and compete internationally as saying. “As long as there are no men around and our clothes are properly Islamic, there should be no problem," she said.

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.

For his part, Saudi King Abdullah has made moves to enhance women’s rights. Last September, women were granted the right to vote, stand for election in local elections and join the advisory Shura council.

Women responded to the closing of private gyms for women in 2009 with a protest campaign under the slogan 'Let her get fat.' The government has since allowed the re-opening of health clubs for women but these are often too expensive for many women and don't offer a full range of sports activities.

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 favor 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 favor 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.

The clerics "say it’s too masculine or too aggressive or not really feminine,” Lina Almaeena, a Saudi woman who plays on a private basketball team called Jeddah United told the Los Angeles Times.

"We will watch the London Olympics and we will cheer for our men competing there, hoping that someday we can root for our women as well," Ms. Abdullah said. “When Saudi women get a chance to compete for their country, they will raise the flag so high. Women can achieve a lot, because we are very talented and we are crazy about sports."

Ms. Abdullah established King’s United as the kingdom’s first female soccer team in 2006. Her example has since been followed in other cities, including Riyadh and Dammam. Two years later seven female teams played in the first ever national tournament as part a clandestine and segregated women's league.

Mr. Wilcke said that despite the apparent lack of real political will to encourage women's sports it “is very achievable. Government clerics are saying, ‘We should do this.’ Even if they take small steps, that still has the potential to alter lives of women who get out of the house, meet other women -- every bit helps.”

Mr. Wilcke said attitudes were likely to change because of the kingdom's young population which is likely to favour more liberal approaches.

Expectations that 18-year old equestrienne Dalma Rushdi Malhas who won a bronze medal in the 2010 Singapore Youth Olympics, the sports event IOC spokesman Adams was referring to, would be the first Saudi athlete to compete at an Olympic games were dashed recently when the all-men Saudi team recently qualified for this year's London Olympics jumping competition.

Crooning goalkeeper leads Homs protests

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 22:28:29 PST

By James M. Dorsey

Abdelbasset Saroot's promising future as a goalkeeper dims as Syrian forces encroach ever more on opposition strongholds in the battered city of Homs.

A 20-year old player for Syria's national Under-23 team, soccer is for now the last thing on Mr. Saroot's mind. A singer of revolutionary folk songs and a leader of the 11-month old popular revolt in Homs Mr. Saroot leads the life of a marked man on the run.

He often leads protests crooning but after having survived the bombing of his house, three attempts on his life and suffering the loss of his brother and some of his closest friends whose bodies were dumped on the streets of Homs and crushed by tanks, according to Al Jazeera, Mr. Saroot leads the life of a fugitive. Twelve people, including his brother were killed in the attack on his home. At the time, he held up for television cameras empty shells, which he described as the "Iranian heavy weapons" with which the protesters had been attacked.

He shies day light, travelling only at night. Constantly on the run, he never stops moving and stays at any one place at most a few days.

"It's worth it. I'm free. I've travelled all over the world to play football. But freedom is not just about me or about traveling. What about everyone else? Freedom is a big word. It's about freedom of speech and freedom of opinion. If you see something wrong being done, freedom is being able to talk about it," Mr. Saroot, dressed in a black Salsa music t-shirt, told Al Jazeera.

Alerted to Mr. Saroot's courage and circumstances, originally reported on The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog on August 4 and November 13, senior Asian soccer officials said they would look at ways to support him. "It’s in our purview to defend players," one official said. It was not immediately clear what soccer bodies can do beyond condemning the violence and threats Mr. Saroot and much of the population are enduring.

"There is something I want to tell everyone. I lost one of my brothers but this is something I shouldn't be saying because we've lost 13,000 people and a lot of people have been detained or have disappeared. ... They are all like my brothers ... It's a big honour for everbody to say: 'We have a martyr in this family,'" Mr. Saroot said, describing the regime of embattled President Bashar al Assad as "monstrous."

A hero in the eyes of Mr. Assad's opponents and an Islamist traitor according to the president's regime, Mr. Saroot described his role as "a big responsibility to lift people's morale. We always try to stay optimistic about the future. The more optimistic we are the more the revolution keeps going," Mr. Saroot said.

In an earlier interview, Mr. Saroot decried the lack of international support for the uprising against Mr. Assad. "We have become too used to hearing about the issuing of resolutions which are never implemented," Mr. Saroot said.

Mr. Saroot asserted in a You Tube video last summer that the Assad regime was accusing him of being a Salafi fundamentalist who seeks to emulate life as it was in the time of the Prophet Mohammed, and that is seeking to turn Syria into a Salafi state.

“This accusation was made when we took to the streets, demanding freedom for the Syrian people. I am now wanted by the security agencies, which are trying to arrest me. I declare, in sound mind and of my own volition, that we, the free Syrian people, will not back down until our one and only demand is met: the toppling of the regime. We are not Salafis, and there is no truth to the regime's claims about armed groups or a Salafi emirate,” Mr. Saroot said.

In August, Mr. Saroot reported on YouTube that Syrian security forces had arrested national soccer goalkeeper Mosab Balhous on charges of sheltering armed gangs and possessing suspicious amounts of money. He said Mr. Balhos too had been accused of participating in anti-government protests and wanting to establish an Islamic emirate in the city of Homs.

Mosab Balhous

In a column last year in the London-based Arabic daily Al Quds al Arabi, writer Elias Khoury describes a documentary entitled Al Waar (Rocky Terrain) by an anonymous Syrian filmmaker that portrays Mr. Saroot as a leader of the protests and a composer of some of its slogans and songs.

“His features are Bedouin, he is a thirsty person who is not satisfied with only freedom …

It is he who composes for the nocturnal gatherings for a popular festival in the suburbs of Homs where the air bears bullets. The slogans are an appeal by a decapitated nation and the will of a people determined not to bow to anyone,” Mr. Khoury writes.

"Go is the cry of the brave, A cry of the city with Bedouins, A cry of all religions, The cry of Syria and the land it covers: Let them leave him and his dogs and the destruction they have wrought," the film quotes the chants of the protesters crafted by Mr. Saroot.

Mr. Khoury describes Mr. Saroot as the protagonist of the film whose voice challenges the Assad forces’ weaponry. "Our weapon is our voice," Mr. Saroot says in the film.

The film describes how the regime has put a reward of one million Syrian pounds ($20,000) on the heads of alleged Salafis like Mr. Saroot. The goalkeeper smiles at the word Salafi and chants: “Shed tears, shed for the young victims and Syria.”

Throughout the film a picture of Bashar al-Assad superimposed on that of his father, Hafez al-Assad, constitutes the background with the words, ‘Assad or nothing,’ a play on the slogan that accompanied the portrait of Hafez during his rule: ‘Our leader in eternity and beyond.’

AFC presidential election bears risk of renewed embarrassment

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 04:30:35 PST

Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa (Source: ESPN)

By James M. Dorsey

With campaigning started for the election of a new president of the Asian Football Confederation to succeed disgraced Qatari national Mohammed Bin Hammam, soccer officials are concerned that the candidacy of Bahrain Football Association president Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa could prove to be another embarrassment.

Sheikh Salman alongside former UAE soccer federation head Yousuf al Serkal have let it be known that they would be vying for the top Asian soccer job.

Zhang Jilong of China who took over as acting head of the AFC after Mr. Bin Hammam was barred last July for life from involvement in professional soccer by world soccer body FIFA on charges of corruption is also believed to be vying for the job.

"I am interested in becoming president permanently on the condition that I am recognised by all my friends and brothers on the executive committee, as well as the other 46 members' association," the South China Morning Post quoted Mr. Jilong as saying.

"We need to be one family, as brothers, for we are on one boat sailing towards the future. If I become president permanently, I wish to work for the solidarity and development of Asian football," he added.

The AFC has until late May to elect a new president to succeed Mr. Bin Hammam who is legally suspended as president pending his appeal in the Court for Arbitration of Sport (CAS) against the FIFA ban.

Mr. Bin Hammam has denied allegations that he had last year bribed officials of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) to support his failed bid to defeat long standing FIFA head Sepp Blatter in a presidential election.

Sheikh Salman is a controversial candidate because of his backing last year of the arrest, torture and/or firing of 150 athletes and sports officials, including several national soccer team players on charges of involvement in anti-government protests.

"I have great confidence in getting great support from many parties, I received during launching the (past) electoral battle with Mohamed Bin Hammam," Sheikh Salman told sports television channel El Dawry and El Kass.

"We have received promises of support by many Asian federations to give me her voice in the election, and I have to speak with Mohamed Bin Hammam, where he stressed his support for me and his blessing," Sheikh Salman added.

Senior Asian soccer officials said rather than backing the government crackdown, Sheikh Salman, a member of Bahrain's minority Sunni Muslim royal family, should have conducted an independent investigation into the allegations. "Sheikh Salman carries too much baggage," one official said.

In response to a FIFA query last year, Sheikh Salman flatly denied that any soccer player had been detained or otherwise affected for participation in the protests. Surprisingly, there is no public record of FIFA challenging Sheikh Salman's assertion. On the contrary, FIFA last October Sheikh Salman to its 2014 World Cup committee.

Bahrain backed by the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has asserted that the demonstrations were instigated by Shiite Iran in a bid to sow sectarian discord and destabilize the predominantly Shiite Gulf island.

The crackdown a year ago involved the imposition of martial law for nearly three months, the sacking of some 2,000 people from government jobs and detention of 3,000 others as well as the of ordering military trials for several hundred.

Among the athletes put on trial were brothers Alaa and Mohammed Hubail, who are national soccer team stars. Alaa has said that he and his brother had been abused and humiliated during their detention. ,

Another national soccer team player, defender Sayed Mohamed Adnan, fled to Australia where he joined Brisbane Roar after having spent three month in prison during which he asserts that he was beaten and tortured.

Bahrain halted in December legal proceedings against the athletes and sports officials in a bid to improve the government’s tarnished image after state-run Bahrain News Agency reported that King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa had forgiven them. A military court a week earlier sentenced Bahrain national soccer team goalkeeper Ali Said, bodybuilder and several times Asian championship gold medallist Tareq al-Fursani, and national basketball team player Hassan al-Dirazi to a year in prison for participating in the protests.

Despite being widely viewed as a former associate of Mr. Bin Hammam, Mr. Al Serkal has the reputation of being clean and untainted by shady dealings. Hoping to capitalize about concerns about Sheikh Salman, Mr. Al Serkal has been positioning himself as the Arab consensus candidate.

“I am very clear about one thing, and that is the need for this part of Asia to have a consensus candidate rather than two contesting for the post of president. There has been an intention from Sheikh Salman and we need to ensure there is one candidate from the Gulf and Arab world for next year's elections," the Dubai-based Gulf News quoted Mr. Al Serkal in October as saying.

Japan’s Kohzo Tashima, was last year reported to want to run for the job despite the fact that he enjoys little support in the region.

Beyond coming at a time that soccer's governing bodies have been involved in some of the worst scandals in their history, the presidential election comes as the AFC has been a leader in tackling thorny issues such as the ban on Muslim women players wearing a headdress in line with their religious beliefs during matches and efforts to further grassroots soccer.

The International Football Association Board (IFAB), which governs the rules of association soccer, is scheduled to meet on March 3 to discuss an AFC proposal to allow a headdress for observant Muslim women that meets safety standards as well as the female players’ religious requirement.

Which way will China jump on Syria?

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 21:22:34 PST

Eleanor Hall reported this story on Monday, February 13, 2012 12:38:00

Listen to MP3 of this story (minutes)

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ELEANOR HALL: As Syrian forces continue their bombardment of the city of Homs Arab countries are now calling for UN peacekeepers to be sent into the country.

At today's meeting of the Arab League, senior delegates said they'll now put the option to the United Nations.

Significantly, they've also called for negotiations and co-ordination with Russia and China to avoid any future opposition from the veto-wielding powers.

James Dorsey is a senior fellow at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and has been following the Syrian situation closely.

He says there has been disquiet within China since last week's veto and that the Chinese government may not necessarily exercise its veto this time around.

James Dorsey spoke to me earlier from Singapore.

JAMES DORSEY: China in many ways has a very different stake in all of this than Russia does. While Russia has interests that are direct in terms of Syria and its relationship with Syria and the position Syria gives it within the Middle East for China it really is a question of its overall foreign policy and that has been a policy that has been challenged ever since the Arab revolt started more than a year ago.

ELEANOR HALL: Well, the Arab League is now talking about a joint peacekeeping mission with the UN in Syria. What is the likelihood that China will also veto this?

JAMES DORSEY: I don't think that anybody knows how China will vote on this. It is going to be very tough for China to vote against such a UN peacekeeping force. On top of that in the recent days there has already been a degree of change or at least an indication of change in Chinese foreign policy in terms of the fact that the Chinese have soft contact with Syrian opposition forces, very much along the lines of what they did in Libya last year when they tried to maintain a balance by having a good relationship both with the government of Moamar Gaddafi as well as with the opposition.

ELEANOR HALL: So do you think that the Chinese government may be seeing that it miscalculated its vote on Syria?

JAMES DORSEY: I think that the Chinese are increasingly realising that they have a policy dilemma. They are becoming a global power. They have global interests in terms of their economy as well in terms of their security and that means that they no longer can simply stay aside and aloof from conflicts in countries that are crucial to them.

In Libya they ran the risk of being excluded with regard to oil contracts. As the revolt spreads, that is going to become increasingly difficult.

ELEANOR HALL: Yes, given the situation in Libya, are you surprised that the Chinese used their UN veto on Syria given that with post-Gaddafi Libya they'd merely abstain from supporting the UN no-fly zone and there was an economic backlash there?

JAMES DORSEY: Well, I was surprised on the one hand in the Arab world, it has put it at odds basically with the Arab League but it has also thrown a moral question on China in terms of its allowing this sort of slaughter to take place.

ELEANOR HALL: Is China's foreign policy here though really at odds with its economic interest. I mean the Arab League may be backing this Syrian resolution but many of the oil supplying countries are hardly paragons of democracy themselves. They'd applaud China's argument that the UN shouldn't meddle in the internal affairs of other countries, wouldn't they?

JAMES DORSEY: Well, it does put them at odds, certainly the Gulf countries and they are obviously not proponents of democracy but none the less, the gulf countries are crucial to China's energy supply and therefore China by opposing the Arab League is opposing some of its most important suppliers.

ELEANOR HALL: So why do you think the Chinese Communist Party made this decision, not just to abstain but to veto? I mean is it simply backing its ally, Russia?

JAMES DORSEY: I think it has less to do with Russia and more to do with1) the way they view the experience of the resolutions that was interpreted by Western forces as a licence to overthrow. The Chinese, much like the Russians, maybe even more so, are really concerned about the fallout of the Arab revolts and what that could mean for China domestically.

And that is where the clash is, that fear of similar things happening in China or in parts of China and on the other hand their global interests as a global power where they have a global responsibility and as a global economic power where they are dependent on ensuring the supply of raw materials, of resources. That contradiction is not coming much more to the fore.

ELEANOR HALL: How extensive are China's direct interests in Syria? As extensive as Libya?

JAMES DORSEY: They are less extensive. For one, China had 35,000 workers in Libya which it had to evacuate very much at the beginning of the conflict in Libya. It does have some investment in the Syrian oil sector. The problem with Syria is that Syria, unlike the other revolts, could very well affect the region.

So the stakes are much higher. I don't think that the regime of Bashar al-Assad will last. I also think that the revolts that we've been seeing over the last year in the Arab world will leave no Arab country untouched, so in that sense the Chinese are getting on the wrong side of history.

ELEANOR HALL: And what is China risking with the contradictions in its policy?

JAMES DORSEY: I think the risk, one is very, very tangible and that is as the Libyan attitude immediately after the success of the revolt was that they were, when they were looking at contracts, they were looking in the first place at those that had helped them and the Chinese had not helped them.

They have $18 billion in contracts. They were the largest contractor in Gaddafi's Libya and those contracts are still in limbo. They haven't been able to secure those. There was a Chinese delegation in Libya last week so there is an immediate economic and tangible impact.

And the second impact is a moral impact and a projection of their image. China is a rising super power. As such, it takes on responsibilities that it may not have had before it was becoming so economically and politically and diplomatically strong and those responsibilities are things it has to live up and it hasn't done it so by opposing a resolution that Bashar al-Assad clearly has interpreted as a licence to try and suppress the revolt against him no matter how many lives that costs.

ELEANOR HALL: Dr Dorsey, thanks very much for joining us.

JAMES DORSEY: It was my pleasure.

ELEANOR HALL: James Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. You can listen to a longer version of that interview where Dr Dorsey speculates on whether the tumult in the Middle East will force China to completely shift its foreign policy.

Ultras call for retaliation as parliament blames fans and security for Port Said deaths

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 19:11:31 PST

Al Ahli fans seek to escape the Port Said stadium (Source: Reuters)

By James M. Dorsey

An Egyptian parliamentary inquiry into this month’s death of 74 soccer fans in the Suez Canal city of Port Said has blamed fans and lax security for the worst incident in the country’s sports history. The inquiry’s preliminary report also suggests without going into detail that unidentified thugs were involved in the violence that erupted at the end of a match between Port Said’s Al Masri SC and crowned Cairo club Al Ahli SC.

The report is scheduled to be debated in parliament on Monday. It was drafted by a committee headed by Ashraf Thabet, the assembly’s first deputy speaker and a member of the Salafist Al-Nur Party, which is believed to enjoy backing from Saudi Arabia and advocates adherence to Islam in line with 7^th century practices at the time of the Prophet Mohammed.

A controversial member of Al Nur, Salafist preacher Sheikh Abdel Moneim El-Shaha, was last week attempting to talk his way out of reports that he had condemned soccer as a sin and said that the 74 fans were killed because they had been watching a forbidden form of entertainment. Mr. El-Shaha charged that he had been misquoted.

The parliamentary report is unlikely to reduce tension between the fans or ultras – militant, well-organized, highly politicized, street battle-hardened soccer support groups modelled on similar organizations in Serbia and Italy – and Egypt’s ruling military and security forces. At least 16 people were killed in the wake of the Port Said incident in six days of fighting between security forces and youths seeking to storm the interior ministry in central Cairo.

The military last week said troops and tanks would ensure security in advance of a general strike last weekend called by activists and youth groups to demand the immediate return of the military to their barracks and the formation of a civilian government. The failure of the strike on the first anniversary of the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak after religious leaders called on Egyptians to ignore it signalled the increasing isolation of the ultras – the military’s most militant opposition – and other activists who led the protests that forced the Egyptian leader to resign after 30 years in office.

Ultras Ahlawy, the Al Ahli support group that lost scores in the Port Said incident, called in a statement on Facebook on the eve of the release of the parliamentary report for retaliation against those responsible for the death of their comrades. The statement also called for the cleansing of the interior ministry, under which the security forces, the focus of their animosity whom they accuse of engineering the fatal brawl, resort.

The interior ministry or dakhliya symbolizes for many ultras their battle for karama or dignity. Their dignity is vested in their ability to stand up to the dakhliya, particularly in the wake of Port Said; a sense that they no longer can be abused by security forces without recourse; and the fact that they no longer have to pay off policemen to stay out of trouble.

“This Wednesday will mark two weeks since the passing of some of Egypt’s finest youth. They died because they refused to live without dignity and screamed loud calling for freedom,” the Ultras Ahlawy statement said.

It demanded an investigation of what it alleged was the failure of the interior ministry and the security forces to ensure safety and security during the match in which Port Said defeated Al Ahli 3:1 as well as “the cleansing of the ministry of interior and a full reconstruction of its system.”

The ultras further demanded that authorities drop references to involvement of a “third” party in the incident, a reference to the military’s attempt to position the Port Said incident as part of a foreign conspiracy to destabilize post-revolt Egypt. The ultras said they would not “accept the outcome of an investigation that blamed an anonymous (group for an incident) that wasted the lives of the martyrs.” They demanded the immediate arrest of the culprits whom they said were known to authorities “so as not to put us in the position of taking the right (into our own hands).”

While the Ultras Ahlawy charge that security forces failed to intervene in the lethal attack on their members and accuse thugs hired by the government of instigating the incident they also appeared to agree with the parliamentary inquiry’s conclusion that television footage documents the involvement of Al Masri fans in the attack on them. Ultras Ahlawy believes it was targeted because of its key role alongside other ultras groups in the toppling of Mr. Mubarak and its opposition since then to military rule.

Leaders of the ultras suggested that the incident was intended to exploit waning public support for the ultras, which were revered for their fearlessness, years of confrontation with security forces in the stadiums, role in manning defending Tahrir Square during the anti-Mubarak protests last year and militant support of their clubs. Their militancy and contentious street politics is however increasingly out of step with the mood in a country that is protest weary, retains confidence in the military despite its brutality, is frustrated that its revolt has not produced immediate tangible economic fruits and yearns for a return to normalcy so that Egypt can recover economically.

Deputy Parliament Speaker Thabet said in parliament Sunday that the Port Said incident had been sparked in part by incitement on sports TV channels. Disclosing details of the inquiry, he charged that thugs and hard core soccer fans had taken "advantage of the tension surrounding the game to achieve some political gains," but gave no details. Mr. Thabet promised to release the names of the instigators a later stage. He said 12,000 tickets had been sold for the match but 18,000 spectators had been admitted to the stadium.

Mr. Thabet said fans were not inspected while entering the stands and there was a lack of order inside and outside the stadium. "Security facilitated, allowed and enabled this massacre," he said, adding that security forces ignored mounting tension in advance of the Al Masri-Al Ahli match. "Both ultras and thugs attacked Ahly fans and this is part of Ultras' culture," he said.

Mr. Thabet acknowledged that similar pitch invasions had occurred in Port Said in the past year. Like in stadiums elsewhere in Egypt, security was often lax and security forces where more interested in avoiding clashes with fans in a bid to shore up their tarnished image as the Mubarak regime’s henchmen than in ensuring security. The Port Said incident has sparked suspicion that more than just laxness was involved because stadium exits that were normally open had been locked and because security forces refused to intervene despite the fact that the brawl had turned lethal.

The parliamentary inquiry also took the Egyptian Football Association (EFA) to task for violating world governing body FIFA’s security standards that call for monitoring by a security official of the security and political situation before, during and after a match.

The charge cast a further shadow over FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s demand for the reinstitution of the EFA board that was last week dismissed by the government in the wake of the Port Said incident. Mr. Blatter’s charge that the dismissal constituted political interference rings hallow given that the board consists of Mubarak appointees who furthered the ousted president’s efforts to control and manipulate the game to his political benefit. It also rings hallow given the fact that despite a nominal 2013 FIFA deadline for a restructuring of Egyptian soccer FIFA essentially tolerated the fact that the vast majority of Egyptian premier league clubs fail to meet the soccer body’s criteria for league membership.

FIFA sources said the Mr. Blatter’s demand was part of a flawed communications strategy designed to position the FIFA president as a leader and defender of soccer in a bid to repair the reputational damage he suffered as a result of a series of scandals in the last year that have rocked the soccer body and tarnished its image and that of its president. One source described the strategy as dating from the 1930s.

The sources said FIFA’s announcement that it was donating $250,000 to the families of those who died in Port Said was part of Mr. Blatter’s strategy. They noted that it was being handled personally by the FIFA president rather than the soccer body’s emergency committee and doubted that there was a mechanism to distribute the funds. In a separate move, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) which is headed by a controversial Blatter ally, Issa Hatou, said it was donating $150,000.

In the first regional fallout of the Port Said incident, Tunisia’s interior ministry ordered that all league matches be played behind closed doors because of concern about deteriorating security. Le Presse sports editor Sami Akrimi said the decision stemmed from the failure of the Tunisian soccer body to work with fan groups to ensure security.

Port Said deaths send businessmen, politicians and clerics scrambling

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:10:02 PST

A protester hurls a rock in post-Port Said protests (Source: Reuters)

By James M. Dorsey

The deaths of 74 militant soccer fans in a politically loaded soccer brawl in the Egyptian Suez Canal city of Port Said has political forces across the country’s political spectrum scrambling to score points and counter a tsunami of rumours as security forces appear to have gained the upper in days of clashes with ultras and youth groups near the interior ministry in downtown Cairo.

With the military and security forces accused of at best negligence and at worst having deliberately instigated the violence that led to the death of the fans immediately after last week’s match between Port Said’s Al Masri SC and crowned Cairo club Al Ahli SC, businessmen associated with the regime of ousted President Hosni Mubarak and fundamentalist Salafi politicians who advocate Islamic practice as it was at the time of the Prophet Mohammed in the 7^th century are being drawn into the maelstrom.

Yasser el-Mallawany, the chief executive of EFG-Hermes, the Arab world’s largest privately owned, London and Cairo-listed investment bank, denied allegations that he had funded an unidentified group of thugs who reportedly had mingled with the Al Masri fans and instigated the violence that led to the 74 deaths. Al Masri fans said they had noticed a group of people in the stadium that they had never seen before.

The allegations were reported after Mr. El-Mallawny was barred from boarding a flight from Cairo to Dubai on instructions from Egypt’s attorney general. Associated Press quoted a justice ministry official as saying that Mr. El-Mallawny was together with Mr. Mubarak’s imprisoned son Gamal, whom he was grooming as his successor, being investigated for having paid the thugs to attack the Al Ahli ultras. The ultras played a key role in toppling Mr. Mubarak and have since been the most militant thorn in the side of the military that succeeded the ousted president with a promise to lead the country to democracy.

Mr. El-Mallawany was a member of the policies high committee of Mr. Mubarak's National Democratic Party. He said he was on the committee to "give ideas regarding the technical issues of finance".

Sources close to EFG-Hermes said Mr. El-Mallawny was among 300 people barred from leaving Egypt because of their alleged ties to the ancient regime and corruption but that it had nothing to do with the incident in Port Said. Gamal Mubarak is believed to have an 18 percent stake in one of EFG Hermes’ numerous subsidies, EFG-Hermes Private Equity that contributes an estimated 7% per cent to the bank’s total profits. EFG-Hermes has denied managing any funds or portfolios for Mr. Mubarak or members of his family.

“No charges of any form have been laid against Mr. El-Mallawany. The firm has been informed that the ban was issued as a precautionary measure, as similar bans have been imposed in the past 12 months on other individuals in Egypt,” EFG-Hermes said in a statement.

EFG-Hermes has offices in Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Lebanon and employs more than 850 people. It has advised companies such as Vodafone, Sainsbury and Heineken on deals in the region.

At the very other end of Egypt’s political spectrum, Sheikh Abdel Moneim El-Shaha, a controversial Salafist preacher, was attempting to talk his way out of reports that he had condemned soccer as a sin and said that the 74 ultras were killed because they had been watching a forbidden form of entertainment. Mr. El-Shaha charged that he had been misquoted. He said that while he considered soccer a sport like swimming, archery and horse riding that was encouraged by Islamic law, he objected to large sums of money being spent on the sport instead of on youth centers.

Mr. El-Shaha however did little to correct the impression that he was in-line with hard-line Salafist beliefs that condemn soccer as a game of infidels with his refusal to acknowledge the 74 dead ultras as ‘ash-shuhada’ or martyrs, an Islamic and Arabic term used to describe among others those who died in innocence. The families of the 74 describe their lost ones as martyrs.

"What I said exactly was that not everyone who died unjustly is a martyr. And the people who died in Port Said died unjustly and no more. In sharia (Islamic law), a martyr is someone who died in battle or dies a painful death, drowns, or dies under the rubble of a building. But those who died in Port Said only died unjustly," Mr. El-Shaha told Al Arabiya.

Mr. El-Shaha was quoted by Al Arabiya Asharq Al-Awsat and El-Badil as telling an audience in the El-Fath mosque in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, a Salafist stronghold, that the 74 died while watching an a forbidden sport that is alien to Muslims, distracts from praying to God and that had been imported from the West. “They were not in a war fighting for God, they were just having fun. This fun distracts Muslims from worshipping God,” Mr. El-Shaha was quoted as saying.

The Salafist Noor party won a quarter of the votes in Egypt’s recent first-post Mubarak parliamentary election. Mr. El-Shaha, who failed to win a seat in that election, earlier stirred controversy by demanded that statues which he denounced as idols be covered with was and condemning the writings of Egyptian Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz as “prostitution literature.”

Mr. El-Shaha’s comments are in line with the banning of soccer on the threat of execution by the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Shabab militia, which controls chunks of war-torn Somalia, earlier remarks by Egyptian Salafi Sheikh Abu Ishaaq Al Huweni and a 2005 attempt by Saudi Salafi clerics to rewrite the rules of the game to allegedly Islamify it.

“All fun is bootless except the playing of a man with his wife, his son and his horse… Thus, if someone sits in front of the television to watch football or something like that, he will be committing bootless fun… We have to be a serious nation, not a playing nation. Stop playing,” Sheikh Al Huweni said in a religious ruling published in 2009 on YouTube. Al Noor has yet to distance itself from Sheikh Al Huweini’s comments.

Al Noor has also yet to take issues with views such as those expressed in 2005 in a controversial ruling by militant clerics in Saudi Arabia, the world’s most puritanical Muslim nation where soccer was banned until 1951. The ruling denounced the game as an infidel invention and redrafted its internationally recognized International Football Association Board (IFAB) rules to differentiate it from that of the heretics. It banned words like foul, goal, and penalty and like shorts and T-shirts and ordered players to spit on anyone who scored a goal.

In Egypt’s political center, a parliamentary committee meanwhile blamed Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim for the deaths of some 15 protesters in the wake of the Port Said incident and called for a vote of no confidence in the minister.

Outside the interior ministry security forces appear to have gained control of streets that were the scene of four days of pitched battles with ultras and youth groups. Leaders of the ultras have denied that they were involved in the fighting but admit that many of those attempting to storm the interior ministry are members of their groups who are beyond their control. The security forces gained the upper hand by using tear gas and bird shot after attempts to mediate a truce by clerics and activists had failed.

Ignoring social media at your peril (AJF News)

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:03:02 PST

JAMES M. DORSEY is part of the team organising the Asia Journalism Forum conference on Media and Political Change in Asia and the Middle East. In this article, he reflects on the lessons that governments need to learn from the Arab revolts.

If there is one event or region that has highlighted the impact of technology and social media on policymaking, social movements and protest, it is the Arab revolt that has been sweeping the Middle East and North Africa since december 2010. Many have dubbed the popular revolts in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and Syria a “Facebook revolution” because of the use by middle-class activists of social media in the build-up to the mass anti-government protests that have so far toppled four Arab leaders.

Similarly, social media and mobile telephony play a key role in Syria in circumventing news blackouts and censorship to get news of the brutal crackdown by the government of President Bashar al Assad to the outside world. They also figure in exacerbating sectarian tensions between the country’s Sunni Muslims and Alawites, the minority sect to which Assad belongs.

Yet, despite the perception of many, it is not technology that sparks revolts.

No doubt, social media facilitate and accelerate the speed and breadth of communication, and impact politics, social movements, communications and the flow of news. But the answer to the question whether the Arab revolt would have erupted without Facebook is a resounding yes. To dub the Arab revolt a Facebook revolution would require revising explanations of past revolts such as the Islamic revolution in Iran and popular uprisings in the Philippines and Indonesia.

To be sure, technology plays an important role in protests and revolts. In Iran in 1979, it was the cassette tape that helped Ayatollah Khomeini to inspire millions to overthrow the Shah, at the time the most powerful symbol of US influence in the region. In Tunisia, a mobile phone video of a young man setting himself on fire in desperation, tapped into widespread discontent and brought thousands into the streets of Tunis. Cassettes and mobile telephony are technologies that autocrats understand.

Social media, however, is a game changer.

Pro-democracy activists understand social media and the opportunities they offer in ways that autocratic Arab regimes find difficult, if not impossible, to grasp. Social media change the way communications and public affairs are managed, particularly in a crisis. That requires a degree of sophistication that many but particularly autocratic governments often find difficult, if not impossible, to marshal.

In fact, employing that degree of sophistication would require a far-reaching revision of the way most Arab autocrats do business. Syria is a case in point. The government’s approach to online information warfare involved its Syrian Electronic Army hacking hundreds of opposition and international websites, to assert that it was battling terrorists.

Perhaps what is most frustrating to Arab autocrats is the fact that the combination of mobile telephony, the Internet and social media has rendered censorship futile and fundamentally rewritten the ground rules of communications policies. Social media have turned the shaping of the narrative into something much more complex, in which governments and institutions have to engage in ways they did not have to in the past.

For one, communication has become a two-way street. Shaping the narrative no longer means control, instead it means engagement. That is an approach that in the best of circumstances is a difficult one, but particularly for embattled autocrats, because it requires a mind shift that few autocrats can make.

Even the Western media had problems in adjusting to technological change. When newspapers shifted from broadsheet to tabloid formats, not only did size change, so did the content, the story. Similarly, moving the print edition of a newspaper on to the Internet proved to be an unworkable formula. It failed to recognise that technology had replaced one-way communication with interactivity and changed the way news is consumed and what an empowered public expects of news organisations.

As a result, governments and institutions, irrespective of the political environment they operate in, are being forced to rethink their approach to communications. They have to pay greater attention to the way they project themselves, their policies and the way they relate to the public in a new and increasingly complex communications landscape.

Technological change means that governments and institutions have to be more attentive to public opinion because whether or not that opinion can be freely expressed social media enable it to become part of the public domain.

The international community looked to the Arab street in the wake of 9/11 for change that would eradicate the breeding ground of extremism. When the Arab street did not immediately revolt, government officials, analysts and journalists wrote off the Arab street. Nonetheless, the widespread discontent continued to simmer at the surface. It was palpable if one put one’s ear to the ground.

If the current Middle Eastern revolt and its embrace of technology teach anything, it is that where discontent exists but cannot be expressed openly, it will be expressed elsewhere in what constitutes a truer reflection of reality. It is a reality enhanced by technology that Middle Eastern and North African autocrats ignore at their peril.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at NTU’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. He is the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer. This article was published in AJF News.

China Needs to Change Mideast Foreign Policy: JMD on Bloomberg

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:08:01 PST

Illustration by Jordan Awan

By James M. Dorsey Feb 7, 2012 8:10 AM GMT+0800 0 Comments

China’s decision to veto a condemnation of Syria’s regime at the United Nations Security Council is just the latest signal that illustrates the need for a fundamental change in Chinese foreign policy.

The question is no longer whether officials in Beijing will abandon the principle of non-interference in other countries’ affairs to protect their expanding interests around the globe. The question is when.

China joined Russia in vetoing last weekend’s resolution partly for fear that backing the UN’s rebuke of a government’s brutal suppression of its people may come back to haunt China itself, given its treatment of Tibetans and of Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang autonomous region.

Yet China’s economic growth and associated need to secure resources increasingly have been at odds with this long-standing policy of being aloof. That’s especially true in the resource- rich region that stretches from the Atlantic coast of Africa to Central Asia and the subcontinent, much of which is now in revolt.

Over the past year, a series of incidents in the region have tested China’s non-interference policy, but without serious damage to the country’s image. With China’s veto of the UN resolution on Syria, Chinese determination to cling to a principle rooted in 19th-century diplomacy seems set to backfire.

Painted Into Corner

Rather than portray China as a global power that seeks good relations with all and -- unlike the U.S. -- doesn’t meddle in other countries’ affairs, last weekend’s veto of a relatively toothless condemnation of the regime in Damascus has painted China into a corner. The nation now appears to support an international pariah that brutally suppresses its people, a stance that risks roiling ties with some of China’s most important energy suppliers in the Arab League, which sponsored the defeated UN resolution.

In Libya, China initially avoided its policy dilemma. There, the Chinese abstained from voting on a UN resolution that effectively authorized international military intervention in Libya on humanitarian grounds. Chinese diplomats then went a step further. They supported a Security Council resolution that imposed an arms embargo and other sanctions on the regime of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, and endorsed referral of the regime’s crackdown to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

China cultivated relations with both Qaddafi’s embattled regime and the Benghazi-based rebels. Yet that evenhanded approach didn’t prevent the rebels from threatening a commercial boycott, particularly after they found documents purporting to show that Chinese defense companies had discussed the supply of arms with Qaddafi operatives. A Chinese Ministry of Commerce delegation visited Libya this week in a bid to recover at least some of the losses that China, Libya’s biggest foreign contractor, suffered with the evacuation last year of 35,000 workers who were servicing $18.8 billion worth of contracts.

The Arab revolt is certain to force not only a revision of China’s policy of non-interference but also of the employment practices of Chinese companies. With new and long-standing governments in the region desperate to reduce unemployment -- a key driver of the revolts -- authorities in Libya and elsewhere are likely to demand that Chinese construction companies employ local, rather than imported, labor.

Social Media Criticism

Moreover, Chinese authorities have twice in recent days come under criticism in the country’s social media for the government’s inability to protect workers abroad after 29 Chinese nationals were kidnapped by rebels in Sudan’s volatile South Kordofan province, and an additional 25 were abducted by restive Bedouin tribesmen in Egypt’s Sinai Desert. The critics charged that as a superpower, China needed to project its economic, as well as its military, muscle to stand up for those who put their lives at risk for the national good -- much like the U.S. sent Navy Seals to rescue two hostages in Somalia.

Censors were quick to remove the critical messages from social media because they touched a raw nerve. A policy of winning friends economically rather than make enemies by flexing military muscle is increasingly inconsistent with China’s dislike of appearing weak and vulnerable. National pride was at stake. The dilemma sparked public debate, with official media saying China needs time to build the necessary military capability to intervene when its nationals are in jeopardy, while others argue that China’s inaction may encourage further attacks.

The need for a revised approach to the Middle East and North Africa, as well as countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, will become increasingly clear as China boosts its investment in Central and South Asian nations before the scheduled 2014 withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, where China has secured oil and copper rights.

Reports that China is considering establishing military bases in Pakistan’s insurgency-plagued northwestern tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan, and a naval base in the Balochistan port city of Gwadar, could create further pressure for change. China holds the Pakistan-based East Turkestan Islamic Movement responsible for attacks last year in Xinjiang’s city of Kashgar. Defeating the movement is key to Chinese plans to keep regional trade and energy flowing, and the bases in Pakistan may tempt China to take on a role as local policeman.

If it takes an event to drive a change of China’s foreign policy, Yemen may prove to be the spark. With $355 billion worth of trade with Europe and a quarter of China’s exports traveling through Bab el Mandeb -- the strait that separates Yemen from Somalia and Djibouti -- China cannot afford a collapse of law and order in Yemen. The crisis-ridden country is countering multiple threats, including an al-Qaeda insurgency after mass protests and intercommunal fighting that forced the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh and paved the way for elections later this month.

Policy Breached Before

China has breached its non-interference policy to respond to these pressures in the recent past. Its deployment of naval vessels off the coast of Somalia to counter piracy, for example, constituted the first Chinese venture of its kind.

But China’s status as an emerging economic superpower demands that it become a more muscular global actor to pursue its interests. Ultimately that will mean taking positions on domestic disputes and conflicts around the world that have a bearing on China’s global national-security interests, the very opposite of the stance it adopted on Syria. Similarly, China will need to maintain military bases in key regions that serve to secure Chinese demand for natural resources, and to satisfy domestic calls to ensure the safety of its nationals abroad.

In short, China will have to use virtually the same tools employed by the U.S., shouldering the risks of a foreign policy that is interest-driven and therefore, at times, contradictory.

(James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.)

Read more opinion online from Bloomberg View.

Port Said helps forge bridges and reopens fault lines in Egypt

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:51:35 PST

Protesters pray as their compatriots stand guard to prevent them from throwing stones at riot police during clashes near the Interior Ministry in Cairo February 4, 2012. (Source: Reuters/Asmaa Waguih)

By James M. Dorsey

With the street battles in Cairo between militant soccer fans and protesters becoming ever more vicious, the death of 74 supporters of crowned Cairo soccer club Al Ahli SC in Port Said is sparking a reconciliation among once implacable foes while at the same time solidifying emerging fault lines in Egyptian society.

Budding ties between arch rival ultras – militant, well-organized, highly-politicized, street-battled hardened soccer fans – of Al Ahly and its arch rival, Cairo’s storied Al Zamalek SC, have been boosted by the lethal incident in Port Said.

Ultras of the two Cairo teams who had battled one and other for years stood a year ago for the first time in their five-year old history shoulder-to-shoulder on Tahrir Square manning the front lines of the protests that forced President Hosni Mubarak to resign after 30 years in office. They were the first to absorb attacks by security forces and Mubarak loyalists.

Throughout the year, ultras of both teams repeatedly found themselves on the same side against a common enemy during the storming of the offices of the hated State Security Service, which has since been renamed the National Security Force; protests demanding the resignation of the now dismissed board of the Egyptian Football Association (EFA); the storming of the Israeli embassy in Cairo last September; and vicious street battles in November and December in streets near Tahrir in support of their call for an immediate return to their barracks of Egypt’s military rulers. Some 50 people died and more than 1,000 were wounded in those clashes.

With many Egyptians convinced that the incident in Port Said constituted a planned, deliberate targeting of the Al Ahly ultras, ultras of all stripes see the incident as an attack on all ultras in a bid to break their resolve as the most militant opposition to the military’s designs to shape the future of Egypt in its image in a bid to preserve their Mubarak era perks and privileges.

As a result, ultras of Al Ahly and Al Zamalek are again together braving tear gas and birdshot in their effort to storm the interior ministry in central Cairo, under which the hated police and security forces resort. At least 12 people have been killed and hundreds wounded.

Ironically, the Port Said tragedy immediately after a match in which the city’s Al Masri SC defeated Al Ahly, may help restructure strained relations in Egyptian soccer and launch it on a badly needed road of reform.

The failure of the overwhelming majority of players to support last year’s uprising against Mr. Mubarak had further strained relations with the ultras who view themselves as the only true supporters of their clubs. To them, players are hired guns willing to switch allegiances for money while management consists largely of corrupt Mubarak appointees. Al Ahly ultras last March unfolded a huge banner addressed to players during their team’s friendly against Harras El-Hodoud that read: "We followed you everywhere but in the hard times we didn't find you."

Players have since pressured the ultras unsuccessfully to moderate their support tactics that include the use of fireworks, flares, smoke guns and abusive chanting because the clubs were being penalized.

However, in a sign of the changing times, the Al Ahly ultras this weekend apologized on an especially created Facebook page named “We are sorry Shika” to Zamalek winger Mahmoud Abdel-Razek aka Shikabala, widely viewed as Egypt’s top player, for routinely abusing him verbally during their clubs’ derbies. The abuse frequently lead to Shikabala and Al Ahly fans trading insults in heated exchanges.

Responding in an interview on the Zamalek club’s website, Shikabala welcomed the apology. “Despite the cruelty of what happened in Port Said, this disaster played a role in uniting the fans of all clubs. It might be a turning point in ending intolerance and hatred in Egyptian football. I will go to the Ahly club along with my teammates to offer our condolences to the families of Port Said martyrs. The fans of Ahly are my brothers. I hope Ahly and Zamalek fans can sit together in the stands without barriers," he said.

Players, fans and clubs may also find common ground in opposing a demand by Sepp Blatter, the president of world soccer body FIFA that the government reinstates the EFA board dismissed in the wake of Port Said on the grounds that its firing constituted political interference. Clubs and fans have been demanding the resignation of the board for the past year. Mr. Blatter’s call rings hallow given that the board consists of Mubarak appointees who further the ousted president’s efforts to control and manipulate the game to his political benefit.

It also rings hallow given the fact that despite a nominal 2013 FIFA deadline for a restructuring of Egyptian soccer FIFA essentially tolerated the fact that the vast majority of Egyptian premier league clubs fail to meet the soccer body’s criteria for league membership. These criteria include that an owner can only have one club in the league – several Egyptian premier league teams are military owned --; must have its own stadium – virtually no club does and if it does as in the case of Wadi Degla was not allowed by the security services to use it; and should be financially self-sufficient – few Egyptian clubs are.

If Port Said is setting the stage for a reordering of Egyptian soccer, it is also reinforcing emerging fault lines in a country that is protest weary, retains confidence in the military despite its brutality, is frustrated with the lack of immediate economic benefit from the revolt and yearns for normalcy so that Egypt can return to economic growth.

The public mood increasingly meant that the ultras, revered for their fearlessness and contribution to the ousting of Mr. Mubarak, were growing isolated with the public opting for electoral politics and turning its back on contentious street politics. Port Said brought the ultras out of their isolation with thousands of Egyptians in recent days joining their efforts to seek retribution by attacking the interior ministry.

It also sparked counter demonstrations. “Those who love Egypt should not destroy it” and "Police or people…we are all Egyptians," demonstrators chanted demanding a ceasefire between the ultras and the security forces. Residents on Cairo’s Mansour and Mohammed Mahmoud streets, the scene of the battles, complain barricades erected by the security forces and the clashes were disrupting daily life in their neighborhood.

Various groups including relatives of Port Said casualties, members of parliament and the imam of Tahrir Square’s Omar Markram mosque, Mazhar Shahin have been seeking to negotiate a ceasefire. Ahmad Maher, a leader of the April 6 movement that played a key role in the uprising against Mr. Mubarak, suffered a fractured skull and concussion when he was hit by a rock while trying to negotiate a truce.

EFA clean-up unlikely to satisfy Egypt’s ultras attacking interior ministry in Cairo

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 22:57:04 PST

Dismal of EFA president Sami Zaher (bottom right): the beginning of a clean-up

By James M. Dorsey

A decision by Egypt’s Attorney General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud to bar fired Egyptian Football Association (EFA) president Samir Zaher alongside Port Said governor Ahmed Abdullah Ahmed, and the city’s security chief Essam el-Din Abdel Hamid Samak from traveling outside the country lays the groundwork for ending the domination of Egyptian soccer by Mubarak-era appointees.

In doing so, authorities would be meeting a key demand of the street-battled hardened ultras – highly politicized, well-organized, violence-prone militant soccer fans modeled on similar groups in Italy and Serbia – who have for days been seeking to storm the interior ministry in central Cairo in response to the soccer brawl in Port Said in which 74 people lost their lives.

Similar protests have erupted across Egypt in which at least 12 people have been killed in pitched street battles with security forces and hundreds more injured.

Mr. Mahmoud barred the three men from foreign travel pending an investigation into the violence in Port Said that erupted after a match in which the city’s Al Masri SC defeated crowned Cairo club Al Ahli SC. He also barred the Director General of the Central Security Forces of the Suez Canal Zone, Major General Abdul Aziz Sami Fahmy, Amr Ahmed Abdel Mawla Bakheet commander of security forces of Port Said, and Saad Muhammad Yunus Moawad, director of the Port Said Stadium.

Authorities, acting on Mr. Mahmoud’s instructions, further detained 52 suspects in the Port Said incident for 15 days pending investigation, and charged them with “premeditated murder and attempted murder and terrorizing citizens and setting fire to the facilities, bullying and destruction of public and private property.”

The ultras, revered and celebrated for their fearlessness, years of confrontations in Egyptian stadiums with repressive security forces and key role in fighting supporters of former President Hosni Mubarak during last year’s 18 days of protests that forced the president to resign after 30 years of the office, have since repeatedly demanded the resignation of Mr. Zaher and his board.

The government’s dismissal of the board and barring of Mr. Zaher from travel will not immediately satisfy the ultras attacking the interior ministry who are enraged by the violence in Port Said in the belief that the government and police were taking revenge on them. Nonetheless, it addresses one of their main concerns.

A series of recent disruptions of Egyptian premier league soccer matches by ultras of various clubs highlighted their determination to defy the EFA and force reform of the country’s governing soccer body.

With the disruptions, the ultras made good on their vow to defy an EFA crackdown on their club support tactics, which involve the use during matches of fireworks, flares, smoke guns, loud chanting and anti-EFA and government banners.

Ultras of Ismaili SC invaded Ismailia Stadium on January 28 at the beginning of a match against Masri, dubbed the Suez Canal derby, in defiance of an EFA decision that the game should be held behind closed doors because of fan misbehavior earlier in January during Ismaili’s game against Ittihad al-Shorta, the team owned by the police force, the focus of ultra hatred. Ultras White Knights (UWK), the support group of crowned Cairo club Al Zamalek SC, disrupted their team ’s match last November against the police team and last Friday against ENPPI, owned by a state-owned oil and gas company. The incidents forced in December the EFA on instructions of the interior ministry to postpone several matches.

In a statement on their Facebook page that has some 255,000 followers, the Al Ahli support group Ultras Ahlawy said at the time that its defiance served to deliver a message to “all remnants of the ousted regime” that they would not obey their “manipulated regime.” The statement laid out the ultras’ agenda. “The issue is bigger than football. We want to settle the score with remnants of the former regime, under the leadership of Samir Zaher, and their oppression of Egyptian youth,” it said.

In a similar statement, UWK said that “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 defense of freedom even with our blood. Our war with the EFA will continue until we win and see the corrupt people in prison.”

Egypt’s military rulers last month signaled their awareness of the need for a reform of sports in general and soccer in particular with the replacement of the Mubarak-appointed heads of the national sports and nation youth councils.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which emerged as the winner of Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliamentary elections and last year briefly toyed with the idea of launching soccer teams of its own, has moreover vowed to clean out the sports sector of Mubarak associates by removing the heads of associations. It said Mr. Zaher was the first of its targets.

Fans and clubs alike are certain to be happy to see the back of Mr. Zaher and his cohorts. But as a result of years of battle in stadiums, vicious street battles throughout the past year and the bloodshed in Port Said, they have set their sights much higher. The struggle for the interior ministry building is a battle of wills between a military-led government and its police force desperate to reassert its credibility and a determined street-battle hardened mass of militant soccer fans determined to thwart its designs. So far, the militants have demonstrated that they can stand their ground.

Ultras haben nach Einschätzung von Experte Mubarak gestürzt - «Diese Leute sind furchtlos»

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 02:28:18 PST

(dapd - Interview) Ultras haben nach Einschätzung von Experte Mubarak gestürzt - «Diese Leute sind furchtlos» -- Von Johannes Ehrmann --.

483 words

3 February 2012

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Berlin/Singapur (dapd). Der Nahost-Fußballexperte James M. Dorsey sieht die blutigen Ausschreitungen im Fußballstadion von Port Said als Fortsetzung des Machtkampfs um die Neugestaltung Ägyptens. «Was sich in Port Said abgespielt hat, war politisch», sagte Dorsey der Nachrichtenagentur dapd. «Fußball in Ägypten ist per definitionem politisch. Eine Polizeimacht, die nicht an Sicherheit, sondern an der Verbesserung ihres Ansehens interessiert ist, ist per definitionem politisch.» Dies sei jedoch seit dem Sturz von Ex-Machthaber Husni Mubarak der Fall.

Dorsey ist Universitätsprofessor in Singapur und betreibt das Blog «The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer». Nach dem Mittwochabend sei die entscheidende Frage: «War es ein Konflikt, der aus dem Ruder gelaufen ist oder aber bewusst herbeigeführt wurde? Ich habe zunehmend das Gefühl, das zweite ist der Fall», sagte Dorsey. Der regierende Militärrat habe möglicherweise ein Interesse an den Krawallen gehabt.

Ultra-Gruppen der großen Fußballvereine seien am Umsturz des alten Regimes maßgeblich beteiligt gewesen. «Es waren Jugendgruppen und es waren Ultras, die Mubarak gestürzt haben», sagte Dorsey der dapd. Dabei hätten selbst die beiden großen Kairoer Verein Al-Ahly und Zamalek ihre Feindschaft zeitweise vergessen: «Es gibt nur eines, was größer war als der Hass zwischen Al-Ahly und Zamalek: Der Hass auf das Regime.»

Dorsey wollte die 74 Toten vom Mittwoch ins Verhältnis gesetzt wissen. Es sei zweifellos die größte Katastrophe im ägyptischen Fußball und die größte seit dem Sturz Mubaraks gewesen, sagte er. Doch ägyptische Ultras seien auch an der Stürmung der israelischen Botschaft mit drei Toten im September und an Protesten auf dem Tahrir-Platz im November beteiligt gewesen seien, bei denen Dutzende Menschen getötet und Tausende weitere verwundet worden waren. Durch das Wiederaufflammen der Gewalt im Herbst hätten auch die Ultras an Unterstützung in der breiten Bevölkerung verloren, die zunehmend «demonstrationsmüde» sei und zur Normalität zurückkehren wolle.

Die exzellent organisierte Ultra-Bewegung sei das Rückgrat der Protestierenden gewesen. «Sie haben eine wichtige Rolle dabei gespielt, die Barriere der Angst zu durchbrechen», sagte der Experte. «Sie waren die Verteidigungslinie der Bewegung. Sie waren vorbereitet. Sie hatten Zwillen und Teams, die ständig Projektile lieferten.»

Wie es nun weitergehe, sei noch nicht abzusehen. «Die Ultras sind nach Port Said unglaublich wütend. Diese Leute sind furchtlos. Wenn es sie ihr Leben kostet, dann kostet es sie eben ihr Leben. Es macht ihnen nichts aus und die Polizei respektiert sie dafür.» Wenn die Ultras öffentliche Unterstützung bekämen, wonach es derzeit aussehe, sei die Frage, «welchen Preis das Militär zu zahlen bereit» sei. «Das Militär hat bewiesen, dass es weit geht. Und die Ultras haben bewiesen, dass sie sehr viel einstecken können.»

Leider hätten die Ereignisse des vergangenen Jahres gezeigt, dass es ohne Demonstrationen und Blutvergießen in der Region keine Veränderungen geben könne. «Es ist kein schönes Bild, aber nicht notwendigerweise ein pessimistisches», sagte Dorsey.

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Port Said boosts youth and soccer demands for civilian rule in Egypt

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:31:49 PST

Tahrir protest in the wake of Port Said

By James M. Dorsey

A growing public sentiment that the brawl in which 74 people were killed in Port Said was deliberately provoked is putting new wind in the sails of militant soccer fan and youth groups who have been battling the military and security forces for much of the past year since the ousting of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

As thousands across Egypt joined the youth and soccer groups in protests in the wake of what they see as the planned killing of members of Ultras Ahlawy, the militant soccer fan group of storied Cairo club Al Ahly SC, immediately after the team’s surprising defeat in Port Said by Al Masri SC, the jury of Egyptian public opinion was rendering its verdict on what happened in Port Said with its feet.

Ultras Ahlawy together with its arch rival Ultras White Knights (UWK), street-battle hardened supporters of Cairo’s crowned Zamalek SC, played a key role in the protests that led to Mr. Mubarak’s departure. They demanded in violent clashes in recent months the return of the country’s military rulers to their barracks.

Much of the youth and soccer groups’ criticism of the post-Mubarak transition rings true even if does not resonate with a majority of the population. They accuse the military of subverting a promised transition to real democracy in a bid to preserve its political and economic perks and interests and employing to do so the same if not worse repressive measures than the Mubarak regime. Scores have been killed in protests since Mubarak’s downfall, thousands injured and some 12,000 people, including activists, bloggers and soccer fans dragged in front of military courts.

For much of the past years, the fearless ultras were revered for their militant support for their clubs, their years of confrontation in the stadiums of Mr. Mubarak’s hated police and security forces, and their manning on Cairo’s Tahrir Square of the front lines in January and February of last year during the attacks on protesters by police and Mubarak loyalists.

That public support had started to wane however by the time of the vicious street battles in November and December of last year near Tahrir Square in which some 50 people were killed and more than 1,000 wounded.

Egyptians had grown weary of the ultras’ militant street tactics, contentious politics and radical demands and retained confidence in the military despite its brutality. Frustrated that the toppling of Mr. Mubarak had not produced immediate tangible economic fruit, a majority yearned for a return to normalcy to allow Egypt to recover economically. They had opted for electoral politics even if that meant the filling of the country’s political vacuum by vested interests

If the deaths in Port Said were intended to further isolate the militant soccer fan and youth groups, circumstantial evidence that the incident was provoked is back firing with the military on the one hand cracking down on demonstrators and on the other hand unsuccessfully seeking to project itself as the protector of football supporters and the independent investigator into what sparked the incident.

The evidence that includes Twitter warnings in advance of the match in Port Said; the presence in the stadium of a group of unknown, alleged Al Masri supporters armed with batons and knives; the locking of stadium entrances that usually were open so that people could not escape; and the fact that soccer violence is usually initiated by supporters of the losing rather than the winning team certainly when the winner is a mouse like Al Masri defeating a giant like Al Ahly may not be firm enough to stand up in court. With Egyptians taking to the streets, it doesn’t have to.

A statement by the Muslim Brotherhood earlier this week that an “invisible” hand had been involved in Port Said suggested that the group that won the first post-Mubarak parliamentary election was aligning itself with the Egyptian public’s verdict and leveraging the incident in its effort to reduce the role of the military in the transition to democracy.

The lack of security in the Port Said stadium “confirms that there is invisible planning that is behind this unjustified massacre. The authorities have been negligent. We fear that some officers are punishing the people for their revolution and for depriving them of their ability to act as tyrants and restricting their privileges," the Brotherhood said in a statement on its website.

While it is unlikely that the Brotherhood at this point will join the protests, it has demonstrated in the past that its ability to mobilize people can make or break public manifestations.

The deaths in Port Said have left the ultras – modeled on similar groups in Italy and Serbia – who bear a deep-seated hatred of the police because of the violence and the abuse they were exposed to in almost four years of weekly battles in stadiums during soccer seasons angry, ever more determined and eager for a fight.

It has also put ultra leaders who were seeking to reign in their ranks swelled over the years by thousands of young, disaffected, often less educated and unemployed fans whose raison d’etre increasingly is revenge. While it has boosted the leaders’ efforts to set aside the deep-seated animosity between the rival ultra groups that in the past year has only been superseded by their opposition to the regime, it has also highlighted their difficulty in controlling their ranks.

Theirs is as much a battle for karama or dignity as it is part of the fight to hold the military to its pledge to lead the country to democracy. Their dignity is vested in their ability to stand up to the dakhliya, the interior ministry that is in the wake of Port Said the focal point of the protests; the knowledge that they no longer can be abused by security forces without recourse; and the fact that they no longer have to pay off each and every policemen to stay out of trouble.

At the core of the ultras’ defiance is the instinctive learning of the lessons of the failures of Arab revolutionaries in the 1970s and 1980s expressed by prominent Syrian poet Adonis and Marxist ideologue Yasin Al-Hafiz whose calls for leaving no stone in society unturned were stymied by autocratic leaders cloaked in the mantle of Arab nationalism.

“Cairo’s Tahrir Square is in a certain sense the paradigm for all the other Tahrir Squares in the Arab world” said prominent Syrian intellectual Sadik Al-Azm in a lecture late last year at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), describing it as resistance to persistent efforts by ancien regimes in the Middle East and North Africa to effectively retain some degree of power.

Paradoxically, there is a shared sense between security forces and ultras that for the first time in five years of on-going battles it is the interior ministry security forces as much as the soccer fans fighting for their own survival. The police’s tarnished image as enforcers of a brutal regime remains unchanged a year after Mubarak’s downfall and, if anything, had been reinforced by the military’s refusal to hold police officers accountable for their brutality despite pressure from the public as well as reform-minded security personnel.

As a result, the reduced presence of security in the Port Said stadium doesn’t come as a surprise. Amid rising crime rates, police were often absent from the streets and stadiums in the last year more concerned about avoiding clashes that would tarnish their image than in maintaining security and hoping that incidents would prove that they were needed to prevent the country from descending into chaos and anarchy.

Amid the tear gas and the smoke on the embattled streets in front of Cairo’s Interior Ministry, ultra leaders were in recent days unsuccessfully trying to gain maximum advantage from renewed public empathy by seeking to limit slogans to events in Port Said. The Guardian quoted an Ultras Ahlawy leader as trying to persuade a militant to remove a sign attacking Egypt’s military rulers. "Take that sign down. We don't want to blame SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) today. Politics can wait," the leader said.

Ultra leaders have learnt from their failed public relations campaign in the wake of the street battles in November and December that it wouldn’t be that easy to regain public support. Youth activists and soccer fans in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis erected in December projector screens to show residents looking down from their balconies with little sense of engagement videos of what they see as the military's abuse of power "Why are you silent? Have you won your rights already?" the revolutionaries shouted at them in frustration.

Egypt's Soccer Tragedy: Prelude to a Military Crackdown?

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:49:30 PST

Thursday, Feb. 02, 2012

By James M. Dorsey, Time Magazine

The defiance and bluster among Egypt's militant soccer fans following the death of at least 74 people in a stadium in Port Said betrayed a sense of foreboding: The "ultras" — the hardcore fans who express their team identity in street battles with rival fans as much as by cheering from the bleachers — are bracing themselves for an existential confrontation with the security forces.

Five years of almost weekly confrontations with the security forces, inside stadiums and then, over the past year, in Tahrir Square and the streets of major cities in the course of the rebellion that forced out President Hosni Mubarak, have left the ultras with open accounts to settle, and with reason to believe they're being targeted by the authorities. And that sense has hardened their resolve to fight. (See pictures of the soccer riot.)

The tragedy in Port Said where fans of the highly popular Cairo club Al Ahly SC clashed with those of Port Said's Al Masry SC, has prompted a frenzy of speculation alleging a setup by the authorities to undermine the ultras popularity and break their bare-knuckled resistance to continued military rule in Egypt. The truth behind the incident may never be definitively established, and could well lie somewhere between assertions that the fans themselves instigated the violence, and allegations that they were deliberately provoked.

One of the great untold stories of the revolution that overthrew Mubarak is the fact that football ultras were the rebellion's shock troops. The historic hatred between supporters of Al Ahly, founded in the early 20th century as the club of nationalist opponents of British colonial rule, and its arch rival rival Zamalek, the club of the Brits, their Egyptian allies and the monarchy, was eclipsed only by their loathing of Mubarak and his security forces. When the revolt began, they set aside their differences in a common fight against the dictator. (MORE: What's Behind Egyptian Soccer's Bloodiest Day?)

Fearless and feared, battle-hardened from years of fighting the police, the ultras were in the vanguard that broke through police barricades on January 25 of last year, the first day of the anti-Mubarak protests, creating the breach that allowed protesters to occupy Cairo's Tahrir Square. That was a milestone moment in helping Egyptians break the first barrier of fear of the consequences of publicly expressing their rejection of the Mubarak regime.

Once on the Square, they applied their knowledge of street warfare to hold it: It was the ultras that manned the outer perimeter and entrances to the Square, and with ferocious resolve and impressive tactical discipline they repelled the attacks by security forces and Mubarak loyalists that followed, hurling rocks and projectiles at security forces, throwing tear gas grenades back into the ranks of the police and convincing protesters around them to stand their ground in the face of the regime's assault.

In the months that followed, the ultras were also in the forefront of storming the offices of Mubarak's hated Central Security Force (CSF), the September ransacking in September of the Israeli embassy in Cairo, the bitter street battles in November and December in the vicinity of Tahrir that left more than 50 people dead and more than 1,000 wounded, and repeated clashes in stadiums that prompted Egypt's soccer association, at the instigation of the Interior Ministry, to penalize the clubs.

Yet, as the majority of Egyptians grew weary of protests and yearned for normalcy and economic recovery as the year wore on, the ultras began to lose popularity. The revolutionary youth protestors that had been at the core of the revolt still looked to the soccer fans as their protectors, but that simply put them together on the losing side of the competition between confrontational street politics that sought to sweep away the remnants of the regime, including the Mubarak-appointed generals that currently rule Egypt, and the electoral politics and associated political horse trading that put the initiative in the hands of the military, and of long-established opposition groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood who had the experience, skills and organization to dominate at the polls. (See pictures of protests in Egypt.)

In some ways, the ultra organizations — often founded by educated, highly-politicized students and professionals, many of whom proclaimed themselves anarchists — were victims of their own success. Their ranks swelled with thousands of less-educated, disaffected and often unemployed youths motivated less by politics than by a desire to repay the security forces for years of abuse and mistreatment.

The warning signs had been there for some time. Ultras stormed the pitch in April last year in the first African championship match between Zamalek and Tunisia's Esperance Sportieve du Tunis played in Cairo in front of a crowd admitted free of charge. Police presence that day had been minimal; for the first time in their history, the ultras owned the stadium. In the 90th minute of a game that was hard to follow through the fog of fireworks, flares and smoke guns, the fans led by a charismatic uneducated young man stormed the pitch in protest against a decision by the referee that would have cost Zamalek the game.

Leaders of the Zamalek ultra group were stunned, and admitted that they had lost control that day last April. Then, as in the wake of Wednesday's Port Said debacle, the police were accused of staying away to encourage an incident that could be used to demonstrate the need for harsh police action. In Port Said, many ultras believe, the military shared that objective, seeking to undermine the standing of some of their most militant challengers.

Al Ahly and Zamalek had been scheduled to play one another on February 7 (the authorities have now canceled all games until further notice), and the ultra leadership on both sides had recently declared that they would not fight one another, but instead reserve their rage for the common enemy. In a statement on its Facebook page the Zamalek ultras, Ultras White Knights (UWK) called on their Ahly counterparts to declare a truce. "We are asking for an end to the bloodshed and to reconcile and unite for the sake of Egypt," the White Knights said. Ultras Ahlawy replied with a smiley. (See pictures of Tahrir Square.)

The violence in Port Said will mean the rival ultras will need one another more than ever. Following Wednesday's tragedy, Egypt's military ruler, Field Marshall Mohamed Hussein Tantawi vowed to hunt down the perpetrators, portraying himself as protector of the victims. And Tantawi is likely to have public opinion on his side. Whether provoked or not, the ultras may have achieved the opposite of the goal that has united them over the past year: Rather than sweep away the remnants of the ancien regime, they may instead have helped consolidate the military's authority in an order deemed acceptable to a majority of Egyptians.

James M. Dorsey is 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 play into the hands of the military by default or by design

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:33:25 PST

By James M. Dorsey

Efforts by the Egyptian military and security forces to exploit Wednesday’s soccer violence in Port Said in which 74 people were killed in the worst violence in the country’s football history threaten to back fire with mounting indications that authorities should have been aware of plans to disrupt the match between the city’s Al Masri SC and crowned Cairo club Al Ahli SC.

A series of messages on Twitter in advance of the match between the two rivals, whose fans already clashed last June in Port Said, as well as analysis by soccer officials of video of Wednesday’s incident is sparking outrage among Egyptians who have not in the past supported the country’s militant, highly politicized, violence-prone soccer fans or ultras.

The security forces’ low level presence in the Port Stadium, part of an effort in the past year by the unpopular police forces, which are widely seen as the henchmen of ousted President Hosni Mubarak’s regime, to avoid clashes with the ultras – founded by professionals and students who often were anarchists who modelled themselves on similar groups in Serbia and Italy -- and are credited for their role last year in Egypt’s anti-government revolt, was also designed to demonstrate that the police was needed to prevent a breakdown of law and order.

Many Egyptians are convinced that in the case of Port Said, the police’s attitude was backed by the country’s military rulers in a bid to further drive a wedge between the militant groups, the most radical opponents of continued military rule, and a protest-weary public that still has confidence in the military despite its brutal crackdown on protesters, is frustrated by the lack of tangible economic benefit from the revolt and wants a return to normalcy so that Egypt can resume economic growth.

Whether that strategy will work could be put to the test on Friday when it will become clear what kind of response the ultras are getting to their calls for a protest march on the interior minister. The sense that the police and the military failed to live up to their responsibilities in Port Said and that the violence was not spontaneous could work in the ultras favour.

“There was something planned. Our security knew about it. People were tweeting before the match. I saw a tweet with my own eyes 13 to 14 hours before the match in which a Masri fan was telling Ahli supporters: ‘If you are coming to the match, write your will before you come,” said Diaa Salah, a member of the women’s committee of the Egyptian Football Federation (EFA) whose board consists of Mubarak appointees, and a former manager of a soccer club.

“The government is getting back at the ultras. They are saying: ‘You protest against us, you want democracy and freedom. Here is a taste of your democracy and freedom,” Mr. Salah said.

Ultras of Al Ahli, a club founded more than a century ago as a center of anti-British, republican nationalism together with supporters of their arch Cairo rival Al Zamalek, the club created by British colonial administrators, their Egyptian allies and monarchists, set their deep-seated hatred of one another aside in the past year to join forces first against Mubarak and then against the military.

The ultras played a key role in breaking the barrier of fear that had prevented Egyptians from en masse protesting against the government and formed the outer defence line on Tahrir Square last year against the security forces and Mubarak loyalists. Ultras were since in the lead in the storming of the offices of Mubarak’s hated State Security Service shortly after his departure, repeated clashes with security forces in the stadiums, the storming of the Israeli embassy in September and finally the vicious battles in November and December in streets near Tahrir Square in which more than 50 people were killed and more than a 1,000 were wounded. Those battles were in demand of the immediate return of the military to its barracks.

The ultras’ fearlessness coupled with their record of years of hostility towards the police increasingly drew thousands of disaffected, less educated and often unemployed youth whose political thinking was less sharply defined and who bear a deep-seated grudge against the police for the violence and abuse they suffered in years of clashes in the stadiums. Ultras last April in the first African club championship in Cairo in which the public was freely admitted between Zamalek and Esperance Sportieve du Tunis stormed the pitch in the 90th minute destroying everything in their path. Leaders of the ultras admitted at the time that they were losing control to a charismatic young man with no education and no job.

In a clear indication that leaders of both the Ahly and Zamalek ultras were seeking to curb violence, Ultras White Knights (UWK), the Zamalek support group called in a statement several days before the match in Port Said and in advance of an Al Ahly-Zamalek match that had been scheduled for February 8 on their Al Ahly counterparts to agree on a truce. “We are asking for an end to the bloodshed and to reconcile and unite for the sake of Egypt,” the UWK said. Ultras Ahlawy replied with a smiley.

That call is now more relevant than ever. The ultras whether they walked into a trap or initiated the Port Said violence have no doubt again dug themselves into a hole. This time round it will be a lot tougher to dig themselves out. They have played into the hands of the military and the police in dealing a lethal blow contentious street politics as opposed to electoral politics and the horse trading associated with it. For those who believe that only continued protests will ensure Egypt’s transition to a democracy and prevent remnants of the ancien regime and established opposition forces such as the Muslim Brotherhood from filling the political vacuum and structuring the country’s future in a way that serves their interests rather than one that guarantees the emergence of a full-fledged democracy, Wednesday is a black day.

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.

Ultra Violence - How Egypt’s soccer mobs are threatening the revolution

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:13:09 PST

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Ultra Violence

How Egypt’s soccer mobs are threatening the revolution.

BY JAMES M. DORSEY | FEBRUARY 1, 2012

Wednesday's lethal soccer riots in the Suez Canal town of Port Said, which left more than 73 spectators and security personnel dead, marks a watershed moment in Egypt after the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak. This tragedy is not simply a story of a match gone horribly awry: It will have important and wide-ranging political ramifications, further isolate militant, highly politicized, violence-prone fan groups, single out the police for renewed criticism, and strengthen calls for the imposition of law and order.

Initial reports said the violence erupted during a match between storied Cairo club Al Ahly, Egypt's most popular team, and Premier League team Al Masry, with only a minimal number of security forces in the stadium. While Wednesday's deadly incident constitutes the worst soccer-related violence in an Egyptian stadium in the country's history, it is not the first time that militant fan groups -- or "ultras," modeled on similar groups in Italy and Serbia -- have invaded the pitch. The incident is but one of a series of violent events involving soccer fans since Mubarak's fall.

As in April, when fans of Al Ahly's arch-rival Zamalek club invaded the pitch during the post-Mubarak era's first African Cup match against a Tunisian team, rumors were swirling in Egypt about the reasons for Wednesday's incident. Some Egyptians speculated that the security forces deliberately allowed the clashes to take place to prove that the police are needed to avoid a breakdown of law and order. Others suggested that Egypt's military rulers engineered the lack of a police presence in a bid to provoke the ultras and further undermine their credibility in a protest-weary country frustrated with the country's downward economic spiral.

Read further on Foreign Policy

Resignations deepen rift among Turkish Islamists and country’s soccer crisis

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:13:48 PST

Fethullah Gulen

By James M. Dorsey

The Turkish Football Federation’s (TFF) three top managers have resigned in a move that appears to have deepened the rift between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkey’s powerful Islamic Gulen movement as well as the massive match-fixing crisis in Turkish soccer.

TFF chairman Mehmet Ali Ayindar and his vice chairmen Goksel Gumusdag and Lutfi Arıbogan gave no reason for their resignation days after the federation’s general assembly defeated a proposed rule change that would have prevented soccer teams found guilty of match-fixing from being relegated.

Mr. Gumusdag, an in-law of Mr. Erdogan and head of a club with two players implicated in the scandal, was among scores of soccer officials detained last year in the match-fixing scandal, but he was released after several hours of questioning.

The rejection of the rule change constituted a defeat for Mr. Erdogan, who last month drove against President Abdullah Gul’s will a controversial bill through parliament that reduced penalties for match-fixing from a maximum 12 to three years and prepared the ground for the rejected TFF rule change.

Mr. Gul is believed to be close to Fethullah Gulen, a self-exiled, Pennsylvania-based cleric, whose movement, Turkey’s foremost Islamic alliance, operates schools, businesses, media, including major Turkish media, and NGOs across the globe, and is widely seen as having significant sway over Turkey’s police force. The Gulen movement has been instrumental in the rise of Turkey’s appeal across the Middle East, North Africa and in sub-Saharan Africa with its network often paving the way for Turkish diplomacy and business.

Mr. Erdogan increasingly, however, has come to see Mr. Gulen not only as an asset but also a liability. The cleric’s inroads into the judiciary and the police has meant that critics of his movement have more often than not found themselves behind bars on charges of involvement in the murky and controversial Ergenekon affair, involving Turkey’s Kemalist, ultra-nationalist deep state. The affair has led to massive military arrests and made Turkey one of the world’s foremost jailers of journalists. The arrests have sparked international criticism and portrayed Mr. Erdogan as increasingly arrogant and authoritarian.

Mr. Gulen left Turkey in 1998 ostensibly for health reasons but more likely to avoid standing trial for a recording in which he allegedly advocated an Islamic regime. “Our friends who have positions in legislative and administrative bodies should learn its details and be vigilant all the time so that they can transform it and be more fruitful on behalf of Islam ... However, they should wait until the conditions become more favourable ... they should not come out too early,” Mr. Gulen was reported to have said.

Mr. Gulen asserts that the quote was taken out of context. He was acquitted in 2006 after having been tried in absentia on charges of trying to overthrow the secular state. Mr. Gulen has opted to remain in rural Pennsylvania although he is free to return to Turkey.

Mr. Gul and his supporters view the investigation of the match-fixing scandal as part of a greater clean-up in Turkey. They argue that the match-fixing scandal involves huge sums of money and is closely linked to organized crime.

A majority of TFF members rejected the proposed rule change that would have replaced relegation with a minimum penalty of a 12-point deduction on the grounds that such a move could only be made once legal proceedings in Turkey’s worst match-fixing scandal had been completed. Jailed Fenerbahce president Aziz Yildirim and his storied club, who have been targeted by Gulen media, were among those opposed to the rule change despite the fact that the club is threatened with relegation under the current TFF rules.

“Fenerbahçe voted against this for reasons of pride. The club thinks it's innocent and that it will prevail in the court case…. It has no problem being demoted a division and said so from the day that (European soccer body) UEFA announced they won't be in the Champions League. ‘You've already found us guilty with this decision, then why are you waiting to demote us?’ they said,” according to an email from Turkish blogger TurkeyEmergency, a Turkish journalist who wishes to remain anonymous because of the arrest of journalists critical of Mr. Gulen.

Messrs Erdogan and Gulen’s soccer proxy battle erupted as Mr. Yildirim and 92 other soccer club officials, coaches and players are scheduled to go on trial on February 14 on match-fixing related charges that involve eight teams, including Europa League members Besiktas and Trabzonspor. The scandal is believed to have affected 19 matches, including last season’s Fenerbahce 4-3 victory over Sivasspor which saw the club clinch the league championship on the final day. The Champions League has since barred Fenerbahce from participating in its competition because of the match-fixing scandal.

The TFF said that executive board member Hüsnü Güreli would be acting chairman until the federation elects a new head on February 27.

Mr. Aydinlar said in a statement that he had resigned because he could not “stand the atmosphere where there is no trust, where many people and institutions act without ethics. The point we are at is in deep contrast with my views in life and ethics, so I’ve decided to leave in order to raise attention to the situation.”

TurkeyEmergency quoted Mr. Yildirim as saying in a letter that he had no issue with Mr. Erdogan and that “no one can get in between Erdogan and myself,” an apparent reference to Mr. Gulen. Turkey’s Fanatik quoted Mr. Yildirim on Wednesday as saying in an interview three times that “Fenerbahçe is Atatürk's team and it will stay that way.” Mr. Yildirim was seemingly accusing Mr. Gulen, widely seen as an opponent of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the visionary who carved modern Turkey out of the ruins of the Ottoman empire, of wanting to remove him to gain control of Fenerbahce.

The soccer battle between Messrs Erdogan and Gulen is the latest of a string of incidents souring the once close relationship between the two men. Mr. Gulen has taken Mr. Erdogan to task for his tough stance towards Israel in the wake of the 2010 Mavi Maramara affair. Mr. Erdogan effectively froze relations with Israel after Israeli forces stormed the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish aid ship that was attempting to run the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, killing nine Turkish nationals.

The cleric has also criticized the prime minister for being too soft on Turkey’s staunchly secular armed forces despite the fact that Mr. Erdogan succeeded in bringing the military under civilian control and that hundreds of officers, including scores of serving generals, have on his watch been jailed for alleged coup-plotting. Mr. Gulen is believed to want Mr. Gul to succeed Mr. Erdogan in 2015 when Mr. Erdogan’s term as prime minister is up and he is expected to seek the presidency.

Arabische Liga - Schattenboxen mit Teheran (JMD quotes)

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:50:26 PST

Arabische Liga - Schattenboxen mit Teheran

Deutsche Welle

Der Anfang vom Ende Assads?

Die Arabische Liga geht auf Konfrontation mit Syrien. Doch den Vorreitern aus den Golfstaaten geht es nicht um Menschenrechte, sondern darum den Einfluss des Iran auf die Region zu schwächen.

Die Arabische Liga galt lange als ein siechender Club unverbesserlicher Gerontokraten, der ineffektiv vor sich hindümpelte. In den komfortablen Sesseln des Kairoer Hauptquartiers wurden schon lange keine gesamtarabischen Interessen mehr vertreten. Die Liga war zu einem Forum innerarabischer Streitigkeiten und persönlicher Fehden verkommen.

Im Zuge des Arabischen Frühlings ist Bewegung in den "Club der Diktatoren" gekommen. Die politischen Umwälzungen in der Region haben die alte Agenda über den Haufen geworfen. Die Liga konnte es sich nicht mehr leisten, als ein reiner Verwalter des Status Quo zu agieren.

Revolution im "Club der Diktatoren"

Die Revolution ließ auch hier nicht lange auf sich warten: Mitte November wurde das Gründungsmitglied Syrien aus der Arabischen Liga ausgeschlossen, ein unerhörter und eigentlich satzungswidriger Vorgang. Und seit die Golfstaaten auch noch ihre Delegierten aus Syrien abzogen und die Beobachtermission der Liga scheiterte, steht Syrien mit dem Rücken zur Wand.

Vom "Club der Diktatoren" zum Forum innerarabischer Debatten und KonflikteDie neue Dynamik stellt allerdings auch eine Gefahr für den Zusammenhalt der Liga dar. Den sechs Golfstaaten, allen voran Saudi Arabien und Katar, gehe es nicht um die Verletzung der Menschrechte in Syrien, monieren Kritiker und Menschenrechtsaktivisten: Bei den Unruhen in Bahrain hatten schließlich beide Länder Truppen entsandt, um die Proteste und den Ruf nach mehr Demokratie blutig niederzuschlagen. In Syrien dagegen rufen sie unverhohlen zur Revolution auf. Warum?

Schiiten gegen Sunniten

Syrien ist der wichtigste Verbündete der Iraner in der Region – die beiden schiitisch dominierten Länder stützen sich gegenseitig. Der Fall Assads würde den Einfluss Irans vom einen auf den nächsten Tag beenden – und die Golfstaaten wären ihren größten Rivalen los.

Seit dem Sturz von Irans Erzfeinden – dem Taliban-Regime und Saddam Hussein – hatte Teheran seinen Einfluss in der Region immer weiter ausbauen können. Mit der verbündeten militanten schiitischen Hisbollah konnte Teheran seinen Einfluss im Libanon weiter ausbauen. Und mit der verbündeten Hamas stieg der Einfluss im Gazastreifen und in Syrien.

Propaganda für die syrische Freundschaft zur HisbollahWenn Assad fallen sollte, geraten auch Hamas und Hisbollah in große Bedrängnis. Die Führung der Hamas hat Damaskus jetzt schon verlassen und sucht nach einem neuen Quartier. Für Teheran wäre der Sturz des syrischen Regimes die größte strategische Niederlage seit dem Iran-Irak-Krieg von 1980, so Paul Salem, Direktor des Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut – und somit ein wichtiger Befreiungsschlag für die Monarchien am Golf.

Unverhoffte Hilfe vom ehemaligen Feind

Viele Kommentatoren halten es für ausgemacht, dass es nicht mehr darum geht, ob Assad stürzt, sondern wann. Die notorisch zerstrittene arabische Liga hat ihre neue politische Handlungsfähigkeit bewiesen und mit dem Ausschluss Syriens aus ihren Reihen Assad weiter in die Isolation gedrängt.

Das Regime in Damaskus hat jetzt allerdings unverhoffte Unterstützung in der Arabischen Liga bekommen. Bisher hatte Assad nur den schwachen Vasallenstaat Libanon und die reaktionäre Regierung aus Algerien an seiner Seite. Doch plötzlich springt ausgerechnet der Irak dem ehemaligen Feind mit großen Geldsummen zur Seite.

Für Assad, aber nicht im unmittelbaren Einfluss Teherans: Nuri al-MalikiAusgerechnet der Irak, das Land, das nach dem Einmarsch der Amerikaner unter den aus Syrien kommenden Selbstmordattentätern so sehr gelitten hat. Schmeißt sich Bagdad nach dem Abzug der amerikanischen Truppen an den Hals des einflussreichen Mullah-Regimes in Teheran, oder agiert es doch im realpolitischen Eigeninteresse?

Realpolitik 'made in Bagdad'

Dass die irakische Regierung ein vitales Eigeninteresse daran hat, dass das schiitisch dominierte Assad-Regime nicht fällt, findet auch der promovierte Islamwissenschaftler Guido Steinberg von der Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. "Der Irak fürchtet vor allem, dass dort die sunnitische Muslimbrüderschaft die Macht übernimmt und diese dann mit den Saudis auch die Sunniten im Irak unterstützt. Und mit denen ficht Maliki derzeit einen ganz, ganz heftigen internen Konflikt aus."

Die Zeit spielt gegen Assad: Syrische Proteste gehen weiterJames M. Dorsey von der Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapur ist davon überzeugt, dass Bagdad aber nicht unter dem Einfluss Teherans handelt – auch, wenn es nach außen so erscheinen mag. "Der Irak handelt wesentlich unabhängiger von amerikanischen Interessen als es Washington lieb sein kann", so der Nahostexperte. Die Tatsache, dass der Irak und der Iran beide mehrheitlich schiitische Länder sind, mache sie nicht zu natürlichen Verbündeten, erklärt Dorsey.

Teherans Vasallen für Assad

Wie weit würde aber der Iran gehen, um seine Pfründe zu verteidigen? "Sehr weit", ist Steinberg überzeugt.

"Die Iraner haben überdies eine Tradition entwickelt, andere für sich kämpfen zu lassen", so Steinberg weiter. "Ich gehe davon aus, dass Teheran in erster Linie libanesische Hisbollah-Kämpfer aktivieren würde, um das syrische Regime zu unterstützen, vielleicht aber auch die eigenen Revolutionsgarden."

So sehr sich Assad aber auch mit seinen Verbündeten gegen den Untergang wehrt, die Zeit spielt gegen ihn. "Damaskus ist zwar noch nicht zahlungsunfähig", so James Dorsey. "Aber bald." Und der Krieg gegen die eigene Bevölkerung kostet Geld. Wenn die Soldaten irgendwann nicht mehr dafür bezahlt werden können, auf die eigene Bevölkerung zu schießen, wird die Loyalität auch der treusten Kämpfer schwinden.

Zerreißprobe für die Liga

Für die Arabische Liga ist die Lage explosiv. Erstmals in der Geschichte der Organisation stehen sich Mitgliedsstaaten an einer Kriegsfront gegenüber: Der Irak unterstützt das syrische Regime mit seinen Mitteln. Die Golfstaaten tun dagegen alles, um Assad zu stürzen.

Früher war man durch den gemeinsamen Feind Israel geeint. Jetzt, im Streit um die Rolle Irans in der Region, steht die Liga kurz nach ihrer Neuerfindung vor der Zerreißprobe.

Autor: Lewis Gropp
Redaktion: Diana Hodali

Saudi Arabia builds stadium to accommodate women

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 07:56:21 PST

Saudi stadiums: men only

By James M. Dorsey

Saudi Arabia is building 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 stadium in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah is scheduled to be completed in 2014 and will have private cabins and balconies to accommodate female spectators, according to Al Sharq, a state-owned newspaper.

“Sources close the stadium said more than 15 percent of the facility will be allocated for families when the facility is fully completed in 2014. Besides families, female journalists and photographers will also be admitted into the stadium and will be allocated exclusive places away from male journalists so they can cover local and international events,” Al Sharq said.

Saudi puritan interpretation of Islam prohibits unrelated men and women from mingling in public. Saudi Arabia refers to public areas for women or families as family areas in which men unaccompanied by a female relative are barred from entry. Similarly, women are denied access to areas where unaccompanied men congregate.

The building of the stadium comes two months after Saudi Arabia in a bid to avoid being barred from the 2012 London Olympics agreed to send a token female equestrian to the tournament to represent a country that effectively discourages women's sports.

The decision followed a warning last year by Anita DeFrantz, the chair of the International Olympic Committee's Women and Sports Commission, that Saudi Arabia alongside Qatar and Brunei could be barred if they did not send for the first time at least one female athlete to the London Olympics.

An earlier agreement by Qatar, the only other country whose indigenous population are largely Wahhabis, adherents of the puritan interpretation of Islam predominant in Saudi Arabia, to field a women's team in London increased the pressure on the kingdom to follow suit.

Saudi Arabia's most likely female athlete is 18-year old equestrienne Dalma Rushdi Malhas who won a bronze medal in the 2010 Singapore Youth Olympics. At the time, Ms. Malhas was not officially delegated to compete in Singapore on behalf of the kingdom.

Despite official discouragement women have 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.

Nonetheless the mandate granted to a Spanish consultancy last year to develop the kingdom's first national sports plan is exclusively for men's sports.

The pushing of the envelope comes as women are proving to be the most visible in challenging the kingdom's gender apartheid against the backdrop of simmering discontent. Manal al-Sharif was detained in May for nine days after she videotaped herself flouting the rules by getting behind a steering wheel and driving. She was released only after signing a statement promising a that she would stop agitating for women's rights.

Discrepancy about women's sports is reinforced by the fact that physical education classes are banned in state-run Saudi girl’s schools Women's games and marathons are often cancelled when more conservative members of the clergy gets wind of them.

The issue of women's sport has at time sparked sharp debate with clerics condemning it as corrupting and satanic and charging that it spreads decadence. Clerics warned that running and jumping can damage a woman's hymen and ruin her chances of getting married. In defiance, women have quietly been establishing soccer and other sports teams using extensions of hospitals and health clubs as their base.

For his part, Saudi King Abdullah has made moves to enhance women’s rights. Last September, women were granted the right to vote, stand for election in local elections and join the advisory Shura council.

Turkish soccer crisis dents Erdogan’s political prospects

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:39:06 PST

Crisis deepends: TFF Boss Mehmet Ali Aydinal (Source Murad Sezer, Reuters)

By James M. Dorsey

Turkey's soccer federation has rejected a proposed rule change that would have prevented teams found guilty of match-fixing from being relegated in a move that counters Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s catering to soccer bosses and their corporate backers and plunges the country’s troubled multi-billion dollar league into an even deeper crisis.

The vote during a tense emergency session of the federation’s general assembly also threatens Turkish soccer’s efforts to become more competitive.

It came two weeks before the opening of a trial against 93 people, including Aziz Yildirim, president of Istanbul’s Fenerbahce SK and 14 players, in a match-fixing scandal involving eight teams that affected 19 league games last season.

Despite being threatened with relegation and loss of its league title, Fenerbahce was among those opposed to a more lenient treatment of offenders. Fenerbahce has already been barred by European soccer body UEFA from Europe’s Champions League because of the match-fixing scandal.

Under the proposed change of article 58 of the Turkish Football Federation’s (TFF) disciplinary code, clubs found guilt would have been spared relegation but penalized with a minimum 12-point deduction.

The rejection puts the TFF at odds with UEFA which urged the association on the eve of the vote to take quick disciplinary action against those allegedly involved in the scandal. UEFA threatened to exclude Turkish clubs involved in the scandal such as Fenerbahce, Besiktas and Trabzonspor from future European competitions.

Fenerbahce alongside Istanbul rival Galatasaray, which has not been implicated in the scandal, justified its opposition to the rule change with the need to wait for legal proceedings to first take their course. In a written statement from his jail cell, Mr. Yildirim called the proposal "a black stain on the history of Turkish football." Echoing Mr. Yildirim, Galatasaray chairman Unal Aysal warned that “you can't change the rules when the game is being played."

The political fallout of the scandal has highlighted the battle lines in Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) between Mr. Erdogan and his party comrade, President Abdullah Gul in advance of elections in 2014. Mr. Erdogan last month drove against Mr. Gul’s will a controversial bill through parliament that reduced penalties for match-fixing from a maximum 12 to three years and prepared the ground for the rejected TFF rule change.

The legislative move further fuelled controversy over the match-fixing scandal. Mr. Gul opposed it, arguing that it would render the law as an insufficient deterrent. Mr. Gul said parliament’s penalty reduction would be viewed as benefitting those currently under suspicion.

Mr. Erdogan is widely believed to want to succeed Mr. Gul as president when his third term as prime minister ends in 2014. For his part, Mr. Gul is believed to be weighing his options, which include returning to active politics or accepting an international job, once he steps down from his largely ceremonial post. Critics charge that Mr. Erdogan is pushing for constitutional reform in the next two years as a way to shift power from the prime minister to the president in advance of his becoming Turkey’s next head of state.

Mr. Erdogan’s chances of success ride to a significant degree on Turkey’s continued economic performance. Economists however predict that economic growth in 2012 will drop from a stellar seven per cent to about three per cent as a result of its reliance for growth on foreign capital and government-backed stimulus programs, an unorthodox monetary policy and a widening current account deficit.

In emotional remarks TFF chairman Mehmet Ali Aydinlar responded to the rejection of the rule change, saying that at stake was the image of Turkish soccer. "We have made all efforts so that Turkish football is not harmed or loses prestige abroad. But people spoke differently to us than they did behind their backs. Everyone is innocent and only we are guilty. We came with honour and that's how we'll go. History will write the truth," Mr. Aydinlar said.

If Mr. Erdogan’s political future is hitched to the economy, it is also linked to the country’s soccer performance given that the beautiful game is a reflection of the economy.

Economists worry that Turkey’s imminent economic problems could result in a hard landing for its economy unless it moves quickly to streamline its monetary policy and starts focusing on reducing its macro-economic imbalances and particularly the current account deficit. Turkey got a taste of the risks it faces when this fall external funding tightened because of the global crisis and the country’s currency devalued more than had been predicted.

Turkish soccer faces the same risks because it operates on the same principles, according to a sports research note issued last month by Renaissance Capital.

“Turkey’s declining success in football can be mapped to economics,” the note said according to the Financial Times.

Like the economy, Turkish soccer “imports almost all their best players from abroad, and exports (only) one or two good players every year” incurring high levels of debt to attract stars, the note said. It said clubs like Fenerbahce, Besiktas and Galatasaray operated as commercial companies that eschew competitiveness for profit.

Renaissance Capital cautioned that buying expensive but old has-beens such as former Real Madrid stars Roberto Carlos and Gut boosts merchandising, but does not add real quality to the team. The focus on sales rather than soccer performance produces the ills many Turkish companies face: complacency and reduced competitiveness.

The proof is in the pudding. Turkey’s top clubs have dominated the country’s soccer for decades but failed recently twice in a row to win the Turkish league or qualify for the Champions League. The poor performance mirrors a trend in Turkish economic development as growth shifts from the country’s economic capital to the Anatolian inland, according to Renaissance Capital.

Two of Turkey’s recently most successful teams, Bursapor and TrabzonSpor, hail from the former Ottoman capital of Bursa and Trabzon on the Black Sea. The finance house pointed to a further trend in line with the economy: Bursa and Trabzon boast trade surpluses while Istanbul accounts for 60 per cent of Turkey’s trade deficit.

The similarities between the economy and soccer are not absolute. In some way, Turkish soccer is more in line with its European counterparts than the economy is. Turkish soccer economics mirror those of European clubs that operate on the basis of high debt levels to import rather than export talented players.

European spending on players as of Friday, two days before the Premier League player transfer window closes was down by more than half compared to the same period last year, according to Dan Jones, a partner in business advisory group Deloitte’s sports business. “Their comparative restraint is indicative of an overriding reflection on spending levels,” Mr. Jones said.

The model in contrast to the Turkish clubs has often translated into performance for their European counterparts. One reason is that Turkish clubs have not seen the kind of influx of foreign investment, particularly from the Gulf, from which teams like Manchester City and Paris St. Germain have benefitted. Nonetheless, in contrast to the Turkish economy and most European clubs, Turkish soccer thanks to domestic demand has not faced problems accessing funds.

The outlook for non-soccer Turkish companies is far bleaker. “Without an increase in competitiveness Turkey is trapped with manic depressive success,” Renaissance Capital said.

For Turkey to maintain or restore economic growth it will have to enhance competitiveness. Turkish soccer will have to become an important soccer player exporter rather than merely an importer.

Feinde im Hass vereint (JMD quotes in German)

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:39 PST

Von Martin Einsiedler

BERLIN (dapd) -- Ein Fußballspiel zwischen den zwei verfeindeten ägyptischen Klubs Al-Ahly und Zamalek SC lässt keine normalen Umstände zu. Die Derbys der Kairoer Vereine werden auf neutralem Platz ausgetragen und von einem ausländischen Schiedsrichter geleitet. Zu tief geht der Riss durch die Anhängerschaften. Vor einem Jahr aber wurde die Feindschaft zur Nebensache: Die Fans beider Lager gingen am 25. Januar gemeinsam auf die Straße, um gegen das Mubarak-Regime zu demonstrieren. Besonders die beiden Ultra-Gruppierungen spielten eine bedeutende Rolle beim Aufbegehren gegen den Staat. Und der gemeinsame Kampf geht weiter.

"Während der Herrschaft von Husni Mubarak war das Kairoer Derby das gewalttätigste auf der ganzen Welt. Die Polizei bildete eine Art schwarzer Stahlring um das Stadion. Die Sicherheitsvorkehrungen dort waren vergleichbar mit dem des Flughafens in Tel Aviv", erzählt James M. Dorsey, der an der Nanyang Technological University in Singapur lehrt und als Autor des Blogs "The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer" tätig ist. Am 7. Februar treffen die berüchtigten Klubs zum ersten Mal seit der Revolution wieder aufeinander, und kein Mensch weiß, was diesmal passieren wird. Denn so wie das ganze Land ein Jahr nach dem Sturz des Präsidenten Mubarak einer noch völlig ungewissen Zukunft entgegengeht, so tut es auch der Fußball und dessen Anhängerschaft.

Fußball und Politik bilden in Ägypten, speziell in Kairo, schon seit der britischen Kolonialherrschaft eine untrennbare Einheit. "Die Zugehörigkeit zu einem der beiden Klubs war bis zum Sturz Mubaraks eine Definitionslinie", erklärt Dorsey. Al-Ahly und Zamalek SC bildeten die Antipoden der Gesellschaft. Al-Ahly wurde 1907 von den Gegnern der Kolonialherrschaft gegründet. "Es ist der Verein des einfachen Mannes und der Nationalisten", sagt Dorsey. Zamalek wurde von Ausländern ins Leben gerufen, dem Verein haftete schnell das Image des Klubs der Reichen an - was dieser auch sorgsam pflegte. Es ranken sich viele Anekdoten um das Derby, die meisten davon sind traurig. Mehrere Tote hat es trotz des polizeilichen Stahlrings gegeben; Anfang der 70er-Jahre wurde wegen der Ausschreitungen im Derby die komplette Saison in Ägypten abgesagt. Und dann diese ständige Suche nach einem Schiedsrichter, der das
Himmelfahrtskommando vor bis zu 100.000 Zuschauern auf sich nimmt. 2001 bekam der ägyptische Fußballverband (EFA) Absagen von sage und schreibe sechs europäischen Nationalverbänden, ehe sich der schottische Referee Kenny Clark erbarmte.

Ultras formten Front gegen Sicherheitskräfte

Vor einem Jahr aber machten ausgerechnet die Ultras der beiden Vereine gemeinsame Sache. Laut Dorsey nahmen sie eine zentrale Rolle bei den Protesten auf dem Tahrir-Platz in Kairo ein. "Die Ultras von Al-Ahly und Zamalek haben eine Barriere der Angst niedergerissen", sagt er. "Sie haben die Frage, ob man vor Mubaraks Schergen weglaufen oder stehen bleiben soll, mit der zweiten Option beantwortet und damit ein Signal an die breite Masse gesendet." Die Ultras formten gemeinsam die Frontlinie, sie versperrten den staatlichen Sicherheitskräften die Zugänge zum Platz, indem sie Autos zu Barrikaden umfunktionierten. "Die Bedeutung der Ultras war deshalb so groß, weil sie Kampferfahrung haben. Selbst Mubaraks Sicherheitskräfte hatten großen Respekt vor ihnen", sagt Dorsey. "Es war der Hass auf Mubarak, der die Ultra-Gruppierungen vereinte."

Mit dem Sturz Mubaraks war der Konflikt nicht vorbei. Die Wut der Ultras richtet sich seitdem gegen das Militär, das brutal gegen Demonstranten und Revolutionäre vorgeht.

Laut Angaben der Revolutionäre wurden seit Juli vergangenen Jahres 120 Demonstranten getötet und mehr als 6.000 verletzt. Auch für dieses Jahr planen die beiden Ultra-Gruppierungen von Al-Ahly und Zamalek daher gemeinsame Aktionen. "Sie werden versuchen, die Öffentlichkeit davon zu überzeugen, wie brutal das Militär ist."
Für die Ultras sind erneute Proteste schon deshalb unabdingbar, weil sämtliche Spiele vom ägyptischen Fußballverband für diese Woche abgesagt worden sind. Dorsey glaubt aber nicht, dass die Demonstrationen große Wirkung entfachen werden. Die Mehrheit der Ägypter sei des Demonstrierens müde geworden und die Protest-Bewegung der Jugendgruppen und Ultras sei marginalisiert, sagt er.

Skeptisch ist Dorsey zudem, was das künftige Verhältnis der verfeindeten Kairoer Fußballklubs betrifft. "Ich würde nicht so weit gehen und behaupten, dass die Rivalität durch die gemeinsamen Proteste abgeschwächt ist." Am 7. Februar, wenn Al-Ahly und Zamalek im Liga-Derby aufeinandertreffen, wird es sich zeigen.

Egypt One Year On: Stark Message for Arab Revolutionaries

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:12:48 PST

RSIS presents the following commentary Egypt One Year On: Stark Message for Arab

Revolutionaries by James M. Dorsey. It is also available online at this link. (To print

it, click on this link.). Kindly forward any comments or feedback to the Editor RSIS

Commentaries, at RSISPublication@ntu.edu.sg

No. 018/2012 dated 25 January 2012

Egypt One Year On:

Stark Message for Arab Revolutionaries

By James M. Dorsey

Synopsis

This month's first anniversary of the uprising that toppled Mubarak contains a stark

message for Egypt’s revolutionaries. They are being marginalised as vested interests

and traditional political forces experienced in political horse trading fill the vacuum

of leadership. This message may well also be meant for other revolutionaries in the Arab

world.

EGYPT’S MILITARY council, backed by Islamist and secular political parties, has

upstaged the 25 January celebrations of the anniversary of the protests that ousted

President Hosni Mubarak even before the party gets underway. The military

pre-empted plans by the revolutionary youth and militant soccer fan groups whose

mass protests early last year forced Mubarak from office by announcing that they

would organise their own celebration together with the Muslim Brotherhood on Cairo’s

Tahrir Square.

The military’s co-opting of the celebrations is certain to dash hopes of the

protesters to exploit the anniversary to launch what they call a second revolution that

would force the armed forces to immediately relinquish power. Instead, it is likely to

seal their defeat in a country that has grown tired of demonstrations, still largely

reveres the military despite its brutal response to anti-government protests late last

year and wants to see tangible results of its revolt.

A stark message

The military’s move also signals the primacy of electoral over contentious politics in

post-autocratic transition societies with the backing of the Brotherhood, which emerged

as Egypt’s foremost political grouping with some 40 per cent of the vote in the first

post-Mubarak elections. The Brotherhood’s backing of the military celebration is

significant given its demonstrated ability to fill Tahrir Square and mobilise opposition

against the military if it wanted to.

The military is sending a stark message not only to Egyptian youth and soccer fan

groups that established political organisations with well-oiled party machines rather

than newly emerging political forces will shape the country’s future. The message

is also to protesters elsewhere in the region that unless they can match their

mobilisation and street skills with the art of electoral politics and backroom horse

trading they too will be relegated to the sidelines of history.

Much of the youth and soccer groups’ criticism of the post-Mubarak transition

rings true even if does not resonate with a majority of the population. They accuse

the military of subverting a promised transition to real democracy in a bid to

preserve its political and economic perks and interests and employing to do so

the same if not worse repressive measures than the Mubarak regime. Scores

have been killed in protests since Mubarak’s downfall, thousands injured and some

12,000 people, including activists, bloggers and soccer fans dragged in front of

military courts.

The one joker in the military’s plans to upstage the youth and soccer fan groups

and give them the death knell is the spectre of violent confrontation during the

celebrations. Fear of a repeat of the bitter street battles that took place between

security forces and soccer fans in November and December last year could

persuade many Egyptians to steer clear of Tahrir Square on 25 January. Egypt’s

military ruler, Field Marshall Mohamed Hussein Tantawi issued a thinly veiled

warning to the youth and soccer fan groups days before the 25 January

celebrations that Egypt faced unprecedented “grave dangers” but that the

military would protect it. The statement, echoing Mubarak’s tactic of distracting

attention from domestic issues by invoking an alleged foreign threat, was

contrived to rally public opinion against the protesters.

Treacherous ground

A failure to rally the masses would dent the military’s efforts to maintain the

high ground and would boost revolutionary moves to thwart its plans. Nonetheless,

the youth and soccer fan groups are on treacherous ground. They have lost much

of the popular support they enjoyed in the run-up to and immediate aftermath

of Mubarak’s ousting. Their refusal to surrender Tahrir Square in favour of traditional

politics has won them few brownie points with the public. Their marginalisation is

compounded by the fact that men and women perceived to be honest and of faith

have emerged victorious in the election, raising hopes that government will be free of

nepotism and corruption.

Revolutionaries in other Middle Eastern and North African societies in transition may

well conclude from the Egyptian experience that it is a fatal mistake to simply topple an

autocratic leader and not to push for the ultimate uprooting of a failed system. It

promises to make transitions even more contentious and could inspire the kind

of resilience and determination displayed by protesters in Syria who have refused to

give ground to a ten-month old brutal government crackdown that has already cost some

5,000 lives.

Protesters across the Middle East and North Africa like their counterparts in other

parts of the world have mastered the art of seemingly leaderless revolt and exploitation

of new technology. However, the lesson of Egypt is that they will also increasingly have

to harness the skills of traditional politics and face up to the reality of realpolitik to

ensure that they not only win a battle but also the war.

James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International

Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He has been a journalist covering

the Middle East for over 30 years.

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Islamists vow to one-up ultras with clean-up of Egyptian sports

noreply@blogger.com (James M Dorsey) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 06:04:23 PST

A Muslim Brotherhood perspective on soccer (Source: ikhwanweb.com)

By James M. Dorsey

Flush with victory in Egypt's first-post revolt election, Islamists are vowing to initiate change that militant soccer fans and youth groups have failed to achieve in a year of bloody street battles with security forces.

In doing so, the Muslim Brotherhood is seeking to distinguish itself from more militant Islamists, including more radical Salafis who propagating emulating life in the 7^th century at the time of the Prophet and fundamentalist Egyptian and Saudi clerics as well as the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Shabab militia in Somalia or factions of the Taliban in Afghanistan who denounce soccer as a game of the infidels and as a distraction from the obligation to worship Allah.

The dichotomy of the Islamists striving to achieve the militant soccer fans' sports-related goals while the two sides face off on the streets of Cairo is vividly on display this week as Egypt celebrates the first anniversary of the protests that last year ousted President Hosni Mubarak from 30 years in office.

Egypt's military that last year temporarily took power from Mubarak with a pledge to lead the country to democracy is seeking to undercut with anniversary celebrations this week that include concerts and soccer matches the youth and soccer fan groups that were at the core of last year's revolt and are now demanding the armed forces' immediate return to the barracks. The military effort is backed by the Brotherhood.

The militants have been campaigning in recent days in an unsuccessful bid to convince a public tired of political turmoil and frustrated that their revolt has produced few material benefits of the evil of the soldiers who responded increasingly brutally to their protests against the military and Mubarak era sports officials over the past year.

Youth activists and soccer fans in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis erected projector screens to show residents looking down from their balconies with little sense of engagement videos of what they see as the military's abuse of power "Why are you silent? Have you won your rights already?" the revolutionaries shouted at them in frustration.

Adding insult to injury, the Brotherhood is vowing to succeed where the militants have failed. Repeatedly the soccer fans demanded unsuccessfully with few exceptions the resignations of the Mubarak appointed boards of the Egyptian Football Association (EFA) and major soccer clubs. Some supporters of sports reform take heart in the recent replacement of the Mubarak-era heads of the national sports and national youth councils.

The Brotherhood, which last year briefly toyed with the idea of launching soccer teams of its own, has vowed to clean out the sports sector of Mubarak associated by removing the heads of associations starting with EFA president Sami Zaher as well as club board members linked to the ancien regime. Under pressure from fans and clubs, Mr. Zaher pledged last year to end his term early but has since given no indication that he intends to live up to his promise,

In their effort to distance themselves from the rejection of sports, and particularly soccer, by some Salafis and jihadists, Brotherhood members emphasize sport's health benefits. Some also stress the need for sports to stay in line with Islam.

"We support sports in general and encourage them. Sports flourished in the age of Islam, so why shouldn’t they under the Islamists? We are looking to encourage more sporting activities nationwide. ... Islam doesn’t have any problem with soccer and other sports," Al Akhbar el-Youm newspaper quoted Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan as saying.

Mr. Ghozlan's statement is a far cry from a condemnation of soccer by Egyptian Salafi Sheikh Abu Ishaaq Al Huweni, an attempt by Saudi Salafi clerics to rewrite the rules of the game to allegedly Islamify it, and the outright banning of soccer by Al Shabab jihadists in Somalia.

“All fun is bootless except the playing of a man with his wife, his son and his horse… Thus, if someone sits in front of the television to watch football or something like that, he will be committing bootless fun… We have to be a serious nation, not a playing nation. Stop playing,” Sheikh Al Huweni said in a religious ruling published in 2009 on YouTube. Egypt's Salafist Al Noor party, which emerged as the country's second largest after the Brotherhood, has yet to distance itself from Sheikh Al Huweini.