It’s two in the morning, and thanks to Facebook, I am watching clips of Neymar rolling endlessly on the green grass of Spartak stadium. 

Unamused by the sport, I am not supposed to know Germany has been eliminated in the first round of a World Cup since 1938, but the internet won’t let me skip any information. 

Meanwhile, my newsfeed celebrates with “Russia Spain-re bhoira dise,” an uncanny resemblance to when our nation celebrates every victory in cricket. I feel disturbed, so I call someone out, and I am told, “Woah woah! Chill out, bro!”

So I am taking a chill-pill this World Cup, as I delve into why “France raped Argentina, and France is legend” is no joke.

First, the definition of rape encompasses sex with someone through their mental incapacity or physical helplessness. 

Nothing about rape is consensual. The good news is, participation in sports is. 

Sex is an intimate act between individuals willing to open up a part of their core selves to the other. Violating that privacy limits one’s ability to love and be loved. 

Now, if you are comparing that to Zidane headbutting Materazzi, reach out to me. I know therapists who can help you. 

Third, by definition, there is no fair play in rape. Rapists don’t rape because they can’t “get” sex elsewhere. Rapists rape to exert power. 

The term, when being used as an analogy to describe defeat, highlights how sportsmen are viewed today — big, strong, masculine, tough, glorious. And when you joke about rape, you give power to the rapists by contributing to a system that is becoming desensitized to the injustice around it. 

Sports, on the other hand, is a force for good. The Greek team was motivated to qualify, though their nation been has been reeling from economic hardships. We shed tears when Gotze held out Marco’s jersey as a tribute after winning the World Cup. 

Rape victims are never to blame, but the Argentina and Germany teams were the victims of their own arrogance and lack of teamwork. So, by saying that teams were raped absolves of their blame of massive sporting malpractice. 

I am talking about the way that we collectively think about rape.

We live in a world where sexual assault can be dismissed, condoned with jokes or excuses plastered across a T-shirt. 

People make statements about how rape culture is just a phrase that has been made up to make men look bad. But it’s the same rape culture that makes it so hard for male victims to speak out too, fostering the stigmatization of male rape victims as effeminate, impotent, or non-existent. 

Language evolves, but it cannot evolve without the culture going along with it. Asking people to be considerate and thoughtful about their language — particularly when it has the potential to cause very real damage to people with traumatic experience of the subject matter – isn’t a violation of the freedom of speech. 

It’s simply asking that we adhere to a socially codified system of kindness in which we consider how our words and deeds might affect other people. For people who have never experienced sexual violence, it is a luxury to be able to redefine those words to get a cheap laugh on social media. 

But perhaps the most important thing is this: When you joke about rape, when you take that word and make it yours to laugh about, to chide your friends with, you are telling everyone else that no one can trust you. 

And when you treat their objections as ridiculous overreactions that are less worthy of respect than the entitlement you feel, you are confirming to them that they shouldn’t trust you. 

Myat Moe Khaing is a Management Trainee at Grameenphone.

This article was first published on Dhaka Tribune
 

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The NFL is attempting to shut down protests like this one by members of the Cleveland Browns. AP Photo/David Richard

The controversy has taken place nearly a century after another time when African-Americans painfully grappled with questions concerning loyalty to the nation and the struggle for equal rights.

W.E.B. Du Bois. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

In July 1918, at the height of American participation in World War I, W. E. B. Du Bois, the acclaimed black scholar, activist and civil rights leader, penned arguably the most controversial editorial of his career, “Close Ranks.”

“Let us, while this war lasts, forget our special grievances and close our ranks shoulder to shoulder with our own white fellow citizens and the allied nations that are fighting for democracy,” he advised his fellow African-Americans. Du Bois acknowledged that this was
“no ordinary sacrifice,” but black people would nevertheless make it “gladly and willingly with our eyes lifted to the hills.”

Pressured from league owners, white fans and the president of the United States, black NFL players are now faced with the dilemma of closing ranks and forgetting their “special grievances,” or continuing to protest against racial injustice.

The history of African-Americans in World War I, as I have explored in my work, offers important lessons about how to confront this challenge.

The NFL, race and the national anthem

Last season, during the playing of the national anthem, dozens of NFL players kneeled, locked arms and raised their fists in protest against police and state-sanctioned violence inflicted upon African-Americans. Their actions elicited a fierce backlash, much of it fueled by President Donald Trump, who encouraged his overwhelmingly white base of supporters to boycott the NFL so long as players, in his view, continued to disrespect the flag. Seeking to avoid further controversy, on May 23, Commissioner Roger Goddell announced that for the upcoming season, “All team and league personnel on the field shall stand and show respect for the flag and the Anthem.” Not following this directive could result in teams being fined and players subject to “appropriate discipline.”

Approximately 70 percent of the players in the NFL are African-American. They have also been the most visible faces of the national anthem protests, which began in 2016 with quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who is currently unemployed and suing owners for collusion to keep him out of the league.

I see the decision by the NFL as an unmistakable attempt to police the actions of its majority black work force, impose what amounts to a loyalty oath, and enforce through intimidation and threat a narrow definition of patriotism. The message is clear: Either demonstrate unqualified devotion to the United States or be punished.

African-Americans and World War I

African-Americans confronted the same stark choice during World War I.

In previous conflicts, African-Americans had sacrificed and shed blood for the nation. But patriotism alone has never been enough to overcome white supremacy. By 1917, as the United States prepared to enter the world war, disfranchisement, Jim Crow segregation, and racial violence had rendered African-Americans citizens in name only.

Black people thus had every reason to question the legitimacy of fighting in a war that President Woodrow Wilson declared would make the world “safe for democracy.” African-Americans immediately exposed the hypocrisy of Wilson’s words, while also seizing the opportunity to hold the United States accountable to its principles. They did this, in part, by serving in the army, as some 380,000 black soldiers labored and fought to not just win the war, but to also make democracy a reality for themselves.

African-Americans also recognized the importance of protest. Discrimination and racial violence continued throughout the war, highlighted by the East St. Louis massacre in July 1917, where white mobs killed as many as 200 black people. In response, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People organized a Silent Protest Parade in New York City, where more than 10,000 black men, women and children peacefully marched down Fifth Avenue carrying signs, one of which read, “Patriotism and loyalty presuppose protection and liberty.”

‘Closing ranks’ and the costs

Just as it does today, protesting racial injustice during the war carried risk. The federal government wielded the repressive power of American nationalism to crush disloyalty to the United States. The Espionage Act (1917) and Sedition Act (1918) severely curtailed civil liberties by criminalizing “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language.”

“100 percent Americanism” entailed the policing of immigrant communities, restricting freedom of the press, jailing anti-war activists, and monitoring African-Americans, including W. E. B. Du Bois, for potential radicalism. This pressure, along with the personal desire to demonstrate his loyalty to the nation, compelled Du Bois to soften his critiques of the government and issue his call for African-Americans to “close ranks.”

“The words were hardly out of my mouth when strong criticism was rained upon it,” Du Bois later remembered. Even during a time of war, most African-Americans refused to set aside the “special grievances” of segregation, lynching and systemic racial abuse. And Du Bois paid a heavy price. William Monroe Trotter, the fiery newspaper editor and civil rights leader from Boston, branded Du Bois “a rank quitter,” adding that his one-time ally had “weakened, compromised, deserted the fight.”

But African-Americans, having fought for democracy, would surely be rewarded for their loyal service and patriotic sacrifices, Du Bois reasoned.

To the contrary, they were greeted with a torrent of racial violence and bloodshed that came to be known as the “Red Summer” of 1919. White people, North and South, were determined to remind black people of their place in the nation’s racial hierarchy. Race riots erupted throughout the country and the number of African-Americans lynched skyrocketed, including several black veterans still in uniform.

The NFL’s decision is essentially an attempt to appease the mob in 2018.

Echoing the backlash following World War I, the vitriolic reactions to the national anthem protests reflect what happens when African-Americans physically and symbolically challenge an understanding of patriotism rooted in white supremacy and racist ideas of black subservience. I believe the NFL has acquiesced to the threats of President Trump and the unrest of its white fan base by establishing a policy that requires black players to remain docile, obedient employees, devoid of any outward expression of racial and political consciousness, which sole purpose is to entertain and enrich their owners.

And now, the NFL wants black players to “close ranks” by giving them the false choice between standing for the pledge or hiding their protest in the locker room, conveniently out of sight of fans in the stadium and away from television cameras.

The league ignores any mention of the “special grievances” of police brutality, racial profiling and antiblack harassment that remain alive and well. Ironically, the NFL has been the one to transform the flag into a political weapon to silence black activism, protect its corporate interests and maintain a racial status quo. Displays of patriotism and loyalty to nation are meaningless when not accompanied by the actual freedoms and protections that come with being a citizen.

W. E. B. Du Bois would spend the rest of his life questioning his decision for African Americans to “close ranks” during World War I. He ultimately recognized that until America reckoned with its racist history and embraced the humanity of black people, the nation would remain deeply wounded. At the age of 90, reflecting on the questions that shaped his decades of struggle, Du Bois pondered, “How far can love for my oppressed race accord with love for the oppressing country? And when these loyalties diverge, where shall my soul find refuge?”

Like the battlefields of France 100 years ago, the football fields of NFL stadiums are just one place where African-Americans have historically sought to answer these questions. And simply closing ranks has never been sufficient. In this moment of racial repression and moral mendacity, when the ideals of democracy are undermined daily, the debate over national anthem protests reminds us that the fight to affirm the sanctity of black life is much longer and deeper than a Sunday afternoon game.
 

Chad Williams, Associate Professor of African and Afro-American Studies, Brandeis University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Rainbow laces have become a symbol of football’s struggle against anti-gay prejudice. EPA/Tal Cohen

But more concerning, the survey also found that 8% of football fans would stop supporting their club if an openly gay player were signed. Graeme Le Saux, a straight player who was subjected to homophobic abuse on and off the pitch for years, responded with a note of optimism about the situation – and said that “If that 8% are so appalled at the thought of a gay player being on their team then we should ask them to step forward, own their views and we can just ban them. They’re not welcome in football.”

This data is just the latest evidence that homophobic views are still present in football. A 2013 report issued by the Brighton and Hove Supporters Club (BHASC) and the Gay Football Supporters’ Network (GFSN) revealed that Brighton fans and players are consistently subjected to or witness homophobic abuse while observing or playing football. More recently, Stonewall published a report, Leagues Behind, which examines sports fans’ attitudes towards LGBT people. It highlights that seven in ten football fans have heard homophobic abuse while watching sport.

In a particularly telling finding, Stonewall reports that young people are twice as likely to rationalise homophobic abuse as “banter”, normalising discrimination, thus fostering the sort of environment in which players are put off coming out. To illustrate the point, one in five of the 18- to 24-year-olds Stonewall talked to said they would be embarrassed if their favourite player came out.

If this unpleasant situation is going to change, the institutions of professional football need to get on board. As Ruth Hunt, Stonewall’s Chief Executive, put it:

While the majority of people see homophobic chants and abuse as a problem, and want to see sport become more welcoming of lesbian, gay, bi and trans players and fans, there is a persistent minority who believe this sort of abuse is acceptable … We need high profile sports clubs and personalities to stand up as allies and help make sport everyone’s game by showing that homophobic abuse has no place in sport.

So where are the people to do this – and how can they be encouraged to speak out and be supported when they do?

Gay footballers and straight allies

As the most recent findings emerged, Greg Clark, chairman of the Football Association (FA), warned that it would be impossible for a gay premier league player to come out because of the abuse they’d receive. Looking back over recent history, it’s not hard to see why he’d think this.

Back in 1990, Justin Fashanu became the first English footballer to come out, but he tragically took his own life in 1998 at the age of 37. Since then, no professional male player has come out while competing in the English game. A few amateur footballers have spoken openly about their sexual orientation while competing – Liam Davis, for example – but in the professional male game, players have almost exclusively come out after retiring (such as Thomas Hitzlsperger).

The upshot is that no “out” gay male footballers are currently competing in the English Premier League. Estimates of the proportion of LGB people in the British population vary from the low to mid single digits; considering that there are 92 professional football clubs in England and Wales with between 30 and 50 players contracted to each, the absence of gay footballers diverges drastically from the figure in the general population.

But it need not be this way. And despite Greg Clark’s words, there have been some encouraging signs that things could be changing.

While they may not be at the top of the game, some of those who have chosen to be open about their sexuality seem to have received more support than abuse. One paper looking into the online reaction to Hitzlsperger’s coming out reported “an almost universal inclusivity through the rejection of homophobia”. It found that of 6,106 online comments, just 2% of comments contained “pernicious homophobic content”.

In another example, England women’s captain Casey Stoney described overwhelming support for her choice to come out in 2014.

Perhaps even more encouragingly, inclusive attitudes are also presented by “straight allies” who campaign for the acceptance of openly gay footballers. One particularly vocal ally in professional football is Joey Barton.
 

Joey Barton has spoken out. EPA/Guillaume Horcajuelo

Given his “bad boy” reputation, Barton is perhaps an unlikely straight advocate for gay rights, but he’s nonetheless spoken openly about gay footballers, offering an insider perspective on the importance of accepting diversity. As he himself has written

It’s all well and good speaking about an idyllic culture, but how can we get it? The way I see it is simple, you’re not only responsible for what you say but what you don’t say. People with social impact need to speak up.

Similarly, in direct response to FA chairman Greg Clark’s comments concerning homophobia in football, ex-footballer Chris Sutton has said there’s never been a better time for a footballer to come out.

It seems there isn’t really a consensus on the situation either inside or outside the football establishment. But that doesn’t mean we can’t find ways to improve it – and identifying points for useful intervention should be at the centre of our efforts.

Forward and back

Previous research into the climate of English (male) professional football has been awash with dominating and subordinating masculinities. The picture is more complex, and we could be on the edge of a progressive and inclusive turn.
 

Longtime bullying target Graeme Le Saux. PA/Mike Egerton

We ourselves are conducting research with adolescent male academy footballers in which we explore player attitudes toward homosexuality in football. The boys we spoke to expressed progressive attitudes, but it was clear that their feelings and experiences were far from stable. While they expressed inclusive attitudes, they also told stories of witnessing and becoming complicit in a range of homophobic incidents – whether implicitly accepting homophobic language or staying passive when witnessing homophobic behaviour.

In short, their attitudes are still malleable when subjected to peer pressure. There is a crucial lesson here. We may be on the verge of what some researchers have called “the doorstep of equality”, but we could also be just a few backward steps away from a return to a harsh orthodoxy where outright homophobia remains the norm.

The latest research and the conflicting responses discussed point to a critical tipping point in the promotion of positive attitudes toward homosexuality in football. As Graeme Le Saux noted, it all comes down to changing the culture of the game. People should be able to play or watch football without witnessing or experiencing abuse.

That means working with the next generation of players to close the gap between their private attitudes and their behaviour among their peers. And everyone invested in the game, from fans to players to clubs to the media, has a crucial role to play.

(Emma Kavanagh, lecturer in Sports Psychology and Coaching Sciences, Bournemouth University; Adi Adams, lecturer in Sport, Bournemouth University; Daniel Lock, senior lecturer in Sport, Bournemouth University.)

This article was first published on The Conversation.
 

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The teams in question, Beitar Givat Ze’ev, Beitar Ironi Ariel, Beitar Ironi Maale Adumim, Ironi Yehuda and Hapoel Bik’at Hayarden are all based in illegal settlements in the West Bank.

The regions are in territory that is being disputed by the Palestinian Football Association (PFA). The PFA argues that by playing teams in those regions, the IFA is violating FIFA rules that state that one member may not play games in the territory of another affiliated member without their approval. The PFA insists it does not want any matches played on Palestinian land. They point out that the IFA is using sport to legitimize the occupation and illegal settlements.

Sari Bashi, the Palestine/Israel Director at Human Rights Watch told me via email that this issue is crucial to regional politics and to sport. President Gianni Infantino is the leader of the world’s governing body of football and ought to resolve this as quickly as possible. “As part of his stated commitment to transparency and human rights, President Infantino should provide the public with a detailed update of the Council discussion,” she writes. “And a timeline for deciding whether FIFA will stop sponsoring matches on land that has been illegally seized from Palestinians.”

With findings collected by a monitoring committee that was assembled in 2015 and lead by South African FIFA member Tokyo Sexwale, FIFA was expected to render a decision whether to suspend or expel the six Israeli teams at at an executive meeting earlier this week. Following a decision, viable solutions would have been presented at the 2017 FIFA world congress to be held in Manama, Bahrain.

But in true FIFA form, the executive committee fouled and postponed their decision despite suggestions from special committee members, open letters from UN officials, and from academics and activists, an Avaaz.org petition that garnered over 150,000 signatures, the HRW report, and an on-going digital campaign that calls for justice in sport.

The oppression of Palestinian football by Israel is a hot-button issue for FIFA- which makes a profit from the matches and sponsorships of the IFA teams. While Israeli teams flourish, Palestinian football is hardly thriving due to a lack of resources, crumbling infrastructure, and unjust mobility restrictions on teams which Mondoweiss has previously reported.

Footballers are routinely the targets of detentions, arrests and shootings despite assurances from FIFA that they support the world’s game.

After FIFA dropped the ball on a decision, it is hard not to recall deposed ex-President Sepp Blatter’s inane remark that “football should never be used for political messages.”

Not so ironically, FIFA has consistently used football for political messages. Blatter was an avid supporter of an ill-conceived ‘peace-match’ to help ease tensions in the region between the two federations. FIFA may deny that sport can be a vehicle towards ensuring justice and uplifting the values it is supposed protect by claiming that football isn’t political.

But Bashi sees it differently. She doesn’t believe that FIFA is being asked to solve a political problem. It is being asked to fulfill the commitments it reaffirmed when it agreed to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights throughout its activities, which are substantially commercial.

“The football industry is valued at approximately $33 billion annually. FIFA has a responsibility to ensure that its activities do not contribute to or benefit from serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law (IHL). By sponsoring games on land that has been unlawfully seized from Palestinians and holding those games under conditions of discrimination, FIFA is violating its human rights responsibilities.” HRW maintains that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are inherently responsible for serious human rights violations, including restrictions on the freedom of movement of Palestinians, purportedly to protect them, discrimination against Palestinian construction and business activity to prop up the settlement industry and unlawful and discriminatory use of natural resources such as water, land and stone. FIFA is not being asked to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is being asked to stop holding matches on stolen land while benefitting from the activity.

Moving forward, FIFA has assured that they will compile a report next month despite being unable to come to a decision because all members of the special committee were unable to meet. Both IFA and PFA have reacted to the news. During a press conference in Ramallah, PFA President Jibril Rajoub stated that if FIFA is not able to come to a decision quickly and help ease the “suffering of Palestinian sports”, PFA would approach the Court of Arbitration of Sport.

There is a precedent to sanction the IFA teams since European football’s governing body, Uefa, barred teams playing in Crimea from participating in Russia’s top football league after it annexed the country in 2014.

The IFA is strident and insists that it’s sole objective is to elevate the sport. Israel’s football executives often echo Blatter’s sentiments of not politicizing the sport.

The solution is to not prevent the IFA from playing the beautiful game, but to play within the legal borders of their country and not to use illegal settlements as a backdrop to elevate the sport. Legitimizing oppression by way of FIFA-sanctioned matches is unacceptable to players, officials and blemishes the sport itself.

Players, coaches and supporters should enjoy the world’s most popular sport while not being complicit in Human Rights or Football Law violations.

(Shireen Ahmed is a sports activist, a freelance writer and a public speaker who focuses on Muslim women, and the intersections of racism and misogyny in sports. When she isn't watching soccer, she drinks coffee as tool of resistance. She is currently working on her first book and lives in Toronto, Canada with her family. Twitter: @_shireenahmed_ Website www.shireenahmed.com.)

(Republished with permission from Mondoweiss.net).

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Bangladesh’s dreams of football glory may not be that far away anymore

Football in Bangladesh is alive and kicking
 

For those who thought that football in our nation was staring into the abyss, there is not only hope but a chance in the near future for us to make history. Only, you have to switch from the men’s game to the women’s one.
That is not a problem at all, because, with the rising popularity of women’s football globally, and thanks to our glorious girls in the under-16 team, in about 15 years we may be switching on the telly to see Bangladesh playing in the Women’s World Cup.

Well, who cares if we never manage to play in the men’s equivalent tournament, if our girls can bend it equally well (or better) and wrap the whole nation in euphoria, then let all our support and patronage be for women’s football.
The last 10 days have been a dream come true for all football-lovers of the country — we were witness to some of the most emphatic victories by our girls on the field, which, I am sorry to say, cannot be matched by the men. Ever.
Large-margin victories against the likes of Singapore and Kyrgystan and solid wins against Iran, Chinese Taipei, ranked way ahead of us, are sporting achievements which one can only imagine of.

But the impossible has been achieved, maybe not by the men but by our women, who often have to overcome a plethora of blinkered social attitudes to take up something like football as a career.

The Bangladesh team and our teenage gladiators have not only given us unbelievable pride in being a football loving nation, but they have also made the path to the game smoother for those who aspire to follow in the footsteps of Krishna, Mousumi, Marzia, and others.

No write-up on women’s football in Bangladesh can ever be complete without a tribute to the Kolshindur village, 80km from Mymensingh, where, about a decade ago, the lives of young girls changed completely when a local school began training a girls’ football team.

The road to success has been strewn with impediments, some financial others rooted in social stereotypes. But the village of Kolshindur set the format of success over adversity.

The current Bangladesh U-16 team, which has already sealed a spot in the Asian U-16 final round, adds a layer of tantalising fame over years of hardship plus perseverance.

The talk of the nation is the young team of energetic girls who have shown us all and other participating teams how different they are in skills and standards.

Away from public gaze, women’s football has advanced a lot. So much that, today, many of us are transfixed by the way these girls play on the field.

Sublime tackling, relentless chasing, accurate striking, and the essential never-say-die attitude combine to make a riveting team, bringing back the pride of the red and green jersey, seen so much humiliation in recent times due to the unending debacles of the men’s side.

The recent five-nothing drubbing of the men’s team by Maldives was, to me, the last nail in the coffin. I hear that Bhutan, here to play the men’s side, has expressed emphatically of their desire to win.

So, from the top spots in South Asian football, this is where we stand now.

A long time ago, probably 1989, during the SAF Games in Pakistan, when the Bangladesh contingent was making the pre-tournament march in front of the podium, the commentator said: “Here comes Bangladesh with a very strong football team.”

That line rings hollow in 2016, when we have to digest many a pummeling at the hands of Maldives, a side which was once no match for our top club sides.

Of course, hats off to the Maldives football team of today, The Red Snappers, and their gifted captain Ali Ashfaq, arguably the best striker in South Asia right now. May they improve and go beyond this region to become a formidable Asian powerhouse.

For us, though, the pain of the loss in Maldives is subdued by our super-girls who are now the sole bearers of the country’s footballing glory. While we are all showering them with accolades, it has to be remembered that this success should not make us complacent and create a lax approach to the women’s game.

Today it’s the Asian Cup, tomorrow it can be the World Cup — this forward momentum needs to be carried on with exactly that kind of aspiration.
 

The Bangladesh team and our teenage gladiators have not only given us unbelievable pride in being a football loving nation, but they have also made the path to the game smoother for those who aspire to follow in the footsteps of Krishna, Mousumi, Marzia, and others
 

Let’s go back to 2003.
The Bangladesh mens’ team won the SAF football tournament in Dhaka and, afterwards, amidst widespread celebration, I wrote an op-ed for The Independent asking for cautious celebration without becoming over-confident.
Looking back at the slide of the standard of the mens’ game in the later years, it’s clear that advice did not have any impact.

Today, each of the seven South Asian nations have made great progress, leaving us in the gutter. Afghanistan, which has played in the region for some time, has moved to another region to play with the better Central Asian teams.

Nevertheless, I will once again air that line for the girls’ side: Let’s not allow this remarkable success to dent our determination. All teams which lost heavily will go on, sit down, and make new plans to improve.

And similarly, we also have to strategise to become even better.

We have hope, the game is not dead in Bangladesh. I will pick up my much-admired green and red jersey, dumped in one corner, and wear it with pride whenever I am abroad.

And if someone asks me if this is our cricket jersey, I will say with conviction, “no mate, this is the colour of our women’s football team.”

Towheed Feroze is a journalist currently working in the development sector.

The Article was first published in Dhaka Tribune

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