Sadly, Nagham was not the only Palestinian athlete to have been killed by Israel. In its letter to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) urging it to ban Israel from participating in Paris Olympics, The Palestinian Olympic Committee pointed out that since October 7, “Approximately 400 Palestinian athletes have been killed, and the destruction of sports facilities exacerbates the plight of athletes who are already under severe restrictions.”  

Israel invaded and occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967, in violation of international law. No international body had ever awarded Gaza to Israel. It was under the stewardship of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and Egypt until a Palestinian state could be established, as had been pledged by the British Empire in the 1939 MacDonald White Paper. Israel “de-developed” the Gaza economy, cutting it off from its traditional markets, and illegally implanted Israeli settlers there. As Michael Jansen explained, the International Court of Justice ruled in mid-July, 2024, that Israel’s presence in Gaza and the Palestinian West Bank since 1967 has been illegal:

The Court contended that Israel has violated international law by denying Palestinians their right to self-determination in the territories occupied in 1967. The ICJ argued that Israel’s 57-year occupation is permanent rather than “temporary . . .” The ICJ said Israel violated the Fourth Geneva Convention, which regulates belligerent occupation, by transferring its citizens into the occupied lands. Israel has illegally extended Israeli law to the settlements and has imposed on Palestinians a separate, discriminatory regime (akin to outlawed apartheid) and de facto illegally annexing the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Deliberate attacks on Palestinian men and women athletes are not new. In 2014, two Palestinian soccer players, Jawhar Nasser Jawhar and Adam Abd al-Raouf Halabiya, were stopped by the Israeli army on their way home after training and shot in the feet. Attack dogs, unleashed on them, mauled their limbs. They were dragged and beaten until the attackers were sure they would never be able to play soccer again.

In fact, Israel’s war on Palestinian sports in general is much older than that. I remember as a child during the first uprising between the years 1987 and 1993 which involved stone-throwing, the Israeli authorities suspended the soccer league and, indeed, sport activities. Israel also used the local soccer stadium in Nablus city as a military camp.

BBC Video: “The Palestinian Olympic athletes competing in Paris 2024”

As we all know, Palestinian athletes are not the only target of Israel. Well over 39,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in Gaza alone and more than 90,000 have been wounded since October 7, 2023. That this total war and the killing of tens of thousands of civilians (as most of them have been) could be justified as “fighting Hamas” is not plausible. It is a war on Gaza’s noncombatants, including its athletes.

It is profoundly troubling that Israel’s flag bearer in the Olympics, Peter Paltchik, is reported to have signed bombs targeting Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Peter, who was born in Ukraine, is a settler colonialist who came from Europe to colonize the land of Palestine while cheering the savagery inflicted on the indigenous Palestinians by Israel.

Given all of the above, the normal response from the International Olympic Committee would have been to ban Israel from participating in the Olympics. Unfortunately, however, the opposite happened. While Nagham and hundreds of other Palestinian athletes were killed by Israel before being given the opportunity to participate in the Olympics, Israel is there in Paris, since the IOC ignored calls to ban Israel from participating. By doing that, the IOC let  itself down before anyone else.

This stance shows that the IOC is unprincipled and morally bankrupt organization. Nearly two years ago, it banned Russia and Belarus from participating in the Olympics after Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Russia, is banned by the European Union also from participating in any continental or international competition including the FIFA World Cup and all the European UEFA competitions. Israel is not even in Europe, and is guilty of the same crimes of illegal invasion and occupation as Russia. This situation makes the FIFA, IOC and UEFA complicit with the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Furthermore, the IOC banned Apartheid South Africa from participating in the Olympics between the years 1964 and 1992 due to its implementation of racist policies known as apartheid. Ironically, the International Court of Justice has found that Israel is guilty of the crime of Apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.Still, the IOC failed to treat Apartheid Israel in the same way it treated Apartheid South Africa — which was an ally of apartheid Israel. International sanctions on South Africa Apartheid regime were crucial to bringing the era of racial segregation and discrimination to an end.

The IOC and France missed an opportunity to pressure Israel to stop the bloodshed and to be on the right side of history. They chose not to do so at the expense of their reputation and credibility. They also ensured Israel’s status as a state that can act with full impunity.

The appropriate response for that would have been for the governments that declared their support for the Palestinians to send a strong message to the IOC and France by boycotting the Olympics or at least to show some other form of protest against allowing Israel to participate in the Olympics. But unfortunately, politics and foreign policies are more likely to be based on interests, not ethics. Some governments will only pay lip service to the Palestinian cause as long as it serves their interests — something that we the Palestinians seem to struggle to understand. This collective failure of the international community to act will only encourage Israel to continue uninterrupted with its daily murder of the Palestinians, the bulk of whom are women and children.

Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” Cesar A. Cruz

Istanbul (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – To most people, comedy can be a source of entertainment, an enjoyment to remove us from our daily routine and everyday problems. For this reason, many comedians tend to avoid complicated topics and controversial issues so as not to offend any part of their audience and to broaden the scope of their reach and influence. Yet, there’s another breed of comedians, like the late great George Carlin, who reject safe comedy and believe that comedy and satire can and must challenge taboos. By using witty, clever jokes they delve into topics in ways that the classical politicians and journalists are unable to do. A lot of research believes that this brand of comedy has a lot of merit when it comes to navigating complex political situations, fighting injustices, or advancing social change in the world. Unsurprisingly then, the recent War in Gaza has become the subject of many comedians’ sets and punchlines for a myriad of reasons.

Comedy at its core is meant to be funny, that’s the one thing almost every person on the planet would agree to. Yet is that all that comedy is good for? A lot of researchers would disagree. Research by Sara Ödmark proposes that the main difference between comedians and journalists in news framing is that comedy tends to be more personal, emotional and understood at a societal level. These features in comedy create a space for the audience to feel heard and understood. Caty Borum Chattoo shares similar findings in her research where she argues that journalism institutions should take notes from comedians on how to make news accessible to their readers. While this may come as a shock to some, many people trust comedians’ input in serious matters such as political affairs. For instance, an old Pew research from 2007 revealed that “16% of Americans said they regularly watched The Daily Show or the Comedy Central spin-off, The Colbert Report”. Jon Stewart, who wouldn’t be identified as a classic journalist, is trusted by many Americans for his provoking and satirical takes on American and foreign affairs. Ödmark clarifies that comedians like Stewart occupy a position her research coined as a “comedic interlocutor: a satirist who uses humor, emotion, comedic metaphors, and analogies while addressing the audience to discuss serious topics”. A 2020 research by Rutgers goes into detail on how this form of comedy could become a force for social change through:

“Drawing attention, disarming audiences, lowering resistance to persuasion, breaking down social barriers and stimulating sharing and discussion…Comedy also can have broader cultural effects, shaping news coverage and social media discourse, providing visibility to alternative ideas and marginalized groups, and serving as a resource for collective action”. 

Zeteo Video: “Bassem Youssef and Mehdi Hasan on Gaza: “If you’re going to kill me, I’m allowed to scream.”

So, if comedy can be such a force of change, how has it been employed in the war in Gaza? 

For starters, comedy can be a strong therapeutic tool to process feelings and emotions for both the comedian and the audience. This is true for many Palestinian comedians who found solace in their comedy. Palestinian comedian Sammy Obeid explained in an interview with CBC how talking about the conflict not only can help bring the Palestinian narrative to light but is also a way for him to process his emotions, “I get to say things that maybe haven’t been said before … and helping people come to those realizations with me also feels cathartic,” This sentiment is shared by his fellow Palestinian comedian Mohammed “Mo” Amer whose comedy has been focused mostly on his Palestinian heritage, through his Netflix specials such as “The Vagabond” and “Mohammed in Texas,” and his comedy series “Mo”. Amer believes that comedy can help foster understanding and can assist in humanizing Palestinians, especially for Western audience. Yet, he also acknowledges the strength of comedy for comedians to process their own feelings stating that “Comedy has been what saved me.” Hence, through comedy, these comedians found an outlet to channel their grievances and let other people, who may not have a proper way to do so, feel heard and understood.

While comedy can be a great outlet for grief and processing our emotions, other comedians believe in its power as a tool for social criticism. A notable example of such potency can be seen in the Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef. A heart surgeon-turned-political comedian, Youssef came into the limelight through his satirical show “Al Bernameg”. In format, Youssef’s show mirrored the Daily Show with Jon Stewart garnering him the nickname ‘Egypt’s Jon Stewart’. His main focus was the criticism of Egyptian politics and politicians through satire. This premise, while highly successful, landed him in hot water with the government and he had to flee from his country. These days, Youssef decided to aim his satirical talent at the war in Gaza, attending different interviews prepared with satirical, witty, and often exaggerated answers to the hosts’ talking points. 

His two interviews with Piers Morgan remain two of the best examples of how comedy can be phenomenally successful in delivering poignant criticism and in making people listen to alternative perspectives. Through his dark humor, both interviews attempt to dismantle the Israeli points of view by exposing their illogic and by humanizing and shedding light on the Palestinian perspective. For instance, to expose the Israeli’s overuse of the human shield argument, Youssef jokes with an uncomfortable Piers Morgan about how hard it is to kill his Palestinian wife:

“You know those Palestinians, they’re very dramatic: ‘Ahh, Israelis killing us!’ But they never die. … They are … very difficult people to kill. I know because I’m married to one. I tried many times — couldn’t kill her… I tried to get to her, but she uses our kids as human shields; I can never take her out.” 

This joke is funny but also uncomfortable because of how embedded it is in truth. Yet, this is only one example of many that Youssef employs to expose the fallacies of the Western media but also to highlight the dehumanization of Palestinians by Israeli propaganda. As Noor Nooman puts it, Youssef’s humor “isn’t intended to make us laugh. It is intended to make us feel agony and to provoke people who blithely mouth Western talking points about Palestinians to question their assumptions”.

The best comedians are master storytellers, they create a space for their jokes that is both immersed in reality and exaggeration. An ability that, when appropriately used, can render the audience defenseless against their own misconceptions and assumptions. Akin to the jesters of the past, comedians hold immense power to oppose the injustices of our leaders and to expose the lies and hypocrisies of those in charge. 

Human Rights Watch Testifies Before Senate Subcommittee on Investigations

Human Rights Watch – (Beirut) – The United States should investigate and regulate sovereign wealth funds like Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) that have been linked to human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch said in testimony today before the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

The hearing examined the fund’s substantial holdings in the United States. It followed the announced merger in June 2023 of the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) and LIV Golf, which is owned by the Saudi fund. Under Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the fund has facilitated and benefitted from human rights abuses. The crown prince is chairman of the US$700 billion fund, which is built on the state’s oil wealth.

“Mohammed Bin Salman has shown a clear interest in expanding his influence beyond Saudi’s borders often through high-profile business deals with sports teams and leagues,” said Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “US businesses considering a handshake with Saudi’s PIF should undertake extremely rigorous due diligence to ensure that sovereign wealth funds that invest in US companies are not furthering human rights abuses.”

Human Rights Watch has reported extensively on the Crown Prince’s consolidation of political and security power over the last few years in Saudi Arabia, and the dire implications for human rights. In tandem, MBS has consolidated economic power in the Kingdom notably via the PIF.

The fund has been directly involved in human rights abuses linked to the crown prince. They include the 2017 “anti-corruption” crackdown that involved arbitrary detentions, abusive treatment, and the extortion of property from former and current government officials, prominent businessmen, and rivals within the royal family, as well as the 2018 murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

This raises serious concerns for US businesses engaging with the PIF, and any possible links this may create between them and abuses in Saudi Arabia and abroad, particularly as the fund expands its investments in key sectors of the US economy, including technology, sports, entertainment, and finance. This should also be a concern for US regulators and Congress, Human Rights Watch said.

Some sovereign wealth funds are structurally separate and distinct from a government’s chief executive. But the crown prince wields significant control over the PIF, one of the largest such funds in the world, and exercises unilateral decision-making with little transparency or accountability over the fund’s decisions. While Saudi Arabia’s state finances have long been characterized by a lack of transparency and oversight, the restructuring and dramatic expansion of the fund has consolidated – to an unprecedented degree – vast economic power in Saudi Arabia under the Crown Prince alone.

Human Rights Watch wrote to the fund’s governor, Yasir al-Rumayyan, who, according to a LinkedIn page attributed to al-Rumayyan and various media reports, was managing director of the fund between 2015 and 2019, on December 21, 2021, and again on March 15, 2022, requesting his response to allegations of serious human rights violations associated with the fund. He has not responded.

As a result of the corruption crackdown, about 20 companies were captured as part of the crackdown and transferred directly into the fund at the crown prince’s instructions, according to documents in a Canadian lawsuit that Human Rights Watch reviewed. Some of those detained in 2017 remain in detention without charge, and others have not been heard from since.

There has been no transparency regarding the asset seizure process. Some of the assets seized during the crackdown appear, according to The Guardian, to have been transferred to a holding company that is wholly owned by the PIF, apparently on the orders of Mohammed bin Salman. Other assets were reportedly transferred to a different government-controlled holding company managed by the Ministry of Finance. It is not clear who ultimately took ownership of the other assets.

The documents also indicated that one of the companies transferred was Sky Prime Aviation, a charter jet company that owned the two planes used in 2018 by Saudi agents to travel to Istanbul, where they murdered Khashoggi. In February 2021, the CIA released a report assessing that Mohammed bin Salman had approved the operation.

Over the last several years, the Saudi government has embarked on a vast campaign to rehabilitate its image and deflect from the global perception of the Saudi state as a severe and persistent human rights violator, particularly under the de facto leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The PIF, although an arm of the Saudi government and controlled by the country’s de facto leader, has sought to portray itself as an investor acting based on financial interests, rather than at the direction of the Crown Prince.

Saudi Arabia has hosted or sponsored events that celebrate human achievement, like major sporting events in the effort to improve its image. The fund is a central component of the country’s Vision 2030, which explicitly laid out the role of sports in enhancing the image of Saudi Arabia abroad.

On June 6, the PGA Tour announced an agreement combining the fund’s golf-related commercial businesses and rights, including LIV Golf, with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour into “a new, collectively owned, for-profit entity.” Unlike the sponsorship of an event or ownership of a team, control over an entire sector of professional sports raises the possibility of pressuring players, sponsors, and media to stay silent on Saudi Arabia’s abuses, and raises concerns about what measures will be taken within the league to undermine human rights.

Human Rights Watch wrote to the PGA Tour’s Policy Board on June 22 detailing concerns about the implications of the fund effectively obtaining a monopoly over professional golf while it is also complicit in human rights abuses. As of September 13, Human Rights Watch had not received a response, nor are there indications that the tour has sought to develop a human rights strategy.

“It’s important that the US Congress is looking into the influence of the Saudi fund into US business,” Shea said. “The Biden administration should be taking similar cautions in its further engagement with the Saudi government, given its rights record and how it is using its billions to launder its image.”

(The Conversation) – For Liverpool supporters like me, Jordan Henderson was one of football’s good guys. He was the club captain who fundraised for the UK’s National Health Service during the COVID-19 pandemic and vocally supported Liverpool’s LGBTQ+ community.

However, in July 2023, after 12 years at Liverpool, Henderson left for Al-Ettifaq, a club from the Pro League in Saudi Arabia, where same-sex relationships are criminalized. Henderson’s weekly wage at Al-Ettifaq is reportedly US$900,000 — triple what he earned at Liverpool, the world’s fourth richest club.

Some have labelled Saudi Arabia’s investment in football as sportswashing. This describes a government’s attempt to launder its domestic and international reputation through sport. It’s often associated with Gulf states like Qatar, which hosted the 2022 World Cup, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

Henderson isn’t the only footballer following the money. Some of football’s biggest names now call the Saudi Pro League home. Cristiano Ronaldo got the ball rolling, signing for Al-Nassr in December. He’s been joined by the current Ballon d’Or holder, Karim Benzema, who left Real Madrid for Al-Ittihad. Liverpool star Mohamed Salah has reportedly agreed to move to Al-Ittihad, however Liverpool have thus far not accepted a deal.

Brazil’s Neymar signed for Al Hilal from Paris Saint-Germain (PSG). Al Hilal also offered PSG US$332 million for French superstar Kylian Mbappé.

Al Hilal’s bid for Mbappé would have smashed the world transfer record; however Mbappé rejected the move. So did one of the world’s best-known footballers, Lionel Messi. He chose to move to Inter Miami in the United States rather than accept a US$1.6 billion deal to join Al Hilal. But Messi will still earn US$25 million over the next three years as a tourism ambassador for Saudi Arabia.

Money outpacing morality

Via its Public Investment Fund (PIF), the Saudi monarchy has spent US$6.3 billion on sport since 2021. This includes buying English football club Newcastle United and creating LIV Golf.

But there’s another aspect to the Pro League story. A super-rich newcomer is buying influence in a game whose profit-driven stakeholders, like FIFA, have faced repeated corruption scandals. The wealth and ambition of the Saudi project challenges Europe’s stranglehold on world football. But it’s the logical next step for a sport where money has outpaced morality.

Sport is key to Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia’s US$7 trillion project to diversify the country’s global image and oil-dependent economy. The Saudi monarchy wants to host the 2030 or 2034 World Cup. It’s pouring money into boxing, Formula 1 racing, golf and football.

In 2023, PIF took majority ownership of four Saudi clubs, Al-Ahli, Al-Ittihad, Al Hilal and Al-Nassr. Ronaldo’s annual salary at Al-Nassr (US$200 million) makes him the world’s highest-paid footballer.

Money talks, and sportswashing often works. Human Rights Watch recently reported that Saudi border guards killed hundreds of migrants along the Kingdom’s border with Yemen. A Saudi-led military coalition has been accused of war crimes in the same neighbouring country. The Saudi government was responsible for the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Amnesty International has documented the Kingdom’s many human rights abuses, from its use of the death penalty to its treatment of migrant workers and protesters.

All that is unlikely to matter to many Newcastle supporters. Success on the pitch matters more than the politics of the club’s owners.

A league that’s here to stay?

As with Qatar’s World Cup, the Saudi Pro League has provoked genuine ethical concerns. However, many in the Gulf states also point to the hypocrisy of Western criticisms that highlight human rights abuses elsewhere, while ignoring problems closer to home.

There is a neo-colonial element to the dismissal of Saudi ambitions that reflects Europe’s long dominance of world football. Football is highly popular in Saudi Arabia and much of the Middle East, so why can’t a league there rival the English Premier League or Spain’s La Liga?

Saudi Arabia wouldn’t be the first place where an authoritarian government has enriched domestic competition with overseas talent. Mussolini did it with Italy’s Serie A in the 1920s. China’s government did it with the Super League after 2004.

Henderson might have disappointed Liverpool fans, but focusing on a single footballer misses the point. Vast networks support Saudi sportswashing. Chelsea Football Club, once owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, is now 60 per cent owned by Clearlake Capital, a PIF-backed investment firm.

Boris Johnson’s Conservative government approved of PIF’s ownership of Newcastle United. Meanwhile U.K. weapons are sold to Saudi Arabia for use in the civil war in Yemen, which the UN estimates has killed 377,000 people.

The problem with the Saudi league isn’t the league alone, or the unpleasant regime that bankrolls it. The problem is football and the economic structures that underpin it.

Football’s vulnerability to sportswashing tells us a lot about how and for whom the world’s most popular sport is run. It’s not for the supporters, smaller leagues or most players. It’s for unaccountable states, corporations and individuals.

There’s a history of upstart competitions briefly challenging football’s status quo, from Colombia’s El Dorado league in the late 1940s to the Chinese Super League. The Saudi Pro League looks likely to have more staying power.

Many might be unnerved by Saudi Arabia’s involvement in sport. However, the Saudi authorities are following the example set by football’s governing organizations. They just have more money to exploit the greed and inequality that has seeped into football’s DNA.

Alan McDougall, Professor of History, University of Guelph

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

As Saudi Arabia continues to open up internationally, it is yet again in hot water over its human rights record. The current controversy revolves around the kingdom’s increasing presence in the sporting world and accusations of “sportswashing”.

In recent years, the Saudis have thrown the heavy weight of their Public Investment Fund into partnerships with Western institutions like the PGA, Formula One racing and World Wrestling Entertainment.

Riyadh is also luring top soccer players like Cristiano Ronaldo to its national league and using Lionel Messi as an influencer to promote the kingdom.

Recently, Saudi Arabia has signalled its interest in holding women’s tennis tournaments and even potentially hosting the 2030 FIFA World Cup, as well.

While the precise dollar figure of all of these efforts is difficult to determine, it has easily reached into the billions.

‘Sportswashing’ atrocities?

But the Saudi sport blitz has been received with less enthusiasm by many outside onlookers.

Human Rights Watch and many Western commentators describe it as simple “sportswashing” – an effort to distract the world’s attention from its continual disregard for international human rights.

For instance, the kingdom has racked up a well-documented record of human rights violations during its eight-year proxy war in Yemen.

Despite Riyadh’s murky peace deal with the Houthi fighters in Yemen in April, the war will remain a stain on its humanitarian record for the foreseeable future.

The lack of any meaningful reparations following the peace deal also raises the question whether the deal was simply a way for the Saudis to disengage from the war at a time when a serious rebranding campaign was needed.

At home, political freedoms and rights remain tightly constrained by the regime. Despite moves to relax some restrictions on women and religious minorities, these reforms have paradoxically come with increasingly harsh measures towards peaceful dissidents.

Only last year, female activists Salma al-Shehab and Nourah bint Saeed al-Qahtani received prison terms of 34 years and 45 years, respectively, for their engagement with social media posts criticising the regime.

More recently, several Howeitat tribesmen were sentenced to death on terrorism charges for peacefully protesting a megacity project that threatened their ancestral village.

Building a new Saudi brand

But while obfuscating human rights issues is certainly part of the equation when it comes to the kingdom’s sports mania, its motivations are far more strategic than simple bait-and-switch tactics.

At their core, these actions fit within a broader effort outlined in the Saudi Vision 2030 campaign to rebrand the country and normalise it within the wider liberal international order.

For many outside observers, the kingdom has long been an outlier on the international stage. It’s been characterised as a primitive backwater cut off from the outside world and ruled over by a despotic monarchy that has relied on a combination of oil wealth and Islamic extremism to maintain its hold on power.

Such reductive depictions ignored a far more complex, rich and colourful history. However, few in the West were keen to explore this more nuanced viewpoint (at least if my book sales are anything to go by).

Saudi royals have historically been content with such stereotypes, too, provided they maintained their sovereignty and security at home. The kingdom made little effort with soft power initiatives outside the Islamic world.

The international art, culture and sporting worlds were seen as being in stark contrast to the psychological and cultural norms of the Wahhabi orthodoxy that has long governed Saudi public life.

This all changed in 2015, however, with the ascension of King Salman and his chosen heir, Prince Mohammad bin Salman. The younger bin Salman quickly assumed de facto control over many of the country’s key portfolios.

In contrast to his conservative predecessors, the prince was seen as a “disruptor” with little regard for tradition. Like with many of the Silicon Valley tech-bros he emulates, bin Salman likes to move fast and break things. This includes everything from traditional religious institutions to architectural rules.

Bin Salman’s vision is to remake the Saudi brand as a modern authoritarian technocracy in the mould of the United Arab Emirates or Qatar. He wants to emulate these successful case studies through economic reform, military modernisation, technological innovation, cultural modernisation and the opening of the kingdom to cosmopolitan cultural engagement and exchanges.

A new platform to engage with the world

These efforts took a hit, however, after the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Bin Salman denied being personally involved in the murder, counter to what US intelligence reports concluded. But some believed the global anger of Khashoggi’s killing could have
damaged the prince’s reputation badly enough to hamper his future as a statesman.

Memories can be remarkably short-lived, though. And five years on from the killing, bin Salman’s rebranding agenda is charging ahead with increased urgency. This is where the Saudi sporting onslaught comes in, and why it needs to be understood.

Control and influence over these sports provide the kingdom with enormous cachet. Saudi Arabia can use this new stature to engage in cultural outreach with the world, influence global opinion and portray itself as modern and dynamic.

To characterise all of this as mere sportswashing may be catchy, but reduces a much broader and strategic effort.

Indeed, implicit in the notion of sportswashing is that the Saudis are suddenly concerned about the country’s association with human rights violations.

But looking at the examples of Qatar and the UAE, authoritarian regimes are able to flout international norms and laws on human rights and still fit quite comfortably within the wider liberal international order. The reason: the countries serve a valuable function in sustaining that same system.

While human rights abuses will undoubtedly continue to plague the Saudis’ efforts, bin Salman is betting big they won’t stand in the way of other states and companies engaging with an increasingly open and cosmopolitan kingdom. If history is anything to go by, he may just be right.

Ben Rich, Senior lecturer in History and International Relations, Curtin University and Leena Adel, PhD Candidate, Political Science and International Relations, Curtin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

( Tomdispatch.com) – Jim Brown was a monster, not only as a wrecking-ball running back on the football field but also as a prime example of an ever more popular obsession with people (mostly men) whose admirable achievements are shaded by despicable behavior (mostly directed at women). He died last month at 87 and his obituaries, along with various appraisals of his life, tended to treat the bad stuff as an inevitable, if unfortunate, expression of the same fierce intensity that made him such a formidable football player and civil rights activist.

Often missed, however, was something no less important: what a significant figure he was in the progress of the Black athlete from exploited gladiator — enslaved men were the first pro athletes in America — to the sort of independent sports entrepreneur emerging today. Brown was a critical torchbearer and role model on the century-long path between the initial Black heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson, who went to jail for his “unforgivable blackness,” and one of the greatest basketball players ever, LeBron James, who was the first Black athlete to successfully create his own narrative from high school on.

Jim Brown didn’t control his narrative until 1966. By then, he had already spent nine years in pro football, retiring at the peak of his sports career in what was then both condemned and acclaimed as manly Black defiance. In doing so, he presaged Muhammad Ali’s refusal to be drafted during the Vietnam War and the Black-power salutes of protest offered by medal-winning runners Tommie Smith and John Carlos as the Star-Spangled Banner began to play at the Mexico City Olympics of 1968.

A Life Demanding Study

A year after retiring from football to concentrate on his movie roles, Brown organized “the Cleveland Summit” in which the leading Black athletes of that time, including basketball’s Kareem Abdul Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor), debated whether they should support Muhammad Ali’s refusal to join the Army. Their positive decision, based on Ali’s in-person defense of his antiwar moral beliefs, was important to so many Americans’ acceptance of his sincerity. It was also a glimmer — as yet to be fully realized — of the potential collective power of Black athletes. And it was all due to how much Brown was respected among his peers. His close friend Jabbar, an important voice in his own right, has written that “Jim’s lifelong pursuit of civil rights, regardless of the personal and professional costs… illuminated the country.“

And that’s probably more than you can say for Miles Davis, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, or Roman Polanski, among the dozens of male stars of one sort or another whose lives have been reevaluated in the wake of the #MeToo movement and a question it raises: “Can I love the art [sport] and hate the artist [athlete]?”

As Nation magazine sports editor and Brown biographer Dave Zirin has pointed out, “Brown’s life calls for more than genuflection or dismissal; it demands study.”

Buy the Book

Indeed! Consider some of the countervailing pieces of evidence to his greatness. Although never convicted, Brown was accused of a number of acts of violence against women, which he, along with the male-dominated culture of his time, tended to dismiss as of no significance. In one notorious and oft-recounted incident, he was accused of throwing a woman off a second-floor balcony. He always denied it, claiming she fell while running away from him. Tellingly, when the victim declined to press charges, macho culture interpreted that as proof of his irresistible virility, an extension of his being, arguably, the all-time greatest football player ever (and he was thought to have been even better at lacrosse in college). His brutal style of play would later be reflected in his aggressive, independent style of business and everyday life.

That image gathered force when he was 30 and in London on the set of his second film, The Dirty Dozen. It was then that Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell threatened to fine him daily if he didn’t show up on time for pre-season football training, which was soon to begin. Brown, then one of the sport’s major stars, eventually responded by simply quitting football.

It was perceived as a battle of wills. Modell was usually characterized as a boss always operating in the best interests of his team or (though this was rarer in those days) a classically uncompromising, deeply entitled Big Whitey plantation owner. And Brown was either seen as a defiant Black man, ungrateful for his celebrity and money, or like Ali, as a warrior prince of Black manhood. As in the heavyweight champion’s case, the reality was, of course, far more complex.

On Raquel’s Team

At the time, Brown was conflicted about his choices. In May 1966, as a sportswriter for the New York Times, I happened to be in London covering an Ali fight and had been invited to the Dirty Dozen movie set. Brown confided to me that the film was far behind schedule and there was no way they’d finish shooting his part so he could make pre-season practice in a timely fashion. He had, in fact, hoped to play one more season, his tenth, but couldn’t imagine bailing on the production before the film was wrapped. There were just too many people dependent on him, he told me, and so the Browns would have to wait. After all, it wasn’t as if he were going to miss regular-season games.

But Modell’s insistence that he return immediately (echoed by the media) eventually pushed him into a corner. And Hollywood simply seemed like the better choice — a potentially longer career, more money, and less physical damage. Indeed, Brown would go on to succeed as the first Black action hero in mainstream movies. His on-screen interracial sex scene with Welch in the 1969 film 100 Rifles would also be considered a Hollywood first.

His football retirement, which began as expedience, would only enhance his macho aura, which, for better or worse, was all too real. That same year, in Toronto (also to cover an Ali fight), I found myself having dinner at a Chinese restaurant with Brown, Carl Stokes, soon to be the first Black mayor of Cleveland, and comedian and activist Dick Gregory, whose autobiography I had written.

It was a lively, friendly meal until the check arrived. The waiter, an elderly Chinese man, set it in front of me. Stokes and Gregory burst out laughing and began bantering about the racism implicit in the poorest of the four of us getting the bill. But Brown suddenly leaped up, yelling at the waiter and grabbing for him. The other two managed to push him back into his chair, where he then sat, muttering to himself. Eventually, he did manage to see the humor in the situation, but initially he had been deeply offended, and that simmering rage of his (always a potential prelude to violence) seemed ever ready to boil over.

He was in his eighties the last time I saw him, moving slowly on a cane, and yet he still seemed like one of the two scariest athletes I had ever covered, men whose baleful glares rose so much more quickly than their smiles. (The other was former heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston.)

It should be no surprise that Brown’s contributions to advancing Black equality were of a piece with his complex life. After all, he often derided civil rights marches as nothing more than “parades” and his best efforts were directed toward lending a hand to the economic advancement of Black small businesses and marginalized former gang members.

What always seemed like a paradoxical conservative streak in him was, in fact, essential Brown, the mood of a man who believed that Black progress would never come from protests or demonstrations — they always seemed like a form of begging to him — but from the power of money, of muscling your way into the marketplace and buying into the system. He believed, in other words, in economic power above all else and, for what must have seemed to him like short-term pragmatic reasons, would end up allying briefly with two otherwise unlikely presidential figures — that football ultra-fan Richard Nixon and then former football franchise owner Donald Trump. Brown even went so far as to defend Trump when iconic civil-rights activist Congressman John Lewis called him an illegitimate president.

Forebears and Descendants

Brown’s unyielding rage evoked the earliest celebrity Black athlete who rattled white folks: Jack Johnson. Although that boxer’s style was different from Brown’s — living in the Jim Crow era, he flamboyantly derided his opponents and flaunted white girlfriends and wives — Johnson also offered a version of intimidating masculinity that led all too many white men to call for a “great white hope” to defeat him. It took the self-effacing, self-destructive Joe Louis, who carefully concealed his affairs with white movie stars, to calm their insecurities and become an acceptable hero for whites.

In recent years, the only athlete who’s come close to Brown’s steadfast individualism in the face of racism was Colin Kaepernick, whose insistence on kneeling during the pledge of allegiance before National Football League games got a distinctly mixed response from Brown. He liked the young quarterback, he said, but as an American couldn’t abide the desecration of the flag (another instance of Brown’s late-in-life cluelessness).

As Zirin aptly put it in his biography Jim Brown: Last Man Standing, his seeming paradoxes were those of a “flawed” figure who was “heroic but not a hero.”

LeBron and Brittany

LeBron James, Brown’s current successor as the model of a modern Black athlete, has proven a far more consistent figure. Already marked as the future of basketball in high school, he’s orchestrated his career in a remarkable fashion, moving to better teams and dictating his own terms in the process. Along the way, he’s also built up his business interests — always with a core of hometown friends — and expressed his opinions openly. While at the Miami Heat, he led his teammates in a protest against the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager, Trayvon Martin.

Not since the days of Muhammad Ali had such a big star been so willing to take such a controversial stand. The basketball superstar with whom LeBron is most often compared as a player, Michael Jordan, was known for avoiding anything that might harm the sale of his sneaker brand. LeBron on the other hand even called President Trump a “bum.”

He was indeed courageous, but of course, he could do that. Global capitalism had his back. It’s even more courageous to take a stand when true risk is involved. So, perhaps a hopeful harbinger of future athletic heroes — regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation — were the members of the predominantly Black Atlanta Dream team in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) who, in 2020, wore T-shirts endorsing Raphael Warnock, the Black Democratic opponent of Georgia Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler. It was a gutsy move, since Loeffler, a white woman who had disparaged the Black Lives Matter movement, just happened to be the Dream’s co-owner.

It was, in fact, particularly gutsy because WNBA players are among the most vulnerable in big league sports, playing in a relatively small league that pays relatively low salaries — the average is $147,745 while eight players in the National Basketball Association make $40 million or more annually. That’s why so many of those women play internationally during their off-season. It’s why WNBA star Brittney Griner was en route to a Russian team when she was arrested and detained for 10 months after vaporizer cartridges with less than a gram of hash oil were found in her luggage. (She was finally released in a prisoner exchange last December.)

Although widely admired as warm and friendly, before her incarceration in Russia, Griner seemed to have something of Jim Brown in her personality. She was active with her Phoenix Mercury teammates in protests against the police murders of unarmed Black people and insisted that the national anthem should not be played before sporting events. Since returning from Russia, she’s been active in campaigns to release others who have been wrongfully detained. A lesbian, Griner and her partner were arrested in 2015 for assault and disorderly conduct in a domestic violence case. They subsequently married and divorced.

She may well be LeBron’s successor in the evolution of the Black athlete. At the least, her mission statement, as described in a 2019 interview with People magazine, is both humble and complete. She said: “People tell me I’m going to break the barrier and trailblaze. I just kind of look at it like, I’m just trying to help out, I’m just trying to make it not as tough for the next generation.”

These days, that’s heroic.

Copyright Robert Lipsyte 2023

Via Tomdispatch.com

Professional golf – and increasingly world sport – is caught in a sand trap. Not the familiar hazard between fairway and green, but the Middle Eastern desert producing enormous quantities of fossil fuels.

The resulting riches are being diverted into sport, disrupting its traditional Western dominance.

The latest example is the dramatic announcement that LIV Golf, the rebel circuit led by retired Australian golfer Greg Norman and backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, has merged with the (US) PGA and (European) DP World Tours after two years of trench warfare.

While today’s big story is LIV Golf, Saudi Arabia’s involvement in sport will generate many more money-driven, politics-heavy headlines.

Welcome to the ‘party hole’

There are echoes here of Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket and Rupert Murdoch’s Super (Rugby) League. An aggressive, well-funded competitor takes on the sport establishment, promising to shake up a sclerotic game, bringing in new money and younger fans with lashings of razzmatazz.

Embed from Getty Images
OSAKA, JAPAN – JUNE 29: U.S. President, Donald Trump (L) meets Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud (L) on the sidelines of the second day of the G20 Summit at INTEX Osaka Exhibition Center in Osaka, Japan on June 29, 2019. (Photo by Bandar Algaloud / Saudi Kingdom Council / Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

LIV Golf offers shorter stroke play contests and a competitive team format. This April, Australia got a taste of it in Adelaide. Large, raucous crowds turned up, witnessing innovations like a “party hole” complete with terrace, bars and a DJ.

LIV lured leading golfers such as Australia’s Cameron Smith with enormous contracts, in his case worth A$140 million (US$93.4 million). In response, the main tours banned LIV-signed golfers from most of their tournaments. Inevitably, it ended up in the courts, with LIV suing the PGA Tour for restrictive practices, and the PGA countersuing for inducement to break contracts.

Peace suddenly broke out this week via a joint news release announcing the tours and LIV Golf would morph into a collectively owned, for-profit entity. This came as a shock to tour golfers in an ostensibly player-run organisation, who found out via Twitter.

Even Greg Norman – a pivotal but deeply divisive figure – was apparently blindsided and discarded.

With Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan as chair and PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan as chief executive, the so-far unnamed entity must heal some deep wounds. Golfers who refused massive LIV contracts and believed Monahan’s defiant rhetoric feel sold down the river. It will take more than boosterist words from golf’s inner circle to placate them.

Golf’s turmoil is symptomatic of the impact of huge injections of capital into sport from outside the US and Europe. It does not only come from the Middle East. The Indian Premier League, both men’s and women’s, has comprehensively refashioned the economy of world cricket.

China has invested huge sums in soccer, and Beijing is the only city to have hosted both the Summer and Winter Olympics.

But the Middle East is where commercial sport is seen as the future of a post-carbon economy. Last year, Qatar hosted the men’s FIFA World Cup and is steadily supplementing its sports infrastructure, while the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have committed large sums to motorsports and cricket.

Saudi Arabia is making the biggest impact on global sport through its A$10 trillion (US$6.7 trillion) Vision 2030 plan to diversify its economy under leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (also known as MBS).

Money and image

Human rights come to the fore every time such non-Western countries host a major sport investment or buy a major sport property. A 2021 report by human rights group Liberty found Saudi Arabia had recently invested more than A$2 billion (US$1.3 billion) in sport. Much more since has been spent on sports such as football, golf, motor racing and cricket.

In the world game, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund bought English Premier League club Newcastle United, and has recruited superstars such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema to the Saudi Pro League.

The sight of a laughing FIFA President Gianni Infantino seated alongside MBS at the Qatar World Cup opening ceremony fuelled suspicions that the kingdom’s bid for the 2030 men’s World Cup has the inside running.

Sport investment is clearly part of the country’s economic agenda, but also its political positioning. Such sportswashing is a method used by illiberal regimes to cover up the ugly face of repression. Despite some loosening of controls over women in Saudi Arabia in areas like driving cars, MBS undermined his claim to be a moderniser when 81 people convicted of crimes ranging from murder to “monitoring and targeting officials and expatriates” were beheaded on one day in March 2022.

Critics of the sportswashing concept argue that it’s imprecise, and moreover is a routine feature of national and corporate public relations all over the world. It is also used selectively, despite countries like Australia having their own deficient human rights records regarding First Nations peoples and refugees, and trading freely with repressive nations.

But sport attracts greater scrutiny because it is carried on television screens, not container ships. This profile was clear when Infantino was forced, after an angry response by players, to abandon plans to make Visit Saudi a major sponsor of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.

Saudi tourism may have missed out this time, but Saudi capital will continue visiting many more sports and countries.

David Rowe, Emeritus Professor of Cultural Research, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

According to a report by Bloomberg on Monday, Savvy Gaming Group, a subsidiary of the kingdom’s sovereign Public Investment Fund (PIF), is seeking not only game projects to acquire, but also to develop and publish its own.

“We are now more of an e-sports company than a games company,” Savvy Gaming Group CEO Brian Ward was quoted as saying. “What we’re doing this year is focusing more on game publishing and development. We would like to use those investments to begin to work with these companies and ask how we can work together on publishing in [the Middle East and North Africa], run their esports businesses or develop new IP together.”

Savvy has already made multibillion-dollar investments in gaming giants such as Tencent, Activision Blizzard and Nintendo. It is the largest outside stakeholder in the latter, having increased its stake in February, and now owning 7.08 per cent, up from 6.07 per cent at the start of the year. It also has taken over two of the largest e-sports brands.

Luke Stephens Live: “Saudi Arabia Investing $37 BILLION In Gaming”

In September 2022, Savvy announced plans to set aside $13.3 billion to acquire “a leading game publisher to become a strategic development partner.”

Responding to accusations of “games-washing” to improve the kingdom’s reputation and human rights violations, Ward said, “We have on our executive team members of the LGBTQ community and women… [and the company would] absolutely hire an LGBTQ or Jewish person to lead a game studio in Saudi Arabia.”

Via Middle East Monitor .

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

(The Conversation) – Boxing purists may argue over the sporting value of a fight between a reality TV star and a former YouTube prankster. But the commercial value of the massively hyped event in February 2023 was clear for both the contestants (Tommy Fury and Jake Paul shared a prize purse worth over US$13 million (£10.7 million) and the country which staged it – Saudi Arabia.

For while Qatar’s hosting of the Fifa men’s World Cup grabbed the world’s attention in 2022, its larger, noisier neighbour is now muscling in with even bigger sporting plans.

Saudi Arabia’s financial might – and the level of its ambition – are like Qatar on steroids. The kingdom is widely expected to launch a joint bid for the 2030 Fifa men’s World Cup, and is desperate to increase its presence in international sport.

So far, it has been pretty successful. In football, Saudi Arabia was recently chosen to host this year’s Fifa Club World Cup and will stage the Asian Cup in 2027. The country’s tourism authority has also reportedly signed a deal to sponsor this year’s Fifa women’s World Cup in Australia.

Then there is the ownership (via the country’s sovereign wealth fund) of Newcastle United FC, and suggestions that Saudi Arabia was interested in bidding for Manchester United and Liverpool. One of football’s most famous stars, Christiano Ronaldo, is currently playing for the Saudi Arabian club Al Nassr, where he is said to earn around £500,000 a day.

Away from the football pitch, there were rumours of a Saudi-backed bid to buy Formula 1, as well as interest in wrestling, cycling and golf.

The scale of Saudi Arabia’s investment is clear enough. But it is worth remembering that this hugely expensive outlay is not for reasons of vanity or largesse. It is a carefully constructed strategy in response to the kingdom’s pressing economic, political and social challenges.

Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (commonly known as “MBS”) understands the value of sport being deployed as a policy instrument to secure the long-term future of the Gulf state.

For while Saudi Arabia has vast wealth at its disposal (its wealth fund holds assets worth over US$600 billion, much of it is derived from oil and gas. And as the world strives to move away from carbon fuels, the Saudi economy finds itself overspecialised and exposed to risk.

Investing in sport overseas is one way of addressing this vulnerability, and diversifying the economy. But it is the scale of Saudi Arabia’s domestic spending on sport that sets it apart, as seen in the construction of Qiddiya, a sport and entertainment mega project designed to attract inward investment and overseas tourists.

The transformation process is also political. At home, the Saudi government continues to be mindful of events across the Arab world that led to popular protests in 2010 and 2011. With almost 70% of its population aged under 35, fears of social unrest are tangible and real.

By focusing on the promotion of sport, entertainment and leisure, MBS and his officials are specifically addressing the interests and demands of Saudi Arabia’s young consumers as a means of averting disaffection among them.

Through the likes of Newcastle United ownership and a stake in the McLaren F1 team, Saudi Arabia is also seeking international legitimacy and wants to project soft power and build diplomatic relations.

Fitness levels

Public health is another issue in Saudi Arabia, with increasing levels of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. As is the case in many other countries, sport is being deployed as a policy instrument to encourage a healthier lifestyle.

The use of sport across all these issues, combined with the scale of state spending on it, is not without its critics of course. Domestically, more conservative members of the population remain concerned about the changes that have been instigated, such as allowing women to participate. Others have noted how large state influence on economic activity stifles creativity, enterprise and overall growth.

Internationally, Saudi Arabia is regularly accused of sportswashing its way out of human rights concerns – an attempt to distract from regular executions, the war in Yemen and the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Others contend that, despite the country’s supposed transformation, the rights of women and girls are still being denied, and that dissidents are being suppressed.

Yet within the kingdom there is considerable excitement about the country’s emerging status as a sporting superpower – and MBS looks unlikely to stray from the path he has set. The country’s considerable spending power makes it appear certain that Saudi Arabia will soon become one of the biggest players in international sport, delivering a knockout blow to the kingdom’s many critics.

Simon Chadwick, Professor of Sport and Geopolitical Economy, SKEMA Business School

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.