Footie in Iran

Ball-watching

Good news for Iran’s women this week (relatively speaking, of course).

The cabinet’s Cultural Committee decided to let its hair down a bit, and has given its provisional approval to the notion of allowing women to attend football matches. The ruling is subject to the provision that the sporting authorities are able to create the ‘necessary conditions’ for such a revolutionary move.

Since 1979, women in Iran have been banned from attending men’s sporting events. The reason? Such practice is deemed un-Islamic, obviously.

But the Islamic revolution did not dampen women’s passion for the beautiful game. There are many female armchair enthusiasts cheering on the men in shorts. When the national team beat Australia in a World Cup qualifying game in 1998, hundreds of women stormed the Azadi Sport Complex in Tehran to welcome home their heroes. The authorities looked the other way, as women danced in jubilation in the streets. Later that year, women formed their own league. Games take place indoors, with no male spectators.

There were some voices of protest when Irish female fans were allowed to watch the Republic of Ireland’s World Cup qualifying game with Iran in Tehran. The women’s magazine, Zanan, was upset about the ‘discriminatory practices’. And the BBC reports that, earlier this year, the reformist daily Azad published an article warning that women wanted to watch footie so much, they were willing to disguise themselves as boys to sneak their way into the stadiums.

But the conservatives are unconvinced. The newspaper Jomhuri-ye Eslami leads the protests: ‘It is true that a large number of girls would like to watch a football match at a stadium. [But] a large show of interest is no evidence of ethical correctness. There are a lot of people in the world who would like alcohol, drugs and gambling, all of which are ugly, unpleasant and forbidden habits.’

Honourable figures

Last week, the Diary focused its gaze on the money floating around America’s Mayoral races. This week, attention shifts to the heart of power: Bush’s Cabinet.

The Washington Post got down to diamond-encrusted brass tacks this week, when a piece by Thomas B. Edsall highlighted the fact that ten members of Bush’s fourteen-strong Cabinet are millionaires.

One-third of Cabinet members (according to their ‘financial disclosure statements’) are in the $10 million-plus bracket. Another third rest comfortably within the $1–5 million bracket.

Top of the list is Treasury Secretary Paul O’ Neill. A former Chief Executive of Alcoa, O’Neill is said to be worth somewhere between the $67 million and $253 million mark. (As the Post states: ‘Disclosure forms do not give specific price valuations for holdings, but instead require officials to state whether an asset is worth from, for example, $100,000 to $250,000, or $5 million to $25 million.’)

Also rolling in it is Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. The Post reports how over the last twenty-five years, Rumsfeld has been chief executive of G.D. Searle & Co. and General Instrument Corp., while ‘serving’ on a number of corporate boards – including the Tribune Co., owners of the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, the Kellog Co., Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Allstate Corp. He is worth somewhere between $62.1 million and $115.8 million.

Coming in third is the old nag Dick Cheney. The Halliburton Chief is sitting pretty on something in the area of $22 million (unlikely) to $104.1 million (more likely). Most of that cash now resides in tax-exempt funds.

Colin Powell, prolific speechmaker, writer and corporate board sitter, is worth – as the Post puts it, ‘according to his accounting’ – between $14.6 million and $65.5 million.

In fifth place comes commerce secretary Donald L. Evans. Worth between $10 million and $47.4 million, Evans was the former Chief Exec. of Tom Brown Inc., an oil and gas company, and a board member of TMBR/Sharp Drilling Inc. Oh, and he helped raise more than $100 million for the Bush campaign before he got his cabinet job.

Other millionaires:

• Tommy G. Thompson, Health Services Secretary – $1.5 million to $3.6 million
• John Ashcroft, Attorney General – $1.5 million to $3.3 million
• Mel R. Martinez, Housing and Urban Development Secretary – $1.3 million to $3.2 million;
• Anthony J. Principi, Veterans Affairs Secretary – 1.5 million to $2.8 million.

If you believe…

Buzz Aldrin. Spaceman. Hero. Off the hook this week for punching a documentary film-maker.

The authorities in California have decided to give the American flyboy a break after he thumped a guy who claimed the moon missions were faked.

Bart Sibrel felt the full weight of Aldrin’s clenched fist after approaching him outside a Beverley Hills hotel, daring him to swear on a Bible that the Apollo moon landings were for real.

Astronaut Aldrin claimed he was acting in self-defence. His stepdaughter, a believer, was with him at the time.

Witnesses rallied round Aldrin. Apparently, Mr. Sibrel was poking Mr. Aldrin aggressively with the Bible – a Federal offence? – and got his fair dues.

Mr. Sibrel is said to have followed Aldrin, calling him a ‘thief, liar, coward’. For staging a moon landing? The Diary dares Mr. Sibrel to try pulling that one off.

By extraordinary coincidence, Mr. Sibrel claims to have proven in his latest documentary that the moon landings were fakes, done to piss off the Ruskies.

Mr. Aldrin has no criminal record.

Another season, another reason…

So the cad has done it again. For the third time, the Diary announces the wedding plans of Swazi monarch, King Mswati III. The lucky woman is number ten.

The romance comes hot on the heels of Mswati’s eighth and ninth marriages, the last only two months ago. The King is thirty-four years old. His father, who sat, or otherwise, on the throne for sixty-one years, is thought to have accumulated more than one hundred and twenty-five wives in his exhaustive reign. The son can, if he wishes, pick a new bride every year, as thousands of virgins partake in reed dances for his pleasure.

But as the Diary has pointed out before, King Mswati is guilty of a teeny bit of hypocrisy. Despite his reinstatement of the traditional chastity rites of umchwasho last year, he has repeatedly violated these himself, as his brides tend to be underage. The latest is eighteen years of age. Mswati is expected to pay the family of high-school student, Nolichwa Ayanda Ntenteza, the fine of one cow for violating his own ban.

The BBC describes the ‘unusual protocol’ that surrounds the many royal weddings of Swaziland. The ceremonies usually take place during cold weather. Tradition dictates that the bride is made to sleep with her husband-to-be after which, in the middle of the night, she is called from the chamber by relatives of the groom. Once the door is opened, the women shout abuse at the new bride. Once outside, she is made to bare her chest and forced to hold down a spear in cow dung. Then more insults come and she cries ‘til dawn. The bride’s relatives then come to her rescue after being given a bull by way of a fine. And ‘neither the bride nor her relatives are ever informed of the pending marriage’.

Sounds just like Charles and Diana…

King Mswati is a sucker for tradition, and unmoved by accusations of hypocrisy. ‘I’m no more hypocritical than the President of United States who, despite his corporate cronyism, claims to be coming down hard on CEOs,’ he said in his defence.

Well actually he didn’t. But it would have been nice, huh?

Quotes of the week

‘Not voting is so last season.’
Advertisment for Kenneth Cole, New York, in the September issue of Harpers Bazaar.

‘Our interest is to get there very quickly, decapitate the regime, and open the place up, demonstrating that we’re there to liberate, not to occupy.’
Unnamed US military planner describing the plan for ‘regime change’ in Iraq in the Washington Post.

‘By shifting from his early focus on war against terrorism to war against Iraq, the President has manifestly disposed of the sympathy, goodwill, and solidarity compiled by America, and transformed it into a sense of deep misgiving and even hostility.’
Al Gore, in a speech to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco.

‘So now we can have a debate on whether the Democrats are being political in accusing the Republicans of being political in insisting the war is not political.’
Howard Kurtz, Washington Post staff-writer, looking ahead.

‘I want to let you know how much I regret the fact that alleged comments by the German Justice Minister have given an impression that has offended you.’
Victorious Gerhard Schröder, in a letter to President Bush. Germany’s Justice Minister, Herta Daeubler-Gmelin, was reported to have compared Bush to Hitler.

‘It really didn’t read like an apology. It read more like an attempt at an explanation.’
Ari Fleischer, White House spokesman, on Schröder’s letter.

‘I hate camp. I don’t enjoy dumb TV. I believe Aaron Spelling has single-handedly lowered the SAT scores.’ Joss Whelan, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, quoted in the New York Times.

‘The peasants are revolting.’ As seen on a sign being held aloft in the 400,000 strong ‘Liberty and Livelihood’ march in London on Sunday.

‘The world is composed of people, not bank-notes.’ Chairman of the Countryside Alliance, John Jackson.

Concept of the week

‘A distinctly American internationalism.’
A description from the document ‘The National Security Strategy of the United States’, published this week by the Bush administration.

Readers’ Responses

The neglect of legitimate Israeli security concerns and Zionist aspirations distorts openDemocracy’s coverage of the Middle East, says Michael Gottsegen, editor of eCLAL, an online journal of religion, public life and culture.

As the editor for a webzine, I find the articles on the Israel–Palestinian conflict on openDemocracy to be provocative and engaging. Typically I am sympathetic to the editorial points of view. In particular, I found Eyal Weizman’s series to be extraordinary and illuminating. I believed his exposition was so informative on so many levels that I commended it to my readers, many of whom would not be sympathetic to Weizman’s political position.

This said, I feel that openDemocracy’s coverage of the conflict is one-sided and moralistic in what appears to be a knee-jerk, leftist, anti-Zionist way. The historical reasons for the emergence of the present situation and the legitimate security concerns of the Israelis are nowhere to be seen. It seems to be assumed that Israel is colonialist, racist and imperialist, that the state has no business existing at all, and that the government has no legitimate security concerns because the state itself is not legitimate.

So what are the Israeli Jews to do? Return to the indefensible borders of June 1967 and trust in the good will of the Palestinians and their Arab brethren – seeing as both have been sufficiently demonstrated over the past fifty years? Allow for the return of all the displaced Palestinians and their descendants and create a ‘secular democratic state’ in which an Arab electoral majority quickly prevails and uses its democratic leverage to persecute its Jewish citizens? Or perhaps the Jews of Israel, who really have no business being there at all, should return to Europe and to their former homes in the Arab world? Or maybe they should emigrate en masse to the United States?

While your coverage focuses on the injustices perpetrated by the Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza, the lack of intellectual consideration paid to the existential dilemmas of the Israeli Jews – as if they merit such consideration as little as the whites of South Africa during the apartheid era – makes it hard for me to believe that your editorial line would be any different if the fight of the moment were not over the occupied territories of 1967, but over the ‘occupied territories’ of 1948.

In sum, the picture of the Middle East conflict presented in openDemocracy is too easy and one-sided. In the interest of real debate, I believe you should seek to publish articles that are more reflective of a stance that is more sympathetic both to Zionist aspirations and to the moral complexity of a situation in which equally legitimate nationalisms have come into conflict.

There is, after all, very little in the world that is as unambiguous as your existing articles on this tragic conflict would have it. In the interest of extending the high level of reflection and fairness that the site achieves with regard to almost every other topic, I urge you to include contributions that express other points of view.

Contact the Diary editor: Dominic.Hilton@openDemocracy.net