Glory and Credibility?
The World Cup beckons both, perhaps
Today’s sunrise over Spa Creek was so welcome not only because I feel so much better than I did yesterday but because it offers the beginning of another week to thrive. For a huge number of the world’s sports fans, however, the dawn signalled the arrival of the 2022 World Cup, a quadrennial extravaganza for those who follow football played the traditional way. I remember hearing countless breathy adverts the year i graduated from high school saying ‘!Mundial! !Mundial!’ as if the population needed any reminding that it was tournament year.
I recall being somewhat amused in 2010 to hear that Qatar won the right to hold the tournament. It struck me as a hard place for the thousands of die hard fans to carry out their traditionally wild behaviour. It seemed hot, too, but I have never been there. Qatar might not be Saudi Arabia or Iran in adherence to strict Islamic law but not that far away. Bacchanalic street scenes? Uh, not so much. Frivolity with reckless abandon, even the non-drunken kind, if it involved people letting their hair and scant clothing free? Nope, I don’t think so. Protests regarding women’s rights should anyone feel the need? No way that will occur.
The public award of the Cup to Qatar award came at the end of the decade in which the United States and many partner nations had put boots on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq. Staging areas for those forces included ‘friendly’ Islamic regimes such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Relations between host and visiting forces were strictly controlled to avoid crossing lines which would lay bare the fundamental cultural differences that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan tried to ignore. Islamic and non-Islamic cultures simply are radically different to their cores. We believed in the west that we could close that gap or at least ‘manage it’ until we met our assumed joint objective of eradicating conditions which would allow for another 9/11 attack from a state like Afghanistan or to see a rogue regime under a dictator like Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Twelve years later Afghanistan is under the Taliban’s control and Iraq is a fragile state with decidedly pro-Iranian proclivities. We discussed Saudi Arabia a few days back.
Most relevant to the World Cup, Qatar announced this weekend they will not waive Islamic law to allow alcohol sales in the stadia where matches occur. Revelry with thinly-clad bodies, due to heat or national pride presented under the guise of body painting, will not transpire, either. Sexual acts between couples of the same sex or outside of marriage will be prohibited, punishable by public flogging. Proselytising and free speech will be prohibited to avoid offending Islam or the hereditary emir in Qatar. In other words, Qatar’s sharia law will pertain through the Cup.
The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) chose a venue for the games with little appeal to many of those with the financial resources to attend these games. Much as China does when announcing a wildly unpopular decision, Qatar laid out its final conditions to attendees fewer than 96 hours before the first matches today, giving people little time to shift plans. FIFA, a governing body long accused of selling the sport to those best able to pay the Association’s governors, may have believed Qatar was a more ‘progressive’ Islamic state or they may well have expected exactly what they got with these decisions. Qatar’s leadership obviously does not care; they will cater to their own Islamic police before they bow to the desires of the fans spending millions of dollars to attend this long-awaited event. They also cannot have too many deviations from the Sharia norm that citizens might demands for themselves.
The west’s engagement, even protection of, the Islamic world has had no effect on breaking the walls that separate our cultures and the governments supporting them. Trillions of dollars and thousands of lives spent in this region have not brought the west any closer to the Islamic world. I wonder whether this sporting event has the potential to make that chasm even greater should some stupendous faux pas occur in Qatar. I most definitely hope not.
I cannot speak for what our allies and partners thought about our involvement in the past twenty years in the Middle East. I can say that those who so arduously argued to nation-building and spreading U.S. values were unsuccessful for the most part. That is a painful reflection but an unavoidable one at this juncture.
Perhaps the seeds for change are indeed under the soil and germinating. I hope so because the cost for this country has been extraordinarily high. The reputational cost for governments and the militaries have been exceptionally high, especially for the United States. Time will tell but it always is the factor we can least predict.
The United States tied Wales today in each side’s first game, 1-1. Much more to follow. FIN