Football, feminism and Palestine

Jaraad brings a personal perspective to the recent match between Al-Faisali and Al-Wehdat football teams, which resulted in 250 people being wounded in Amman yesterday.

Jaraad points out that the Palestinian supports of Wehdat and the Jordanian supporters of Al-Faisali share the same religion, language, ethnicity and color, and asks where does all this hostility come from 62 years after Palestinians were ejected from their homeland?

He goes on to reference an article in the Washington Post, as well as a wikileaks cable which suggested American diplomats were ‘puzzled’ when a year earlier the King failed to respond to an attack on the Palestinian origins of his wife at a match between the same two sides. The media war over the Egypt and Algeria football game is also mentioned as a notable disgrace for both countries.

According to Jaraad a “culture of group violence” exists in Jordan – on campus, and even between rival tribes in Parliament. The answer is for the government to enforce the law . But he also says that Palestinians need to feel like they belong… without a bond between Palestinians and Jordanians he argues the country will never be safe.

“The conversation about Muslim women usually centers around our headscarves and our hymens” begins Mona Eltahawy. But despite preconceptions, she argues the region has had many “kick-ass” feminist icons.

For example Khadijah, the Prophet Muhammad’s first wife, was according to Mona a rich divorcee who owned her own business and was 15 years older than he was. She argues that perhaps real feminism can be dated to a train station in Cairo in 1923, when Hoda Shaarawi removed her face veil and described it as “a thing of the past.” Mona asks what would Shaarawi think now?

The post then becomes more personal, as Mona explains how in London her teachers were shocked that Muslim wives did not take their husbands names, or how in Saudi Arabia women were treated like the “living embodiment of sin.” It was only on moving to Egypt at 21 that she learnt to define her own place in Islam.

Today Mona describes herself as in a boxing ring: stuck between a bigoted and xenophobic American right wing, where she’s currently based, and the Muslim right wing, “which uses Islam to fuel its own misogyny.”

Ports and airports have been closed in Egypt, with Alexandria is having its worst “Kaseem” storm ever – and Egyptian chronicles has managed to get hold of some pictures.

KABOBfest gushes over Lebanese singer Yara’s new song entitled “Where to begin,” which according to him sensitively looks at tragedy and misfortune in Iraq and Palestine. According to the post Yara has conquered the entire Arab world with her charm – the Maghreb sheds tears in her concerts – and she is so wealthy that the only reason she would sing such a song is because she cares for “the countless individuals living on the margins of history.”

This article by Saeb Erakat, a chief negotiator for the PLO, begins with the memory of Lord Bernadotte, the first UN moderator of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, who observed before his assassination in 1948 that "it would be an offence against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent [Palestinian] victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes, while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine."

Three months after his death three quarters of the entire indigenous Palestinian population had been displaced by Israeli forces. UN general assembly resolution 194 called for the return of Palestinians to their homes and for Israel to pay compensation.

Today Palestinians are the largest and oldest refugee community in the world, according to the post. They constitute more than 7 million people worldwide, or 70% of the entire Palestinian population.

In Bosnia, under the context of the Dayton Accords, the return of Bosnian refugees to their homes and the restitution of their property were considered ‘non-negotiable’. The writer affirms that Palestine is no different.