April 27, 2006
TO HANSEN AND FUKUYAMA, WE MODESTLY ADD THE NAME JUDD
Why Run After a Ball (Simon Jeffery, Guardian Newsblog, April 27th, 2006)
Iraq the Model reveals the radical Shia cleric's views on the beautiful game. It is not clear when his comments were made, but the tone of them makes it unlikely that either the prospect of an Arsenal versus Barcelona Champion's League final or "Big Phil" Scolari taking on the England job would do much to sway him.Football - according to Iraq the Model's translation - has done little but distract Arab minds while, Mr Sadr suggests, the US and Israel "mostly turned to scientific things".
He explains: "The west made things for us that distract us ... made us run after a ball, habibi."
The cleric asks what it means to "see a man, big tall and wide and Muslim" run after a ball (clearly, he is no fan of soon-to-retire Zinedine Zidane). He suggests the goals a believer pursues should be those that "reach for the satisfaction of almighty Allah".
Mr Sadr then delivers the thrust of his argument - that Arabs would do better if they wasted less time on football.
Canadian hockey consultants are on their way as we speak
There is a great CLR James quote about sport and the Western Male that I can't find. It talks about the supreme importance of games in our societies. Maybe some has it?
Posted by: Pepys at April 27, 2006 10:15 PMIt is pretty silly kicking a ball around without hope of scoring. Arab or not.
What is infinitely more entertaining are camel races. Nothing funnier than watching a half-trained camel thundering down the track. Some go down track, and some on a whim go up track, and always a few go across track. Camel rules.
Posted by: Tom Wall at April 28, 2006 12:16 AMActually, Mr. Al Sadr has it exactly wrong. Given the preferred choice of pasttimes currently raging around the Arab world, Arabs would do a lot better if they spent more time playing football. (And, of course, even better if they took up baseball.)