Great story! The best I read today and my eyes are tearing up with emotion. I don’t usually read sports stores but this got my attention.
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Lots of comments here about downtrodden Muslim women. A good example of ‘whataboutism’. The article is about religious tolerance. I am a Muslim doctor who does not cover my hair or face. The many women I know who do so are not compelled. It is their choice. It is not too much to ask to respect their liberty to dress as they feel comfortable.
Also, having lived in both the UK and the US, I’d like to point out that many Americans will just not ‘get’ this article. The
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Respect is earned. I’m glad to know your friends are not compelled to cover their faces. However, in a modern western society it is not an expression against liberty to voice disapproval at this backwards oppressive custom.
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@Aafzs The comments are more about Muslim male leaders who seek to trod down on women than saying anything about the women themselves. In fact, Muslim women are fighting back, organizing and protesting against the misogyny in Islam. Here's a link to an interview with a representative from OpenStadiums, a group of Muslim women who protest the Muslim male leadership that bans women from attending sporting events in Iran. She remains anonymous in the interview because in Iran, women are detained, jailed and beaten for expressing such views.
https://www.soccerphile.com/interviews/open-stadiums
Is it possible to discuss BRITISH Muslims (of which I am one) without a tirade of racism?
Comment a British Muslim integrating in sports and Iran or Saudi are immediately raised?
I guess Trump really does represent all Americans....
Or is that a sweeping generalisations?
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@John
So highlighting hypocrisy is now debunked as racist? Rahim’s column is about the failure of British society to fully respect Mr. Ali’s religion. Many writers have rightfully pointed out that Muslims living in Western countries enjoy far more freedom and tolerance than Christians (or Jews) living in the Middle East. Is this a “sweeping” generalization – or a truth readily evident to anyone who’s mind is not caulked shut by ideology?
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As someone who tends towards multiculturalism, I am heartened to see multicultural teams in almost all major team sports. I can recall seeing a black football (soccer) player (Cec Podd of Bradford City) for the first time in about 1970 and witnessing the abuse he took from supporters of my own team. Nowadays, the supporters are largely blind to the race of the opposing players and there is zero-tolerance of race-based insults. Some fans' identity is as much rooted in the sports team they support as anything else. Football in particular, has a history of tribalism, not least in some cities that also have a history of racial tension. When supporters can see that players of many races can be part of their own 'tribe', it helps to break down barriers and stereotypes that would otherwise persist.
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A weak opinion piece which should be rewritten, once muslim women, British or not, participate in swimming competitions or gymnastics. It is male Muslims who discriminate against 50% of other Muslims, so no need to point fingers.
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Amazing that faux concerns about the rights of Muslim women always are raised by bigots when Islamophobia is mentioned.
This article is about Britain where the structural prejudices against women dovetail with racism to make Muslim women’s life harder. Women in hijabs have harder lives precisely because of the loose-brained prejudices of bigots assume they are one dimensional stereotypes.
Of course there are hundreds of Muslim women involved in sports, in the UK and thousands globally. This is made easier in Britain by an inclusiveness that sees women-only times in pools and acceptance of women’s rights to dress in a way they feel comfortable. In many European countries, this racism masked as feminism excludes Muslim women from public participation in sport by regulating there dress in a way they do not feel comfortable with.
Before complaining about the prejudice of “the other”, take a look in the mirror.
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If I moved to Britain, I would expect to be able to adapt to the country, its culture and customs - I wouldn't expect the country to adapt to me. And although I'm a far-left leaning individual - or maybe because I am, I do have a problem with a culture that has as one of its main customs, the covering up of women with face veils and the like. To expect modern societies not to be made extremely uncomfortable by such practices is again an effort to force open-minded people to suddenly approve and condone such extremely regressive practices.
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I am British and person freedom and liberty of belief are British values.
Cromwell once said that he would rather Muslims prayed on the streets of Essex than anyone was denied their religious freedom.
I assumed this was a shared value on both sides of the Atlantic but 350 years later people still don’t seem to grasp it.
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Sports culture is hardly something to be held up as a bastion of tolerance by any Muslim male. Muslim women organized the group OpenStadiums to protest the ban issued from male Muslim leadership prohibiting Muslim women from being allowed to attend stadium sports events in Iran and other human rights violations related to Muslim woman and sports.
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Interesting, if one sided, article. They mentioned attacks on Muslims, which are deplorable. They failed to mention attacks by Muslims on non Muslims, equally deplorable.
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Of course no great English cricketer has ever worn a beard (insert picture of W.G. Grace here).
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Sameer Rahim suggests that Britain’s Conservative Party could learn from the “Inclusive environment” of cricket teams towards “Muslim” players. However, half of all Muslims are women, who are not permitted to play in the sex segregated cricket leagues. To be reflective of reality, Rahim would need to write that cricket provides an inclusive environment for MALE Muslims. When writers use terms like “Muslims” in contexts that exclude women, they normalize the idea that women don’t count in addition to making women’s experiences invisible. Across the globe, millions of Muslim women are not only barred from sport stadiums, but from organized sports altogether. The dearth of women from Muslim countries participating in Olympic sports is a disgrace to humanity. Mr. Rahim might look to “Muslims,” himself included, to be more inclusive towards the half of humanity that is female in their language, religious leadership and their own sports culture. And, no it is neither "Islamophobic" nor "hijacking the discussion" to correct this hypocrisy. It is ethical journalism. Yes, anti-Muslim bigotry is a terrible human rights violation and is growing. Agreed. So is anti-female bigotry. The two are not mutually exclusive. We can, and should, speak out against BOTH.
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@Amy Luna that's a rather bold comment, long on vitriol and short on fact. Muslim women are not allowed to play cricket ? You obviously know absolutely nothing on cricket !
I point you to Indian, Pakistan & Bangladesh women's cricket teams, who have done rather well locally and internationally and have muslim women members or are wholly muslim.
Closer, to my home Amna Rafiq a young muslim women became the youngest to captain Yorkshire women...
There are many more examples. However, the fact is womens cricket in the UK and globally is less developed and less popular than mens, so you have less popular women cricketers and even less muslim women
The article was interesting as Moen does serve as a positive role model here in the UK and there are lessons to be learnt as part of a wider UK discussion. I am not sure what this article tries to answer questions on behalf of about 500 million muslim women globally.
I do notice that whenever, there are articles about NFL, NBA... I don't see this amount of anger and whataboutery in the comments asking where are the famous women players ?
I will leave you to think why that is...
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@MNHudds I assure you that I opine on the harms of sports cultures from all countries. Perhaps you might write to the author of this article about all the female cricket players he neglected to mention, rather than telling me. And, I did not claim that no Muslim women play organized sports. I claimed that millions are prohibited from playing, which is true. No vitriol, just keeping it real.
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@Amy Luna
From what I can see, Iran & Saudi are not representative of muslim women...and other behaviours
I would be interested to learn of examples of millions of women who are prohibeted from sport.
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I'm an Englishman who has resided in the US much longer than the UK. Fortunately, I don't experience discrimination due to my heritage. Nevertheless, I will always feel more English than American. I will root for English/British sports teams/individuals over their US counterparts every time. I am otherwise mostly agnostic in my support of US teams/individuals. My level of interest often depends upon the personalities of the players involved. However, in all other respects, I am committed to the place where I choose to make my home. I can't criticize British Indians/Pakistanis/West Indians if they choose to support their own cricket teams over the England team, but for the long-term good of everyone, I hope they are fully committed to the British society in which they live.
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@Phillip Goodwin Big deal; some native New Yorkers root for the Red Sox or Packers. Living in the USA and rooting for British athletes is nothing.
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If a sport can help overcome racism, bigotry, and prejudice, surely understanding the root cause of these injustices will go a long way toward ending them. In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs and manufactured values about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. These minds would see the survival of a particular belief or made-up value as more important than the survival of an individual or a species. When we understand all this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
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