Dr Asim Qureshi Profile picture
Nov 4 16 tweets 3 min read
I'm actually fine with the idea that sports are political. Yes, it should be absolutely appropriate to ask questions about the human rights record of any country you visit, as raised with Russia hosting, and now with Qatar. Be consistent though #WorldcupQatar2022
One of the first points to acknowledge, is the reason why FIFA gives the World Cup to any country in the first place, and much of it is to do with money. There is an addiction to money over any other concern. There is a hypocrisy at play here that needs to be understood.
London (and the UK at large), as one of the centres for dirty money for countries across the world, is used to this type of hypocrisy. It regularly permits investment from sources that are troubling to its own aggrandised self image. Money > than any other consideration.
There is already a great deal of hypocrisy at stake when we talk about the economics of global football and the ways in which it is sustained. Saudi Arabia’s ownership of Newcastle perhaps being the most important recent example.
Not to engage fully in whataboutery, but more to highlight how there are plenty of missed opportunities to speak about important political moments when football is played - it is important to note when it is and isn’t raised.
I hope that countries that visit England to play matches make sure their media cover the extreme class inequalities here, the way that asylum seekers are treated, and the way secret evidence is now regularly used in order to deny suspects adequate access to legal redress.
Since the World Cup in Russia, England have played the following nations, without raising concerns about their human rights records as part of the build up to their games, perhaps they should have thought about doing so. Some examples:
12 October 2018 - England visited Croatia, where journalists are regularly threatened and intimidated by state institutions. Migrants and refugees are also treated appallingly in the country.
15 October 2018 - they could have expressed concern over visiting Spain, a country that regularly uses a brutal police force to crack down on suspects, denying them their rights in a long period of pre-charge detention where they are regularly abused.
15 November 2018 - the USA visited England, there were no public concerns expressed over the extreme levels of violence carried out by the US both domestically and abroad. Media could have used the opportunity to highlight the continued abuses at Guantanamo Bay.
25 March 2019 - England visited Montenegro, a country with a genocidal past, that continues to this day to discriminate against minorities, Muslims in particular. I cannot remember any degree of concern being raised by the English FA or team about human rights violations there.
8 September 2020 - England in Denmark. No mention made of the way that Denmark creates ghettos for minorities and over criminalises those communities. No discussion on the way that migrants in the country are treated and the institutionalised levels of Islamophobia.
3 July 2021 - England in Ukraine. Endemic use of arbitrary detention and torture by state agents in the country constitute a serious violation of international human rights. There is continued concern over the extent of far-right groups the operate in Ukraine.
This year alone, England has played Hungary, Germany and Italy, without raising concerns over their human rights records. None of these countries have their hands clean and so when should ask ourselves why some countries versus others, for what purpose are we doing that?
I return to my first tweet, use platforms to raise concerns, but be consistent. England should boycott ever going to Israel, but if they do, they should highlight the settler colonial violence and architecture of apartheid.
The calls around Qatar seem to ring a little hollow in terms of a lack of consistency of pressing issues in the world. Much of it is performative in light of the movement of global finance and how the countries making performative gestures, benefit from those they are criticising

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Dr Asim Qureshi

Dr Asim Qureshi Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @AsimCP

Nov 1
Was intrigued to read Abdou’s book on Islam and Anarchism particularly as I recently wrote a book on the potential for an ethic of disobedience to be situated in the Qur’an and Sunnah. Image
I can understand at many points what Abdou is trying to do, particularly in relation to his concern over governance in Muslim majority countries (particularly the extent of authoritarianism) but also share his concern over the limitations of so-called Islamist political projects
I think the last couple of chapters, at least from the perspective of critiquing the world we live in spoke to me, especially in the way we speak of capitalism and violence. It was heartening to read him raise the notion of shared natural resources for the ummah as stolen wealth
Read 8 tweets
Mar 3
Another trip, another #travellingwhilemuslim encounter with UK borders agents.

They are really doing their best to make my re-entering the UK as difficult as possible.

وَمَكَرُوا۟ وَمَكَرَ ٱللَّهُ ۖ وَٱللَّهُ خَيْرُ ٱلْمَـٰكِرِينَ
Yesterday I was in Paris for the launch of an excellent @UK_CAGE report written by my colleague Rayan Freschi. The report details the ‘systemic obstruction’ placed in the way of French Muslims - and how they are being legally persecuted.

Please do download and read the report
After a really great launch and being in the company of my colleague, we had just enough time to relax a little and for me to make a pit stop in the famous Laduree to pick up some treats for my wife and children. Finally praying maghrib and isha in the Paris Grand Mosque
Read 15 tweets
Feb 7
🧵 (will limit spoilers) Was really happy to hear @HamzaMSyed get agitated about the impact of the Trojan Horse hoax, particularly when confronting an interviewee who was blasé on the consequences. I wanted to write this thread to make visible the severe consequences #trojanhorse
The revelations were a full-spectrum assault on the Muslim community in the UK. It is worth thinking through how this was felt across different sectors. First of all, it was made public in the media, the chosen journalists being Richard Kerbaj and Sian Griffiths.
The journalists are fed the fake letter in 2014. It is interesting to note about Kerbaj, that he seems to be regularly given access to material from sources close to government that target Muslims in one way or another. I have been a target of his dog-whistling myself in the past
Read 21 tweets
Nov 6, 2021
Bismillah.

A 🧵 on my latest stop by the police coming into the UK. I had just returned from a work trip and was stopped for 4.5 hours.

From the outset I was reminded that I was not under any suspicion, but that was only the start of what quickly descended into parody
For a start, I’m handed the information flyer under schedule 7 of the TA 2000, but one that had been used before, scuffed and had fingerprints all over it. Not hygienic or safe at all in these covid times.
I’m not happy and provide minimal responses to everything they say because why should I pretend to be ok with what is taking place? I refuse to make them feel comfortable about my difficulty
Read 20 tweets
Sep 5, 2021
TW: I just want to reflect a little on some of the demands being made that survivors of rape go to the authorities to formally lodge a complaint against an alleged perpetrator. There are a number of barriers that are worth thinking of before people make such a demand
The first is that any recounting of a serious trauma regularly results in a re-experiencing of it. You are effectively asking the survivor to re-experience that violence (which the body feels during the recounting) again and again
In the hundreds of interviews I've conducted with survivors of all manner of extreme physical violence, I can tell you that you can see the survivor physically in pain as they relate their experiences - it's extremely hard on them
Read 13 tweets
Jun 11, 2020
I think we need to case study this for the sake of posterity.

Feel free to add your own in this thread 😬.

Case study #1 - Priti Patel:

Got called a ‘Paki’ at school, but still willing to deport black/brown people. Leader of the pull up the ladder movement Image
Case study #2 - Sajid Javid:

Son of a Pakistani bus driver, but happy to weaponise his own ‘Muslimness’ when it suits him to show representation despite fuelling dangerous narratives about Muslims. Universally reviled by people of colour and his own white constituency 🤦🏽‍♂️ Image
Case study #3 - Trevor Phillips:

Hailed by racists as the true voice of anti-racism...what more needs to be said? 🙄 Image
Read 38 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(