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Richard Bulliet
Rami G. Khouri
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Ain’t No Sisters on the Team| by Mona Eltahawy | Released: 13 Aug 2008 |
NEW YORK -- Confession: I’m a total sucker for the Olympics Opening Ceremony. Not the pyrotechnics and razzle-dazzle, but the athletes’ procession. When the Egyptian team walks into the stadium I choke up and wave at the screen as if they could hear my cheers.
As an Egyptian, Muslim woman I was proud to see 26 women on my country’s Olympic team. I was delighted to see a woman carrying the flag for the Bahraini team, and another for the team from UAE -- the first woman to ever represent her country at the Olympics.
But in between B, E and U, in marched the Saudi team, and I had a Buggin’ Out moment. I wanted to yell “Yo, Saudi Arabia, how come there ain’t no sisters on the team?”
In Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee’s film on racial tension in a Brooklyn neighborhood, Buggin’ Out is an African-American character who frequently dines at the local pizzeria until he realizes that despite his and other black patrons’ dollars, only portraits of white Italian celebrities decorate the walls.
“Yo, Sal, how come there ain’t no brothers on the wall?” Buggin’ Out asks the pizzeria’s owner.
Buggin’ Out then helps organize a boycott of Sal’s Pizzeria which takes a turn for the violent and tragic -- neither of which I’m advocating but you get my point.
It is time for a Buggin’ Out-style protest about the Saudis having such a brazen disregard for women: Saudi Arabia might not be Sal’s Pizzeria but if it won’t put sisters on the team then it’s time to tell them not to bother showing up at the London Olympics in 2012.
Another country with no women on its team in Beijing is Qatar, which might seem especially galling considering Qatar wants to host the 2016 Olympics. But the reason there’s no sisters on the Qatari team today is not that authorities keep them out: When Qatar hosted the 2006 Asian Games, 43 Qatari women competed. But none qualified for the Beijing Olympics.
With practice and improvement, Qatari women could compete in London in 2012. Not so for Saudi women. They have no chance to qualify because they are prohibited from sports of any kind. Ultra-conservative clerics have deemed women’s sports sinful.
If you’re wondering how sports could be a sin, look no further than a 2006 book by Muhammed al-Habdan. “This (sports for women) is exactly what the disbelievers in the West want," he wrote. "Their plan is to lure Muslim women out of their homes and subsequently out of their headscarf too."
It gets worse: Besides the plotting of the West, it is those all-too temptatious women themselves. Habdan says girls might be attracted to each other after seeing their classmates in tight leotards and tops. That is why, says Habdan, “good” Saudi girls do not disrobe -- for changing into those leotards and tight tops for example -- outside their homes.
As a Muslim who loved to play tennis and badminton at school and who now loves to watch my 5-year old niece Danah at soccer practice, I can only laugh at Habdan’s rantings.
That procession of teams at the Beijing 2008 Opening Ceremony easily dismantled Habdan’s arguments that women’s sports were a conspiracy by “western disbelievers.” How wonderful to see dozens of Muslim women athletes who run, fence, and lift weight, marching in the proud knowledge that they are role models for not just their countrywomen but all Muslim girls who love sports.
Habdan’s hyper-sexualized ranting on leotards notwithstanding, you see that some of those Muslim women athletes in Beijing wore headscarves, like Sheikha Maitha bint Mohammed bin Rashid, the 28-year old who carried the flag for the UAE and who will compete in tae kwondo. Others, like the women on the Algerian team, wore skirts and high heels.
The presence of all these Muslim women at the Olympics is a clear message to the world -- and the conservative clerics -- that there is nothing in Islam that stops them from competing in the sports they love.
Saudi women are fighting back. A few days before the start of the Beijing Olympics, Saudi women’s rights activist Wajeha al-Huwaider posted a video on YouTube protesting the ban on women’s sports in her country. Others are directly challenging the ban by playing underground soccer, basketball and learning horse riding -- risking state anger but determined to be recognized.
Religious authorities banned an all-women’s marathon and soccer match, but the Jeddah United women’s basketball team makes public appearances as part of their fight against the ban.
They have a natural ally in Moroccan Olympic gold medalist Nawal El Moutawakel, who this week became the first Muslim woman elected to the International Olympic Committee’s executive board. In 1984, El Moutawakel became the first women from a Muslim majority country to win a gold medal. She must tell Saudi Arabia that it’s time to have sisters on the team.
And time for that Board to insist Saudi Arabia abides by the IOC charter, which bans discrimination of any kind.
Mona Eltahawy is an award-winning New York-based journalist and commentator, and an international lecturer on Arab and Muslim issues.
Copyright ©2008 Mona Eltahawy – distributed by Agence Global
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Released: 13 August 2008
Word Count: 843
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