Islamic Republic of Mauritania: A Gold Medal in Bigotry
The Olympics’ values—friendship, respect, excellence—set the standard of conduct for all athletes and serve as a model for competition at every level of play, whether the Olympic games or the local Little League. A truce was called in ancient Greece to allow safe passage to and from the games by athletes and spectators alike. The modern truce of the IOC promotes sportsmanship and strives to abet world peace.
Not every country, nor every athlete, live up to those ideals. Some have their hatred so ingrained in their hearts and normalized in their culture that it is passed on to the very young. As they acculturate into society, the brainwashing continues, guaranteeing another generation of antipathy and conflict.
A 14-year-old Mauritanian chess player refused to play his Junior World Cup match against an Israeli. Abdel Muhammed said, “Israel is a fake country so how can I play a representative from a fictional country that in reality doesn’t exist?” Apparently no facts were offered for this supposition, nor were incidents cited as wrongs committed by Israel against Mauritania--not to mention any by his opponent. As the Mauritania National League put it, he honored his country “by declaring a boycott against the grim Zionist face.” As best our blog could tell, no questions followed, no challenges made by a free press; no reporters jockeying to be heard. To allow bigotry’s festering poison recalls the AIDS anthem, haunting us for decades with its admonition: SILENCE=DEATH.
If Abdel’s third-party honor hangs on protesting another country’s policy towards the second party, then this holds out all kinds of honorable possibilities for outsiders. Let’s take Abdel’s Islamic Republic of Mauritania. A Human Rights Watch report (a partisan NGO hostile to the only Jewish-majority state) says the IRM outlawed slavery in 2007, but HRW says 2.4%of Mauritanians, or 90,000 of its people, live in modern slavery—with an additional 62% vulnerable to servitude.
Any player or team facing The Islamic Republic of Mauritania can boycott it because of its persistent slavery, a heinous human condition. IRM also shows great hostility to democratic universal rights. A young competitor raised valuing freedom and civil liberties may boycott the grim face of Mauritania because of its totalitarian grip and widespread slavery. Also, if Abdel is protesting what he sees as “occupation”, I’m sure he and the Mauritanian National League would refuse to play a Turkish boy, since Turkey has occupied Northern Cyprus since the early 1970s and has a population of over 500,000 Turks on Cypriot soil. I’m sure the Islamic Republic of Mauritania would honor one of their young players for refusing a match with Islamic Morocco, who swept into Western Sahara in 1975 and now has over half a million Moroccans as well as a large military occupation there. This would be especially honorable because Mauritania has been opposed to the occupation and is part of an organized front to take on Morocco’s ambitions.
I’m not sure why playing an Israeli boy would also not be honorable, bridging cultures and countries, forging a baseline of peace. What an inspiring story that did not happen. Abdel Muhammed and Mauritania have shown the world a highly successful educational system in one regard: putting into practice the hate and bigotry on which generations are raised. Other competitors have defied their countries at great personal risk to compete against and show great sportsmanship with Israeli athletes, moving the needle slowly towards mutual acceptance.
Mauritania has huge, macro problems within its schools, high poverty, dubious teacher qualifications, and curriculum among them. They do their students and young people no favors when lessons in hatred are their finest accomplishment. As a product of his country’s schools, Abdel exemplifies the antithesis of the Olympics and international code of conduct—friendship, respect, excellence.
When an Algerian judo-ka refused to face an Israeli opponent at the Japanese Olympics this year, Algeria and Olympian Fehti Nourine lost accreditation. Iran’s was pulled for four years for the same stunt. Punishment for using international sport as a propaganda tool to further outright bigotry is appropriate. For the anti values of prejudice, hypocrisy, hate, and its nurturing of such destructive, unsportsmanlike conduct in its young, The Green B Letter awards Abdel and Mauritania, two razor sharp stingers.