What I’m Reading: July 22, 2007

This week I’m going to focus on some stories that you may not have read (if you have come across these stories then consider yourself as nerdy as me).

Let’s start with David Beckham. Surely, you’ve read a story or two (or sixty) about his coming to the US (even my non-soccer liking friend watched Posh’s reality show on NBC and said it was “hilarious” – although probably not in the way she intended it to be funny).

But did you hear the public radio show Marketplace’s take on Becks’ arrival? Or how about NPR’s show News and Notes, in which host Farai Chideya and Newsweek entertainment writer Allison Samuels discuss how Beckham is perceived in Britian’s black community (quite positively, even calling him “an honorary black man” a la Bill Clinton) and whether he will appeal to African-Americans. Even Steven Colbert offered his take on Beckham, naming him “Alpha Dog of the Week” for earning a huge salary and then not practicing (albeit because he was hurt).

In the US, there were some interesting non-Beckham stories as well. The Washington Post did a story on a girls soccer team from the DC area that traveled to South Africa. While there, the teenage players taught South African girls the sport and also learned about the realities of a country where it is believed that 1 in 10 people have HIV / AIDS.

DC Blast player Anna Rassman with several South African players (photo: Alice Keeney/Washington Post)

American girls, like those on this DC Blast, are fortunate in that they live in a culture which encourages them to play sports. Around the world, girls are often discouraged from doing so, and this issue came up among a group of Ethiopian-Americans at a recent event in Dallas. As the Dallas Morning News reported, a mother is suing the Ethiopian Sports Federation for not including girls in their annual soccer tournament (in contrast, the Afghan Sports Federation this year had girls at this year’s Afghan Cup).

This week was Nelson Mandela’s 89th birthday. A soccer match was organized to celebrate the occasion, which was attended by famous players and celebrities. The event brought out some interesting stories about how former prisoners on Robben Island, where Mandela spent nearly 20 years, organized soccer games. A movie is even being made about the prisoners who fought to have the right to play matches (Mandela, in solitary confinement was not able to participate). The public radio program The World also covered the event and spoke with Anant Singh, the director of the forthcoming movie, which will be called More Than Just a Game.

The soccer field at Robben Island (photo: Charles Korr)

Iraq’s national team has been doing quite well in this year’s Asian Cup (far better than the country itself). The New York Times reported this week on the team’s success and the way it is bringing together all of Iraq’s ethnic groups.

For Iraqis the success of the soccer team — a 22-member squad with Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds — evokes the old days, a time before sectarianism began to tear the country apart. It offers a moment of national pride and fosters the hope that the country, like the team, can look beyond its differences.

“The Iraqi team is the only thing that is uniting us now,” said Haiydar Adnan, 29, a Shiite. “When the Iraqi team wins a game, the people in Karkh, who are Sunnis, get happy, the people in Rusafa, who are Shiites, get happy.”

“I hope that the Iraqi politicians would look at these simple football players who managed to unite the Iraqi people and learn from them,” Mr. Adnan said.

Iraqi fans watch their team’s game against Oman (photo: Karim Kadim/Associated Press

And at the same time that the national team is competing in the Asian Cup, a team of Iraqi refugees living in Jordan was invited to take place in the Interreligious Peace Sports Festival, a tournament being held in Korea to promote tolerance.

But not all the soccer-related news from Iraq is positive, unfortunately. The national team’s success has led to Iraqis shooting guns in the air in celebration. After the team beat Vietnam in the quarterfinals, this celebratory act proved deadly, as three people were killed and around fifty injured due to this celebratory gunfire. I’m all for respecting different culture’s unique ways of doing things, but don’t people realize that Newton’s discoveries apply everywhere and that bullets that go up must, in the end, come down?

Finally, a few quick hits to finish off:

• Sadly, death also came to some children playing soccer in Somalia. Six were killed in Mogadishu as they played close to a building hosting a peace conference that had mortars fired on it.
• Soccer came up in an article about Google’s economic prospects. Some setbacks as the company led one analyst to suggest that the company had scored an “own goal.” You know soccer has arrived in America when financial analysts are using its terminology in their work.
• And while Bush and pals do their best to shield their eyes from global warming, other countries are doing their best to combat the problem. In the German city of Freiburg, for example, there is a boom in green building that includes the local stadium being fitted for solar panels.

Solar panels sit atop the Badenova stadium (photo: Winfried Rothermel / AP)

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