No success sans freedom
Ido not think that there are, at least in my surroundings, two people who agree in their positions regarding what is happening in the FIFA World Cup matches in Qatar.
Each has his point of view regarding this unprecedented global experience in our region, and all this momentum, excitement, jealousy and envy that accompanied the holding of matches in an Arab country, and the Gulf in particular.
Since 1930, all matches have been held either in a European or South American country, unlike three, the first in the United States, the second in Johannesburg, and the third in Japan.
Regardless of all the turmoil that accompanied Qatar’s qualification to hold matches on its soil, it has proven, especially to our charlatans the error of their expectations, and Qatar has proven that it is in the size of the challenge!
I know the football sport, and I was one of the best players throughout my school years, but I stopped getting attached to it as I stopped watching TV, in general.
With time, this sport has gained a great popularity in which the player is sold, from one club to another, for tens of millions of dollars, and clubs are sold for billions, and some of them have fans who number more than hundreds of millions, whose passion brings them hundreds of billions of dollars.
No champion received so much praise and slander as happened with that in Qatar, many of whose unprecedented events will be immortalized in history and will be considered a lesson from which a lot can be learned.
Saudi Arabia’s victory over Argentina
would not have been possible without the recent comprehensive change that Saudi Arabia has witnessed in the past few years, which has proven for the millionth time that there is no success without freedom, and China is another example of the creativity and progress that resulted from freedom, and how we did not lag behind the high standing that we have earlier achieved.
This did not happen before because we handed over our affairs to the parties of backwardness, extremism and forces of darkness.
Qatar has achieved a lot, also through its openness to the world, but perhaps a sporting event has turned into a religious debate by allowing a number of preachers, who previously had a great deal of confusion about their biography and behavior, to intervene with their ideas behind sports matches, and made them, special after Saudi Arabia’s victory over Argentina, a war against the Crusade and its supporters, and shedding a very dazzling spotlight on the success of these people in converting some of the public to Islam, as if we need more Muslims and not to raise the level of the current Muslim.
I do not disagree with Qatar’s decision regarding the prohibition of carrying or displaying anything that refers to homosexuals, whether as a flag, a badge, or a tie, with all my belief in the principles of freedom.
It is the right of the host country to impose its laws, and the guests must abide by them, or refuse to attend and participate, and this is what other host countries have preceded and on more than one international occasion.
It was not supposed, to the same extent to impose our opinions and beliefs on others, to interfere in the ideas and beliefs of others, to show their weakness, and to invite them to embrace Islam. ❑ ❑ ❑ e-mail: a.alsarraf@alqabas.com.kw