In Lebanon, football is a religion that transcends religion

These words I wrote date back to October 22, 2022 (here):

"Sometime in 1993, at AUB, I pretended to be interested in football. It was a Monday, and for some obscure reason, I knew Ansar had a match during the weekend, and so I asked "so what did Ansar do?" - my friend - a bit incredulous at my knowledge - answered back "they won 2-0". Then a light went up and I remembered that someone else told me they were watching a Safa match during the weekend, so I pushed my luck and asked again "and what did Safa do?" - this is when my friend cocked his head in exasperation and said - "Tarek, they were playing against Ansar!".

And this ended my pretention knowing anything about football. Until I was branded non-feminist (I am still reeling for this!) for commenting on the ad for Le Mall which dates back to 2010 when Le Mall had a series of ads for women and football. Just to be clear I had to google Mannschaft to understand the joke in the ad." (here)

If I am repeating these words that is because in Lebanon, there is religion, and football religion. Whereas sects, and then religions (the first comes before the latter) are able to unify people against one another (tried and tested, just look at current Lebanon or at any part of its past - starting from the city-states that the Greek labelled Phoenicia as a hodge-podge lump-sum) and flame the deep hatred people can have for one another based precisely on which interpretation of the "deity" they belong to.

And then there's football. A cross-over, all-encompassing, parasol-agglomerating "faith" capable of transcending that small detail as to which denomination of "God/Allah" you were born under. To be clear, there are many small fandoms. But the Brazil-Germany rivalry (more like total and complete hatred) runs very deep. Sure, you have splinters of "les Bleus" (France), some Argentina fans (put that under Messi lovers), oddly very few Portugal supporters (I guess the Ronaldo effect did not encompass love for a whole nation), and perhaps there are others (never seen any England fans truth be told anywhere, and despite the current craze about Erling Haaland, Norway is still shy from being a sensation anywhere).

So to go back to the original thesis, yes, football can create interlaps where religion cannot. Also, this is perhaps - other than politics and elections - where the notion of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" applies to a T. Let's be honest Paraguay is not high on top of anyone's fandom this World Cup. But who eliminated Germany? Paraguay. By pure sheer twisted logic, any Brazilian fan becomes a Paraguay supporter. Conversely who is enamored by Croatia? German fans obviously - same reasoning - it threw Brazil out of the tournament.

Now of course, what I described above is an understatement. The convoys led by Brazilian fans with a huge coffin baring the German flag when Germany lost, or the humongous Brazilian flag which covers a complete street as it is drawn between two opposing buildings (with the help of a truck-mounted lift, borrowed from the man who has the diesel generator in the street or from the cousin who works at the municipality outright) or the car with a decal of the Portuguese flag on its hood are much more indicative of the magnitude of the fandom.

It is Liverpool FC manager Bill Shankly who famously said, "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that." 

And also to quote the same club (after the Gerry & The Pacemakers) song (funnily popularized by the same Mister Shankly) "you'll never walk alone". This World Cup, no respectable German or Brazilian fan will have to bow out alone. This being said:

¡Felicidades, campeones!

On Saudi tourism, stereotyping and reality.

Two days ago I spoke about Saudi tourism... Maybe now is the time to speak again... Please check the "Messi/Messy" thing here. OK, so the idea of the ad is to get famous football player Messi as an ambassador to debunk Saudi "stereotypes". Saudi Arabia is not "just a desert". This is correct but I also have seen paved roads with the sand which was excavated thrown on the two sides of the streets. Again, yes, Saudi Arabia is not just a desert, but to get to the other parts requires being out of the classical sedentary areas.

Now, "nothing ever happens"? Sure there are concerts and events lead by Turki Al-Sheikh (according to his wikipedia he is is a Saudi adviser at the Royal Court under the rank of Minister and the current Chairman of General Authority for Entertainment). Major A-list stars have flocked to Saudi Arabia to do concerts, many other stars have been granted Saudi nationality and on it goes. How much of this trickles down to the normal/average Saudi is however open for debate.

Is it a "closed culture"? Ok, this is where it gets tricky. Stadiums have only very recently opened a section for "families" (as everything - restaurants etc, there are places for "singles" (i.e. men) and "families"), and yes women have been granted the right to drive also not long ago. May I however remind you of the case of Loujain Al-Hathloul who was jailed for three years for campaigning for women's rights to drive and who was only released very very shortly before women obtained their right to drive? Again, perhaps a lot happened since the last time I was in the kingdom in 2004 visiting a VIP client, but once more, no - society is not open. Let us not hide behind our fingers.

"Girls can't". OK, there is Sarah Attar who competed in the London 2012 edition, and there were others as well - notably Wajdan Shahrakhani the judo player who participated in the same edition. But get this, there was someone on X (formerly twitter) who described these women as "عاهرات الاولمبياد" (literally the Olympics sluts). Kind reminder - this was only 12 years ago and barely. Now, are you going to tell me a society goes from ultra-conservative to Liberal in this short span of time?

You can watch the film here. I still think though that what was shown in the film are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Saudi tourism, between messy and Messi

So Saudi Arabia is very serious about its tourism. Every other day in whatever online publication I read I see an article about tourism in Saudi Arabia. Some hyperventilating others keeping things more real. But the fact that Saudi bagged so many stars as ambassadors is truly a sign that they are very serious.

To be clear, yes, there are many interesting places to visit in Saudi Arabia, I know so because I was there in 2002-3 and went totally off the beaten track and saw wonderful things. It does get very cold at night in the desert by the way, so you might need to layer up. But all this being said, do people want to come to Saudi Arabia? Apparently I read that a total of 77.84 Million people did visit in 2022 (here), of course how many of those in the Hajj and Omra as opposed to regular tourists. Inbound tourism according to the same source was 16.64 million people. Already in 2022, religious tourism was 37%, visiting friends and relatives was 31%, business was 10%... So "leisure" and "other" were 18% only (here).

Now, what the kingdom is doing is basically replicating the success of Dubai. The #mydubai campaign was a total smash hit, so KSA went with #ShareYourSaudi and #السعودية_بعيونك the campaign's headline is "beyond what you think". Also Saudi Arabia is opening the first alcohol shop for non-Muslim diplomats (OK, this disregards the major bootleg and black market alcohol market already present there) a first in the kingdom since the 1952 ban.

After Ronaldo, who plays football for a local club, Messi is the second major boost for the kingdom in terms of international ambassadors. And yes, the star and his family are going all out promoting places to go and things to be seen in the kingdom.

Would this entice people to come visit KSA as tourists? I feel there is something very messy (pardon the pun) in the strategy. There is a full film by the way, watch it here.