Quartz: US intelligence sees soccer as indicator of discontent

To locate the next Arab Spring revolution, look to the soccer stands

By Josh Meyer @JoshMeyerDC 2 hours ago

Quartz

Future revolutionaries. AP Photo

 

It’s been said that soccer tells us all we need to know about

life, parenting, even globalization.

Now a Singapore-based blogger says soccer can tell us which

Middle East or North African government will be the next to

blow. At the top of the list: Algeria and Saudi Arabia.

Over at his blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer,

James M. Dorsey looks at soccer as a lens through which to

view the fault lines carving up the Middle East and North Africa.

In Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and other countries, he says, soccer

played a key role in allowing pent-up anger and frustration to

percolate into organized protest that forced transitions from

autocratic rule to more open societies.

In these countries, those engaging in public forms of dissent are

often tortured and “disappeared.” Soccer fans, in contrast, are

allowed to vent as much as they want, and in large numbers.

Stadiums become incubators of protest and insurrection. One only

has to watch the action off the pitch to accurately gauge the mood

of the people and see how close they are to erupting into mass protest,

Dorsey tells Quartz.

Dorsey, a former Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent, has

been writing his blog for three years. In February 2011, 

he focused on the role of the militant, highly politicized, and well

organized soccer fans, known as Ultras, in Egypt’s uprising.

Here’s a taste:

One catch: Often, especially in family-run monarchies, the

countries’ leaders own soccer clubs as a status symbol, so 

fans might just be mad at the government for the latest losing 

streak. That might have been the case recently in Saudi Arabia, 

where fans booed Prince Faisal bin Turki, the owner of Riyadh 

soccer club Al Nassr FC.

Saudi soccer fans booing and pelting a prince.http://www.Alhilal.com/The Turbulent World of

Middle East Soccer blog

Dorsey doesn’t think so, and contends the Saudis are in trouble.

Washington-based Saudi dissident Ali al-Ahmad agrees, based on the

increasingly militant behavior of young male soccer fans in the stands

as well as on Facebook and YouTube.

“It has reached a breaking point. They are calling for overthrow, and

using very similar chants to fans in Tunisia and elsewhere,’’ said

al-Ahmad, of the Institute for Gulf Affairs. “When they are all together,

they are not afraid anymore.”

Dorsey predicts the next revolt will be in Algeria. Soccer fans there are

increasingly voicing opposition to 76-year old president Abdelaziz

Bouteflika, who is recovering from a stroke in Paris. Recently, they

interrupted a moment of silence during a match to commemorate the

death of a former leader, chanting “Bouteflika is next.”

Dorsey says some very influential security types, as well as soccer officials,

follow his blog for hints as to what is to come. One US intelligence official

agrees with Dorsey’s premise. The official, who has spent decades in the

Middle East and North Africa, said CIA officers routinely attend matches

to glean clues as to where a country is headed.

Often, the official said, an autocratic regime would cover up burgeoning

dissent by blaming it on hooliganism. The CIA person on the ground would

mention that, too, in the cable back to headquarters: “They would take note

of it all, and put it in context. As soon as the prince shows up, everyone

starts booing. That sort of thing.’’

Algeria: Middle East’s next revolt if soccer is a barometer

Algerian soccer fans protest in 2011

By James M. Dorsey

Algeria is competing to be the next Arab nation to witness a popular revolt. That is assuming soccer is a barometer of rising discontent in a region experiencing a wave of mass protests that have already toppled the leaders of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen and sparked civil war in Syria.

In fact, there is increasingly  little doubt that soccer, a historic nucleus of protest in Algeria, is signaling that popular discontent could again spill into the streets of Algiers and other major cities. Two years ago, protesters inspired by events in Egypt and Tunisia, ultimately pulled back from the brink despite the toppling of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Now, in circumstances similar to Saudi Arabia, protests are mounting amid uncertainty about the future as Algeria’s aging leadership struggles with a series of natural deaths and the effects of health problems among its remaining key members.

Soccer fans earlier this month demonstrated their disdain for the fate of 76-year old President Abdelaziz Bouteflika who is recovering from a stroke in a Paris hospital by cheering their team for days in the streets of Algiers in advance of an upcoming championship. Similarly, fans interrupted a moment of silence in a stadium to commemorate the death of a former leader by chanting “Bouteflika is next.”

Mr. Bouteflika’s illness follows the death in the past year of two former presidents, Ahmed Ben Bella and Chadli Benjedid and Ali Kafi, who served as a transition leader in the early 1990s while the military fought Islamist forces who had won elections in a brutal war that left some 100,000 people dead.

The memory of that war and the military-dominated regime’s liberal social spending temporarily took the wind out of the demonstrators’ sails and persuaded them in 2011 to shy away from staging a full-fledged revolt.

Mr. Bouteflika’s stroke threatens to change that.

"If there is not real democratic transition, there will be an uprising ... we will return to the violence of the 1990s," warned Chafiq Mesbah, a former member of Algeria's intelligence service and now a political analyst, earlier this month in an interview with The Associated Press.

The most recent protests are part of an upsurge in soccer-related violence in Algeria, an indicator that increased wages and government social spending is failing to compensate for frustration with the failure of the country’s gerontocracy in control since independence to share power with a younger generation, create jobs and address housing problems.

Dozens of people, including a player, were injured six months ago when supporters of Jeunesse Sportive de la Saoura (JSS) stormed the pitch during a premier league match in their home stadium in Meridja in the eastern province of Bechar against Algiers-based Union Sportive de la Médina d'El Harrach (USM). The incident followed a massive brawl between players and between fans after a Libya-Algeria Africa Cup of Nations qualifier. 

Relations between the two countries have been strained since Algeria refused to support the NATO-backed popular revolt that overthrew Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi. Algeria granted until recently refuge to Colonel Qaddafi’s wife Safiya and his daughter Aisha. One of his sons, Hannibal, was also believed to be in Algeria before leaving with the other family members for Oman..Libya apologized in November after hundreds of Libyan fans surrounded the Algerian embassy in Tripoli, ripped the Algerian emblem from the building and burnt an Algerian flag.

The protesters’ retreat into the stadiums amounted to a tacit understanding between Algerian soccer fans and security forces that football supporters could express their grievances as long as they did so within the confines of the stadiums. “Bouteflika is in love with his throne, he wants another term," is a popular anti-government chant in stadiums.

Stadiums have long been an incubator of protest in soccer-crazy Algeria. A 2007 diplomatic cable sent by the US embassy in Algiers and disclosed by Wikileaks linked a soccer protest in the desert city of Boussaada to demonstrations in the western port city of Oran sparked by the publication of a highly contentious list of government housing recipients. The cable warned that “this kind of disturbance has become commonplace, and appears likely to remain so unless the government offers diversions other than soccer and improves the quality of life of its citizens.

Seven fans were killed in the last five years in soccer-related violence and more than 2,700 wounded, according to Algerian statistics.

Algeria’s domestic fragility is highlighted by almost daily smaller protests in towns across the country sparked by discontent over lack of water, housing, electricity, jobs and salaries. Protests have led to suspension of soccer matches. Soccer was also suspended during last year’s legislative elections.

A sense that the government may revert to strong arm tactics rather than reform if protests swell was reinforced when General Bachir Tartag was recalled from retirement in 2012 to head the Directorate for Internal Security (DSI). Gen. Tartag, who is believed to be in his sixties, made a name for himself during the civil war against the Islamists as one of Algeria’s most notorious hardliners and a brutal military commander.

The appointment positions him as a potential successor to aging Algerian spy chief Gen. Gen. Mohamed ‘Tewfik’ Mediene, widely viewed as the number two within the Algerian regime should he eventually take over from Mr. Bouteflika.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute of Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog.

Middle East and North Africa:Another year of Upheaval

RSIS presents the following commentary Middle East and North Africa: Another year of Upheaval by James M. Dorsey. It is also available online at this link. (To print it, click on this link.). Kindly forward any comments or feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentaries, at  RSISPublication@ntu.edu.sg

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No. 011/2013 dated 23 January 2013

Middle East and North Africa:
Another year of Upheaval

 By James M. Dorsey
       

Synopsis

Political turmoil and violence promise to shape events in the Middle East and North Africa this year. Monarchies are replacing republics in facing the tidal wave of reform demands in the region. Syria continues to be wracked by civil war while post-revolt nations like Egypt struggle to build a more open society.

Commentary

THE PRE-and post-revolt Arab leaders in the Middle East and North Africa face challenges ranging from political uprisings to violent confrontations, with Gulf monarchies replacing republics facing the brunt of the tidal wave of reform demands that have been sweeping across the region the past two years.

In Jordan opposition groups boycotted parliamentary elections in protest against alleged gerrymandering. The boycott follows weeks of intermittent demonstrations that suggested that King Abdullah’s room to manoeuver is closing. The king enjoys a degree of legitimacy that ousted Arab leaders like Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi could not claim. That legitimacy was called into question with protesters for the first time shouting ‘The people want to topple the regime’ and is likely to be further challenged by the election of a parliament that will look little different from the last one.

International community’s policy dilemmas

Egypt, in the throes of a convoluted post-revolt transition, is bracing itself for renewed street violence when a Cairo court announces its verdict on January 26 in the case against 73 people, including nine mid-level security officials, accused of responsibility for the death a year ago of 74 soccer fans in a politically charged brawl in the Suez Canal city of Port Said. At issue is the difficulty in reforming institutions, in this case the overpowering and deeply resented police and security forces.

Two years into the uprising-turned-civil war in Syria, there seems no end in sight to the brutal conflict that according to United Nations estimates, has already cost the lives of 60,000 people. There seems little doubt that President Bashar al-Assad will not retain the upper hand eventually. But there is little reason to believe that his downfall will mean an end to violent confrontation and the territorial integrity of post-Assad Syria has been thrown into doubt. Fears of what post-Assad Syria will look like are enhanced by the rise of militant Islamist forces in the armed resistance against the Assad regime as well as the rise of Kurdish nationalism and concern that Assad’s Alawite sect may see secession as its survival strategy.

Besides mounting concern about post-Assad Syria, there is a new development in the form of a fatal terrorist attack on a remote gas production facility in the Algerian desert in response to French intervention in neighbouring Mali. A counter-attack by Algerian forces to the take-over of the gas plant left scores of foreign hostages dead. The fact that the rebel advance in north Mali had to be repulsed by French military forces highlight the policy dilemmas confronting the international community posed by the irresistible thrust for greater freedom by ethnic and minority groups across the Sahel region.

Decade of political turmoil and violence

All these bode ill for potential conflict in the oil-rich Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia, where efforts to fend off popular revolts with huge social spending are wearing thin. Gulf monarchies like Jordan (apart from Bahrain’s royal family), still maintain a degree of legitimacy but their ability to leverage is being reduced by their failure to address key popular demands that would allow greater political freedom but dilute their absolute power. The outlook for not just another year but a decade is one of volatility, political turmoil and violence in a region that stretches from the Atlantic coast of Africa to the Gulf.

What all these situations have in common is the fact that suppressed populations and ethnic groups increasingly no longer are willing to simply turn the other cheek. They also raise concerns about regional and international policies that in the case of countries like Algeria, Jordan and the Gulf states are tantamount to an ostrich sticking its head in the sand. Leaders seem to be hoping that mounting unrest and discontent can be contained without the introduction of political change and that they can crack down on violent jihadist groups without addressing the underlying issues that provide them a feeding ground.

The West, China and Russia, still stuck in a mould that favours stability over inevitable albeit messy political change, were caught off guard by the popular revolts that toppled the leaders of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen and dragged Syria into civil war. They have yet to apply the lessons from these popular revolts to the rest of North Africa and the Middle East.

Addressing popular grievances

Similarly, the lesson of the defeat of Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda was that it was as much a result of the Arab populations ignoring the group’s call for jihad in favour of people power as the war on terror. Extremist militants in Mali and Algeria, even when they employ the Al Qaeda label, are motivated by local grievances rather than global jihad and capitalise on the failure of governments to address those grievances. Failure to recognise that the solution is addressing popular grievances constitutes as much a threat to long-term stability as allowing those grievances to fester in a key corner of the world. Short-term volatility and instability is inevitable as the regional push for change continues. The international community would be well advised to seriously help post-revolt nations manage transition, steer pre-revolt countries towards managed reform and in the confrontation with jihadists to ensure that military and law enforcement measures are grounded in policies that address underlying grievances.

   
James M. Dorsey is Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and co director of the Institute for Fan Culture of the University of Wuerzburg in Germany.. He is the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

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Algerian soccer violence signals mounting discontent

Strong arm or reform?

By James M. Dorsey

An upsurge in soccer-related violence in Algeria serves as a warning that 18 months after the government quelled mass protests with increased wages and social spending frustration is mounting with the failure of the country’s gerontocracy in control since independence to share power with a younger generation, create jobs and address housing problems.

In the latest incident, the Kuwait news agency reported that dozens of people, including a player, were injured this weekend when supporters of Jeunesse Sportive de la Saoura (JSS) stormed the pitch during a premier league match in their home stadium in Meridja in the eastern province of Bechar against Algiers-based Union Sportive de la Médina d'El Harrach (USM). The incident followed a massive brawl in September between players and between fans after a Libya-Algeria Africa Cup of Nations qualifier.  

Relations between the two countries have been strained since Algeria refused to support last year’s NATO-backed popular revolt that overthrew Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi. Algeria has since granted refuge to Mr. Qaddafi’s wife Safiya and his daughter Aisha. One of his sons, Hannibal, is also believed to be in Algeria. Libya apologized last month after hundreds of Libyan fans surrounded the Algerian embassy in Tripoli and rippled the Algerian emblem from the building and burnt an Algerian flag.

Stadiums have long been a nucleus of protest in soccer-crazy Algeria. A 2007 diplomatic cable sent by the US embassy in Algiers and disclosed by Wikileaks linked a soccer protest in the desert city of Boussaada to demonstrations in the western port city of Oran sparked by the publication of a highly contentious list of government housing recipients. The cable warned that “this kind of disturbance has become commonplace, and appears likely to remain so unless the government offers diversions other than soccer and improves the quality of life of its citizens.”

Mass protests early last year initially suggested that Algeria would join the first wave of Arab nations whose leaders had been toppled. The government quelled the unrest by hiking salaries and social spending on the back of its oil and gas revenues that have enabled it to build up foreign reserves in excess of $186 billion. 

The government also benefittd from the fact that many Algerians, who vividly recall the violence of the 1990s that left some 100,000 people dead, have become cautious because of the chaos in post-Qaddafi Libya and the civil war in Syria.

As a result, a tacit understanding has emerged between Algerian soccer fans and security forces that football supporters could express their grievances as long as did so within the confines of the stadiums. The recent incidents underline the fragility of the understanding and have aroused fears that protests could at any time spill back into the streets of Algiers and other cities.

Discontent over lack of water, housing, electricity, jobs and salaries pervades the country, sparking almost daily protests inside and outside the stadiums and clashes with security forces. A quarter of the Algerian population lives under the poverty line and unemployment is rampant. More than 70 percent of Algeria's 37 million people are under 30 and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) puts youth unemployment at 21 percent. Protests earlier this year in Laghouat and other oil and gas cities, symbolic of simmering discontent, have gone viral in social media. Soccer matches were suspended during last year’s mass protests and again during legislative elections in May of this year.

“In a context of political closure, a lack of serious political debates and projects for society and of a weakened political society, football stadia become one of the few occasions for the youth to gather, to feel a sense of belonging (for 90 minutes at least), to express their frustrations over their socio-economic condition, to mock the symbol of the state’s authority and to transgress the boundary of (imposed) political order and institutionalized language, or the narrative of the state’s political and moral legitimacy,” cautioned Algerian soccer scholar Mahfoud Amara in a book, ‘Sport, Politics and Society in the Arab World,’ published earlier this year.

Just how close discontent is to the breaking point is likely to become clear in the coming months as the government, apparently convinced that it has gained the upper hand, prepares to cut back on social spending that helped restore order. The government’s draft budget for next year envisions an 11.2 percent cutback, according to documents seen by Reuters. The news agency said the budget was based on the assumption that oil prices would average $90 a barrel rather than the $100 that Algeria, according to the IMF, needs to balance its books. Oil accounts for 60 percent of government revenues.

Algeria’s fragility is reinforced by its political uncertainty. With 75-year old Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika ill and unlikely to run for a fourth term, it remains unclear who in the country’s dying leadership that consists of men in their seventies and eighties will take over after presidential elections scheduled for 2014. Two of the country's past presidents, 96-year old Ahmed Ben Bella and 82-year old Chadli Benjedid, have already died this year. “Bouteflika is in love with his throne, he wants another term," is a popular anti-government chant in stadiums despite the reports that the president will withdraw after his current term.

The sense that the government feels confident and may if necessary opt for strong arm tactics rather than reform was reinforced earlier this year when General Bachir Tartag was recalled from retirement to head the Directorate for Internal Security (DSI). Gen. Tartag, who is believed to be in his sixties, made a name for himself during the civil war against the Islamists in the 1990s as one of Algeria’s most notorious hardliners and a brutal military commander.

The appointment positions him as a potential successor to aging Algerian spy chief Gen. Gen. Mohamed ‘Tewfik’ Mediene, widely viewed as the number two within the Algerian regime. Algeria has moreover recently adopted a number of laws that emphasize security rather than reform and impose restrictions on the media, associations and political parties, which according to Amnesty International violate international conventions signed by Algeria.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

The Arab Spring Revisited: From Mass Protests to Local Revolts

RSIS presents the following commentary The Arab Spring Revisited: From Mass Protests to Local Revolts by James M. Dorsey. It is also available online at this link. (To print it, click on this link.). Kindly forward any comments or feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentaries, at  RSISPublication@ntu.edu.sg

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No. 156/2012 dated 16 August 2012

The Arab Spring Revisited:
From Mass Protests to Local Revolts

 By James M. Dorsey

      

Synopsis

The push for change in the Middle East and North Africa, dominated by the bloody civil war in Syria, has morphed from mass anti-government protests in the capitals into a wave of smaller, political and socio-economic protests often in the outlying towns, that could lead to a second round of anti-regime demonstrations in countries that have so far managed to control widespread discontent.

Commentary

Televised pictures of mass demonstrations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square as well as in Tunis, Tripoli and Sana’a have been replaced by scenes of bitter military battles in Syria’s main cities and towns. However, the impression that the wave of peaceful protests that toppled the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen has lost momentum is deceptive.

A wave of smaller, more local protests in outlying towns suggest a radical shift in the Middle East and North Africa: a once relatively docile, cowed population is applying a new assertiveness, a sense of empowerment acquired from the initial success of the Arab revolts to push demands for reform. They focus their objective on holding their governments accountable for creating the political conditions that will bring jobs and achieve economic growth and demonstrate that popular discontent continues to boil across the region in both pre-and post-revolt countries.

Revolts in waiting

Bahrain remains a second popular revolt-in-waiting. Last year’s Saudi-backed brutal crackdown drove protesters from Pearl Square in the capital Manama into the villages where smaller groups of demonstrators clash with security forces almost daily. Security forces used teargas and birdshot earlier this month to disperse protestors in three different locations outside the capital. Some 45 people were injured and 40 arrested. The protests are fuelled by the government’s failure to enact reforms that would put an end to the discrimination of the majority Shiite population and engage seriously in talks with the opposition.
    `       
Confrontation in the oil-rich Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia has intensified as the government cracks down on protesters demanding an end to discrimination of the predominantly Shiite population by a Wahhabi regime whose puritan interpretation of Islam views them as heretics. Earlier this month, masked gunmen shot and wounded a border guard while a policeman and an armed protester were killed when a security patrol came under heavy gunfire. Activists are preparing for another mass protest in the region a month after a prominent opposition cleric was shot while being arrested.

While protests in the Gulf are fuelled by sectarian resentment and demands for the rights of the stateless, demonstrations in much of the rest of the region focus on labour, economic and social issues as well as corruption. They range from post-revolt Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen to Jordan, Algeria and Morocco that have so far fended off popular revolts. The wave of protests often predates the mass demonstrations of the past 18 months, but has gathered pace as a result of the popular uprisings  as well as the global economic crisis.

Activists and trade unionists in Morocco, where the king initially took the wind out of the sails of the protest movement by initiating constitutional change and holding elections that produced an Islamist-led government, demonstrated this month in the capital Rabat and other cities against rising fuel prices, continued corruption by the ruling elite and the government’s perceived failure to address social grievances.  Earlier, similar protests in outlying towns like Taza in the northeast of the country, were brutally repressed by security forces. Achieving economic growth is likely to prove difficult given that Morocco’s agriculture-based economy imports its wheat and energy and markets them at subsidized prices while facing reduced exports to and remittances from Europe as well as an expected drought. As a result, addressing this year’s economic demands could prove more difficult than meeting political demands last year.

Caught by surprise
  
Similarly, a tacit understanding between Algerian soccer fans and security forces that allowed the fans to raise their grievances as long as they were contained in the stadiums is becoming increasingly fragile, arousing fears that the protests could at any time spill back into the streets of Algiers and other cities. Discontent over lack of water, housing, electricity and salaries pervades the country, sparking almost daily protests inside and outside the stadiums and clashes with security forces. A quarter of the Algerian population lives under the poverty line and unemployment is rampant. Protests earlier this year in Laghouat and other oil and gas cities, symbolic of simmering discontent, have gone viral in social media.

A general strike has paralyzed the hometown of Tunisian fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi whose self-immolation in December 2010 sparked the wave of Arab protests, to back  demands that the government resign for failing to alleviate poverty, which they claim has worsened since the ouster last year of President Zine El Abedine Ben Ali. In Jordan, protests by tribal groups, long viewed as the bedrock of the royal family, sweep the countryside on a weekly basis, targeting King Abdullah and demanding political and economic reform and an end to corruption. In Egypt, despite a law to suppress labour strikes decreed last year by the military council, the number of protests and strikes has increased since the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak. Workers across Yemen have stormed government and commercial offices to demand reform and the dismissal of allegedly corrupt managers.

The world was caught by surprise when Bouazizi changed the course of history. Governments, intelligence agencies and the media failed to see the tell-tale signs of mass protest in the making. The writing on the wall is still there. A University of Amsterdam report just published warns: “Although the Arab Spring is still in its early stages and optimism is prevalent (at least among some pundits), there are nevertheless certain developments ongoing that could be described as alarming. Prolonged political instability and the lack of economic progress could have adverse consequences for both the Arab world and the West, not only in terms of economic interests but also in terms of security.”

While the civil war in Syria dominates the news the wave of protests and strikes in the smaller cities of Arab states along the Mediterranean to the Gulf foretells a groundswell of mass demonstrations and revolts that seriously threaten the security of the regimes across the Middle East and North Africa.

James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He has been a journalist covering the Middle East for over 30 years.

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Algeria bans soccer matches during parliamentary elections

By James M. Dorsey

Fears that anti-government protests in Algerian soccer stadiums and provincial towns could again spill into the streets of the capital Algiers have prompted the government to ban matches in early May when Algerians go to the polls.

The ban follows failed efforts by the government to persuade soccer officials to speed up this season’s premier league so that it would end no later than May 10, the day of the parliamentary election, rather than on May 22, the scheduled end of the soccer season. Efforts to rush teams through the season’s schedule in a bid to end this year’s league early were in part thwarted by the cancellation of several matches as a result of unusually heavy snowfall this year.

"We're doing our best to accommodate for the obligations of league and clubs. We believe that it is impossible to end the season before May 10th, the date set for holding the election. We've agreed with the public authorities not to schedule any activities during the week of election, provided that the league and clubs are allowed to resume their activities after the election," Professional Football League (LFP) president Mahfoud Kerbadj told the Maghrebia news web site.

The suspension of matches during election week, a period in which rallies and assemblies are banned by law, is designed to free security forces from having to police stadiums where football fans regularly take on President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and the military ever since anti-government protests fizzled out in early 2011.

The suspension reinforces a fragile, tacit understanding between soccer fans and security forces that allows the fans to raise their grievances as long as it is contained to the stadiums. The government fears that militant soccer fan groups or ultras associated with a host of teams, including MC Algiers, Mouloudia Club D'Oran and Jeunnesse Kabyle, while less organized than their Egyptian counterparts, could emerge as a force if the protests again spill into the streets of Algerian cities.

The understanding between the security forces and the fans was made in part possible by the fact that Algeria has been among the most advanced in the Middle East and North Africa in encouraging the emergence of soccer as a professional sport rather than a policy tool for the government.

“In a context of political closure, a lack of serious political debates and projects for society and of a weakened political society, football stadia become one of the few occasions for the youth to gather, to feel a sense of belonging (for 90 minutes at least), to express their frustrations over their socio-economic condition, to mock the symbol of the state’s authority and to transgress the boundary of (imposed) political order and institutionalized language, or the narrative of the state’s political and moral legitimacy,” cautions Mahfoud Amara in a recently published book, ‘Sport, Politics and Society in the Arab World.’

With discontent over lack of water, housing, electricity and salaries pervading the country and erupting almost daily in protests inside and outside of stadiums suspension of soccer matches has become a fixture of Algerian life. The government early last year suspended the league for weeks after protests erupted in Algiers and other cities in the wake of the toppling of Tunisian President Zine el Abedine Ben Ali.

A quarter of the Algerian population lives under the poverty line and unemployment is rampant. Recent protests in Laghouat and other oil and gas cities are symbolic of simmering discontent and have gone viral in social media. The government again suspended soccer matches last year after riots erupted in the Algiers neighbourhood of Bab el-Oued.

“Bouteflika is in love with his throne, he wants another term," is a popular anti-government chant in stadiums, referring to allegations that 74-year old Mr. Bouteflika is behind a spate of recent bombings in a bid to enhance his position in advance of a presidential election in 2014 by raising the spectre of a threat by Al Qaeda’s North African affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

Mr. Bouteflika, whose health is failing, has lost several of his closest associates over the past year as a result of a military-inspired corruption investigation. His efforts at political and economic reform designed to attract foreign investment and diversify the economy have been thwarted by the military’s desire to retain its privileges by reinforcing the state's role in the economy.

The military has further signalled in advance of the May election that it will adopt a hard line towards domestic unrest as well as AQIM. It recently recalled from retirement Gen. Bachir Tartag to head the Directorate for Internal Security (DSI). Gen. Tartag made a name for himself during the civil war against the Islamists in the 1990s as one of Algeria’s most notorious hardliners and a brutal military commander.

The appointment positions him as a potential successor to aging Algerian spy chief Gen. Gen. Mohamed ‘Tewfik’ Mediene, widely viewed as the number two within the Algerian regime. It comes at a time that there are no clear successors to Algeria’s ageing but opaque military leadership. Gen. Tartag succeeds Gen. Abdelkader Kherfi who was criticized for having failed to prevent the kidnapping of three European aid workers in October of last year and for his handling of the protests in the first quarter of 2011.

Algeria has recently adopted a number of laws that emphasize security rather than reform and impose restrictions on the media, associations and political parties, which according to Amnesty International violate international conventions signed by Algeria.

While signalling that it will take a hard line against anti-government protesters, the government and the military are banking on the assumption that allowing protests in stadiums as a release valve coupled with last year's lifting of the state of emergency, increased subsidies of basic goods and public sector wage and memories of the massive bloodletting in a decade-long war between the military and Islamist forces will stymie activists’ desire to confront the regime head on. That assumption is reinforced by the fact that the experience of popular uprisings in Egypt, Libya and Yemen has so far produced mixed results and the spectre of protests descending into pro-longed bloodshed and chaos as it has in Syria.

With discontent nonetheless continuously manifesting itself, the government and the military are walking a tightrope. The seeming return to the very policies that brought protesters on to the streets of Algerian cities early last year could at any moment again tip the balance.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Protest is proving beneficial to North African soccer performance

(Source Matthew Barrett, FootballSpeak.com)

By James M. Dorsey

Protest is good for soccer. It enhances performance despite the hardship of civil strife according to an analysis of the performance of six North African national soccer teams before and after pro-longed mass protests that demanded regime change in their countries.

Matthew Barrett, a sports sponsorship professional, concluded in an analysis published on FootballSpeak.com that Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, Morocco and Algeria, five nations that experienced political upheaval in 2011, had performed significantly better in terms of average points per match following the protests or in Sudan’s case, the cessation of South Sudan, compared to 2010, the year before the unrest. Egypt, , which won the African Cup three times in row, but failed to qualify for the 2012 finals was the exception that confirmed the rule.

The six national teams, Mr. Barrett, calculated, played 53 matches since the series of Arab uprisings erupted in Tunisia a year ago, in which they scored 87 goals with an average of 1.64 goals per match and won 45% of all games played. By comparison, the same teams played 60 matches in the year before the revolts in which they scored 79 points with an 

average of 1.32 per game and won 33% of the games played.

The teams performed better even though professional soccer was suspended for months in several countries, including Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria during the protests in a bid to prevent the soccer pitch from becoming an opposition rallying point. The enhanced performance occurred further against the backdrop of a rift in various countries between fans, who played key roles in the protests, and a majority of players who opted to either remain aloof, and not take sides or in some cases to come out in support of the embattled autocrat.

The improvement in performance constitutes an apparent triumph of national identity over internalized neo-patriarchism, which characterizes Arab autocracies and means that players and managers more often than not identified with the autocratic leader as a father figure. It also highlights the debilitating effect that politically motivated autocratic interference in the game had on performance.

Libyan goalkeeper Samir Aboud suggested that enhanced performance was the result of post-revolt national teams having a sense of truly playing for their country rather than their ruler when he said after a draw against Zambia that allowed Libya to progress towards the 2012 African Cup finals that “this is for all Libyans, for our revolution.” Libya’s Brazilian coach, Marcos Paqueta, added that his squad was "not only playing for football success but for a new government and a new country”.

Nabil Maalouf, coach of Esperance Sportive de Tunis, which this year won the African Champions League, noted that “the events at home really stimulated our team and we believe that the players felt greatly liberated after what happened." Defender Khalil Chammam concluded that “one positive thing from the revolution was that, although we suffered a lot, those changes and the suffering made us stronger -mentally and physically."

The triumph of national identity over neo-patriarchism symbolized by the post-Qaddafi Libyan team flying the pre-Qaddafi Libyan flag and singing a new national anthem enabled Libya to remain undefeated in competitive matches since the country’s autocratic leader, Moammar Qaddafi, was toppled earlier this year. That is no mean fete for a team that was dominated for years by Al Saadi al Qaddafi, the Libyan leader’s cruel and mercurial son with soccer ambitions of his own, who equated its success with that of his father’s regime and its failures as unacceptable poor reflections on the regime.

Interpol has issued an international arrest warrant for Saadi on charges of misappropriation of soccer funds and armed intimidation of players and officials who has sought refuge in neighboring Niger. In a separate case, Saadi is under investigation by Libyan authorities for the 2005 murder of an anti-Qaddafi player.

The impact of neo-patriarchism that turned players into celebrated figures who went victorious were showered with expensive gifts meant that the Libyan team meant was during the revolt  increasingly split between supporters of Mr. Qaddafi and players who lost close ones among the NATO-backed rebel forces in the war against Qaddafi loyalists. The team’s captain denounced the rebels as dogs and rats, language used by Mr. Qaddafi to describe his opponents, while the goalkeeper and three other players defected together with 14 club players to the rebels four months into the rebellion.

The Libyan team’s rising star contrasts starkly with the fact that like Sudan it had barely ever registered on the radar of African soccer prior to the wave of protests that have swept the Middle East and North Africa in the past year and led to the overthrow of not only Mr. Qaddafi but also the leaders of Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, far-reaching political reform in Morocco, continued unrest in Algeria and the carving out of an independent state of South Sudan.

The Algerian national squad, with anti-government protests moving this year from the streets back into the stadiums after having forced the government to lift the 19-year old state of emergency, won three of its five matches to emerge at the top of its group, according to Mr. Barrett, who calculated that it had scored 1.75 points per game as opposed to 1.25 last year. For its part, Sudan qualified as a runner-up in its group, achieving a 53 percent win ratio with 1.79 points per game as opposed to a 25 percent win ratio and 1.13 points per match a year earlier.

Egypt is the exception to the rule that autocratic interference diminishes and protest enhances performance. In the days of ousted President Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s national team coached by the legendary Mubarak loyalist Hassan Shehahta won the African Cup three times in a row but this year failed for the first time in 29 years to qualify for the tournament’s finals.

There is no immediate explanation for why Egypt’s performance has been markedly weaker. Granted, Egypt’s transition from autocracy to a more open political system has been messy and bloody with soccer fans remaining engaged in bitter battles to force the country’s military rulers to relinquish power. Transition has however been messy in most countries with the exception of Tunisia, yet all have displayed performances beyond expectation.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Algerian soccer doctor supports calls for investigation of doping allegations

Secretly doped?

By James M. Dorsey

One of the Algerian national soccer team’s doctors in the 1980s has supported allegations that the squad may have been secretly doped in the 1980s to enhance performance at two World Cups in a bid to distract attention from mounting domestic discontent with the government.

Dr. Rachid Hanifi, speaking to Algeria’s El Watan newspaper, said that the Algerian squad’s then Soviet trainer Gennadi Rogov had introduced a doctor, a fellow Soviet national, who refused to share what his approach to preparing the team for the 1982 and 1986 World Cups was or grant access to anyone to the player’s medical files.

“I think they were doing evaluation tests that they did not want to divulge. I sent a report to the director general of the national centre for sports medicine and the (sport) ministry I was told that Rogov should be allowed to work with his doctor. So I resigned,” Dr. Hanifi said.

Members of the team who played for Algeria in the two World Cups at a time of a series of protests in the country charge that eight of the team’s members have handicapped children that have been born since the tournaments. They are demanding an investigation. Algeria’s soccer federation has yet to comment.

Autocrats in the Middle East and North Africa often see soccer because of its popularity and ability to evoke deep-seated emotion as a means of enhancing their tarnished images and distracting attention from discontent with unpopular policies. The 1980s was a time that various Arab states were witnessing protests.

While Syria brutally suppressed an Islamist uprising in 1982 in the city of Hama killing at least 10,000 people, members of Algeria’s national soccer team believe that they were secretly given medicaments in the hope that their performance would take the wind out of sails of demonstrators in various Algerian cities.

Whether doped or not, the Algerian squad delivered a performance in 1982 at a time that protests erupted in the city of Oran and spread in 1985 to Algiers and Setif in 1986 that many Algerians still cherish.

In front of 25,000 fans at the El Molinon stadium in Gijon, Algeria's Desert Warriors turned soccer on its head, defeating favourite West Germany 2-1. Duke University’s Laurent Dubois quotes an Algerian commentator as wondering at the time whether German children were asking their fathers: “Dad, where’s Algeria?”

"We have serious doubts over the effects of medication that we were given during training camps. We just want the truth,” said former defender Mohamed Chaib, a father of three girls born with muscular dystrophy, in an interview with Agence France Press.

One of Mr. Chaib’s daughter died in 2005 at age 18. Medical tests found no abnormalities either with him or his wife.

 “We were all lab rats,” an unidentified former athlete told El Watan. He said that a former coach had reported large-scale doping already in the 1970s. He said n investigation was launched into the allegation but that the coach had been penalised.

Dr. Hanifi said that the link between drugs that were administered to the players and their children’s handicaps was not immediately evident “but it’s possible.”

Ali Fergani, who captained the team in 1982, dismissed the players’ suspicions. "The number of players who are parents of disabled children is minimal compared to the total number of players selected," he said, insisting that all medical staff had been Algerian nationals and that he recalled being given only Vitamin C.

The calls for an investigation come as anti-government protests that erupted in Algeria early this year as part of the wave of uprisings sweeping the Middle East and North Africa have fizzled out on the streets of Algerians towns and cities but are alive and kicking in the country’s soccer stadiums where football fans regularly take on President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the military and the Islamists.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Did Algeria dope its World Cup soccer team to distract attention from protests?

Algerian upset a result of doping?

By James M. Dorsey

Arab autocratic regimes responded back in the 1980s to a wave of Islamist-inspired protests with little less brutality than some have done this year, but in the case of Algeria perhaps with greater ingenuity in a  bid to engineer an Algerian soccer success that would distract attention from the protesters’ grievances.

While Syria brutally suppressed an Islamist uprising in 1982 in the city of Hama killing at least 10,000 people, members of Algeria’s national soccer team believe that they were secretly doped to enhance their performance. The players who played for Algeria in the 1982 and 1986 World Cups at a time of a series of protests in the country charge that eight of the team’s members have handicapped children that have been born since the tournaments. They are demanding an investigation. Algeria’s soccer federation has yet to comment.

"We have serious doubts over the effects of medication that we were given during training camps. We just want the truth,” said former defender Mohamed Chaib, a father of three girls born with muscular dystrophy, in an interview with Agence France Press.

One of Mr. Chaib’s daughter died in 2005 at age 18. Medical tests found no abnormalities either with him or his wife.

Whether doped or not, the Algerian squad delivered a performance in 1982 at a time that protests erupted in the city of Oran and spread in 1985 to Algiers and Setif in 1986 that many Algerians still cherish. In front of 25,000 fans at the El Molinon stadium in Gijon, Algeria's Desert Warriors turned soccer on its head, defeating favourite West Germany 2-1. Duke University’s Laurent Dubois quotes an Algerian commentator as wondering at the time whether German children were asking their fathers: “Dad, where’s Algeria?”

The match is widely viewed in Mr. Dubois’ words as “the most infamous case of collusion in the history of the World Cup.” Mr. Dubois writes on his blog, Soccer Politics/The Politics of Football that “Austria and Germany made sure Algeria didn’t advance by playing a game that produced exactly the score needed for the two of them to go on. The incident is widely remembered today — FIFA responded by having the final matches in the group stages played at the same time, to try and prevent it from happening again — but the full weight of the action, and its symbolism, is sometimes overlooked. Two European teams colluded to make sure a non-European team was stopped.

Djamel Menad, a striker in the 1986 cup, said his daughter born in 1993 suffered from agenesis of the corpus callosum, a condition that causes seizures and muscle weakness. Mr. Menad said it seemed unlikely to be a coincidence that several other players his age had children with disabilities and blamed the medications doctors handed out. "Since I discovered I was not alone, I began to ask myself questions. They gave us drugs and vitamins to battle for energy loss after training and matches," Mr. Menad said.

Former midfielder Mohamed Kaci Said, the father of a 26-year-old disabled daughter, told Algerian newspaper El-Khabar that “doubts persist until an enquiry has been opened and the truth told." He said he was shocked when his daughter was born and some thought he and his wife, who is of Turkish origin, may have been related. Mr. Said said that foreign medical staff may have used players as guinea pigs to test drugs similar to what Soviet sports doctors were reported to be doing at the time.

Players said they could not recall the medications but suspect that caused their children’s birth defects. Some said doctors never gave them their medical files, El Watan newspaper reported.

Ali Fergani, who captained the team in 1982, dismissed the players’ suspicions. "The number of players who are parents of disabled children is minimal compared to the total number of players selected," he said, insisting that all medical staff had been Algerian nationals and that he recalled being given only Vitamin C.

Mr. Fergani insisted that Algeria had defeated the tournament’s favourite, West Germany, because “we played a different type of football, which had never been seen before. It was a concoction of German, French and Latin styles."

The calls for an investigation come as anti-government protests that erupted in Algeria early this year as part of the wave of uprisings sweeping the Middle East and North Africa have fizzled out on the streets of Algerians towns and cities but are alive and kicking in the country’s soccer stadiums where football fans regularly take on President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the military and the Islamists.

Algeria’s political geography of protest has however changed since the street manifestations early this year. Algeria is now surrounded by three nations in transition: Libya, Tunisia and Morocco where the king has pre-empted protesters by pushing forward with constitutional reform. Disgust with the ruling military’s nepotism, corruption and inability to provide sufficient jobs fuelled by the success of their brethren in the region ultimately runs deeper in Algeria than fears of renewed confrontation with the military or uncertainty over the Islamists real aims.

"Our songs focus on current events, on politics and the economy. We sing about politicians, about security, about terrorist attacks. We criticize the current government as well as the extremists of the (outlawed) Islamic Salvation Front. We also criticize the high cost of living in Algeria and the privileges enjoyed by the country’s elite, who send their children abroad to study while so many young Algerians are unemployed and live in poverty," said Amine T., a supporter of popular Algiers club Union Sportive de la Medina d'Alger (USMA).

In a region dominated by autocratic rulers bent on controlling the soccer pitch and benefitting from its popularity to polish their tarnish image, Algeria is among the most advanced in encouraging the emergence of soccer as a professional sport. As a result of the regime's reduced involvement in the sport, soccer fans have a tacit understanding with authorities under which they can say what they like as long as they keep their protests confined to the stadium.

"It’s not so much our slogans that worry the authorities, it’s how many of us there are. For example, when riots erupted in the Algiers neighborhood of Bab el-Oued earlier this year, the Algerian Football Federation temporarily suspended matches. They did this because they were worried that if the police couldn’t control a few dozen youths in the street, they certainly wouldn’t be able to control 60,000 football fans leaving a stadium. I think that the authorities don't actually have a problem with our chants: if we get our anger out inside the stadium, then that’s it, we don’t cause any trouble outside," Amine T. said.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.