THE AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL DOSSIER - PAGE 7

JUNE 2006

WILL IRAN BE THE NEXT BIG THING?

Middle East: France rejoins the pac k

GALERIE VIDAL-SAINT PHALLE

Planetary goals

MAX NEUMANN Untitled (2005)

BY IGNACIO RAMONET

THE planet will be submerged under

a month-long tidal wave of football from June, culminating in the World

Cup Final in Germany. Football as the most universal sport easily provides the

best television viewing: billions of viewers will watch their choice of the 64 qualifying

matches between 32 national teams. The contest will reach its climax at the

fi nal on Sunday 9 July, at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin (built by Hitler for the 1936

Olympic Games). More than two billion people in 213 countries, a third of Earth’s entire

population, will see it on television; nothing else will matter. The event will provide excel

lent cover for anything else that may be happening. Very convenient for some. In France,

President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin are probably count

ing on this temporary obsession to distract public attention from the Clearstream aff air

that has brought into the open the animosity between Villepin and presidential rival Nico

las Sarkozy, and give them a breathing space. A plague for some and an overwhelming

passion for others, football is the number one international sport. Well, more than a sport,

otherwise it would not arouse such a storm of confl icting feelings. The social commentator

Norbert Elias called it “a social fact”. It could also be seen as a metaphor for the human con

dition, for it illustrates, according to anthropologist Christian Bromberger, the uncertain

status of the individual and the group, the hazards of chance and destiny. It prompts

refl ection on the role of the individual and of the team, and debate about faking, cheating,

arbitrary decisions and injustice. In football, as in life, there are more los

ers than winners. That is why it has always been the sport of the poor who, consciously

or unconsciously, see it as a mirror of their own fate. They know that supporting their

club means accepting bad times. The impor

tant thing if the team loses is to remain united

and stick together. Sharing this passion, they know that, in the words of the Rogers and

Hammerstein song so often sung by Liverpool supporters, “You’ll never walk alone”.

Football is a political sport. It raises crucial questions of allegiance, identity, class and

even, in its sacrifi cial and mystical aspects, religion. That is why stadiums lend them

selves so readily to displays of national or local pride, individual or group excesses, and

violent clashes between fans. For all these reasons, and for other, possibly

better ones, people love football. And demagogues and admen love people. Football is not

just a sport, it’s a show with a vast audience and stars worth a weekly fortune. The buying

and selling of footballers is a perfect image for the state of the global market: the treasures of

the South are consumed in the North, because only the North has the money to buy them.

This market, full of traps for the unwary, generates a modern slave trade.

The sums of money are mind-boggling. Should France qualify for the fi nal, the cost

of a 30-second television commercial during that fi nal would be €250,000, which is equiva

lent to 15 years’ pay for someone on the French minimum wage. The governing body, Fifa,

will receive some €1.172bn for the television rights and sponsorship of the World Cup in

Germany. Total advertising investment in the competition is expected to be more than €3bn.

Such oceans of money drive people mad. Football is a focus for shady dealers who con

trol the transfer market and betting shops. Some teams have no compunction about

cheating to win; consider the scandal in Italy, where Juventus of Turin is accused of bribing

referees and faces relegation. That is how it is with the beautiful game,

caught between the glory and the mud. When the shit hits the fan, everyone gets splashed.

TRANSLATED BY BARBARA WILSON

The US proposal to engage in direct talks with Iran is a clever response to pressure from its European allies, although it comes with a damaging condition: Iran must supend all uranium enrichment, a qualifi cation that Tehran has already ruled out.

BY ALAIN GRESH

AN astronaut who left Earth in

spring 2003 and returned now would find Middle Eastern

diplomacy totally confusing. As coalition forces launched their assault on

Baghdad in 2003, French influence was at its peak, particularly in the Arab and Muslim

world, and France seemed to be leading an anti-United States revolt, bringing together

most of global public opinion and states as different as Germany, the Vatican, Belgium,

Mexico and Indonesia. President Jacques Chirac could be proud of the fact that his

stance had prevented the attack on Iraq turning into a war of civilisations.

But three years on, an apparently reunited western world is leaning on Iran and

Syria, fi ghting terrorism, restoring normality in Iraq and enforcing sanctions against

the Palestinian government (see Palestine: Hamas besieged, page 4). France, the US and

the European Union agree on every issue. As a western diplomat in Washington said: “The

democratic, civilised nations of the world have rediscovered their common interest in a

region overshadowed by a series of threats.” The new romance between the Elysée pal

ace and the White House feels more like infi delity when seen from the other side, espe

cially from the Arab world. This unease is limited so far: Chirac’s status in the Middle East

has allowed him to sustain a popularity there that he no longer enjoys at home. But France

is not immune to criticism, or even to previously unthinkable acts of violence such as the

kidnapping of four French nationals in Gaza in March. There is a new and nagging ques

tion: has France exhausted all its credit built up within the Middle East since De Gaulle?

The Iranian confrontation has confi rmed

such fears. The ingredients of the crisis are similar to those that led to the war in Iraq:

allegations of a clandestine programme to build weapons of mass destruction, identi

fi cation with the “axis of evil” and major oil interests. But this time France has returned

to lead the action beside the US. According to a French diplomat involved: “On his fi rst visit

to the US as foreign minister, in July 2002, Dominique de Villepin tried to warn them

about the danger from Iran. But the Bush administration was too busy in Iraq to listen.

In April 2003 we managed to persuade the director general of the International Atomic

Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, that intelligence on Iran’s secret nuclear pro

gramme, mainly supplied by the US, was reliable. It was the Americans who followed us,

not the other way round.” France’s anxieties about the future of the

entire disarmament project, and in particular the non-proliferation treaty (NPT), are

genuine: the Middle East is right next door to Europe. But this is not the only reason why

France has made the issue a priority. Chirac was already hostile to Iran. He had opened

relations with Saddam Hussein during the 1970s: like President François Mitterrand,

he supported the secular regime in Baghdad against the Islamic revolution.

Chirac also sees the Iranian issue as a chance to re-establish relations with the White

House after the rupture of spring 2003, when France, along with Britain and Germany, was

most actively involved. In October 2003 the “EU3”, with Javier Solana, then secretary

Continued on page 2

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Palestine: why Hamas has some

power but not money page 3

Palestine: what passes for ordinary

life in occupied territory page 5

Japan: an economy still determined

to do it differently page 6

Arms trade: a world of brokers

and broken embargoes page 8

Arms trade: Europe’s big business

in marketing weaponry page 10

United States: a revolt among

the (retired) generals page 11

Europe: immigration non-policies,

integration confusions page 12

Germany: born here, but never

allowed to be a citizen page 12

United States: the distraction of

the phoney culture war page 14

TalkTalk: sustaining a dialogue with

moderate Islam page 16