VidaKashizadeh

When he passed by the World Cup
his back was an exclamation
put before a golden question mark

We live in a world that many prejudices eare built on what our eyes perceive e.g. racism, sexism, ageism and the looks. The concept of racism -for instance -has to be difficult for a born blind person to understand.
There is no surprise that football is also subject to the tyranny of the sense of sight.Since the incident during the final match of the 2006 WC there have been many comments on blogs and on interactive radio programmes, whereby the younger male generation admits that there is a lot of verbal abuse on the pitch during most games, but that one should be able to cope and get on with it.
One caller of Italian origin who has been brought up in UK said for instance that he was always scorned for having darker skin* and being a foreigner, but that he learned to cope in order to be able to play.
So is this really a ‘beautiful game’ when abusive words are practised as much as the dribbling? (And I am letting alone here the practice of this century’s techniques of diving, elbowing, pushing and kicking on crucial points of the body to off balance the other players)
With other words can a game be truly beautiful when swear words are uttered by the players during the game? What does the world Cup contain?
Or is it just another empty cup after all?

There is an expression in Persian aghlesh beh sheshmesh-e which points to people whose reason depends on their eyes only and what they see. Many ‘reasonable’ journalists and football fans in UK have insisted to judge the situation by what they saw on the screen. Here in UK no swear word can possibly justify a physical reaction except perhaps for a racist comment for some.

One reason of course could be due to culture and religion

In UK being called a ‘motherf—er’ or ’son of a bitch’ are nowadays just phrases that are unlikely to make a British man aggressive or violent, in fact they might just mean ‘Look, I’m a cool rapper’ ?

The male violence in UK is usually connected to alcohol (and crack cocaine). This is because anger in UK is a social taboo and is usually suppressed. As alcohol removes inhibition it lets the bottled up feelings to pour out more easily. On the other hand in cultures where people are used to show their anger more quickly and suppress their softer side, the effect of alcohol is reversed and makes them look initially happier and calm when tipsy.

One cannot really say that turning violent in reaction to mother related swear words is a matter of namus **only. For one because I am not sure that I wouldn’t get angry if someone meant to insult my mother repeatedly especially while trying to restrict my movements as well.
But there could be also another reason and that is the fact that swear words - like term of endearments - loose their impact when translated into other languages. For instance the word ghahbeh is much stronger in its resonance - hence its impact - than the word whore, whereas the word prostitute sounds almost clinical.

Other swearwords don’t make sense at all when translated and need to be interpreted, although even that would not have any impact as the meanings depend on the cultural history.
The swearword or rather the statement maadar-mordeh *** (maadar = mother / mordeh =dead) is uttereded usually in low voice about an absent man by a man indicating a vile and very tricky person . I have never heard it expressed face to face or by a woman. Its translation in English would be ‘son of a dead mother’.

Women prefer pedarsag (pedar = father/ sag = dog) ‘son of a dog’ (used only against a man) or pedar-sookhteh (sookhteh = burnt / the task of translation is yours). The latter is said of a cunning person but can be used in a soft way as a mild reproach when speaking to someone much younger and dear.
My favourite ammeh (an aunt that is one’s father’s sister) used to say maadar-sookhteh koja boodi? (She changed the word father to mother in order to protect her brother hence making the expression paradoxically more endearing) when I used to miss any of my regular weekly visits during the school’s lunch breaks for having a delicious meal at hers (koja boodi? = where have you been? /where were you?).

As for endearing terms jigareto bokhoram (literally meaning: I eat your liver) would seem barbaric when translated into other languages, but in Persian it is slang for showing affection to either a very dear little child or to an adult that is the object of desire.

The other factor of course is that the frequent use of a swear word makes it less effective to arouse reaction.
And also once an infrequently used swear word is repeated lets say three times with some pause/rest in between it can become more damaging than if it was repeated fast for 150 times with no pause in between (a marathon rap?). So it is also about HOW it is delivered.

Those who have watched a football match in a fully packed stadium know that even if one is not any teams’ fan, at some stage the excitement of the game and the audience become infectious and before they know it they will be involved as well.
The vibrations of the noise back and fort in the amphitheatre shaped stadium over stimulates the senses.
The footballers on the other hand have to cope with the effect of this noise as well as with the high amount of adrenalin in their own body.

In the nature the production of adrenalin calls for one of the two reactions that is termed ‘fight or flight’. This means that in a situation perceived as dangerous - e.g. being attacked by a wild animal - the muscles get an extra boost of energy and the person decides quickly whether to fight or run away from the situation. Adrenalin helps one to run faster than usual and can almost stop or decrease bleeding if there is injury during a fight.

But in modern societies there aren’t many situations where one can fight or run away, although the body still perceives many situations as dangerous and releases adrenalin. For instance what people call stress is really adrenalin which has not been sweated out and remains for long in the muscles. Situations like a fully packed tube, traffic jam, being late for work etc can lead to this condition.

People like live performers and footballers who due to their profession are more frequently exposed to a larger amount of adrenalin in their body learn to cope with it in their own way and their success during the performance depends on their skills to use adrenalin to their advantage.
The danger in competitive games however is that if there are no rules regarding verbal abuse the presence of adrenalin for someone who is not into swearing back could lead to a physical reaction.

Now adrenalin is a mater, a substance but it also creates its own spirit. The sense of time and place could change for some. This might even mean the feeling of being in a different place depending on the creativity and the imagination power of the person. According to this article ZZ knows this experience:
‘ In the recent documentary “Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait,” he became mystical again as he said: “The game, the event, is not necessarily experienced or remembered in real time. I remember playing in another place, at another time, when something amazing happened. Someone passed the ball to me, and before even touching it, I knew what was going to happen. I knew I was going to score. It was the first and last time it ever happened.”

On the screen what Zidane did was to be seen by everyone whereas what M.Materazzi did depended mainly on the most viewers’ guess work –at least for a few days. Of course some have watched MM in other games as well (videos are out of web circulation now), where he has kicked more flesh and bones than the ball. And yes especially because MM has lost his mother at the age of 15 he is more likely to use the word mother when he swears.

For a young person the bereavement for a parent’s death is much more mixed with anger than others of an older age. Somehow the loved one has also committed a betrayal by dying too soon, she has created terror in the very young person’s heart – in a way she is a terrorist. And yes as this anger is a taboo to express he learns to lie easily. So, I hope very much that MM tries to get some professional help, as playing angry football won’t heal.

Around 30000 bulls are killed each year in bullfights in Spain. Bulls are getting tired of this (although this one was in Mexico). Did a tortured bull at the Pamplona’s festival (7th-14th July) communicate with ZZ at the very moment when - due the pause in the game - no running was instantly possible?
But whereas before he could be remembered now he cannot be forgotten.
And where there is verbal abuse the look of it is irrelevant for the abused.

To prevent such scenes some new rules are needed.
Just as some players take their time to tie their shoe laces, an abused player should get the time to write down the abusive words of another player in a large note book located on the side of the pitch. This hopefully would act as a deterrent and if not, it will give the player the immediate chance to express his frustration with the abuser and be heard afterwards. But is FIFA really concerned about the players’ health while exploiting fans? I doubt it.

Many have already decided and this is how a great player will be remembered.

But in order to avoid the tyranny of the sight thoroughly we need the perfect Eye of Horus with its arithmetic relation to all other senses.(14th July 2006)
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* Apart from London and a few other large cities UK population in the rest of the country still gets a surprised look to spot a xenos or/and colourful individuals around. That is why the policy of forcing refugees to live in various smaller communities around the country for the first year of their accepted residency has not really helped them to settle down locally and a great majority tend to move to London as soon as they can in order to mingle with others more easily.

** Macho honour regarding the females related to a man which is also usually used to justify the so called honour killing. In Persian binamus (bi= without) is a swear word meaning a very lowly and vile person and does not necessarily make anyone think of the actual word namus anymore.

*** Guide to the international phonetic rules:

gh is used for the sound of the letters ghaaf and ghain. It sounds like the letter ‘ r ‘ in French and in modern German. Arabs use ‘ q ‘ instead when using Latin letters.