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ISAF Youth Worlds |
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Rupert
Really should get out more Joined: 11 Aug 04 Location: Whitefriars sc Online Status: Offline Posts: 8956 |
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Topic: ISAF Youth Worlds Posted: 03 Jan 16 at 12:45pm |
Trouble is, politics is always subjective, not objective, so comparing different situations doesn't necessarily work very well.
I disagreed with the SA sporting ban at the time, for many of the reasons people are setting for the Isreal one here. Hindsight has made me realise I was wrong. Doesn't mean I'd be wrong (or right) this time, as the situations are different. |
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Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686
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Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 03 Jan 16 at 9:09pm |
As far as I'm aware, if the games were to be held in Israel, I think malaysians would struggle to be able to compete in them also. No one with a Malaysian passport can travel to Israel, as it quite clearly says so on their passports. Whether that's a rule imposed by Israel or Malaysia I'm unsure, but I'd hope that if this was the other way round everyone would be showing equal interest.
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NickM
Far too distracted from work Joined: 27 May 09 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 328 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 06 Jan 16 at 9:33pm |
I suspect quite a few countries would not let their athletes compete in Israel.
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Rupert
Really should get out more Joined: 11 Aug 04 Location: Whitefriars sc Online Status: Offline Posts: 8956 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 06 Jan 16 at 10:02pm |
Not allowing your athletes to compete in certain places and not allowing other country's athletes to perform in your abode are slightly different issues, I think, from a practical viewpoint, if not a moral one.
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Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686
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Richard Gladwell
Newbie Joined: 29 Oct 15 Location: Takapuna Online Status: Offline Posts: 20 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 19 Jan 16 at 12:32am |
I see the Israeli Table Tennis team which was being subject to the same Malaysian welcome as the Israeli Sailing Team - but their world body threatened to impose sanctions on the Malaysians - has elected to pull out of the competition.
Someone has told the Malaysians that they won't face sanctions as a result - so they have got off the hook again. The only people who can deal to this issue are the world bodies who are proving to be remarkably spineless. RG |
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Chris 249
Really should get out more Joined: 10 May 04 Online Status: Offline Posts: 2041 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 22 Jan 16 at 4:06am |
There were many, many people who thought that the exclusion of South African sportspeople was a damn good way of exerting pressure to end a disgraceful regime. Is it better to wave and cheer while the representatives of a racist regime compete?
What would happen if individual countries started to take action against the sports that compete against a country that is subject to a boycott like the Gleneagles Agreement? What about if there was a situation as there was in the early '80s, where sailors from the UK were banned from sailing in world championships against South Africans? We ended up in exactly the same situation where some athletes were excluded.
Is it really easier for ISAF to sit back and cop the abuse, than it would be for them to have cancelled the worlds? Which is the less spineless route?
It seems that there is no easy solution to this issue, unless we think it's 100% tickety boo to be in a situation where we may have to applaud while the national flag of a country that chose to murder many of its own citizens was raised in honour of a team that was chosen on a discriminatory basis. If there was a South African team there that was only chosen from white athletes, while outstanding black sailors were banned from travelling and forced to sail separate regattas from sub-standard venues (which is the way it used to be) would you feel happy if kids were sailing against them? Edited by Chris 249 - 22 Jan 16 at 4:09am |
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GarethT
Really should get out more Joined: 21 Apr 07 Online Status: Offline Posts: 714 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 22 Jan 16 at 7:53am |
Like it or not, sport and politics are intertwined. Why else would governments plough considerable sums of money into Olympic sports. Note how we give more funding to sports that will deliver medals. If it was about wellbeing and sports development, we'd spread it more evenly.
It's a form of propaganda. My view, if nations want to play with the rest of the world, they should play by the rest of world's rules. The UN should grow a pair. |
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Andy Ash-Vie
Newbie Joined: 01 Dec 12 Location: Lymington Online Status: Offline Posts: 4 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 22 Jan 16 at 9:01am |
I would have no objection to a collective action against Israel, I find their behaviour abhorrent, almost as bad as Hammas. But the critical point is that is should be a collective action not a unilateral one. Sure anybody is individually free not to deal with Israel but you can't agree to hold an open international event and then applied unilateral sanctions according to national prejudices.
If we do not stand up to this who is next? I'm not too keen on Saudi's human rights, should we ban them in the UK? How about gay athletes in a Russian event? Perhaps women in British Sailing should be obliged to cover up in Muslim countries? So if we are to have true World Champs, you can't go excluding people that you don't like. If you want to pick and choose, sure that is your national prerogative to hold a closed entry event but you can't claim it to be an International event under the auspices of our International body. |
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GarethT
Really should get out more Joined: 21 Apr 07 Online Status: Offline Posts: 714 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 22 Jan 16 at 9:11am |
Can't argue with any of that. |
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Chris 249
Really should get out more Joined: 10 May 04 Online Status: Offline Posts: 2041 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 22 Jan 16 at 9:34am |
Okay, so not a single Commonwealth nation should have been allowed to hold a single world championship for the 15 years or so that Gleneagles was in action? What would that have meant for sailing, in the Commonwealth nations and worldwide? How would it have been for classes that are mainly sailed in the UK, for example? Would the Ents and GP 14s have had to travel to Ireland just about every year for their worlds? Would that really help the sport overall? Would it really have helped fight the apartheid regime to see South Africa dominate the Fireball worlds or something?
Let's just step back in time. The Commonwealth nations have agreed on Gleneagles. We as sailors cannot fight that decision. Would you have been OK if the UK could not hold a single world title for all those years? I don't think we would have been in Oz. The Kiwis seemed pretty proud of the fact that they held world titles. Why is it OK for us (the UK, Oz and NZ) to ban nations but not Malaysia? If we were all wrong (and it's doubtful) why are we not apologising profusely? Why can be attack a country that does just what we did, and ignore the fact that we were "guilty" of the same acts? What is "a collective action"? The Arab League has taken "collective action" against Israel, so does that mean we all should? If Cuba and North Korea take "collective action" to ban sailors from all western countries should everyone else follow suit? "Perhaps women in British Sailing should be obliged to cover up in Muslim countries?" Do athletes have the right to ignore the laws of the nation the title is being held in? 19year old Aussie, Kiwi or British sailors don't get to drink many places in the USA. Sailors from the Netherlands don't get to smoke dope in Australia even if it's legal for them at home. If an apartheid white South African team had gone to a world title in Oz or the UK in the '80s should they have been allowed to treat non-whites just like they did at home?* So how far does one get to carry one's own laws when one goes to a regatta away from home? Exactly what set of standards must the host live up to? All of these questions seem to be pretty difficult ones, which is why I don't understand the people who say that ISAF's decision was simple - especially when those people seem quite happy when their own nation did much the same thing. * At least some of them did, and it was sickening to hear them talk of "kaffirs". Not all South African sailors were like that, and it seems that some of them were in favour of the Gleneagles agreement even if it cost them the chance of doing world titles - they felt that fighting race-based oppression was more important than going for a sail. Edited by Chris 249 - 22 Jan 16 at 9:56am |
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