Eloquent Incoherence

That’s right, $250 million. I didn’t add a zero by accident. Beckham will be the second-highest paid athlete in the world (behind Tiger Woods). He’ll make twice as much as baseball player Alexander Rodriguez, the highest-paid athlete in any of the four major American sports leagues (the NFL, the NBA, MLB, and the NHL). Beckham must have the best agent in the world, because most Americans could care less about soccer (or “football”, as it’s called outside of the United States and Canada) and are barely even aware that MLS exists, let alone a team called the L.A. Galaxy. The $250 million figure includes endorsement and merchandise deals, which athletes in the four major sports leagues typically negotiate separately from their playing contracts. But Beckham’s contract presumably allows him to pursue endorsement deals independent of those packaged with his playing contract, meaning that he could end up making even more.

Beckham’s deal is likely to spark discussion about the increasingly outrageous salaries of professional athletes. The deal is indeed ridiculous, but there are lesser-known people who make much more money than he does. Many CEO’s of Fortune 100 companies have annual compensation packages that run into the 9-figure range. Their deals often don’t make the headlines unless they become the subject of a corporate scandal (like Dennis Kozlowski). If a professional athlete performs poorly, his market value drops and he makes less money. If a corporate CEO performs poorly and resigns, his “golden parachute” kicks in and he gets a severance package worth upto hundreds of millions of dollars. And while professional athletes typically hail from working-class families, CEO’s and wealthy businesspeople are often born into privileged communities with high-powered connections and no shortage of opportunities.

It’s easy to direct our anger at Beckham’s deal because he’s a flashy celebrity and a public figure, but the people who profit from his athletic skill and celebrity status are drawn from the elite group described above and make even more money than he does. Unlike Beckham, they largely escape our scrutiny. For example, when players in the major professional sports leagues go on strike (MLB 1994, NFL 1987) or are locked out (NBA 1998, NHL 2004) because of labor disputes, our first reaction is outrage at how selfish and spoiled they are. But what about the owners? As much as the players don’t need their outrageous salaries, the owners of the teams they play for need their more outrageous profits even less. As ridiculous as the demands of players’ unions often are, the demands of the owners who oppose them are even more ridiculous in light of their massive fortunes. Yet most of our scorn and disdain is directed at the former and not the latter.

Sports stars and other celebrities are no doubt overpaid and spoiled. But they’re not the most powerful people in society, nor are they the worst examples of materialist excess. That distinction goes to the people in the shadows who pull the strings.

(courtesy of Manal)

One troubling aspect of economic growth in Asia (particularly China and India) is that the development and progress it yielded has been concentrated almost exclusively in urban centers. But the emergence of business process outsourcing centers in India’s rural villages is one of the first signs that the poorest Asians are beginning to see the fruits of the growth around them.

People in Luckanow, a village in the Indian province of Bihar, are renaming their children Saddam Hussein in honor of the “martyred” Iraqi dictator.

Condoleeza Rice met with Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Sunday. Abdullah used his audience with Condi to call for more US interference in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (because US interference has so far obviously yielded great results for the Palestinians), and also begged Rice to consider thinking about possibly contemplating involving the Sunnis more in Iraq. According to Abdullah, “[a]ny political process that doesn’t ensure the participation of all segments of Iraqi society will fail and will lead to more violence.” Of course, that doesn’t apply to Abdullah’s own country, where critics of the King are are often subject to arbitrary detention and torture (they might get a trial if they’re lucky).

It boggles my mind how the Hashemites are still in power in Jordan. This man (along with his father and grandfather) is quite possibly the biggest joke of a ruler ever in the history of the Muslim World (and proof positive that being a descendant of the Prophet SAW doesn’t necessarily make someone a good person). Of the Arab regimes directly installed by Britain or France following the post-World War I breakup of the Ottoman Empire, Jordan’s is the only one that still remains. Perhaps it’s unsurprising then, that the Hashemite Kingdom’s legacy has been one of treason, betrayal, deceit, and treachery.

A new sitcom on CBC called Little Mosque on the Prairie depicts a Muslim community in a rural Canadian town. The sitcom blends satire and drama to address internal and external issues routinely faced by Muslim communities in North America. It’s the first Muslim comedy to air on North American mainstream television (and an indication that the Canadian Muslim community is a bit more advanced than its American counterpart).

I’ll reserve comment on the show itself until I see it, but bravo to the writers, producers, and CBC for helping bring about this major milestone.

Romania and Bulgaria officially become members of the European Union at midnight tonight. Both are former communist states and members of the Warsaw Pact. Both are relatively poor nations whose GDP per capita is about 33 percent of the EU average. Both have governments that are chronically plagued by corruption and mismanagement. And yet, none of these concerns were deemed serious enough to block Bulgaria and Romania’s entry into the EU.

Contrast this with Turkey. Turkey has been a member of NATO since 1952. Its economy is comparable to those of Bulgaria and Romania, and has grown at a faster rate. It has maintained the same system of government since 1923. Its cultural influence on Southeastern Europe (including Bulgaria and Romania) dates back several centuries. And it has sought entry into the European Union since 1987, when Bulgaria and Romania were still under communist governments.

There are many concerns cited by European officials who oppose Turkish membership in the EU. Some of these are legitimate, such as Turkey’s treatment of its ethnic Kurds and its refusal to recognize the government of Cyprus. However, others, such as its relatively weak economy and assertions that it isn’t sufficiently ‘Western’, are questionable in light of the accession of two poor, former communist nations. Other objections to Turkey’s entry are flagrantly hypocritical, such as concerns over its commitment to free speech. While Turkish laws criminalizing the expression of certain political views are indeed outrageous, are they any more so than Holocaust denial laws, which exist in prominent EU nations France, Germany, and Spain? Similarly, if Turkey’s acknowledgment of a genocide committed by a previous regime should be a condition to its entry, then why was France never pressured to acknowledge its collaboration with the Nazis as a condition to its entry?

As a Muslim, I have mixed feelings about Turkey’s EU dreams. On the one hand, the accession of a prominent Muslim nation to the EU could be a positive step in improving relations between the West and the Muslim World. On the other hand, Turkey’s desperate courting of the EU is yet another chapter in the sad story of its dramatic transformation from a vanguard of Islamic civilization to a fanatically secular state hostile to all things Islamic. I hope the success of the AKP is an indication that Turkey may embrace a moderate form of secularism and that its accession to the EU would have positive consequences for Islam and Muslims.

(Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein during a visit to Baghdad in 1982)

Now that Saddam is gone, we should reflect on where his power came from and what responsibility those who supported him bear for his atrocities. These thoughts should influence how much we trust our leaders when they wage wars and make enemies and friends in the name of “freedom” and “democracy”.

(courtesy of Abu Sinan)

Rabbis in the Israeli city of Bnei Brak have signed a statement declaring it forbidden for Jews to sell or rent property to Arabs. The statement echoes sentiments expressed in racist fliers distributed in the city last month. The Hebrew-language fliers read:

Our homes have become non-Jewish. In Pardes Katz, there are hostile Arabs, not of our people, who have brought to our streets intermarriage, destruction and fear… We must not agree to an atmosphere so dangerous to our souls and bodies! We cannot allow them to destroy the education of the youth in our neighborhood!

But I guess it doesn’t matter, since 68 percent of Israelis already refuse to live in the same apartment building as an Arab.

This latest bit of racist bile comes on the heels of Israel’s bombing of Lebanon this past summer, during which the Yesha Rabbinical Council declared, “according to Jewish law, during a time of battle and war, there is no such term as ‘innocents’ of the enemy.” Perhaps Yesha’s ‘fatwa’ is simply a reflection of the prevailing attitude toward non-Jewish life within the Israeli Defense Forces, as evidenced by the alarming practice of IDF soldiers posing for pictures with dead Palestinians (Of course, CNN somehow missed all of these incidents, though they did report on this in great detail)

How is it that racism and religious extremism are so pervasive in the “only democracy in the Middle East”? I wonder if MEMRI will translate and distribute these statements…

(courtesy of KabobFest)

According to news reports, Saddam Hussein was executed at 6:00 AM this morning. State-run Iraqiyya TV is reporting the execution with the byline, “Saddam’s execution marks the end of a dark period of Iraq’s history.” With that sentiment, I agree. Saddam was a brutal tyrant who will surely not be missed (especially by the Shi’a and the Kurds). Unfortunately, the darker period that has followed it–that of the American occupation–has no end yet in sight.

Reflecting on the war, Saddam’s fall, and the current situation, I’m reminded of the maxim that pervades much of classical Sunni political thought: “sixty years of tyranny are better than one night of civil strife.”

Israel killed three times as many Palestinians (660 to be exact) in 2006 as it did in 2005, according to annual statistics published by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. Meanwhile, the number of Israelis killed by Palestinian militants dropped from 50 in 2005 to 23 in 2006. In addition, 9,075 Palestinians are currently being held in Israeli jails, of which 345 are minors and 738 have not been informed of the charges against them, if any.