By Melanie Trexler
As 16 teams reached the knockout stage of the World Cup, the blasts of canons sounded to signal the beginning of Ramadan, the holy month in the Islamic lunar calendar in which Muslims are to abstain from food, drink, smoking, sex, and gossiping from sunrise to sunset. The World Cup offers Muslims an opportunity to celebrate both their faith and fútbol with the world.
Muslim soccer players and Muslim fans inevitably are impacted. Although only two national teams from countries with a significant Muslim population (Algeria and Nigeria) competed in the knockout stage, Muslim players are also representing European nations. Islamic religious leaders have given Muslim athletes permission to abstain from fasting during Ramadan, but it remains the player’s decision.
However, Ramadan involves more than physical deprivation; it is a time of personal spiritual evaluation and renewal. Ramadan is a month of reflection in which Muslims assess their behavior in light of religious teachings with a goal of cultivating religious piety. Hardships Muslims endure during fasting (such as hunger, thirst, desire, etc.) facilitate this internal examination. In their self-reflection, Muslims consider their responsibility to follow God’s will: do good, avoid wrongdoing, strive for social justice, and seek peaceful relations with others. However, in a world filled with distractions, like the World Cup, cultivating these practices is difficult.
Feira de domingo. Curitiba – Paraná. Photo by Gilmar Mattos 2008. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via gijlmar Flickr.
For a small minority of ultra-conservative Muslims, soccer games are considered a “public abomination” that promote cursing, gambling, profiteering, excess partying, and hostility between fans of opposing teams. As a result, Yasser Borhami, a Salafi preacher and leader of the Egyptian al-Daawa Movement claims, “World Cup matches distract Muslims from performing their [religious] duties. They include forbidden things that could break the fast in Ramadan as well as [other forbidden things] in Islam like intolerance and wasting time.”
The vast majority of Muslims, however, reject such a position. Instead, as the Grand Imam of al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayeb noted in a speech he submitted to World Cup officials at the invitation of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, the games are “an opportunity to spread peace and equality among the people, to transmit feelings of love and brotherhood, to get rid of injustice, evil and discrimination among humanity, to help the weak, the poor, the patient and the underprivileged.” The values that al-Tayeb encouraged World Cup enthusiasts to embody lie at the heart of Ramadan observance.
Brazilian Muslims are taking measures to help Muslim sports fans minimize distractions that might arise during the games (such as breaking fasts, missing prayers, and/or engaging in un-Islamic entertainment) that could hinder this self-analysis. The Federation of Muslims Associations in Brazil (FAMBRAS) printed The Guide – Muslim Fan, a 28-page booklet providing Muslim tourists with essential information about Brazil and Islam. This pamphlet includes a history of Islam in Brazil, embassy addresses of Arab and Islamic countries, and brief city profiles of game locations. Local times for the five daily prayers and addresses of mosques in each area are highlighted. In addition to the booklet, FAMBRAS operates a 12-hour telephone hotline and provides a smartphone app to offer information on halal restaurants and entertainment options. Their efforts are twofold: helping Muslims observe Islam and enjoy the World Cup.
Muslims visiting the World Cup are not alone in facing potential soccer distractions. In the Arab world, the evening hours of Ramadan are prime time for the television industry. Networks are altering programming to accommodate World Cup games broadcast in these time slots. Since kick-off times coincide with peak television viewing hours in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, FIFA officials anticipate higher viewership for the 2014 World Cup than the 3.2 billion people who tuned in to the 2010 games. The establishment of public viewing centers in countries with large Muslim populations, such as in Indonesia, Nigeria, and Algeria, suggest additional Muslim viewers will watch this year.
Although Muslims watching these games may not overtly discuss religious themes, their friendships and engagement with others over an international sporting event provides a foundation for deeper spiritual reflections. Thus, it’s possible for Muslims to celebrate their love of fûtbol and their faith during Ramadan.
Ramadan Kareem.
Melanie Trexler is a Ph.D. candidate in theological and religious studies at Georgetown University. Originally from Richmond, Kentucky, Melanie completed her B.A. at Furman University where she double-majored in political science and religion. She continued her education at Vanderbilt University, receiving a Masters of Divinity in 2007 before entering Georgetown’s Ph.D. program in theological and religious studies with a focus in religious pluralism. She studies Islam and Christianity, concentrating on Muslim-Christian relations in the United States and in the Arab world.
Oxford Islamic Studies Online is an authoritative, dynamic resource that brings together the best current scholarship in the field for students, scholars, government officials, community groups, and librarians to foster a more accurate and informed understanding of the Islamic world. Oxford Islamic Studies Online features reference content and commentary by renowned scholars in areas such as global Islamic history, concepts, people, practices, politics, and culture, and is regularly updated as new content is commissioned and approved under the guidance of the Editor in Chief, John L. Esposito.
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“¿Ves?"Michael Sedano
"¿Ves?" was an expression my grandmother favored, maybe the entire clan of Villa women favored, to sum up disappointment and what to do about it.
In a single syllable gramma summed up her knowledge that when something was too-good-to-be-true, don’t be surprised to receive a kick in the ass for your trouble.
That’s not fatalistic, it’s flexible pragmatism. “¿Ves?” she’d say with a wave of her hand like waving off a fly. She meant take your licks and move on, there are lots of flies.
I thought of my gramma--and my dad’s stoicism--when I learned the score of the Mexico-Netherlands World Cup game. My dad would take a kitchen chair into the teevee room. His ma would recline on her plastic clad sofa, the San Bernardino
Sun on her lap. I'd sit on the floor moaning and screaming at the screen. Mother and son would take in the end of the game calmly, watching Netherlands refuse extreme unction and kick Mexico’s ass for a 2-1 win.
My gramma would look at my dad, my dad would look at my agony, and together they’d explain sports to me. “¿Ves?”
For gramma it was a double "¿ves?" Because she was an indian, born in Pomona, rooting for Mexico would have been a time waster. Then to have them lose after all that? "¿Ves?"
Or, as Roseanne Rossannadanna would later proclaim, “it’s always something,” for Mexico. Our team remains in contention, the US team, that is. It's always something.
Ditto La Bloga.
For La Bloga-Tuesday, the
something is cool; a pair of On-line Floricantos. In La Bloga’s continuing fútbol floricanto series, today’s work from Ryan Nance reflects the conjunction of poetry and technology, an ekphrasis of recent broadcasts.
Capping off today’s column, Odilia Galván Rodríguez and her co-moderators of the Facebook group
Poets Responding to SB 1070: Poetry of Resistance, nominate six powerful poems from five accomplished poets for our featured monthly On-line Floricanto.
Be sure to check out each poet’s bio at the bottom of the column. While you’re there, look for the Comment icon and share your soccer predictions or miseries, and your responses to our five featured poets.
Fútbol Floricanto Featuring Ryan NanceXI: Starsby rtsnance (Ryan Scott Nance)You, Gyan, see the ball with all of your quantum selves.
You, Villa, meet the motion with mimic motion.
You, Sturridge, build a high carriage against the pale blue heavens.
You, Junior, don’t wait for anything but start your own.
You, Suarez, make a current of hot intent wash through the high canyon of others’ hopes.
You, Dzeko, stack tight in cargo of the unspoken grandeur.
You, Hazard, aren’t fooling many people into thinking you’re earthborn.
You, Robben, everyone knows exactly what you are going to do, but can’t stop it.
You, Messi, mustn’t stop.
You, Klose, will answer our questions we stored up quietly in long train rides and heavy traffic.
You, Drogba, burn gallons of joy on the bonfire of our young hearts.
XI: España v. Nederlands 1-5by rtsnance (Ryan Scott Nance)Vast enough to acquire height
The Dutch built their Spanish palisades
With fine optical ground glass
In their cuticles and eyebrows
Repeated motions made motionless
with more intent,
A Blind pass met in swift desirous
Touching. Van Persie lifted off the ground
with pure attention turned into a supplicant’s prayer
With a thousand days of bright effort
We arrange the union of a patch of sun with our radiance
XI: Portugal v. USA Draw 2-2by rtsnance (Ryan Scott Nance)First, magnificent that play exists
away from the slow desert of fear
Then, magnificent that the mind learns
in joy the way
cause can lead to cause
After then, the magnificence of light touch,
mastery and talent of playing well
And only then
the magnificence
of win secured
and loss endured.
Ryan Nance is a creative force engaged in diverse activities and venues, from street corners to the technosphere. He currently leads
Five Things I Learned Today.The Fútbol Floricanto series is curated by Yago S. Cura.
Late-breaking NewsLatino Literacy Now Announces The International Latino Book Awards Click here for a comprehensive listing of nominees and awards.On-line Floricanto for Mid-Year 2014Elizabeth Marino, Elena Díaz Bjorkquist, Edward A. Vidaurre, Sonia Gutiérrez, Tara Evonne TrudellASYLUMBy Elizabeth Marino
Another sleepless night,
and bad television
is still not calming.
My mind has drifted back
to Charlie and his blue
plastic boat, shared at St. Vincent
Orphan Asylum in Chicago.
His hair was wondrously full
and he made my belly laugh
as we waited and drifted.
The dormitory cribs were
far different from the blue vinyl
mats on the concrete floor
of the women’s wing of the
shelter. Each places of shelter
and transit, an end time
at any time.
And I see these pictures
of the children stacked up like
cord wood, relatively safe
compared to the Pakistani children
stacked up like cord wood
in ox carts, after a drone attack.
It is difficult to shut off
these images on the screen
of the mind’s eye. The browser sticks,
and keeps refreshing itself.
In the morning
I must go out the door
and decide to be alive.
Speak Mexican for UsBy Elena Díaz BjorkquistThe gringuitas taunt me,
knowing I’d be punished
for speaking my language
on the playground.
Speak Mexican for us.
They don’t understand,
Don’t listen to my explanation:
Spanish, not Mexican.
Spanish is a language,
Mexican is a nationality.
English is a language,
English is a nationality.
Español, the language
of familia y casa,
Español, the language
of comfort and love.
English is cold,
difficult to learn,
Spanish rolls smooth
off my tongue.
Spanish at school
gets me punished.
English at home
gets me scolded.
I learn to speak both,
Spanish at home,
English at school.
Switch from one
to the other, know
when to use either.
Los DesaparecidosBy Edward A. VidaurreEveryone has the gift of invisibility,
even the borderwall goes unnoticed in June after a
month that drains us of life. The scent of knives
on a hot summer is the only constant
amongst the news of frontera tragedies and a poetry
reading in a stick-to-your-skin humid bar in a small South Texas town.
We all have the gift of going missing,
like the breath of a collapsing lung,
like a whisper from behind, a shooting star.
Or do we just hide reading a newspaper upside-down
when the new Sheriff arrives?
Puede ser que tambien los periodicos se convierten
lanchas que se lanzan en un rio olvidado, en aguas
color a sangre de tantos que casi por las yemas de los dedos
tocaban tierra Estadounidense.
The missing,
they recite Howl across the Rio Grande
but not the Ginsberg lament for his brethren
but the howls of suffering souls crammed in stash houses
across our children's playgrounds, those left
for dead in sweltering sardine packed vessels,
-those left alive to remember hell is real.
Los desaparecidos,
quieren ser encontrados
aun decapacitados y sin lenguas.
Siguen gritando porque el silencio es fuerte en sufrimiento.
We will keep them alive and find them!
Through art, poetry, music, stories that scare the night,
and lullabies that make our children sleep tight.
Cuando los cantos se vuelven agua
el olor de cuchillos en el aire
bailan con la bungavilla trepadora
descendiendose seis pies bajo la tierra sin nombre
-solo una alabanza que fluje entre la tierra agrietada
El Lugar de los AlebrijesPor Sonia Gutiérrezpara Sergio Vásquez y Rogelio CasasAquí bailaron los alebrijes:
algunos grandes, algunos pequeños,
algún pedorro, y hasta un maldito se coló.
Aquí gozaron los alebrijes:
como pelotas cometas sus colores
brincaron por todo alrededor.
Aquí anduvieron los alebrijes:
pasearon todos juntos dejando huellas
para llegar a Alebrijelandia.
Aquí los amigos de los alebrijes
sonríen al verlos caminar
y jugar todos los días.
Aquí en Alebrijelandia
ningún color es mejor que otro,
y todos los alebrijes irradian por igual.
© 2014 Sonia Gutiérrez
The Place of the AlebrijesBy Sonia Gutiérrez to Sergio Vásquez and Rogelio CasasThe alebrijes danced here:
some big, some small, a gassy one,
and even a wicked one tagged along.
The alebrijes rejoiced here:
like comet balls their colors
jumped all around.
The alebrijes were here:
they travelled together leaving footprints
to arrive to Alebrijelandia.
Here the friends of the alebrijes
smile to see so them all walk
and play every day.
Here in Alebrijelandia
no color is better than another,
and the alebrijes radiate all the same.
© 2014 Sonia Gutiérrez
Far Awayby Tara Evonne Trudellcrossing
the mojave desert
I dreamed
my people
moving through
heat waves
and hunger pains
mothers fathers
children
willing life
dying to cross
a line
drawn in sand
drones hovering in air
dangerous spy tactics
always monitoring
the calculation
in military moves
real life
hunger war games
forcing survival
the extreme NAFTA
and CIA manipulation
taking land
and killing people
corrupt government
holding meetings
with drug lords
in slick suits
making up
hard core
statistics
to act on
with militarized force
feeding masses
misled lies
laced with hate
turning one side
against
the other
with neither side
existing at all
every day life
selling American
dreaming material
sold by elite thugs
and prison profiteers
in slick suits
making up laws
in corrupt politics
the buddying up
of corporations
filling systems
making a business
out of brown people
handcuffing butterflies
taking away
the freedom
to migrate
caught by ICE
profiling parents
the leaving
left alone
in terrified children
separating families
creating impossible reuniting
the written word
in small print
USA court documents
the taking away
of Mexico
in parental rights
when accusations fly
calling names out
illegal!
alien!
immigrant!
USA labels
of being brown
in a country
too far
to care
when not close
to home
American comfort
family circles tight
the choice
to be unaware
what’s really going down
south of the border
the human race
running away
when excluding
their own
mechanical hummingbird
droning on
the keeping
of government control
gleaming
in big brother eye
the elite
banking on profits
of brown people
crossing
to survive.
Elizabeth Marino is honored to return to LaBloga. Her chapbook,
Ceremonies, was released by dancing girl press in 2014. This collection was based on work begun at a residency at
Los Dos Brujas Writers Workshops, on the Ghost Ranch, near Albuquerque NM, where she studied with Juan Felipe Herrera. She received a conference scholarship and a CAAP grant.
Her prior chapbook,
Debris: Poems and Memoir, is still available through Puddin'head press. She is glad to look back on 21 years in the university teaching profession.
She is grateful for the folks in her life who lift her up, make her laugh, and keep things lively in Chicago.
Elena Díaz Bjorkquist is a writer and an artist from Tucson, Arizona. She writes about Morenci
where she was born. Elena is the author of two books,
Suffer Smoke and
Water from the Moon and co-editor of
Sowing the Seeds, una cosecha de recuerdos and
Our Spirit, Our Reality; our life experiences in stories and poems, anthologies written in the writers collective Sowing the Seeds.
As an Arizona Humanities Council (AHC) Scholar, Elena has performed as Teresa Urrea in a Chautauqua living history presentation and done presentations about Morenci for thirteen years.
In 2012 she received the Arizona Commission on the Arts Bill Desmond Writing Award for excelling nonfiction writing and the Arizona Humanities Council Dan Schilling Public Humanities Scholar Award in recognition of her work in the humanities.
Elena was nominated for Tucson Poet Laureate in 2012 and was one of the moderators of the Facebook page Poets Responding to SB 1070. Her poems have been published in
La Bloga, The Gospel According to Poetry, and
The Más Tequilla Review. Elena is also a ceramic artist, specializing in masks and sculpture. She teaches a weekly clay class out of her studio, Casita TzinTzunTzan.
Edward Vidaurre has been been published in several anthologies and literary journals among them
La Bloga, Bordersenses, Interstice, La Noria Literary Journal, Boundless Anthology of the Valley International Poetry Festival 2011-2013.He’s had two books published -
I Took My Barrio On A Road Trip (Slough Press 2013) and
Insomnia (El Zarape Press 2014.
He also co-edited
TWENTY-Poems in Memoriam and
Boundless 2014 the Anthology of the Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival.
Sonia Gutiérrez is a poet professor who promotes social justice and human dignity. She teaches English Composition and Critical Thinking and Writing at Palomar College.
La Bloga is home to her Poets Responding SB 1070 poems, including “Best Poems 2011” and “Best Poems 2012.”
Her bilingual poetry collection,
Spider Woman/La Mujer Araña (Olmeca Press, 2013), is her debut publication.
Kissing Dreams from a Distance, a novel written in the Tomás Rivera and Sandra Cisneros literary tradition, is seeking publication. She is at work on
Legacy/Herencia, a poetry collection. To learn more about Sonia, visit
SoniaGutierrez.com.
Tara Evonne Trudell studied film, audio, and photography while in college at New Mexico Highlands University. She is a recent graduate with her BFA in Media Arts.
As a poet and mother of four children, raising them to understand her purpose to represent humanity, compassion, and action in all her work is her dedication to raising them with an awareness of their own growing identities.
Incorporating poetry she addresses the many troubling issues that are ongoing in society and hopes that her works will create an emotional impact that inspires others to act.
Golazos or Go Home: Fútbol Floricanto Features Ryan Nance
