Taki Taki

The Qatar way

Broadsides from the pirate captain of the Jet Set

issue 06 September 2003

Gstaad

Talk about dumbing down. Here’s a moron commenting on Sky following the Greek victory in the women’s javelin: ‘Oi didn’t know Greeks could speak English, not that oi can speak Greek….’

Miréla Manjani is an articulate young Greek woman who won the gold medal in the World Athletics Championships in Paris last week. She spoke in English briefly and gracefully after her victory and went on her way. The Murdoch moron was not even trying to be funny. He was just ignorant of the fact that most Greeks are bilingual, as no one speaks our language, especially Greek athletes who have travelled abroad like Miréla.

What the moron should have commented on is how a tiny country like Greece came in tenth in the final medal standings – Britain was 26th – and how we do not use African athletes posing as Greeks to excel. I am talking about African athletes representing Western countries. Actually it is an outrage, the ultimate manifestation of commercialism, the aristocracy of sport eclipsed by plutocracy. Imagine if the Sultan of Brunei suddenly decided to make his country an athletics power, and went out chequebook in hand. What then? He could conceivably collect every gold- medal winner there is, bar none, and signal the end of sport as we know it.

Two countries which fish for Africans regularly are Canada and Denmark, but at least they require them to take up citizenship after two or three years of residence. Not Qatar, a country well known for having contributed to the world such worthies as Socrates, Plato, Shakespeare, Goethe, Mozart and Beethoven. They grabbed a Kenyan only last year with a huge bribe, offered him a further million if he won gold – which he did in the 3,000-metre steeplechase – and had him change his name to sound more Qataric.

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