Well, it isn’t just Saudi Arabia he has an issue with. He specifically cites the Arabic text and that it’s shared by the Taliban flag (and on other Muslim countries too for that matter, including previous flags of Afghanistan).
But the text isn’t unique to wahabism. It’s one of the principal tenets of Islam. It’s also not objectionable. It’s not advocating the killing or suppression of infidels, for example. It’s much like “In God we trust”.
Of course, fuck the fanatical zealots using religion to justify oppression, abuse, even jihad etc but the religious text highlighted represents Islam as a whole and shouldn’t be tarred in that way. In my opinion.
Then maybe it’s just the atheist in me that finds those words so objectionable and I allowed that to further inflame my feelings. But to be clear , the subject of my outrage is the State and the Government of Saudi Arabia , one of the most malign regimes on the planet.
I can get behind that sentiment. I would otherwise agree with @Kopstar that your preceding words suggested a prejudice against Muslims specifically. I hope you can see it that way, and understand why others are criticizing what you have said.
Is it racist to suggest that the Saudi Arabian government, which is the controlling figure in the organisation that just purchased Newcastle United, has engaged in such acts before?
Not really. It’s about the new Owners of Newcastle United who western intelligence agencies have linked to torture and extrajudicial killings both at home and abroad.
It’s literally gallows humour about the state sponsorship of terrorism, specifically facilitated by members of the new ownership group. It’s got nothing to do with their nationality nor the faith practiced by the majority of people from Saudi Arabia.
I’m not that pessimistic. It’s been obvious for a while now that we need to follow the Dortmund model to survive and we seemed to be headed that way already.
What I take heart from is that if you have a good setup in the background like we have now, then you can achieve a lot with players who the sheikh daddies dont take a look at.
Can’t stand Jason Cundy, what a prick. Not a person in football media I dislike so much. Luckily I don’t follow TalkSport so I don’t hear often from him.
Calls Newcastle a club with zero history. Coming from a Chelsea fan, who before Abramovic didn’t have something of a much bigger history than Newcastle now. Slightly bigger, yes.
I think we’re arguing semantics here mate. Religion and the State in Saudi is intertwined in many of their ways so as to be indistinguishable at times. The racist argument has been used by City and PSG fans to obfuscate critics of their ownership for years and Newcastle fans have just climbed on the bandwagon. I don’t think that racism is the sentiment being portrayed by @GermanRed or @peterroberts although it is easy enough to interpret it as such.
They are a horrible regime though and the Arabian Peninsula with all its Emirates dripping in blood and awash with slave labour should not be allowed this kind of opportunity to distract and clean their image. It’s disgusting and the attitude of the football fan in general to it is almost enough to sack of the game. If there is any part of the world that I would love to see undergo peaceful regime change with all their sheiks and princes being jailed or binned and fucked off penniless for life it would be there.
And guess what, they are able to use the racist argument precisely because of the propensity for conflating the two.
As with Peter, attacks on the regime are presented as attacks against a whole religion or nation. Stick to attacking the regime specifically and it becomes a whole lot harder to dismiss criticism as racist.
If these fuckers bought LFC I’d be happy. Stitch up Salah contract, grab Haaland, pay Klopp whatever he wants…me and the Kop will sing forever.
You think City supporters gave a shit when they won the league when Aguero scored and then Kompany. What human rights. Players, coaches, agents likewise.
Trophies have a correlation with wealth we all know that. Newcastle also have a decent atmosphere and ground and passion. A bit like LFC. Not City.
Football success can be bought though. Interesting to see how this goes for the Geordies.
Oh I wasn’t aware of that. 20 years ago is hardly a time frame to say a club hasnt adopted a particular model of functioning though.
Dortmund of the last 10 years clearly focuses on high potential youth, offers them first team football as an incentive and then moves them on for a massive profit.
20 years ago we were just emerging from Spice Boys era.
