The Olympics is here, Tokyo 2021, and after the world being in lockdown for most of last year, this is a huge global stage that draws a lot of attention.
It was great to see team Palestine on the list of contenders im not even Palestinian but I felt proud watching them walk out in traditional thobes and Kufiyas’, it’s almost as if they are representing justice and equality for all, they came out like we exist! it was a beautiful sight.
Sometimes the world likes to live under the illusion that big competitions like this can be conducted un almost pretending that we live in a perfect world when that’s not the case. So it’s really frowned upon when competitors use their platform to make a statement.
This year at the Olympics two judoka’s dropped out of the competition rather than facing their Israeli opponents in protest against the treatment of Palestinians.
Firstly, Fethi Nourine of Algeria dropped out, stating “We worked a lot to reach the Olympics, but the Palestinian cause is bigger than all of this,” Nourine also quit the world judo championships in 2019 right before he was scheduled to face an Israeli component.
Secondly, Sudan’s Mohamed Abdalrasool failed to show up for his round with his Israeli component and was immediately suspended by the International Judo Foundation. Mohamed made no comment as to why he didn’t show up.
Imagine training your whole life for this moment and then giving it up for your principles, if nothing else you should respect that.
With media censorship and propaganda, it is actions like that from across the board that makes people stop and think, wait a minute, this person has trained their whole life for this moment and they are giving it up for Palestine> there must be something serious going in, and hopefully, it encourages people to look into the situation that the bias in the media is trying to bury.
Check out my YouTube video below.
