by James Blake
“To answer your first question, James, about what really started me on a path to activism, it still goes back to when I was twelve years old. My brother, Randy, and I were talking the other day, and we realized that growing up we were the watchers on the block. If we ever saw bullying he and I would step in. I started to wonder why we were like that. Why did we want to speak up for or protect people? Then the answer occurred to me. My dad was a firefighter. He would run into a burning building when everybody else was running out of it. More firefighters die than police officers, which a lot of people don’t know. It got me thinking about the exposure I had as a child. Every day he left for work, I knew he might not come back. You think about those things as a child. You’re influenced by them. Even if you’re not aware of it. I think that taught us to do the right thing, to always try to do the right thing. Everyone has to do it their own way. You just do the best you can.”
2
Changing the Game
The Unifying Power of Sports
The reason why athletes have been such powerful advocates for social justice and change is because sports is universal. It cuts across racial, economic, and religious strata in society. It is one of the reasons athletes have traditionally been successful when they decide to take a stand or use their platform. Most people enjoy sports, in one form or another. Sports is something that people get, and enjoy on a deeply intrinsic level. They follow their favorite athlete in the media, or have hours-long discussions and debates about stats and the game or their beloved team. Super Bowl Sunday has become a weekend-long event, and at times it feels like a month-long event. Fans rally around athletes because they understand the hard work and determination it took them to condition themselves for the rigors of their sport. They realize that being a top athlete requires a great deal of diligence, patience, and endurance, and the ability to overcome adversity, and the fans appreciate that and can relate to it.
The world saw the awesome unifying power of sports at Wimbledon in 2002 when Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi, a Pakistani Muslim, and Amir Hadad, an Israeli Jew, overcame the differences that have divided their people for decades when they decided to play on the same side in the men’s doubles draw. Given their nations’ shared history, for them there could be so much more than loss of money, endorsements, or fans at stake. It was to me a very brave and powerful gesture, considering the history of their warring peoples.
Wimbledon is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and is considered by many to be the most prestigious. It is held at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, England, where the first game was played in 1877 on grass courts. For participants in the tournament, the physical and emotional training and buildup to playing some of the best players in the world is almost indescribable. Add to that the slippery grass courts, the huge crowds, and the mob of media, and it is clear that playing at Wimbledon under any circumstances is stressful. I could not imagine how Qureshi and Hadad felt the first day they stepped out onto the court to play on the same team, or what made them decide to play together. I knew there had been considerable fallout already for Qureshi. After the announcement of his doubles partner, Qureshi’s country’s sports board made headlines when it threatened to ban him if he played with Hadad. A July 2002 headline in the Daily Telegraph proclaimed: “Muslim Who Plays with Jew Faces Tennis Ban.”
To fully understand how important a gesture it was for Qureshi and Hadad to take the same side in their doubles match, we have to understand the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In an article written in The Higher Learning in June 2014, Mbiyimoh Ghogomu explains it this way:
It all started after World War II.
With millions of Jews displaced because of the Holocaust, the United Nations was looking for a good place to establish a Jewish state.
At the time Palestine was actually a British colony, and the UN figured that Palestine (which included Jerusalem, the center of the Jewish faith) was the best place to establish the new Jewish state of Israel.
So, in late November, 1947, the UN passed Resolution 181, which divided the Palestinian territory into Jewish and Arab states.
The Palestinian Arabs who were living there at the time refused to recognize the agreement. They had been told (by the United States) that no decisions would be made without consulting them. They also felt the agreement was too favorable to the Jews, at the expense of the local Palestinians.
So, as soon as the resolution was passed, fighting began, with Arab forces attacking Israeli territories that had formerly been part of Palestine before UN Resolution 181.
The fighting intensified when Israel declared independence a year later.1
According to This Day in History:
On May 14, 1948, in Tel Aviv, Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion proclaims the State of Israel, establishing the first Jewish state in 2,000 years. In an afternoon ceremony at the Tel Aviv Art Museum, Ben-Gurion pronounced the words “We hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine, to be called Israel,” prompting applause and tears from the crowd gathered at the museum. Ben-Gurion became Israel’s first premier.
In the distance, the rumble of guns could be heard from fighting that broke out between Jews and Arabs immediately following the British army withdrawal earlier that day. Egypt launched an air assault against Israel that evening. Despite a blackout in Tel Aviv—and the expected Arab invasion—Jews joyously celebrated the birth of their new nation, especially after word was received that the United States had recognized the Jewish state. At midnight, the State of Israel officially came into being upon termination of the British mandate in Palestine.2
The conflict has continued since then, as Israel and Palestine both feel a claim to the land. Since 1946, Palestinian land has shrunk monumentally and hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs have been displaced. The ensuing territorial dispute between the Palestinians and Israelis has had a long and tumultuous history, one that continues to this day. The separation of key cities within the country has decimated many of those areas, and security checkpoints and strict control of borders create divisions and discord.
Today, the Palestinian territory is split into two parts, each area controlled by a different faction. Gaza is governed by the militant Islamic organization Hamas, while the Palestinian areas of the West Bank are controlled by the secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). While Gaza is entirely Palestinian, the West Bank is split into three zones, under different control: strictly Palestinian, joint Palestinian and Israeli, and strictly Israeli.
Ramallah is the de facto capital of the West Bank. To get there you have to cross a wall built by Israel that encircles the entire West Bank. Construction of the thick, high four-hundred-mile concrete wall began in 2002 with the purpose of putting a barrier between the territories. Though there is a coil of barbed wire above it, every year, one way or another, forty thousand Palestinians make it over the wall. Palestinian movement is monitored by Israeli checkpoints to control the flow of people. The first is the Qalandia Checkpoint. Palestinians hold different ID cards depending on whether they are from the West Bank, Gaza, or East Jerusalem, which dictates where and when they can travel in the region.
Checkpoints are inevitable on even short journeys, and curfews can be implemented at any time. There are arbitrary controls regardless of what your documents say as to whether or not you will be allowed past a given checkpoint. Theoretically the only people allowed to travel freely across the regions are foreigners, but access can still be denied at any time for any reason by Israeli checkpoint controls. When you cross the first checkpoint you arrive in Ramallah, West Bank, which is one of Palestine’s most liberal cities. However, many women still cover up in traditional Islamic dress.
Shuhada Street was once the center of commerce and the hub of Palestinian tailoring until 1994, but the Israeli army closed down hundreds of businesses as Israeli settlers moved into the area. All trade stopped. Now the street is mostly deserted, and the shops are not only closed but th
eir doors are welded shut. Today about five hundred Israeli settlers live there and are guarded by a patrol of Israeli soldiers.
Erez Crossing is the checkpoint at the border to the Israeli Gaza Strip. For all its notoriety, Gaza is a strip of land only twenty-five miles long and six miles wide infamous for its sustained periods of violent conflict. Gaza is governed by the militant Islamic group Hamas, which is listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the US government. Since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, both Israel and Egypt have held Gaza under a blockade, shutting down its borders and allowing Gazans to leave only under exceptional circumstances. In 2008 and 2014 full-scale wars broke out with Israel, the latter of which killed thousands of people, the majority of them Palestinian.
Entering Gaza is heavily restricted. Palestinians living in the West Bank are not allowed access to Gaza and vice versa. Crossing its borders is difficult because you must pass a series of heavy Israeli security checks, then walk through a two-mile-long fully enclosed caged tunnel, which is topped by barbed wire. This tunnel leads you to a final hurdle, the Hamas checkpoint. Despite a years-long conflict and war-torn towns, Gaza is quite beautiful. Its beach on the Mediterranean Sea shares the same waters as the South of France. The waters off Gaza after a certain point are controlled by the Israeli navy. There is a limited area Gazans are allowed out to sea of about three miles; beyond that they cannot cross without risking being shot.
There are daily power outages, with power on for several hours, then off for several hours. The Erez border is the way out of Gaza City back to the West Bank and Ramallah. Palestinians are not allowed into Jerusalem without a permit, but Americans can easily come and go with their passports. However, if you have an American passport and a Palestinian ID card there are restrictions. In that case, you can travel to Jerusalem only within certain times of the day and there is a curfew of 9:00 p.m. Americans can drive through the checkpoint; however, Palestinians must walk through the security gate into East Jerusalem. There is often tear gas and rubber bullets fired at the Palestinians at the checkpoint, during protests and demonstrations.
The Beit-El Checkpoint and the Qalandia Checkpoint take you back into East Jerusalem.
There is no easy way to fully explain the differences between Palestine and Ramallah in the West Bank, and Jerusalem and Gaza in the east, for the people living there under the conditions dictated by religion, and their shared history, and location. Their life is defined by borders more so than any other place I can think of.
It was with this shared history as a politically charged and divided people that Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi, a Pakistani Muslim, and Amir Hadad, an Israeli Jew, made the decision to team up. Qureshi faced immediate pushback from his government and hate mail from Islamic radicals. His national tennis association threatened him with expulsion if he played on the same team with Hadad. Saulat Abbas, the director of the Pakistan Sports Board, issued an “official condemnation” of Qureshi for playing with an Israeli, adding, “An explanation has been sought from him. Since Pakistan has no links with Israel, Qureshi may face a ban.”3 In contrast, the Israeli Tennis Association gave Hadad its full support. In the face of the backlash against Qureshi, Hadad said, “Aisam and I are friends first, and Arabs or Jews second.”
In spite of the threat of a ban, Qureshi stood firm. He knew he had a good chance of winning for his country if he played with Hadad, who was excellent on grass courts. Asked how he would respond to the ban, Qureshi replied, “That would be their own loss. If they [the federation] want to stay in the lower levels, that’s fine. I’m going to stay and play for them, but if I believe I could do well with Amir in the big events, the Grand Slams, I’ll stay and play with him. Why not?”4
When I spoke to Qureshi about his experiences and what made him and Hadad decide to play together, I was struck that neither he nor Hadad considered it a political statement. It made sense to them from a tennis perspective. They were simply a strong team together because of their unique talents. As we discussed the events leading up to the tournament it became clear that Qureshi was first and foremost playing for his nation, while also representing all tennis players in a show of unity and sportsmanship.
“Amir and I happened to be at the tournament office during the Wimbledon qualifying deadline,” Qureshi told me while training in Doha. “Both of us had no partners, so we decided to sign in and give it a shot. I have known him for a while and knew he was good on grass courts and had a good sense of doubles—not once did it ever cross my mind that he was a Jew or from Israel. Amir is a great guy, and I got along well with him and other players from Israel. I did not know him that well off the court, but we would greet each other, as we did all the other players.
“Our doubles partnership raised a lot of questions back home in Pakistan, and my sports board and federation even announced that they would ban me from playing for my country if I continued to play at Wimbledon or at any other tournament with Hadad. But I stood my ground and kept playing with him, and the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) even gave us both an Arthur Ashe humanitarian award. After the match we stayed in touch for a while but then he retired. I still ask other Israeli players on the tour about him.
“Our doubles partnership made a huge impact in my life and surely in a positive way.
“In 2010 when I made the finals with Rohan Bopanna, who is a Hindu and an Indian, there were only praises from both sides, and my people and federation and sports board realized from my partnership with Amir in Wimbledon as well as with Rohan that all I was trying to do was to get acclaim for my country and my family. Playing with Amir and Rohan both helped me in achieving that, and I was honored with another Arthur Ashe award from the ATP.
“Would I do it again? I would surely do it again because I truly believe that we should not mix politics, religion, color, or race with sports. Sport teaches us to be equal and to judge and treat a person as a human being and not because of their race, their religion, or what country they come from.”
Despite the backlash and just qualifying for Wimbledon, Hadad and Qureshi made it to the round of sixteen of the men’s doubles and became fan favorites. Although they did not win the match, they won an even greater victory when they put their nations’ decades of animosity aside, ignored the potential backlash, and presented a unified front on the tennis court. Hadad and Qureshi’s decision was not only courageous, it was historic because it united their two nations for the first time in nearly sixty years, on the tennis court.
The Refugee Crisis Through the Lens of Sports
The recent escalation of the refugee crisis resulted in a controversial executive order on immigration, signed by US president Donald Trump in January 2017, that barred refugees and citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries—Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen—from entering the United States. The backlash was immediate and fierce as images of handcuffed families and even children, detained for hours at airports, swept international news and social media. Protestors across the country and the world marched against the ban. Many state representatives across party lines called the ban unconstitutional. Federal courts in New York and California immediately blocked parts of the ban from being implemented. The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3–0 to uphold a lower federal court’s ruling that put the nationwide immigration ban on hold. It was argued that the ban sought to classify refugees as terrorists. According to Human Rights Watch, the number of Americans killed annually by jihadist immigrant extremists is two. The number of Americans killed by being shot by another American is 11,737.
America is a young country made up almost entirely of immigrants. The only natives to this country are Native Americans. So many of the people who made America the innovative country it is today are either immigrants or refugees, and this is particularly true in sports. Often athletes came to America seeking asylum from war, or fleeing famine, persecution, and restrictive policies. Many of these athletes then became American citizens and went on to repre
sent the country in the Olympics and brought home medals. Among them are the tennis player Martina Navratilova from Czechoslovakia, and the Eritrean American distance runner Meb Keflezighi, whose family fled war, famine, and persecution in Eritrea, East Africa, and eventually settled in the United States.
Keflezighi was born during the deadly three-decade war for liberation from Ethiopia. Because his father, Russom, was a liberation supporter, he had to flee his family home in Adi Beyani to escape Ethiopian soldiers. Keflezighi’s mother, Awetash, who feared that her husband would be killed, convinced him to leave Ethiopia. He ended up in Milan, Italy, for five years, sending money back to his family until he could afford to bring them to Italy in 1986. The family then immigrated to the United States in 1987.
Keflezighi started running in school and began winning distance races. In 2009 he won the New York City Marathon (and in 2014 the Boston Marathon, becoming the first American man to win both races since 1982 and 1983). He went on to become the 2004 Olympic marathon silver medalist. He finished fourth in the 2012 Summer Olympics. He came in fourth in the 2014 New York City Marathon, eighth in the 2015 Boston Marathon, and second in the 2016 US Olympic team trials to qualify for the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Keflezighi is an inspiration, and despite his tumultuous childhood, he has kept a positive outlook and filtered that positivity into activism and philanthropy. His MEB (“Maintaining Excellent Balance”) Foundation supports programs that empower youth, their families, and their communities. It also funds programs that engage children in academics, and encourages health and fitness through sports.
Keflezighi was a refugee, along with the other members of his large family, and his take on the refugee situation now and when he first arrived in the 1980s is illuminating and insightful. I met with Keflezighi in San Diego to talk to him about his unique and amazing journey from Eritrea to the United States, and if that journey helped him to persevere as an athlete.
