The World Cup in Qatar is the scene not only of a clash of cultures but also of the battle, today in full effervescence, between the democracies of the West and the dictatorships that are gaining ground in the rest of the world. Two figures embody the conflict: on the side of the dictatorships, David Beckham; from the side of democracy, Ehsan Hajsafi.
Beckham may be the most famous person alive. Or that it has been more years in a row. I remember that in 2003 the English tabloid The Sun set itself a mission: to find someone on some continent who did not know who the then captain of the English football team and the most attractive supermodel on Earth was. It took months until an intrepid reporter finally found who The Sun claimed was the only human who hadn't heard of Beckham: a goat herder in the desert country of Chad.
Raise your hand who knows who Ehsan Hajsafi is. No? No one? Someone, maybe, back there...? well Ehsan Hajsafi plays as a defender for AEK Athens FC and is the captain of the Iranian national football team. He will not lift the world cup, but when the tournament is over, no one will have deserved more applause. The World Cup already has a champion. Of all the public figures that are there, in Qatar, Hajsafi is the most integrity, the most admirable, the most courageous. Beckham is the most pusillanimous, the most empty, the most hypocritical. And that competition in Qatar today is fierce.
It pains me a little to say it. Not just because I like to pontificate (even if I don't live up to it) that one should try to understand and not judge people, but because I got to know Beckham more or less well when he played for Real Madrid, between 2003 and 2007 I interviewed him a couple of times. I wrote a book about Galactic Madrid and followed the team for a year. Of all those rich and famous footballers, Beckham was the one who seemed to be the nicest person.
Always attentive to others, be they humble or powerful, when he visited the editorial office of a newspaper he made an effort to greet everyone, not excluding the secretaries and the staff who mopped the floor; when the team arrived at the airport in Madrid in the morning after a European game, he was the only one of the players who stopped to take pictures with the group of indefatigable supporters who always came to receive them.
Oh, and the one they called Goldenballs in England had them on, or so it seemed. Long before it was even remotely acceptable within professional football to recognize gay rights, he became – being married and with children – a gay icon. It all started in 2002 when he posed for the cover of a well-known gay magazine called Attitude. It was a groundbreaking act that was considered risky at the time. Turns out it wasn't. It was coldly calculated. It opened the door to even more sponsorships. It is estimated that, outside of football, Beckham's income has exceeded 800 million euros.
What we see today is that it was an exercise in cynicism, that for Beckham principles are flexible things. So progressive, he, so democratic, so metrosexual, it turns out that the image he so carefully cultivated of a decent and fair boyfriend had the sole purpose of earning more, and more, and more money. We saw him in the photo of the opening ceremony of the World Cup, standing and in a suit, behind the capo of FIFA, Gianni "I'm gay, I'm Arab" Infantino; of the Saudi tyrant Muhammad bin Salman, and of the Qatari emir, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, who imprisons homosexuals and from whom Beckham has received 175 million euros, according to the English press, to act as ambassador of the World Cup and, for another ten years, of Qatar.
And not only has he been so gay, Beckham, but also so patriotic, wrapping himself in the British flag, defending the values that have allowed him to express whatever comes out of his nose all his life with complete freedom, without fear of being put in prison or the morning, unlike the women of Qatar who ask for some equality with men, or those of Iran, who ask for more.
We already know. There has been a wave of protests in Iran over the past two months following the death by police of a 22-year-old woman whose crime was not wearing the hijab, or veil, with modesty that the theocratic state demands. Women have dominated the protests, demanding not just more rights for them but more democracy for all, and so far security forces have killed more than 300 people and imprisoned more than 16,000, according to rights groups humans
Being an Iranian public figure and championing the rebellion is not an easy gesture, it cannot be a calculated marketing exercise. It is pure principle. You will put your life and those of your family members in danger. But this is precisely what Ehsan Hajsafi did in statements made in Qatar, an ally of Iran, last weekend.
"First of all - said the captain of the Iranian team in a press conference - I would like to express my condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones in Iran. They must know that we are with them, that we stand by them, that they have all our sympathy", he added on behalf of his team.
The chattering of the ayatollahs' teeth could be heard from Tehran, but Hajsafi had only just begun.
"Our people are not happy," he continued. We are here, but that does not mean that we do not have to be their voice or that we do not have to respect them... I hope that the conditions will change to meet the expectations of the people”.
The other members of the Iran national team showed their support for their captain the next day when, before the start of their match against England, they refused to sing the lyrics of the national anthem. What must have been thought of the English players, those who had announced that they would wear armbands during the match in favor of gay freedom but when FIFA told them “Boo! ” did they screw up and back off? What must Beckham have been thinking?
Shame, I'd like to think. Shame and also admiration for people who value freedom so much that they are willing to sacrifice everything to one day be able to take it for granted as we take it for granted here, in the frivolous and soft countries of the West.
