The Olympic Movement and the Middle East and North Africa Region

This book offers different insights into the study of the Olympic movement in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It seeks to capture how political and cultural nation-state building and economic transformations are impacting the region’s engagement (and disengagement) with the Olympic movement and the Olympic Games, as well as Paralympic sports. This book was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport.

Introduction – The Olympic Movement and the Middle East and North African Region: History, Culture and Geopolitics — An Introduction Mahfoud Amara 1. Lebanon’s Youth Clubs and the 1936 Summer Olympics: Mobilizing Sports, Challenging Imperialism and Launching a National Project Dylan Baun 2. Factors Behind Lebanon’s Difficulties Achieving Success at the Olympics Nadim Nassif 3. The Central Role of the State in the Governance of Sport and the Olympic Movement in Tunisia, from 1956 to the Present Day Maha Zaoui and Emmanuel Bayle 4. Palestine and the Olympics – A History Issam Khalidi and Alon K. Raab 5. A Foucauldian Interpretation of Paralympic Sport in the United Arab Emirates: An Exploration Through a Virtual Lens Seth Joseph Perkin and P. David Howe 6. ‘Just Saying – Bravo Kids – and Giving Them Some Gifts is Not Enough’: Amateurism, Turkish Wrestling, and the Olympic Games Sabri Özçakir and Matthew P. Llewellyn

Mahfoud Amara is currently Director of the Sport Science Program at the College of Arts and Sciences at Qatar University. He has published on sport, business, culture, politics, and society in the Middle East and North Africa region. His other research interests are sport, multiculturalism, and intercultural dialogue in Europe, including the provision of sport for ethnic minorities, and sport and social inclusion. His recent publications include Sport, Politics and Society in the Arab World (2012); Sport in Islam and in Muslim Communities (2015, ed., with Alberto Testa); and Sport in the African World (2018, ed., with John Nauright).