tennis player

prejudice and attitudes affect radicalization

details of interview

Role of the Interviewed: tennis, professional

Age: 20

Gender: male

Nationality: Turkish

Type of radicalization: verbal violence and ethnic humiliation

Historical period collocation: 2013

Date/Country of the Interview: 28/01/2019, Türkiye

Interviewer:  Hacettepe University

Hacettepe University

Have you witnessed or experienced personal situations of radicalization during your activity in sport organizations? What kind of radicalizations have you detected? (Gender, politics, religion, racism, crime, homophobia…)

player

Yes, I’ve experienced. It is about ethnicity. There are different ethnicities in our country. Each one has its language. Also, each ethnic group speaks Turkish with its specific accent.
Telling your story. What has happened? How has the story started?
In 2012, I attended a tennis tournament in Antalya. There were many tennis players from different cities. There were no problems in the first days. Then some of my teammates laughed at other athletes who spoke with an accent. Worse still, the parents of my teammates also laughed at them, instead of warning their children for their misbehavior.
How did you realize what was going on? What kind of signals could you detect? How do you explain radicalization, referring to your experience?
I saw some of my team mates stare and snicker at other players who speak with an accent. Body languages ​​were disturbing. They also used verbally provocative words.Prejudice and attitudes affect radicalization.
Have you tried to cope with this situation? What was possible to do? What have you done? Have you involved other people/organizations? Who was involved?
Yes, I tried to stop them. I talked to my teammates and told them that their behavior was wrong. My teammates did not behave in the same way again. My words positively affected their behavior. Someone else wasn’t involved. Maybe they didn’t notice the misbehavior of players.
Did you feel you had the skills to manage this kind of situations? Which was the most difficult part of it? Have you had any form of support?
Yes, I felt. I hesitated before talking to my friends. I couldn’t guess whether they would accept their behavior was wrong. I gathered my courage and spoke to them. What I said was useful, and they didn’t act like that again. Actually, I expected to receive support from their parents. I did not receive any support from them.
In my opinion, it is the wrong behavior to be ridiculed by a person’s appearance, speech, and ethnic identity. What bothers me is that parents approve the improper behavior of their children.  They laughed together with their children and condoned their behavior.
End of the story. How did the story end up? What have you learned from this personal experience? What would you say to people who are living similar situations?
My teammates didn’t repeat the same attitude but didn’t apologize either. Peers can influence each other’s behavior positively or negatively. Feel free to warn your friends to any misbehaviors you have witnessed. I want to tell my peers not to be biased.I believe that if we accept people as they are, we can reduce discrimination and radicalization. I warned my friends and got positive results. I want to say that parents should be a positive example to their children and that they should not ignore their wrong behaviors.
Conclusions. Are there other relevant aspects related to (de)radicalization that you want to highlight?
In my opinion, discrimination and radicalization can be prevented if prejudice decreases, and the education level increases.
volley

education against violence and inequality

details of interview

Role of the Interviewed: professional volley player

Age: 36

Gender: female

Nationality: Turkish

Type of radicalization: violence; inequality of opportunity

Historical period collocation: between 90’s and at the beginning of 2000’s

Date/Country of the Interview: 08/12/2018, Turkiye

Interviewer: Hacettepe University

Hacettepe University

Have you witnessed or experienced personal situations of radicalization during your activity in sport organizations? What kind of radicalizations have you detected? (Gender, politics, religion, racism, crime, homophobia…)

player

I was a volleyball player. None of those mentioned above types of radicalization were evident, and it was hard to notice for all of us at that time. Now, when I think of the inequality of opportunity, implicit physical and emotional violence is experienced intensively in those years. In those years, this was normal for us. I was able to describe our experiences only when I started reading about these topics.
Because we were taught that the most important rule of being a professional athlete at the time was submission to everything and working hard. The coach was the biggest and the only power. We had to do what he said. We should’ve bowed down what he did. Otherwise, we believed we could not be athletes.
Telling your story. What has happened? How has the story started?
It’s hard to tell a single example and a specific story. I think it would be more appropriate to define the general situation. Opportunity inequality, emotional and physical violence was a constant situation, and it was very typical for us. The talented and good athletes would play. Others had to wait mostly on the bench.
I was vaguely exposed to emotional violence. Because I was both talented, hard-working and a good player, but what I witnessed is sad. As I have written before, at that time, I was never aware of them, but now that I think of what happened in the past, I realize that it’s really sad. If I have to make a general statement about what happened in those days; I played on four different teams during my sports career, and the situation was the same in all teams.
Inequality of opportunity was experienced as follows; we were really excited to play volleyball when we were little children. However, in the training and matches, only the children who were thought to have the ability were given a chance, the others were not much interested.
In the grassroot level, especially in training, children who were not thought to be talented do not work with other children and almost never participated in the basic drills. They were not given a chance to show themselves. The athletes who were thought to be talented were not played in their favorite positions but were played in positions where they would be successful. For example, I always wanted to be a setter. I was talented. But players who were thought to be better setter than me were trained as a setter. I was trained as a spiker.
Physical violence was experienced as follows; heavy physical punishments were given after poorly played matches or mistakes made. Besides, a hundred pages would be written that we wouldn’t make that mistake again. In the grassroots level, the coach hit the player’s abdomen or forehead. There was no hit for a penalty after the grassroots level, but there were heavy physical penalties.
Emotional violence was experienced as follows; heavy insults, humiliation, ignoring the player. All the athletes who made mistakes were exposed to the above. These kinds of problems were always present, but for the reasons I wrote above, these are not the problems I have experienced so much.
How did you realize what was going on? What kind of signals could you detect? How do you explain radicalization, referring to your experience?
As I mentioned above, I realized what was going on after I started making readings on these issues.
Have you tried to cope with this situation? What was possible to do? What have you done? Have you involved other people/organizations? Who was involved?
Unfortunately, this situation was unnoticeable to us, and it was completely normal. None of this was seen as a problem and is still not recognized. I think that the only way to deal with these problems is to educate the children, their families and the athletes in the sports environment.
Did you feel you had the skills to manage this kind of situations? Which was the most difficult part of it? Have you had any form of support?
As I said, I’ve almost never been exposed to these behaviors. None of us could ‘not get the support
End of the story. How did the story end up? What have you learned from this personal experience? What would you say to people who are living similar situations?
Unfortunately, the story still does not end in the sports environment. People who have similar situations can do nothing about it. Children, families and especially the coaches need to be trained. Everybody has to change their point of view.
Conclusions. Are there other relevant aspects related to (de)radicalization that you want to highlight?
The only thing I can say about this is to understand the importance of education.
swimmer

win also gender discrimination

details of interview

Role of the Interviewed: professional swimmer

Age: 65

Gender: female

Nationality: Turkish

Type of radicalization: gender

Historical period collocation: between 1965 and the first half of the 80’s

Date/Country of the Interview: 04/12/2018, Turkiye

Interviewer: Hacettepe University

Hacettepe University

Have you witnessed or experienced personal situations of radicalization during your activity in sport organizations? What kind of radicalizations have you detected? (Gender, politics, religion, racism, crime, homophobia…)

details of interview

I’m 63 years old now. I started doing sports, in 1965. Especially in those years, I had a lot of experience about gender and inequality of opportunity. I never asked myself why this happens at those times.
Telling your story. What has happened? How has the story started?
I have a brother. He is two years bigger than me. It was a great chance to be a child of an educated family in those years. But, in some issues, priority was given to my brother all the time. I loved sports and cycling. The first bike was bought to my brother. If he allowed me to use, I was using his bike. It was purchased to me when I was in 10th grade because I insisted on too much for a bike. I wanted to go the course to learn how to swim, but my family did not allow me, but my brother attended that course.
My parent let me go to the swimming course one year later. I was seven at the time. When I learned how to swim, I decided to be a professional swimmer. To become a swimmer, my family mostly my dad supported me. On the other hand, our neighbors and relatives didn’t want me to become a swimmer, and also they tried to affect my family especially my mom. At that time some people believe, if a women do the sport, she never has a baby, and she didn’t get married. According to them, the girls didn’t need to go to the other cities with a male coach for the competition. My mom got affected by others and wanted me to quit professional swimming, but my dad was always behind me.
How did you realize what was going on? What kind of signals could you detect? How do you explain radicalization, referring to your experience?
I was participating in the swimming competition. Especially at that time, no other girl was swimming a marathon. At that time swimming competitions were doing in one classification, and there were no other classifications for girls. That’s why I wasn’t part of the top three, and I didn’t get any medals. I wanted to get a medal so hard, and I was working hard for it. At the beginning of the 1980s, in a Swimming Marathon (15 kilometers), I competed against the boys, and I finished the swimming marathon in the first place. A was so happy because I was going to get the gold medal. Finally, my efforts were rewarded. But I was shocked as soon as I heard the announcement at the award ceremony. Even though I finished the race in the first place, I wasn’t in the first place. There were the boys in the top three. According to my own experiences, radicalization is the decision of others to decide whether I deserve anything or not.
Have you tried to cope with this situation? What was possible to do? What have you done? Have you involved other people/organizations? Who was involved?
I asked why didn’t I got the gold medal, and they said that the competition was between boys. This situation explained that I swam for nothing. Even though the competition was the official race which organized by swimming federation. Like everyone, I applied to the competition as a licensed swimmer and my application was accepted. The national newspapers wrote every day that I was wronged and that I could not get the trophy. So 15 days later, the swimming federation announced that I was the winner at that swimming marathon.
Did you feel you had the skills to manage this kind of situations? Which was the most difficult part of it? Have you had any form of support?
For years, I’ve been subjected to similar gender discrimination. I always had to fight to get the things I deserved.
End of the story. How did the story end up? What have you learned from this personal experience? What would you say to people who are living similar situations?
In those years, I never questioned why this happened, and I couldn’t even realize that gender discrimination was made.
female football player

harassment and discrimination in sport

Role of the Interviewed: football player, amateur

Age: 26

Gender: female

Nationality: Turkish

Type of radicalization: gender based violence

Historical period collocation: 2014

Date/Country of the Interview: 28/11/2018, Turkiye

Interviewer: Hacettepe University

Hacettepe University

Have you witnessed or experienced personal situations of radicalization during your activity in sport organizations? What kind of radicalizations have you detected? (Gender, politics, religion, racism, crime, homophobia…)

player

I’m a 26-year-old woman. I played football in various amateur clubs for four years. During the four years I played football, I was aware of how difficult it was to be a woman in football which is a male-dominated sport. At that time, gender-based violence that happened to one of my teammates was very upsetting for all my teammates and me.
Telling your story. What has happened? How has the story started?
In 2014, my friend and I got transferred to the women’s football team of an amateur sports club. In the beginning, everything was going very well. We were training five days a week to prepare for the league games that would start after a while. Although my friend is a very talented football player, she was seated at the bench mostly and almost never played. My friend was talented, and she deserved to play. The player who played in my friend’s position was less talented than my friend, and her contribution to the team was less than that of my friend.
My friend went to our coach’s office to talk about this. She was angry and upset when she came out of the coach’s room. When I asked her what had happened, she started to cry and told me what had happened. She asked the coach why she didn’t play. Coach went through various excuses. Then, the trainer had harassed my friend and said that if she wanted to play, she had to keep quiet. My friend had shouted at the coach and left the room. All players of the team were deeply upset to see that a woman who was so talented and passionate about football had moved away from her ideals. As a team, we all told the club managers that we didn’t want that coach. Then, the coach was fired. But my friend did not play football again because of the trauma.
How did you realize what was going on? What kind of signals could you detect? How do you explain radicalization, referring to your experience?
When my friend went out of the coach’s office, I realized that there was a problem. I thought it was discrimination that the coach put a talented athlete on the bench. I never thought this could result in harassment. There had probably been other athletes exposed to abuse. Perhaps some players may have remained silent, and some may have had to quit football.
Have you tried to cope with this situation? What was possible to do? What have you done? Have you involved other people/organizations? Who was involved?
I was really angry when my friend told me that the coach was harassing her. This behavior was unacceptable. She shared this incidence with our teammates and, we were all united and reacted to the coach. As I mentioned above, as a team, we all told the club managers that we didn’t want that coach. Club managers indicated that this behavior could not be accepted. Then, the coach was fired.
Did you feel you had the skills to manage this kind of situations? Which was the most difficult part of it? Have you had any form of support?
As a woman, I have already experienced the difficulties of doing a male-dominated sport. This ugly incident deeply upset all of us. Instead of giving up the work we love, it was a better way to try to remove those who misbehaved. The coach was fired because of the prudence of managers.
End of the story. How did the story end up? What have you learned from this personal experience? What would you say to people who are living similar situations?
My friend quit her football career, which she loved and succeeded very much. But, she did not stay silent about this incident, and she attracted the attention all of us. We’ve all seen once again how hard it is to be a woman. We chose not to be silent. We moved together, and we did it. I suggest that women who are exposed to similar situations should not remain silent.
volley players

focus on sport to exclude the violence

details of interview

Role of the Interviewed: volleyball player, professional

Age: 21

Gender: female

Nationality: Turkish

Type of radicalization: violence (psychological)

Historical period collocation: 2015

Date/Country of the Interview: 11/12/2018, Türkiye

Interviewer:  Hacettepe University

Hacettepe University

Have you witnessed or experienced personal situations of radicalization during your activity in sport organizations? What kind of radicalizations have you detected? (Gender, politics, religion, racism, crime, homophobia…)

player

I’m a 21-year-old female volleyball player. I want to talk about the bad moments we had in the volleyball match. We had a match with the women’s volleyball team of one of the most famous clubs in our city. This club had many fanatic fans. When they went to a football match, there was a fight. These fanatic fans, mostly men, have likewise tried to make trouble in our match. However, they failed. Our team ignored them and focused on the game and won the match. The words they told us during the match were always swearing and degrading words.
Telling your story. What has happened? How has the story started?
We had the match with the team we mentioned above. We predicted rival fans would fight. We know this fans fought and said bad words to the other teams in other games. At the beginning of this match, rival fans only support their teams. They encouraged and supported their team by playing drums and singing the songs. When we won the first two sets, they started to tell us bad words from the beginning of the third set. They cursed us and shouted. They tried to mislead the referee. We ignored their bad words and concentrated on our game and managed to win the match.
How did you realize what was going on? What kind of signals could you detect? How do you explain radicalization, referring to your experience?
They came to the there with the drums before the match, and they were quite crowded. All of this was a sign for us. The other matches had done before also gave us an idea about the fans.
Have you tried to cope with this situation? What was possible to do? What have you done? Have you involved other people/organizations? Who was involved?
As a team, we tried to deal with this situation. Meetings before the match, the support of our coach during the match, our focus on winning the match prevented us from being adversely affected.
I think that the number of police and security guards can be increased in the matches which have high risk. The referee can stop the match or alert the fans through the captain. However, none of this was done in our match.
Did you feel you had the skills to manage this kind of situations? Which was the most difficult part of it? Have you had any form of support?
Yes, I felt. I played many times against the crowd. The only bad thing here was the bad words that were told to us. I tried not to hear these bad words by focusing on the match and the task in the match.
End of the story. How did the story end up? What have you learned from this personal experience? What would you say to people who are living similar situations?
We won the game. After the match, the opponents continued to say bad words to us. When we didn’t react to them, they blew out the stands and went out. This experience taught me that when you focus on what you’re going to do, nothing else can affect you. I suggest that people who live in the same situation as me will ignore that audiences think that they play in an empty field and focus on their duties.
Conclusions. Are there other relevant aspects related to (de)radicalization that you want to highlight? Please, write here other information and comments you think could be useful to understand the relation between (de)radicalization and sport
Violence, discrimination, and intolerance should not have a place in our lives as they should be in our lives. Sports should not include them. On the contrary, sport supports social inclusion.