The conflict with China involving Mesut Ozil, a German-Turkish player for the English soccer team Arsenal, is an instructive story in many ways. Ozil, who never hides his Turkish-Islamic identity, publicly accused the Chinese authorities of genocide against the Uyghurs and Muslim countries of complicity in this crime by remaining silent. The Arsenal management, which is linked to Chinese capital through numerous commercial projects, hastened to distance itself from these statements, but the Chinese authorities did not consider the incident resolved. They not only accused Ozil of misinformation and disinformation, but also subjected him to repression. The footballer’s social media pages are now blocked in China, and his name is being removed from search engines, along with everything related to him.
Of course, we can once again laugh at the absurdity of any communist and generally totalitarian system that is intolerant of even the slightest criticism and panicky about the spread of information about itself among the population under its control. But in reality, this situation must be taken seriously. Who is Ozil, whose words provoke such a reaction from the authorities of the second world power (the first being, of course, the United States)? Well, he’s just a football player. But no, we see that the reaction to the words of «just a football player» overshadows China’s reaction to criticism on this issue even from some countries. And that is understandable.
China is a country that has risen thanks to globalization, offering the world economy the role of a cheap assembly workshop and today linking its success to further penetration into the markets of different countries. And in their desire to be a global player, the Chinese correctly understand the role that so-called «celebrities» or «global celebrities» play in the global society — actors, boxers, football players, racing drivers, and so on. Whether we like it or not, today the influence of a singer with millions of followers or a famous boxer and basketball player can far exceed the influence of a well-known professor who is an expert in a particular field. This certainly doesn’t mean that today everything is decided by «celebrities» rather than intellectuals — it’s not like that at all, but immediate influence on public opinion is more effectively achieved by the former.
Having come to this understanding, the Chinese communists have failed to understand another thing — in the global society of which they want to be a part, such primitive and cave-like reactions as they had to the words of this football player not only do not work, but work in the opposite way, achieving the opposite effect. How would the authorities of the United States, for example, react in a similar situation if Ozil, for example, accused them of human rights violations in Iraq and Syria? Yes, most likely they would simply do nothing — according to the principle of «we live in a free country where everyone enjoys freedom of speech». They might comment on this statement at some briefing.
The Chinese communist dinosaurs, on the other hand, rushed to erase everything related to Ozil, not realizing that millions of Chinese are already beyond their control — both those who live permanently in the diaspora and those who travel and work around the world today and have access to any information. This story shows what we have already written about, based on inside information from China’s ruling circles — this economic and military giant is now ruled by people who are simply afraid of change, not only in the world, but also in their own country, and they react to it in the most absurd ways. This makes modern China similar to modern Russia and some other countries with similar leaders in power, but that’s another story.
The second conclusion that follows directly from this story is that China is indeed vulnerable, not to criticism at the state level, but to criticism from people who have «soft power» in the modern world. Mesut Ozil has shown how such soft power can work for Islam and Muslims.
It would be desirable for this to serve as an example for many famous Muslims who possess this power without even thinking about it. After having achieved it in many cases by forbidden or questionable means from the point of view of Islam, they should think about how they have the opportunity to bring benefit to it, thereby trying to erase their sins and at least earn the gratitude of their fellow believers…