Darwin Sabouri is a patient teacher and researcher in the field of sociology, with a PhD in sociology of sports. He is one of the active individuals in the media regarding sports and sociology of this aspect of society in Iran. He is a founding member of the Society of Society, Culture, and Sports, as well as a member of the Council of Writers of the Society of Anthropology and Culture. In this issue of Khat-e-Solh, we spoke with him about the sociological nature of sports in Iran and the roots of the increasing migration of Iranian athletes abroad, the text of which follows below.

How do you see the role of sports, especially professional sports, in society? In fact, by examining the various dimensions of sports in a society, what characteristics can be achieved?

There is a common law in social sciences, which means that sociologically we can assure you that the main institutions of a society are on a parallel line. Imagine a hypothetical line, which is a horizontal line and the social institutions are placed on it. We have five main institutions in society, which sociologists believe are the fundamental institutions functioning in all societies; family, education, economy, religion, and politics. These five institutions are the main institutions. Among them, we have institutions like sports, media, and leisure, which are subsidiary institutions. This law is such that when you study a society, you cannot conclude that in a society the economic institution has collapsed but the family institution is strong, or the family institution is strong but education has collapsed. Education may have collapsed but the economic institution is strong. Sports may be strong but the education institution is weak. In other words, all these institutions are aligned. The most important historical example I can give you is the top six teams in the Rio

In your opinion, what should be the level of involvement and role of politics or, in other words, the pillars of power in the field of sports?

As a sociologist, I must see the structures, so allow me to discuss institutionally. Social institutions must have certain conditions in order to stand. Let me explain to your audience, when we say social institution, we mean the systems and mechanisms of order and cooperation. This is the simplest definition of a social institution. It cultivates the systems and mechanisms of order and cooperation within itself. These social institutions must be self-regulating, able to establish, expand, and update their own laws. In other words, they must have an internal life that allows them to constantly develop this order and cooperation. But what happens? What happens is that we have disrupted this self-regulation in social institutions. This is also a historical approach. In other words, the 1979 Revolution in Iran was the triumph of the institution of religion over the politics and constitution of the country.

Initially, the institution of religion takes over the institution of politics, and after taking over the institution of politics, it goes after

Do you see sports as a tool in the hands of politics in Iran today?

In other words, our religious theorists believed that when they gained power, they thought that now that we could take control of political institutions, we could also conquer other institutions and if we did, it meant that we had made Islam dominant in all current conditions. That’s why you see, for example, in Iranian sports, they hold conferences based on Islamic ethics in sports! These approaches do not exist in any other Arab country. We do not have something called Islamic sports, but they insist so much that what you ultimately see is neither sports nor Islam. It’s like an imperfect being has emerged that you cannot even analyze. We do not see anywhere in the world where they hold conferences under the name of sports with Christian ethics, or sports with Buddhist ethics. Because sports is a modern matter, but since we constantly want to link modernity with indigenous matters and call it indigenization. We are throwing modernity out of its functions and then we see how problematic it is. Before we understand that

Following the increase in the number of top Iranian athletes who have immigrated or sought refuge in other countries, the Minister of Sports and Youth claimed some time ago that they have migrated due to personal problems with the federation or coaches. In your opinion, is this claim true? If you have any explanation about this, please share.

If we make personal problems so difficult that we say personal problems are caused by a series of wrong social policies, we can empathize with them, but I am sure that the honorable minister does not mean that. In fact, they are looking to absolve themselves of their inadequate and ineffective management. What causes the migration of athletes is, if you pay attention, the role of female athletes is very prominent in this part, meaning the same thing that happened in our chess federation and as happened in personal migration, like Kimia Alizadeh. What is important is that women in Iranian sports are car athletes, meaning Iran has the potential geographically and morally to finally have some fragrant flowers and cars when they rise and win medals, they are actually indirectly questioning the dominant discourse in Islamic society. That is why someone like Alm Alhadi says that we do not want a girl to put her long legs forward and win a medal for us, in other words, a female athlete, a

Given the experience of several years of implementing ideological policies by the government, can we hope that in response to the danger facing our country’s sports, we will see the adoption of different and up-to-date policies and programs to prevent this wave of emigration?

This question of what to do so that we no longer witness this phenomenon, I think it goes back to a revolution in our perspectives, towards society and social institutions. That means if our sports institution is supposed to withdraw from its political games, withdraw from its institutional activities, it cannot only do this in sports and it must also be done in other institutions, because as I said, these are institutional coordinates. Education cannot be completely ideological, but you say let go of sports. Ideology never does this. Because ideology is like a scent, a fragrance that you spread and it spreads throughout the space, you cannot say do not go to this room or do not enter this area. The only way to save this is to let go of the ideological view of the world. The political institution in Iran must make the decision to let each of these institutions legislate through themselves, and when we see that our sports have been able to survive, it is because of the pressure from international institutions. If it

Thank you for the time you have dedicated to the peace process.