Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 07:20:28 05/20/04
Go up one level in this thread
On May 20, 2004 at 07:18:40, Amir Ban wrote: >On May 19, 2004 at 15:55:04, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On May 19, 2004 at 14:31:41, Omid David Tabibi wrote: >> >>>On May 19, 2004 at 13:29:38, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>> >>>>On May 19, 2004 at 06:14:12, Omid David Tabibi wrote: >>>> >>>>>On May 19, 2004 at 06:07:45, Bryan Hofmann wrote: >>>>> >>>>>>On May 19, 2004 at 05:33:50, Richard Pijl wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>>On May 19, 2004 at 05:05:54, Jouni Uski wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>>Number 1 favourite is missing, why? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>Jouni >>>>>>> >>>>>>>Hydra is officially from the UAE. As I understood the sponsors do not allow >>>>>>>Hydra to participate in an event in Israel. >>>>>>>Richard. >>>>>> >>>>>>Someone please tell me that this is a rumor or missunderstanding. They banned a >>>>>>chess engine from participation due to the country of its creator? >>>>> >>>>>Exactly the opposite. We (organizers) told the Hydra team that they are welcomed >>>>>to play in Israel under the UAE flag. But apparently their sponsors decided that >>>>>they don't want to play in Israel. >>>>> >>>>>Last time an engine was banned from participation due to the country of its >>>>>creator was in Jakarta WMCCC 1996. The Junior team was not allowed to play there >>>>>because Junior is an Israeli program. >>>> >>>>I was under the impression that was not exactly the truth, the whold truth and >>>>nothing but the truth. In fact, Junior was expected there. I received a phone >>>>call in the wee hours of the morning from Bruce Moreland, asking me to help him >>>>contact Amir since they had not shown up. >>>> >>>>I believe this was a case of "they didn't feel welcome and chose not to attend >>>>for that reason." IE I can't really fault someone for not wanting to fly a UAE >>>>flag in the middle of Israel either. >>>> >>>>So, IMHO it was more a matter of they didn't participate for many good reasons, >>>>but I don't think they were _prevented_ from participating... >>> >>>Based on what I have read and heard, it was made clear to them that they cannot >>>play under the Israeli flag in Jakarta. In other words, they were prevented from >>>participation. Of course Amir or Shay can correct me if I'm wrong. >> >>Probably was (a) a sane decision to not fly an Israeli flag there and (b) a >>reasonable decision for them not to attend if they could not. As I said, a bit >>of both... >> > >The story was completely different. > >The problem was not a flag but a visa, and the culprits were not the Indonesian >government but the Indonesian WMCCC organizers. > >When reading the below you need to understand that it became clear to us >gradually, since throughout the period neither the organizers nor the ICCA were >talking to us. > >To get to Jakarta we needed a visa, and as I understood later, that needed an >invitation by the WMCCC organizers. An official in our foreign ministry >explained to us that there is no problem in going to Indonesia, and reeled off a >list of Israeli academics, businessmen and others who were recently in >Indonesia. However, to get a visa you need an invitation from a local >organization, and that we didn't have. I wrote to the Indonesian university >organizers asking an invitation, and did not get a reply. An email to the ICCA >to expedite things also produced nothing. > >Our foreign ministry advisor was not suprised to hear that a university is >involved. He explained to us that in Muslim countries the intellectual elite are >often the most hostile. They didn't want us there, and that's the story. > >The ICCA woke up very late, and then were concerned mainly with absolving >themselves from blame. They handed us a statement draft by us stating that >everything was fine and no one's at fault. We refused to sign. > >We were offered a last-minute option of playing remote, which we didn't reject >outright, but after considering the lunacy of playing for a week in the small >hours of the night, the fact that we didn't know anything about the connection, >and have never talked to the organizers, we declined. > >The upside was that it made Paris 1977 more sweet. > >Amir Note that I happen to agree with your decision. This was really just a discussion about the meaning of the word "banned" as opposed to the word "hindered". I would not play under such circumstances either. But rather than saying "I was banned from playing" I would say "I chose not to go because the organizers made it highly unattractive for me to attend." Note that I didn't say that _you_ said you were banned either. That was Omid's term and I was trying to point out to him that words have precise meanings in most cases, and "banned" was the wrong word.
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