Across the country, emotions are uncommonly high and Egyptians everywhere are raising our national flag. Public and private media outlets are discussing Saturday’s match and Wednesday’s upcoming confrontation, and are praising the great spirit of the vast population that could be mobilized like they were never before in recent decades.
Every time I open a newspaper, I find most of the pages overwhelmingly allocated to the new rivalry between Egypt and Algeria at different levels, including governmental and diplomatic levels (Today, the Egyptian foreign ministry summoned the Algerian ambassador to express concerns over Algerians’ violence against Egyptians.)
And every time I open an Egyptian satellite TV channel, I find a flood of nationalist songs played to raise morale. Songs about the Pharaohs’ victories and how we all love Egypt so much, and so on and so forth.
Some of these songs are old, sung by legendary singers who died decades ago. The same songs were played on government-owned TV and radio during Nasser’s reign, in order to mobilize the masses during wars with Israel. Nationalistic passions were greatly motivated in a way that may resemble the craziness that has swept the country over the past few days.
Nasser’s policies were highly controversial. Till this day, Egyptians, as well as international observers, disagree over whether his major nationalization program, the wars he took the countries to, his pan-Arabism, and his dissidence against the West benefited Egypt or are responsible for the economic, social, and cultural hardships that the country still suffers from.
“But in the end, he was a real man.” This is the statement made by many of those against his doctrine.
Having introduced Television in Egypt for the first time in 1960, Nasser did use the media in his policies’ favor, spreading propaganda to win the masses’ support. But at least, the slogans he championed – whether sincerely or for ulterior motives and whether he was right or not – were freedom, independence, dignity, equality, justice, and unity with fellow Arabs and Muslims – whereas in today’s case, Egyptian media are celebrating shallow glory and mobilizing the people against Algeria, as if it were not Algerians’ right to seek to go to the World Cup too, or as if the Cup was the end of the world. Apparently, Egyptians have suddenly forgotten the 43 % of the population living under $2 a day as per UN statistics – or the 21% poverty rate as per official Egyptian statistics–; the 1000 fellow Egyptians who sunk in the red sea due to negligence, corruption, and cronyism; that millions wait in lines for hours everyday to get – or fail to get – subsidized bread; and most recently, the 18 innocents killed in a train crash that came in a series of deadly train accidents.
Ironically, while the official Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics recently revealed that 39.9 percent of Egyptians spend less than 200 Egyptian pounds a year, the Egyptian Football Union announced that each player in the national team will get 2 million Egyptian pounds if they win Algeria and qualify the team to the World Cup. Other entities, like a communication company, for example, promised to pay them more millions.
President Hosni Mubarak, who was absent from the sunken ferry’s scene and also failed to visit the victims of the train crash, made encouraging visits to the national football team and is frequently expressing his full support to their efforts.
His sons, Alaa and Gamal, appeared among the fans in the stadium during Saturday’s match. Suddenly all Egyptians are united on a great “nationalistic cause” as government and NDP officials and media outlets have described it. The regime, which has been criticized for its isolation and alienation from the sufferings and voices of the marginalized majority, has managed to appear united with the people for a “unified Egyptian cause.”
I lately heard an Egyptian war veteran speaking on the radio, with great enthusiasm, about the Algeria-Egypt soccer rivalry, equating it to the war he fought to liberate Egyptian land from Israeli occupation in 1973.
At that point, I longed for the good old days when people were mobilized and united for a cause that was, regardless of anything, more important than the Football World Cup. I wish I lived in Nasser’s Egypt, where Egyptians, and all Arabs, felt real dignity and pride.
* Sara Khorshid is an internationally published Egyptian journalist who has covered the politics, culture, and society of Egypt and the Muslim world for the seven years. She can be reached at sarakhorshid (at)gmail.com.
This article is written for Al Arabiya. |
