The reason for this post is that I was talking to a friend about the game today ( Egypt - Algeria, in Cairo) just minutes after it ended, and I realized how strongly I felt about it and that it was not just about the game.
More than any other then-member state of the European Confederation, Algerians suffered immensely from the colonisation of the french. Terrorism took the lives of 1.5 million Algerians between the years of 1954 and 1962, and economic collapse forced a second mass migration to Europe; there are now half as many Algerians living outside of Algeria as inside Algeria.
Despite this immense depopulation, Algeria has managed to recover and has as people say, risen from the ashes.
Sufferance is something that you can see in the Algerians faces, hear in their voices and feel in their music but what you also can see, hear and feel is the pride that the people have in being Algerian. That is a fact that cannot be denied and It is said that you can never break an Algerians pride, sometimes it is taken a bit to far, sure pride in my opinion can often be very charming and a beautiful thing but, I must also say that pride is something that has slowed our people down in terms of unity. Pride has taken over our minds and it made us forget that we are one people, folks now started to focus on from what city, ''7ouma'' (ends) or even what ''kind'' of Algerians they were, Arabs?, berbs?, instead of focusing on unity.
A physical metaphor I see compared to this is how the Algerians have played football over the years, they've played as if they were careless and self centered instead of playing like a team and using the recipe for success from the desert warriors of 82'.
16 June 1982, was a great moment for the whole African game, in front of 25,000 fans at the El Molinon stadium in Gijon, Algeria's Desert Warriors turned football on its head, defeating West Germany 2-1. It was a win that was not in the tournament's script. This came as a chock to the world, letting it know that African football was not to be undermined.
Going back to the reason for this post is that I have noticed, especially lately considering how well it has gone for the national team in trying to qualify to the world cup is the whole new feeling of sister- and brother hood amongst Algerians and Maghreb in general (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco) a fresh air of positivity. We as a people have not been given many good news for a long time, and the players which represent us have now put their own personal pride aside and focused on the pride of their shirts, and the pride in representing the country they so love and cherish, they've realized that they are playing for their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, cousins, neighbors, the man in the local corner shop, the immigrant in Europe trying to get papers, the journalist wanting to broadcast something positive, the Algerian girl, who's born in Sweden with one dream, to represent her people in the best way she can, they are playing to teach us what unity is, what it feels like, what it looks like what it is about.
So despite the loss today, we know as a people that we have accomplished a lot, and that we can accomplish more if we just believe in each other and ''fi rabbna wa ta3ala''.
What the Egyptians did to our team the night before the match will not be forgotten but we will not waste energy on hate instead turn that energy on showing our ambassadors that we are behind them. We can still get through and we can still win!
Inshallah mondial 2010
