Egypt and Algeria have never been the best or closest of friends. When their paths have crossed, most notably in the heyday of Arab nationalism and non-alignment, it was as rivals rather than collaborators, though post-revolutionary Egypt did support the Algerian struggle for independence and Algeria sent token contingents to help Egypt in its wars with Israel. For the young Egyptian and Algerian soccer fans that were out on the streets waving their national flags on and off for a week in mid-November, and sometimes attacking each other with sticks and stones, all that is ancient history. What mattered to them were the insults to pride that filled the airwaves and the Internet across North Africa before, during and after the two fiercely contested soccer matches for a slot in the World Cup tournament, to be held in South Africa in 2010.
Alaa Mubarak, the son of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, said the Algerians who turned up in the Sudanese capital Khartoum for the decisive match on November 18 were “mercenary terrorists” and “thugs and bums” armed with knives and other weapons. The Algerian government had sent them on military planes to intimidate the Egyptian supporters, he added.
Egyptians called up Cairo radio stations to complain that Algerian fans had arrived two days early, plastered Khartoum with Algerian flags, hired Sudanese to pose as Algerian supporters and then attacked the Egyptians when they came out of the stadium. The number of injured was somewhere between 20 and 200, depending on who was counting.
Algerians, naturally enough, dismissed the Egyptian complaints as sour grapes (Algeria won 1-0 in Khartoum, eliminating Egypt) and noted correctly that Egyptian fans started the violence when they attacked the Algerian team’s bus on arrival in Cairo for the first match. Nonetheless, a frenzy of chauvinism swept the Egyptian government off its feet and by the week’s end it had recalled its ambassador from Algiers for consultations on the Algerian government’s failure to restrain Algerian supporters and protect Egyptian businesses from vandals.
After a string of setbacks on the international stage, the Egyptian government was especially anxious for a football victory. It is still smarting from its disastrous attempt to persuade the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) to hold the 2010 World Cup championship in Egypt rather than South Africa.
The government and the independent Egyptian media had in fact set themselves up for disappointment by giving the impression of Egyptian invincibility. On the eve of the first match, Dream TV staged what a casual viewer might easily have mistaken for a victory celebration.
In a pattern that has become common in the Arab world’s fledgling dynastic “republics,” Mubarak’s younger son Gamal, widely seen as the most likely successor to the 81 year old president, has shown himself to be a prominent football fan, appearing in the Khartoum stadium wearing the colors of the national team.
Commentators on both sides of the North African divide speculate that he is hoping to win street credibility with some soccer mojo.
“The regime would have used [a victory] as a weird validation of Gamal Mubarak,” wrote political analyst and blogger As’ad Abukhalil. “Gamal Mubarak…went to Sudan to attend the match and presumably to reap the rewards of victory that never came.”
Promoting sports as an alternative to serious politics and as an outlet for youthful exuberance is hardly a novel strategy, and it did not escape notice that the crowds protesting with impunity outside the Algerian embassy in Cairo this week were larger than those at any of the recent opposition rallies, some of which were met with batons and tear gas.
Happily, adult voices have not been silent in this sorry affair. Some Egyptian radio commentators have responded to complaints about Algerian fans by saying some of their conduct seemed fair game, and some editorialists have deplored the chauvinist excesses on both sides.
Zehira Houfani, writing in Le Quotidien d’Algérie, noted that “a storm of delirium over a mere football match” had swept Egypt and Algeria.
“The excesses of the acts committed, on one side and the other, and the escalation of hateful remarks by certain parties and opinion leaders are beyond all comprehension and border on irresponsibility,” she wrote. The independent Egyptian daily Al Masry Al Youm irreverently noted that Egypt and Algeria were at least even in Transparency International’s annual index of corruption, placed 111th out of the 180 countries and territories listed.
Egyptian businesses, especially those dominated by the Sawiris family, also have reason to counsel prudence. Sawiris’s Orascom Telecom, which owns the Algerian mobile phone operator Djezzy, suffered a double whammy. It had its offices in Algiers ransacked, with damage worth $5 million, and then the Algerian tax authorities told the company they wanted $596.6 million in outstanding taxes and penalties.
Jonathan Wright is the managing editor of Arab Media and Society
