Team sport that is organised on national lines has tremendous emotional hold over the public because it reifies the masses? yen to go one up on others. Victory or defeat for the national team is especially stunning to the senses as it can take whole societies to the peaks of ecstasy or to the depths of agony.
So much is at stake in crucial international sports clashes with archrivals that the outcomes can spark a new wave of happy self-confidence or of mourning to haunt the national consciousness for generations. On November 18, one such mega contest took place in Sudan between Algeria and Egypt. The winner was to qualify for the first ever football World Cup to be hosted by an African country, in 2010. The loser would go home crestfallen.
Tensions built up before the match due to an earlier face-off between the two sides on November 14, before which the Algerian team bus was waylaid in Cairo by fanatic Egyptian fans who hurled huge rocks to smash windows and injure three visiting players. It was apparently a crude intervention to give the home team an advantage. Egypt won that game to stay in the hunt for a World Cup berth, but news of the pre-match ugliness unleashed anti-Egyptian rioting in Algeria.
A heady dose of propaganda mixing historical animosities with facts in the hyperbolic media outlets of both countries ensured that the crunch game on the 18th was awaited as if it was war on the 100 yards of green. Algeria turned the tables this time and scraped through 1-0, but the fireworks erupted outside the stadium with irate Egyptian fans going on the rampage, injuring 32 policemen.
The following day in Cairo, defeat tasted so bitter that an Egyptian mob besieged the Algerian embassy and injured 35 persons in a thick urban battle. The Egyptian state fanned the violence by recalling its ambassador from Algeria.
The exacerbating factor was that both countries are ruled by despotic regimes that use sport as a diversion from manifold national ills. Dictatorships rely on pseudo-patriotism to direct national angst at foreign scapegoats. So extreme were the reactions of both the Egyptian and Algerian governments to what should have been a mere sporting encounter that the Arab League had to step in to appoint Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi to defuse the orchestrated mayhem on the streets.
That the ?beautiful game? of football can morph into a fireball to consume lives and property is a sad commentary on the dangers inherent in the deadly cocktail of state politics, mass hysteria and irresponsible media. Though not as devastating as the Egypt-Algeria tussle, there have been other war-like football games in the past where extraneous noise off the pitch dominated proceedings. Memorable matches like the Iran-US World Cup qualifying bout in 1998 and the needling between Argentina and England every time they square up against each other are the stuff of legends because of the political edges that get transposed onto the sport.
If popular passions whipped up by jingoism and political disputes find a release in international football, there is a side to team sport that is heart-warming. Recently, Brazilian President Lula da Silva proposed a unique ?football for peace? formula as his entr?e into Middle East conflict resolution. Lula talked to counterparts from Tel Aviv and Ramallah about his ?dream for the past three years? to arrange a match between the demigod-like Brazilian national team and a joint Israel-Palestinian team. He put forward Brazil?s most admired skill?football?as an opening to expand the country?s soft power on the world stage.
History is full of examples of creative diplomacy that harnessed mass-captivating and crowd-entrancing sports to heal political rifts or restructure alliances. Communist China and the US thawed a long freeze through ?ping pong diplomacy? in 1971, when the American table tennis team was prodded into a surprise visit to play some games in Beijing. Time magazine?s cover on that epic event carried a brilliant pun-laden caption??China: A Whole New Game?.
In 1987, with Pakistani and Indian troops standing eye to eye in a build-up across the border that could have slipped into war, Pakistani President General Zia-ul-Haq flew to Jaipur ostensibly to watch a cricket match between the two traditional foes. He struck agreements with Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi on that visit and helped douse a powder keg that was reaching explosive proportions. In 2005, General Pervez Musharraf embarked on less eventful ?cricket diplomacy II? through a ?stadium chat? with Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of a bilateral cricket match in Delhi to seal deals on trade and railway links.
The choice of sporting events to craft path-breaking diplomacy is rational in modern media-saturated times because of the audience multiplier effect. Few lay persons would care to follow an important address or press conference on foreign policy, but entire nations are glued to television and radio sets when their sports teams are battling it out.
By virtue of its manic hold on popular minds, sport can be used by political elites either as a catalyst for international cooperation or as a pretext for sowing hatred. The choice is in the hands of state leaders rather than ordinary fans driven by raw feelings that can be contained through firm enforcement of law and order. If policymakers wanted, football could actually be a cement to bind Egypt and Algeria. President Lula can tell us how.
The author is associate professor of world politics at the OP Jindal Global University