So, Moammar Qaddafi is stepping into the Egyptian-Algerian feud. We don t know what he plans to do but we do know that bringing Egypt and Algeria back together again will be about as difficult as memorizing the Libyan leader s honorific title: Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.
Qaddafi has his work cut out for him. The Algerians say they will not apologize. Apologize for what, they ask? Beating Egypt? Going to the World Cup? Beating up some Egyptians who required nothing more than mercurochrome and two aspirins?
Qaddafi will have a much harder time getting Egypt to shake hands. We re angry because we did not make it to the World Cup. We re angry that Algeria, which could not even qualify for the 2006 or 2008 Africa Cup of Nations, the very championships that we won, turned it around after just a year, so much so that they, not us, are going to the World Cup.
We re angry that even though we had the momentum after beating Algeria in Cairo, had injured and yellow carded players returning for the game in Sudan, and they had injured and yellow carded players unable to play, we still lost.
We re angry that even though we picked Sudan as the venue where the deciding qualifier would be played, Al-Merrikh Stadium in Omdurman looked more like Stade de 5 Juillet 1962 in Algiers, with more Algerian than Egyptian supporters and what looked like just as many Sudanese cheering for Algeria as Egypt.
We re angry that the referee gave us not one break even though the Algerians were intent on breaking us.
We re angry because there will be no replay, although we should have known that the minute the game ended. The game was played in its entirety, all the players on the field were safe, the referee and linesmen safe and the people in the stadium, safe. What happens after the game, outside the stadium, is not FIFA s business. Those responsible are the security authorities of the host country.
We re angry that even though we were attacked by knife-wielding Algerians after the game, very few people outside of Egypt believe us, including the Sudanese authorities who insist only three or four Egyptians were hurt, all minor injuries.
We re angry that FIFA is investigating, not the incidents in Sudan, but the stone-throwing of the Algerian bus in Cairo which allegedly injured three Algerian players.
We re angry that not a single video or still picture of the post-game Algerian attack in Sudan was shot. We didn t send war correspondents to Sudan but 9,000 Egyptians in the stadium that night, all with mobile cameras, Egyptian TV crews with their cameras rolling, yet nobody took anything?
We re angry because Algerian youths ransacked Egyptian businesses in Algeria, and forced scores of Egyptians to return to Egypt fearing for their safety.
And we re really angry not just because we got beaten up after the game in Sudan but that the slap on the face came from an Arab hand. What was mostly wounded was Egyptian pride. Egypt considers itself the motherland of the Arab world, now humiliated by one of its children. Had the attacking mob been from the Comoros Islands, it would not have produced a fraction of the brouhaha. But an Arab country, doing this to Big Brother, broke the Egyptian camel s back.
We re not angry with our media but should be because they insisted we would be going to the World Cup before the qualifiers even got underway. When we lost, the media had to find a cover-up and did, in the attack in Sudan. Not in a million years could our media have found a better escape route.
We re angry with Algerian newspapers for erroneously reporting that Algerians had been murdered in the streets of Cairo.
We should also be angry with our TV which said, Algeria is not a country of One Million Martyrs but One Million Bastards.
We re not angry with repeating the mantra Thank God we lost else we would have been killed. How does anybody know what would have happened had we won except that we, not Algeria, would have gone to the World Cup? The song is a big copout, again to cover up for our loss. Egypt did not go to Sudan to lose but to win. We ve heard of teams being scared to lose. Never heard of one being scared to win.
We re not angry because we say we have found something better than a World Cup appearance: a reason to rally around the flag. But does being patriotic mean teet, teet, teet – hitting the car horn and wildly waving the Egyptian flag? Can any Egyptian say with a straight face that this so-called newly-found national unity has stopped us from lying to one another, cheating and stealing? Have we really started being nice to one other?
We have sent to FIFA a detailed report explaining the events in Sudan. The report does not seek a replay but seeks to ensure that Algeria will be financially punished for the attack in Sudan, because for sure, FIFA will financially punish Egypt for the stoning of the Algerian bus.
If FIFA punishes Egypt and not Algeria, 80 million Egyptians will drop dead.
How will Col Qaddafi deal with that?
