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Egyptian Mohamed Salah prays after scoring a penalty kick during a World Cup match against Russia last Tuesday. (Martin Meissner / AP)
When the final whistle blew out Egypt 's meeting with Russia on Tuesday, the feeling of national deflation was palpable, even as far as here in Tunis, where I had been meeting with a group of Egyptian friends and in love with Egypt to watch the game.
At the time of sending, the atmosphere was rather optimistic. The team's performance in the previous match, against Uruguay, had been honorable, and they lost only at the last minute. Egypt had managed to dominate the game for large parts of the game, but was unable to convert possession into goals.
With the not-so-secret weapon of Egypt, Mohamed Salah – a world-class striker who imposed himself locally, regionally and globally – deployed in the second match, we all hoped his talent for scoring would mark the curse of the Pharaohs that has long tormented the national team at the World Cup and gave us the advantage over Russia.
These hopes were to be deeply disappointed. The Egyptian team was disorganized and messy, with no goal of the match against Uruguay, and Salah was unable to deliver what was so desperately desired by his compatriots, who venerated him as the man who has made dignity, principles and kindness once again, "a sudden affirmation of human values in a dehumanizing system," as Egyptian sociologist Amro Ali explains in this essay.
[Soccer in the U.S. doesn’t need a team in the World Cup. It’s already here to stay.]
Perhaps the weight of expectations of nearly 100 million Egyptians has proved too heavy for his injured shoulder, and his nerves have bowed under pressure in the biggest game of his career. Or Salah may not have been ready to return to the field after the barred judo coup Sergio Ramos was in the habit of bringing down the Egyptian at the Liverpool match with Real Madrid in the final of the Champions League.
When it became clear that the defeat was going to be the lot of Egypt, again, the festive atmosphere of the time became heavy. "I would like there to be something we can be proud of as a nation," remarked one of my Egyptian friends, a little discomfited, after the match ended.
An Egyptian social media sensation known as Ali Saed made the same point, much stronger. In a monologue Facebook (diatribes, in fact) that the weekend had been seen more than 1.8 million times, Saed asks: "As Egyptians, why can not we have a moment of joy? "
"Look at the street around you," he asks the viewers, as he crosses the traffic. "Everyone is upset and upset." He then launches into a tirade, taking to the Egyptian celebrities transported by the state to Russia, the players, the coach.
"You boiled the blood of 100 million Egyptians, one hundred million Egyptians want joy, there is nothing to make us happy in this country," he shouts. . "I hope that a car hits me while I drive and puts me out of my misery."
A traumatized, disappointed, disillusioned nation desperately needs the escape that football can provide. And now that Egypt is about to return from the World Cup – whatever happens in Monday's match against Saudi Arabia, the team can not qualify for the knockout rounds – the 90 minutes of pain relief.
Saed admits in essence that he considers football as the opium of the masses, but that he is more than willing to consume to "help us forget" and "make us happy for a moment." This is a sad testimony of the desperate situation of a situation. is still the escape does not offer the opportunity to escape.
"I do not understand, what is happening in Egypt?" "Everything in Egypt is black," says Saed.
For all the supporters of President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, with the exception of those who are the hardest and most hardened, the situation in Egypt seems really dark and desperate. Not only has Egypt witnessed the most concerted, systematic and brutal crackdown on opposition and dissent in Sissi's memory, but the economy is in tatters, the value of the pound has dropped and inflation is rising. Severe and extreme austerity measures have acted as pain reinforcers for the weakest and most vulnerable in Egypt.
This intolerable cruelty stacks up on a population that has experienced a euphoric period of increased pride and dignity and ephemeral hope for the future, when the Egyptians rose en masse in 2011 and deposed a tyrant, the longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak. At the time, the Egyptians did not need a superhuman hero on the football field, as they were collectively the human heroes of their own heroic story, in which they shaped their destiny.
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Although the army and its various civilian facades have since attempted to embellish the genius of the revolution, this campaign has reached an unprecedented intensity under Sissi, who seems to try not only to punish the Egyptians for having the Daring to dream but also to eradicate the very idea and the hope of self-determination and the democracy of their minds.
The trauma of the revolution and the even greater trauma of the counter-revolution have resulted not only in titanic levels of discouragement, disillusionment and despair, but also in a threatening mental health crisis, all the more unknown and unheard of. diagnosed.
But despite all the regime's efforts to do its best, he is unable to silence dissent and assassinate hope, as shown by the tens of thousands of prisoners of conscience languishing behind bars.
Last week, "Sissi Leave" was fashionable in Arabic on social media, as a result of public anger over austerity measures. With the regime's relentless brutality, its strategy of divide and conquer, and the PTSD suffered by the population, it seems highly unlikely that people, even politicized football fans known as Ultras who have played a crucial role in the revolution, streets to demand the overthrow of the regime … at least not in the foreseeable future.
Instead, frustration and repressed anger will continue to erode the psyche of the Egyptians individually and collectively. In such a depressing climate, it is hardly surprising that Egyptians seek an elusive distraction, escape and mental relief in football – or that a talented, principled and apolitical footballer is raised to the status of quasi-savior.
When the Pharaohs flew home, the buzz that the regime hoped the World Cup would bring to appease the masses would instead be replaced by an even higher level of frustration and anger. But at least superficial and superficial, Sissi, the self-proclaimed savior of Egypt, will no longer need to feel threatened and jealous of Salah's popularity.
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