Arabs are desperate for any victory

I wouldn't blame Arabs for seeking any kind of victory, even if it were against pillows or bathroom towels. As a matter of fact, most Arabs live in a state of defeat and despair — politically, socially, culturally and economically.

Arabs, for example, feel completely defeated and downtrodden by some of their rulers. They can hardly express their pains or, for that matter, the numerous injustices visited upon them by their ruling regimes, let alone fight for their rights, or toil to achieve them. Hardly a week passes without hearing or reading that this or that regime incarcerated several political activists or opposition figures for the silliest reasons.

Some regimes go even further, punishing with prison terms any writer or intellectual who dares criticise another Arab regime, unless he or she was ordered to do so by the ruling regime itself. Recently, an Arab cleric was imprisoned for verbally attacking an Arab official on an Arab satellite TV channel. And if the accusation seems unconvincing to the public, some Arab regimes concoct accusations to make their cases plausible. Funnily enough, it can be regarded as a crime against national security in some Arab countries to appear on television without getting the necessary approval.

In the meantime, the ruling regimes, together with their security apparatuses, are becoming more iron-fisted and authoritarian, which reminds one of the atmosphere depicted by the great English novelist George Orwell in his memorable novel entitled 1984.

Easy victories

One could safely say then that some Arab regimes have achieved and are still achieving "great victories" over their peoples. It is also true that some "valiant" Arab armies are triumphing marvelously over local factions that dare to challenge the ruling regimes. But when it comes to facing the real enemies that are threatening our countries, the same internally feared regimes can only bury their heads in the sand — the ostrich way of avoiding challenging Israel.

They do not face our arch foes except with the olive branch represented by the so-called "Arab Peace Initiative", which has been scornfully received by Tel Aviv.

And so, just as the Arab people feel put down by some of their rulers, the latter, in their turn, feel overcome and outshone, not only by the powerful, such as Israel and the US, but also by some of their African counterparts. Although impoverished, most of the African leaders dared some years ago to challenge the political and economic embargo imposed on Libya by landing their aircraft in Tripoli, while all Arab countries fully applied the embargo.

And when it comes to competing with similar societies, such as Iran, technologically, Arab countries are routinely disappointed. While the Iranians, for instance, surprise the world almost periodically with new, lethal, advanced homemade weaponry, most Arab countries are still importing even rudimentary articles such as threads and needles from China. They even import popular foods, such as falafel, from abroad.

Sadly, the Arab world, as I have said in an earlier article, is slipping swiftly from the Third World to the ‘Fourth World'. It can hardly compete with other nations. And when it comes to corruption, no other country can compete with us Arabs, as we always take advanced ranks in the Corruption Perception Index.

Having said that, it is no wonder then that the Arab masses, together with some of their leaders, create a hullaballoo for the sake of a football match. They are desperate to win anything. Why? Because they feel defeated in almost all walks of life.

Isn't the recent football farce a thermometer that accurately reflected the state of frustration that the Arab nation is in? Don't the events that were stirred by the match between Egypt and Algeria show how badly our people are oppressed, and how ready they are to explode for the silliest of reasons? Wasn't it some kind of catharsis that relieved us of our chronic defeat and frustration for a while? Isn't it very funny that winning a football match has become, in our world, a national battle? Why have we forgotten all our defeats internally and externally, and madly celebrated an ephemeral victory?

Were we mentally and psychologically sound, we would have struggled to achieve something more lasting and worthy, rather than raising hell to win a football match.

Wouldn't it be better to learn from great nations that turned defeat into real victory, as did the Japanese and the Germans after the Second World War, instead of struggling for an illusory, short-lived euphoria?

 Dr Faisal Al Qasim is a Syrian journalist based in Doha.