Egypt and Algeria must push for calm

One cannot fathom all the upheaval that followed Wednesday's football World Cup qualifier between Egypt and Algeria. A majority of Arabs are ashamed of what has taken place on and off the pitch — players' violence, hooliganism and finally a diplomatic crisis. Egypt has withdrawn its ambassador from Algiers and many expect Algeria would just do the same.

What happened in Sudan, where the qualifier was played, is not really the reason behind the commotion that followed. It is a symptom of decades of narrow nation policies, implemented by individual Arab states that dwarfed the pan-Arab mindset, engrained in most Arabs from birth. Even the compromised concept of ‘one people, different states' has increasingly evaporated in favour of narrow nationalism, confined to the borders of one state, and most often it is unable to coexist with the overall pan-Arab sentiment.

"Are you joking? Who is still talking about Arabism?" an Egyptian fan, his nose bloodied obviously by Algerian fans after the match, told a TV news reporter. The question, which is on every Arab's mind in the past few days, is where did all this unprecedented animosity come from?

Football rivalry is not new. In the 1970s, Iraq and Kuwait used to witness football fever and sometimes tension whenever their national teams met, and in the 1990s, Saudi Arabia and Qatar games were famous for fist fights. But it never reached the level of tension we witnessed between Egypt and Algeria in the past few days. Something is seriously wrong here. And it should also stop here.

The governments of Algeria and Egypt have a national duty to call, in a very clear and firm language, on their citizens to respect the national sentiments of their Arab brethren. Ambassadors must go back to their posts. And most importantly, the state-owned media in both countries must be told that the football match was over.