Egypt vs. Algeria: The Battle Continues

Cris Bouroncle/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Egyptian demonstrators burned an Algerian flag in Cairo on Friday, during a protest outside the Algerian Embassy.

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It started out as a soccer match between two rivals, and has now morphed into a diplomatic war of words.

Last week, the Algerian national soccer team headed to Cairo to play a World Cup qualifying match. Upon arrival, buses carrying Algerian players and fans were pelted with stones by Egyptian soccer hooligans. Several people were injured, fights broke out by the hotel, and to make matters worse the Egyptian government and media dismissed the thuggery against Algerians. The Egyptians won that game and that meant that one more match had to be played for World Cup entry.

Khartoum, Sudan was the chosen neutral territory. In is first-half goal, Algeria took the lead and held it for the rest of the game thus securing itself an entry for the first time since 1986. Although victorious, Algerians still held a grudge against Egyptians for the indignity they were made to suffer in Cairo and now it was revenge time.

Several Algerians attacked Egyptians fans but in the words of the Egyptian government the only injuries were "light." Bitter over a lost opportunity and made even more so over the Algerian revenge attack, the last few days has seen the Egyptian media and public, and government descend into vulgar nationalism and petty attacks against Algerians. Many Egyptians did not raise objection over the attack against Algerians, but a false sense of superiority combined with the lost game has turned them into self-righteous bigots.

The Egyptian government has withdrawn its ambassador from Egypt in protest for the attacks in Sudan - which, of course, are no fault of the Algerian government but the Sudanese police. It is not surprising that the Egyptian government would hold Algiers responsible since the media - both state and independent - is feeding the notion that the revenge attack was organized by the Algerian government.

The insults against Algerians - and by extension all Magrabe Arabs - have included the supposed insult that they are not Arabs, but really Berbers. The Egyptian government has added its own voice by stating that it will not tolerate insults to the dignity of Egyptians by Algerians [but insults by America and Israel are fine and always to be welcomed by the Mubraka dictatorship]. An Egyptian journalist recently offered a sad review of the level of chauvinism in Egypt:

" I was at that demonstration in Zamalek, Cairo. The protestors were chanting slogans along the lines of these two, the most common two by the way: "Algeria, get lost: you're the country of one million prostitutes" (ya gaza'ir imshi foot, ya balad millyun sharmout) "1,2,3 fuck Algerie" (1,2,3, qus umm Algerie) It was "respectable" because many of the protestors were rich kids with blackberrys. State tv would only carry images with no audio of the protest, while the anchor women called it "well mannered." One young woman in the protest, dressed fashionably, had a sign saying "get out" in English and in Arabic a call for the expulsion of "the ambassador and all Algerians" I have heard not one dissenting voice on the street toward these racist sentiments. I have been shocked to find most people, aside from a few leftists and Islamists, agree with them. The independent media--Shurouk and Al Masry Al youm--insist that the "barbaric Algerians"--and there is absolutely no distinguishing between people and government--faked the attack on the players' bus. They insist they treated the Algerians here with hospitality, although buses carrying Algerian fans were stoned after the match in Cairo and then hooligans fought with Algerians outside their hotel. 20 Algerians and 12 Egyptians were injured in that clash according to the health ministry. They insist that they are entirely innocent, that Egyptians are the most hospitable people in the world, that Umm el Dunya welcomes everyone to her bosom. This is the rhetoric flooding daily from government and independent media alike. At the same time, they insist that what happened in Sudan was a "bloodbath." Masry al Youm, like the government media, are bringing in psychiatrists to give quack analysis on why the Algerians "have mental problems" and why they are "viscious." I have had Egyptian colleauges and friends calling me to tell me that the Algerians are "a viscious people." They insist that the attacks by Algerian fans against Egyptians in Sudan, which according to the Egyptian health minister injured 21 people--"lightly", Hatem el-Gabali said--was an attack organised by the government. They compare the behavior of these hooligans with the "Egyptian character", as one psychiatrist did today in an interview with state television, which is "respectable" and "beautiful" and "creative." There is no difference between Shurouk and Masry al Yawm and state media in this regard. The liberals, too, are spouting racist invective. Egyptian actors lined up in the Cairo film festival to attack the Algerians, one artist emphasised: "I am against the Algerian government and I am against the Algerian people."

What is at root of this extreme nationalism - and, for the record, the thuggish behavior of Algerians which included burning down Egyptian businesses in Algiers is not to be excused - is a trend in the Arab world since the 1970s to downplay Arab commonality and pan-Arab nationalism and instead emphasize nation-state - qutri - nationalism. When Egypt signed its peace treaty with Israel in 1979, the nation was expelled from the Arab League and found itself isolated with its world relying on American patronage. In order to placate Egyptian worries about being disconnected from fellow Arabs, Sadat started to champion the notion that Egyptians are a special - and superior - people and that their heritage is to be found in the Pharaohs. By creating a separate form of Egyptian nationalism, Sadat could get Egyptians to embrace a separate fate that meant recognizing Israel while Arabs as a whole continued to shun it.

Other Arab government began to follow suit and emphasize qutri nationalism usually with pre-Islamic symbols and legends. The Tunisians speak about ancient Carthage and Hannibal, for instance, and Saddam Husayn, for example, used to trump Babylon. The motive for these Arab regimes was not public acceptance of peace with Israel - which they never did - but solely maintaining their authority which would surely end or at least weaken in any pan-Arab nation state; as was the cause of Arab nationalism them.

While nation-states are appropriate for the Arab world - the cultural disparity between, say, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia is too wide for any workable union - the often accompanying ultra-nationalism is uncouth and unwarranted. Having pride in being Egyptian should never mean losing sight of the fact that Egyptians share a common heritage with Arabs and Muslims and that the latter is more important than the former.

In a world with too many problems, disunity should not be a new one.