In a recent interview with Jorge Valdano, the former Argentinean star striker who won the World Cup in 1986 and then quite uncharacteristically turned into an intellectual writer, he was asked what he most liked about this World Cup in Qatar. Considering Argentina's run in the tournament, one would have expected a related response. Instead, his answer was to see a team like Morocco do as well as it did. "Taking into account the presence of Moroccan communities in places like France, Spain, and northern Europe, the World Cup performance of Morocco is like them telling the world that we are not here to face-off with you, but rather to engage with you and to compete and have fun just like all of you. Football is unique in that way," Valdano continued, "in that it sometimes likes to put the fingers into the electric socket, causing global sociological jolts!"
The fairy tale of Morocco's magnificent WC run may have come to an end, but it's accomplishment will reverberate for many years to come. Morocco's loss to France was one where all commentators and football analysts spoke of having lost with head held high. This was never going to be an easy game. France as World Champions are no pushover. Neither was Morocco, notwithstanding four of its players were injured and its captain forced out of the game through injury. There was never a semblance of weakness or giving up. On the contrary, this is a head-strong Morocco side that played up against some of strongest international sides and beat them fair and square, doing the nation and the region justice. Above all, it gave all those masses of Moroccans in and outside the stadium much to cheer about and be proud of. And yet come the final whistle, the team walked over to one of its many fan-filled stands and kneeled as a sign of respect and appreciation. The Moroccan fans deserved no less for their loyal support.
Did Morocco just jolt the Arab world and African continent into realizing their full potential? Perhaps this whole World Cup has, with many fans I'm meeting expressing their fascination at how clean, organized, safe, easy, and friendly everything has been here in Qatar. Unlike what some would like to portray, this is by no means a place on edge. Not a single security guard we saw carried a gun. We have not seen a single fight break out, no face-offs. The volunteers, numbering around 20,000 per FIFA, were visibly from dozens of countries, and yet they all gelled together seamlessly and gave a good face for the entire tournament, guiding people with oversized gloves while doing funny renditions, moves, and verbal directions.
While this World Cup has arguably been the most globalized I've ever been to, it still managed to introduce the visitors somewhat non-intrusively to Arab and Islamic culture in ways that some visitors could be forgiven for thinking had not been present behind all the bling and gloss people associate with the Arabian Gulf. As one example, we visited the Islamic Museum of Art on the Corniche. The museum is a four-level architectural masterpiece, which houses some fascinating Islamic art pieces, science, dress, decoration, calligraphy, ... It covers the Mashreq (Iraq) all the way to the Maghreb (Al Andalus, in modern day Spain) during the different periods of Islamic growth, including the early periods, the Abbasid and Umayyad caliphates, the Ottoman, the Saljuk, even the Mongolian, the Persian, as well as the Indo-Chinese. The vastness of the Islamic region is mind boggling and quite multi-lithic. Some regions were more commercial (The Mediterranean). Others were more scientific (Persia and Iraq). Others still were more artistic (Syria and Andalusia). Over the centuries, it would all gel into a vast region quite rich with knowledge and culture that synthesized knowledge and art from predecessor civilizations like Greece, Byzantium, Persia, China, and Rome and bequeathed to the Western world a basis on which to build modernity. Unlike what some in the West would have us believe, the so-called dark ages were not dark at all, but shining with light and civilizational advancement, only it was happening in another part of the world, the Islamic one, in houses of wisdom, universities, and hospitals ...
Walking through the museum one might ask what all this has to do with Qatar? As it happens, Islam was born in this part of the world. A "jolt" as the one Valdano was describing came from these parts and electrified the rest of the world. Interestingly, Hugh Kennedy, a British historian who specializes in the early Islamic Middle East argues that military conquest alone could not account for the blistering speed in which Islam grew out of its humble Bedouin origin to reach such massive swathes of territory from China to the Atlantic and from Russia to the Sahara. Instead, he argues that it was a mix of cultural assimilation, accommodation of pre-existing beliefs, and excellence in administration. Meaning that initial jolt was based way more on conviction than it was on coercion or conquest.
Is it possible that what the Gulf is going through now is post-modern jolt of sorts that is raising the bar for the rest of the Arab and Islamic world, showcasing how modernity could be reconciled with existing cultures and traditions without the proverbial clash of civilizations that many a pundit would have us believe? If this World Cup is any indication, one would have to be inclined to say that it is working and spreading to the entire region. After all, this event is being hosted in the Mashreq, and one of the most exciting stories to come out of it, has been the team of Maghreb (Morocco) and it's band of heroes. If one actually thinks about it, so have the other Arab teams. After all Saudi Arabia produced the biggest shock in World Cup history by beating now-finalists Argentina; and so did Tunisia who beat the other now-finalists France. So, regardless of who wins the World Cup on Sunday, an Arab team would have beat them in this tournament.
The jolt is indeed being felt everywhere around the region and its effects reverberating throughout ...
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