“They are playing for Gaza. Their blood is on fire.”
*NOTE: Why am I posting my journal entries? See my inaugural post: Beyond journalism
(*artwork by Incé Husain)
They are playing for Gaza. Their blood is on fire. Mama’s message to the family group chat as Egypt plays Argentina. It is undoubtedly true. It is the only way to describe the match, all of it. Every other descriptor pales to irrelevance or incompletion. Egypt is so graceful, so fierce, moving like a telepathic entity, making a rapid red canvas of this pitch. When Mostafa Ziko charged for that second goal, I could feel the vessels in his body bulging in something that looked distinctly like transcendence. I knew when he was halfway across the pitch that he would score; I didn’t blink, didn’t breathe. I cried when the ball struck true, jarred by the noiselessness of the soft bending net, its quietness at odds with the heavy charge in the air. I can tell, I wrote back. I can feel it from here.
I had thought I would enjoy this match like a soundtrack to my errands. I thought I would cut onions, mushrooms, cheese, watch them swirl in an omelet, watch this match from the corner of my eye. I could not. I couldn’t eat a thing. I couldn’t even make my chai. I just stood there in front of the FIFA stream, laptop propped on my kitchen island, my calves tight and burning. I had almost missed the first goal by Yasser Ibrahim, a mere fifteen minutes in. I had been reading an NB Media Co-op article about Baraa, a 24-year-old student in Gaza admitted to a master’s in computer science at my alma mater, the University of New Brunswick. He wants to become a specialist in the “internet of things”, walks two kilometers every day to find electricity and internet; works remotely with his supervisor on a research paper. “Despite all this, I am making achievements,” Baraa said. “I have worked for several months in data entry and dealing with students with UNICEF. I also still work as a volunteer teaching assistant.” I pictured the red brick of my campus, pictured him there so easily, his very soft smile and tender eyes lit with dreams.
I looked up and Egypt scored. A seamless pass and header, like it was a single movement tethered by unseen sinews. It was so rapid and clean it looked blinding, incandescently sacred. Holy! Abba said on our group chat. It was. And when Messi - greatest of all time - took a penalty and Mostafa Shobeir lunged and knocked it away in a single breath, there was a sense of something divine, like the pitch was humming. Egypt defended elementally. When Argentina attacked, they retreated like a tide, spitting the ball back on a curling red wave. At half time, they knelt to the ground in synchronous sajdah.
And maybe this is where the documentation can end. Egypt’s deliverance was clear; the fire in their blood, it outdoes material victory. Anyone with eyes can see it. The eyes of the whole world saw it, including this girl in Gaza who I see, on Telegram’s Eye on Palestine, staring at the unfolding match with wide green eyes fierce and shimmering, mouth slightly open, wrapped in the Egyptian flag. The caption reads: In the eyes of this little girl, the passion of Gaza is reflected. Moments of anticipation and dreaming as she watches the Egyptian national team match, as if she were awaiting a much greater victory and a hope that never fades.
The team has undoubtedly delivered; they shine viscerally with deliverance, with sweat and stinging red eyes. In the last five minutes, when I began playing Surah Ar-Rahman on my phone as my prayer to them, the melodic recitation unfolding with the roars of the stadium, my ears ringing and the players in red blurring and insisting, time slowed. I thought: It’s okay, I see you so clearly, I witness you witness them. You have already delivered. The match was yours the second you walked onto the pitch, everyone saw it. You have more than the World Cup, you have my soul. They strike and my phone pours with notifications: Israeli occupation forces fire flares in the sky of northern Gaza Strip. This enmeshment is unbearable, collides us into one being: the grass of the pitch, its manic air, I taste it too. As the match wanes I learn about life. The football, today, was indistinguishable from love and the surge to deliver justice, meaning there was never any possibility of losing. The truth was clear: there we lived, for 100 minutes, ablaze in its clarity. ♦