Arabs in the Paris Olympics: The art of crafting legends and a longing for safe battles

For several days now, I’ve been thinking about writing something about the Olympics in France tailored to an Arab audience (as required by my editor). I couldn’t quite grasp what might appeal to Arabs in such an international event. Should I write about our modest achievements? The history of our participation? About our athletes fleeing the hell of their homelands toward the bliss of European teams and leagues? About corruption and nepotism, or about players skilled in dialogue? About oppression and racism against women, people of color, the LGBTQIA+ community, and those who differ in their beliefs, philosophies, or spiritualities?

We were never Olympic champions. Our medals are few, and our achievements are insignificant. We loved sports, but it did not show or do us any justice. On the contrary, it rejected us, and seldom acknowledged us. Our land is not quenched by the sweat of athletes, but by their blood, and our fields turn into arenas of slaughter and collective punishment. Our bones are ground between the millstones of battles and genocides. As for our muscles, they do not slowly disintegrate from injuries and intense training, but from shelling, hunger, and disease. We have become accustomed to the sound of sirens, not the referee’s whistle. We’ve become numbed by the number of times we’ve passed between barricades, snipers, bullets, and the tears of the bereaved. Not even the most fearless international gymnastics champion can compare. Despite all this, we still love sports and care deeply about it.

We were never Olympic champions. Our medals are few, and our achievements are insignificant. We loved sports, but it did not show. On the contrary, it rejected us, and seldom acknowledged us: our land is not quenched by the sweat of athletes, but by their blood, and our fields turn into arenas of slaughter and collective punishment. Our bones are ground between the millstones of battles and genocides. Not even the most fearless international gymnastics champion can compare. Despite all this, we still love sports and care deeply about it.

Why do we even care?

A good question to start with: Why do we care about sports so much?

Not long ago, with the return of fierce clashes and battles between the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese army, I watched a video of a group of Sudanese youths passionately playing football in a residential neighborhood in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. They were not paying any attention to the sound of gunfire. They were indifferent to the noise of shelling and the outcome of the conflict, playing amid thick smoke that obscures vision and chokes the lungs.

I couldn’t quite understand the secret behind the fervor of these youths. After much contemplation, I concluded it was an attempt to grasp at some semblance of life. We still “love life if we can find a way to it,”* even though it kills us with its unrest, politics, and civil wars. So we rise from the ashes once more, like in ancient myths and legends, stronger and more resilient.

Perhaps this is the secret behind our interest in following the Olympics despite our repeated defeats. It is our only hope to experience the journeys of these athletes—from a faded dirt field, with an old battered ball, under a sky stained with blood and bullets and shelling, straight to the Olympic village where gold, glory, and lights await. We look at them with longing because we want to see ourselves in each one of them, even if they return without a medal to soothe the hearts of the weary. It is enough that they tried and turned our suffering into something tangible that proves to us we are still alive.

Homes and farces

Think about it for a moment: when we loved Mohamed Salah, we loved the man who resembled us, the street-smart player who proudly talked about the importance of the “plastic ball,” playing in alleyways, on sidewalks, and on the tiles of middle school courtyards. We loved the graceful bird, the triumph of the defeated, and our ambassador in lands that no longer hear us from their arrogance and pride. When we hated Mohamed Salah, we hated what he had become: an (English) player who equated the killer with the killed, whose gentle and sweet words condemned everyone and could be exploited by all sides. We despised how he wavered between love and hate, resentment and bewilderment, rejection and control, confusion and clarity, and mixing good and evil in one circle, as if our issues were no longer his issues.

When we loved Mohamed Salah, we loved the man who resembled us, the street-smart player who proudly talked about the importance of the “plastic ball,” playing in alleyways, on sidewalks, and on the tiles of middle school courtyards. We loved the triumph of the defeated, and our ambassador in lands that no longer hear us from their arrogance and pride. When we hated Mohamed Salah, we hated what he had become: an (English) player who equated the killer with the killed, whose gentle and sweet words condemned everyone, as if our issues were no longer his.

That’s how we loved Mohamed Salah and pinned our hopes on him, just as we pin our lost hopes and dreams on every athlete in the current Olympics. While that is very beautiful, the problem arises when we seek them out everywhere, as if they are the only reason for our existence—the sole source of joy and the sole cause of our disappointments and disasters. The Arab person lives in the golden age of diplomatic “catharsis” or venting, a long era of submissiveness to every raised finger. It is a long series of silence, oppression, fear, and betrayal fed by the Zionist aggression against the Gaza Strip. When a person lives under the weight of these pedants for a long time, they usually begin to lose their compass, objectifying and dehumanizing people and situations.

Only then will we see these Olympic farces. Take for example Egyptian cyclist Shahd Saeed. She will transform from being an athlete who made a mistake and should be held accountable or even suspended within the bounds of the law, in a way that allows her to review her mistakes in the future, into an issue of public opinion—a commodity exploited to vent pent-up frustration and feelings of oppression.

At that same time, the attack on Egyptian boxer Yomna Ayyad, excluded from the Olympics for weighing over the weight limit, will shift from an inquiry into the reasons behind this strange exclusion, in an attempt to understand and analyze the phenomenon to expose those involved or corrupt in the case and pose important questions about who is responsible for her dietary program. It will turn into a hell that devours what remains of her dignity and perhaps stigmatizes her forever.

Then we will also see those ridiculous and disgraceful statements from the Egyptian Olympic Committee about "sudden physiological changes that led to her weight gain," as if saying "menstrual cycle" is something indecent and offensive to modesty, God forbid, and not just normal changes that all women go through and have the right to express in their own way. This is aside from the absurdity of the official statement itself, which no rational person can take seriously, medically or logically.

Our land is not quenched by the sweat of athletes, but by their blood. Our fields turn into arenas of slaughter and collective punishment. Our bones are ground between the millstones of battles and genocides. As for our muscles, they do not slowly disintegrate from injuries and intense training, but from shelling, hunger, and disease. We have become accustomed to the sound of sirens, not the referee’s whistle. We’ve become numbed by the number of times we’ve passed between barricades, snipers, bullets, and the tears of the bereaved.

This is what is known as a “safe battle”: battles that are not real, petty encounters usually instigated by men that target a selected group—typically women—who have no support and whose only stake in life is their dreams that float in space. To make these people feel that it is indeed a real battle and not just raw triviality, they wrap it in emotional language about public preference and good morals, asking questions like: Who let her go to the Olympics? Which official supports her? They wrap their language with many slogans and laments, implying that the woman in question has support and backing. They say this, even though she was, and still is, a daughter of the working and marginalized class, a daughter of all of us, a daughter who pays the price for everything.

It might even get to the point where we try to control her and impose our morals on her, like what happened with the Egyptian fencer Nada Hafez. Hafez reached the round of 16 in women's fencing while seven months pregnant. As soon as she announced the news, the mustaches of social media and male protectors of knowledge began attacking her. The usual round of questions began: Why is she exerting all this effort while pregnant? Who allowed her to travel? Regarding her medical condition and its implications, nothing is deeper than what the Egyptian journalist and writer Amna Aimen wrote on her Facebook page:

"Since Nada Hafez participated in the Tokyo Olympics, we can assume that she has been practicing this sport for years. And since she has been practicing sports for years, it means that her body has adapted to these exercises, and it will take some time for the effect of this adaptation to go away. When the body adapts, physiological changes occur. These changes vary depending on the type of exercises she does in general, but changes must happen, making her body's nature different from a non-athletic person. And since we are talking about a seven-month pregnancy, we also have to assume that she has been practicing sports continuously, not just suddenly. She probably trained three times a week for 6-8 weeks, which means between two to one and a half months. Her body has likely adapted to this situation during pregnancy."

Safe battles are petty encounters usually instigated by men that target a selected group—typically women—who have no support and whose only stake in life is their dreams that float in space. To make these people feel that it is indeed a real battle and not just raw triviality, they wrap it in emotional language about public preference and good morals, asking questions like: Who let her go to the Olympics? Which official supports her?

To be honest, I used this quote not only because of its quality and relevance but also because I am not interested in writing about the medical aspect. The athlete in question is a doctor herself and knows this part better than all of us. It is impossible that she would risk her life or her fetus for the sake of the Olympics. We never saw such audacity, boldness, or incredulity from men when they saw their mothers being asked to go to work in the morning, ride transportation in the scorching heat amid severe congestion, perform all household tasks after returning, and maybe even take care of another child—all while being pregnant too. We all witnessed such scenes being repeated over and over again in many households and did not object, so why object now? Is it because standing up to the father's authority in the past would have caused us a crisis we won’t be able to face, while Hafez is an accessible target and a safe battle? Maybe. But what I do know is that she is not the first athlete to compete while pregnant without suffering any medical problems.

What really matters

What I truly care about is the human side of the story. She is a simple woman who works as a doctor at Kasr al-Aini Hospital and has practiced fencing since she was 11 years old. Ultimately, she decided to participate in her third consecutive Olympic Games despite being pregnant. She reached the round of 16 and was celebrated by all major newspapers. This is a beautiful story—one that everyone would love to experience. Some might ask: what is the achievement in exiting at the round of 16? Well, that is the heart of the problem. By asking this question, you put us in a zero-sum equation.

Success then becomes centered around nothing short of winning the throne of Sheba, provided that you sit on it before your eyes blink. Anything less than that is a miserable failure, regardless of the differences in capabilities, preparations, allowances, training camps, and so on.

Dear gentlemen: the fact that people like Nada Hafez reach the Olympics, even though they live with us in a grand era of heightened and often unfair scrutiny, is a great victory.

However, logical thinking reminds us how Nada Hafez participated in the championship despite numerous well-known obstacles. Despite it all, she achieved her best-ever position in the history of participation.

Dear gentlemen: the fact that people like her reach the Olympics, even though they live with us in a grand era of heightened and often unfair scrutiny, is a great victory. A victory that makes us feel that we are practicing some form of normal life and that we still "love life if we can find a way to it."

And why am I writing this? Perhaps it’s because my editor asked me to, or maybe it’s an attempt to vent the frustration weighing down on our chests. It could just be another safe battle I fight and leave without paying the price for anything.

* Excerpt from ‘We Love Life’ by Mahmoud Darwish

* The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Raseef22