[Dean's World] Dave Schuler: National Pride

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Posted by Dave Schuler:
National Pride
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1176645449.shtml


   [1]Shada Hassoun Wins 'Star Academy' 

   It didn't get a great deal of attention here in the U. S. but a few
   weeks ago Shada Hassoun, the young woman pictured above, won Star
   Academy, the Arabic-speaking world's counterpart to American Idol.
   Despite the fact that Shada Hassoun had never been to Iraq, was born
   in Morocco, was educated in France, and had very slender claims to
   being Iraqi (her father was born there), Ms. Hassoun's participation
   in the competition received enormous enthusiasm and support from
   Iraqis. By some estimates as many as 7 million Iraqis--at least 25% of
   the population--voted for her.

   [2]Some have portrayed this as as a rare, even unique coming together
   of Iraqis for a single cause:

     Shada Hassoun has managed to do what endless security crackdowns
     and attempts at political cooperation have failed to do. After four
     years of bloodshed resulting in the deaths of over 3,000 Americans
     and untold thousands of Iraqis, Operation Iraqi Freedom has
     delivered to the country's war-weary residents their inalienable
     right to watch cheesy American Idol rip-offs on satellite TV.

   Only it's not.

   A couple of months ago Iraqis were glued to TV sets and radios,
   [3]cheering the successes of the Iraqi National Football Team:

     The bombs didn't stop and the gunfire wasn't celebratory. But
     nothing was going to distract millions of football-mad Iraqis from
     the on-field fortunes of the Lions of Mesopotamia yesterday as they
     battled to bring back the soccer gold medal from the Asian Games to
     their strife-torn homeland.

     [...]

     In eight games in just over two weeks, Iraq's national football
     team had defied the odds to reach the final against the hosts
     Qatar. The onward march of the team had provided rare respite from
     the daily kidnappings, death squads and suicide bombs. With Shia,
     Kurds, Sunni and Turkomen in the team, the young Lions, average age
     21, carried on their shoulders the hopes of a country teetering on
     the brink of civil war.

     There had been extraordinary scenes earlier in the week, after they
     had knocked out favourites South Korea 1-0 in the semi-final.
     Jubilant crowds briefly regained Baghdad's streets from the gunmen,
     dancing to patriotic songs, waving the flag, and firing shots into
     the air.

     "These victories give us a deep sense of pride and unity," said
     Omar Riadh, a student at Baghdad university as he celebrated on the
     central Saddoun street. "We deserve as many happy moments as we can
     get. The team is a blow against the terrorists who want to destroy
     our country."

     Even the normally divisive Sunni and Shia media had united to
     rejoice the team's success. "Iraq's heroes close to gold after
     great victory over Korea," read a headline in Al Sabah newspaper,
     controlled by the Shia-led government, while the Sunni-owned Al
     Mashriq daily proclaimed: "Our heroes in competition for gold
     medal."

   [4]Poll after poll suggests that despite the violence most Iraqis want
   Iraq to remain a unitary state with a central government.

   I don't mean to suggest by this post that everything is rosy in Iraq,
   that victory is just around the corner, or even that things are
   getting better. One has only to look to the Green Zone attack and the
   destruction of the Sarafiya bridge last week to recognize that
   conditions continue to be horrible and unacceptably violent there.

   But these tiny glimmers convince me that most Iraqis have a strong
   sense of national identity and pride that crosses sectarian and ethnic
   lines and, despite the efforts of U. S. senators, foreign terrorists,
   and would-be sectarian hegemons to divide Iraq, most Iraqis want their
   country to remain a country and leap at even the smallest
   opportunities for expressing their national pride.

References

   1. file://localhost/files/david-shada_hassoun_iraq_star_academy.jpg
   2. http://media.www.bgnews.com/media/storage/paper883/news/2007/04/02/Opinion/idol-RipOff.Unites.Iraq.Shames.U.s.Efforts-2817615-page2.shtml
   3. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1973367,00.html
   4. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/19_03_07_iraqpollnew.pdf