Adrift on the Nile

By Azza Heikal

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When Naguib Mahfouz wrote the novel Adrift on the Nile in 1966, a spat ensued between president Gamal Abdel-Nasser and army chief Abdel-Hakim Amer. The latter wanted to suppress the novel because of its critical content on the 1952 Revolution. But Nasser refused, with artistic freedom winning a much-needed respite.

Adrift on the Nile portrayed the disillusion and alienation that took Egypt by the collar in the years and months leading to the crushing 1967 defeat. The novel tells the story of a group of people who congregate in a houseboat to drink, take drugs, and generally escape the stifling atmosphere outside.

The recent football epic reminds me of that particular novel. All of a sudden, we started acting as if our lives depended on football, as if our victory over Algeria were a matter of life and death. Newspapers, the radio and a host of television channels all made the hitherto little-known discovery that our national identity was irreversibly intertwined with football.

Students skipped school to riot. Flags flew over homes, coffeehouses, and falafel stands as the country held its breath. For a few days, it seemed as if we were getting ready to liberate Jerusalem, repel the aggressors in Lebanon and Iraq, restore the Golan, and sort out Gaza.

Corruption was still rampant and trains didn't stop crashing, and our bread still had its familiar sawdust, but one thing only mattered: we all loved Egypt. We loved it for football's sake. The garbage kept piling in the streets, young men and women couldn't afford new homes, and our stock market was still shaky. But none of this registered. If we won, all our worries would fade away.

Then we lost and got mad at Algeria. For debunking our identity and raining on our parade and generally upsetting our reverie, the Algerians were demonised. A BBC report, speaking of the madness that followed the game, said that the bonds of common language, history and religion all gave way to football anger. Officialdom embraced irresponsibility as a whole nation enacted a modern version of Adrift on the Nile.

This week's Soapbox speaker is professor of English literature, Ain Shams University.