Monday, July 23, 2007
Soccer unites Iraq in Asian Cup quarter final win against Vietnam
Sport
(AP) - One Sunni man drove 30 minutes through the dangerous streets of Baghdad to watch the soccer game with his Shiite friends whom he hadn't seen in months. A 40-year-old Shiite couldn't contain his tears when he joined three Sunni friends who used to play on a local soccer team with him in a local coffee shop to watch Iraq face off against Vietnam in the Asian Cup quarterfinals on Saturday.
They weren't disappointed as Iraq won 2-0 to advance to the semifinals for the first time since 1976, causing hundreds of people from across the sectarian divide to overcome fears of violence and take to the streets in a spontaneous celebration. Men of all ages waved Iraqi flags and did a jig in the streets, while others jumped on top of cars and rode around, horns honking.
On a negative note, five people, including two children, were killed and 25 were wounded in celebratory gunfire, according to health officials in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. Iraqis said Sunday the jubilation over the victory - albeit brief - showed they can come together despite the past years of spiraling violence between Sunnis and Shiites that has made Baghdad a maze of concrete barriers and largely confined people to their own neighborhoods.
Many expressed regret that Iraqi political factions couldn't emulate the soccer team, as the Shiite-dominated government's failure to bring minority Sunnis into the mainstream has been blamed for fueling the insurgency and retaliatory violence. "None of our politicians could bring us under this flag like our national soccer team did. I wish that politicians could take a lesson from our team, which is made up of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds who worked together regardless of their backgrounds and won," Abdul-Rahman Abdul-Hassan said.
Marwan Ahmed, a 23-year-old Sunni tailor in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, called Saturday "the most beautiful day in Iraq over the past four years." He said people from a variety of religious backgrounds gathered in a casino to watch the game and the revelry went well past midnight, which he pointed out "was very rare in Basra. All the people at the casino congratulated each other, even those who didn't know each other. I felt like this team helped clean our hearts from hatred as all were thinking only of Iraq and nothing else."
They weren't disappointed as Iraq won 2-0 to advance to the semifinals for the first time since 1976, causing hundreds of people from across the sectarian divide to overcome fears of violence and take to the streets in a spontaneous celebration. Men of all ages waved Iraqi flags and did a jig in the streets, while others jumped on top of cars and rode around, horns honking.
On a negative note, five people, including two children, were killed and 25 were wounded in celebratory gunfire, according to health officials in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. Iraqis said Sunday the jubilation over the victory - albeit brief - showed they can come together despite the past years of spiraling violence between Sunnis and Shiites that has made Baghdad a maze of concrete barriers and largely confined people to their own neighborhoods.
Many expressed regret that Iraqi political factions couldn't emulate the soccer team, as the Shiite-dominated government's failure to bring minority Sunnis into the mainstream has been blamed for fueling the insurgency and retaliatory violence. "None of our politicians could bring us under this flag like our national soccer team did. I wish that politicians could take a lesson from our team, which is made up of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds who worked together regardless of their backgrounds and won," Abdul-Rahman Abdul-Hassan said.
Marwan Ahmed, a 23-year-old Sunni tailor in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, called Saturday "the most beautiful day in Iraq over the past four years." He said people from a variety of religious backgrounds gathered in a casino to watch the game and the revelry went well past midnight, which he pointed out "was very rare in Basra. All the people at the casino congratulated each other, even those who didn't know each other. I felt like this team helped clean our hearts from hatred as all were thinking only of Iraq and nothing else."
Labels: Asian Cup quarterfinals, football, soccer, Vietnam
