Singing again but it feels different
Fajr IbrahIm, coach of the Syrian national team, answered the journalist in broken English, better to get his point across. ‘We stand now for 30 seconds for French,’ he said, ‘but all Syrian people killed, no one stand one second. You have to know this.’
an official from the Singapore Football association cut across, asking that no further political statements be made.
‘he asked, I answered,’ said Ibrahim, and sat, glaring. his team, rendered homeless by civil war, had defeated Singapore to claim second place in their World Cup qualifying group. The asian Football Confederation had decreed that, before all matches, silence would be observed in memory of the victims of terror in Paris. Ibrahim was agitated.
There are 250,000 dead in Syria’s four-year conflict; a further 11 million have been displaced. Where was their memorial?
It is a question that grows ever more pertinent. This weekend, the French national anthem — — will be played before all English Premier League games.
many English clubs have French associations; there are two French coaches in the Premier League and, of the 23-man France squad selected for the international in England this week, nine were based here.
richard Scudamore, the chief executive of the Premier League, believes this commemoration is the right and respectful thing to do and it will pass beautifully.
already, though, there is a different mood to that which greeted the Fa’s moving and considered response to France’s visit to Wembley.
Ibrahim is no longer alone in raising the matter of equivalency. Where is the tribute to the victims of terror on the russian aircraft metrojet Flight 9268? When does football pause to consider the 43 killed in beirut by an ISIS terror attack, the day before the Paris atrocity? When will an-našid al-wataniy y al-lubnaniy y — the Lebanese national anthem — be heard at Premier League grounds in a gesture of solidarity?
Events at Wembley on Tuesday night felt entirely appropriate. There had been an attack at an international football match in France. here was the French national team, just four days later.
a tribute was made and impeccably observed. The sports newspaper L’Equipe put two words on its front page: Thank You.
There is no doubt everyone inside the stadium felt a connection to the visitors and the trauma of the previous days. It was a very powerful occasion and very moving.
Will the same be said after this weekend? how does what happened in Paris intersect with Swansea City versus bournemouth? and why is it more meaningful to those attending Southampton against Stoke City, than to other british citizens going about their day?
an attack in Paris is closer to home, and less frequent than violent death in the middle East. We are more conditioned to tales of horror from the region, and de-sensitised. Yet should we make that so plain?
Isn’t a root of tension the perception that the West shows casual disregard for human life outside its cossetted communities?
‘We fight all terrorists, Syria fight all terrorist groups,’ said Ibrahim as his hosts tried to smother his slogans.
‘We kill all terrorists around the world.’
The postscript was clear: yet the West just cares for its own.
Premier League executives will have been moved by the horror of Paris, as we all were. It would be wrong to find this gesture less than sincere.
Yet we also know English football is committed to its status as a global brand, that it guards its image.
The cynical will believe this is more strategy, almost competitive emoting, and that scepticism may surface in behaviour that is less than thoughtful. The fear here is that an act of genuine decency is now open to misinterpretation from all sides.