Palestinian poet and physician Amer Badran explores why solidarity feels elusive everywhere except on the pitch
Every World Cup, millions of Arabs rally behind national teams that are not their own. A Moroccan victory is celebrated in Kuwait. Palestinians cheer for Jordan. Iraq’s flag flies from cafés in Syria, while Tunisians and Qataris share balconies and streets decorated with each other’s colours. For a few weeks, national borders seem to blur.
Badran begins with an intentional “glass half full” perspective, highlighting the fact that eight of the 48 qualifying countries are Arab, representing more than a third of all Arab states. Given the wars, conflicts, political instability, and limited sporting infrastructure that affect many countries in the region, he argues, this is a remarkable achievement. But representation in numbers is just the start. What interests him more is the unifying identity and joy that football provokes – and why it often evaporates with the final whistle.
His essay rejects the idea that Arabs rally behind each qualifying team for its chances of winning, or because it acts as an ambassador for the region. Instead, he suggests that football offers something politics can no longer offer: a safe space for collective belonging.
Supporting another Arab country’s football team comes at virtually no personal cost, he writes. Similar displays of solidarity in politics, however, can carry serious consequences. Badran imagines young people waving the flag of another Arab state or cheering one of its political leaders in the streets. The image feels almost absurd today, he writes, and in some countries could even invite accusations of undermining national security or serving foreign interests. Yet nobody would think twice about the same people hanging the flag of another Arab nation, or even England, outside their homes during the World Cup.
While politics demands that people define themselves through parties, doctrines, or competing national interests, football demands none of these. It offers joy, disappointment and anticipation – universal feelings that are strongest when shared. Because those emotions are expressed through the language, he argues, Arabic itself becomes the thread connecting millions of strangers watching the same match, celebrating the same goal or lamenting the same defeat.
The essay stops short of romanticizing this fleeting unity. Once the tournament ends, this sense of unity dissolves, replaced by the divisions that shape everyday political life. But what if these feelings captured the attention of political and intellectual elites off the pitch? If millions of people can experience a shared emotional identity, however temporary, perhaps it points to a different way of imagining community, one built not on ideology or power, but on language, collective feeling and the simple desire to celebrate together.
The original article ‘لماذا-يسهل-علينا-أن-نكون-عربا-في-المونديال’ was published in Arabic by Amer Badran for Raseef22 on June 20, 2026.
Raseef22 is an independent digital media platform based in Lebanon.
Summary by Cendrella Azar
