Scenes Of Victory In Iraqi

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Guest post by Duncan

The images of Iraqis celebrating following their national team’s Asian Cup success look suspiciously like the ‘victory’ photos following the ‘toppling’ of Saddam’s statue in 2003. In other words, all circus and no bread. Just beneath the euphoria, however, is the reality is that sectarian violence and escalation will likely continue, regardless of whatever happens on a soccer field.

If national sport has always been a propaganda tool, the Iraq images serve a unique function.

The media has offered few pictures of the game or its players. Instead, you mostly see people waving flags in the street, or cheering the TV. Beyond strength in the face of hopelessness or pride for an imagined nation state, the celebration images serve the Administration strategy of justifying an occupation and a war. U.S. viewers don’t identify with the event, but rather share in the “victory” of people supposedly overcoming the fear of insurgency.

Because Americans, more so than most, tend toward outward demonstrations of patriotism, these photos also create a point of identification with the Iraqi people, supporting the fiction of unity under a single flag.

(images: Ahmad Al-Rubaye/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images. July 2007. nytimes.com)

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http://www.nocaptionneeded.com Hariman

This is good topic for discussion and a tough call. The media have been showing some photos of the team–today the New York Times put a picture of the team above one of a victory celebration back in Iraq–but otherwise I think Duncan is right on target. What makes it tough for me is that, although it seems that the images are very manipulative and that in particular they exploit our last reservoirs of hope, it also is the case that sport can bring together people who otherwise would hate one another. Happens often in the U.S., and Josh Ober argues that one of the keys to Athenian democracy was having bases for identification that crossed clan lines. And I recall an interview with a terrorist many years ago that was excerpted in Harper’s. It seemed he had no limits on what or whom he would destroy, until the interviewer learned that he had a love of soccer. “Would you detonate in a soccer stadium?” he was asked. “Oh, no, I could never do that.” However the Iraqi victory is used in the U.S. media, I can’t help but hope that it will help Iraqis see one another as fellow citizens rather than enemies. And if that helps them get the U.S. out of the country, so much the better.
Gahso

I’m thankful that they have something to celebrate at all. The tiny spark of humanity and joy is still alive within these people. I feel especially for the kids, who’ve now grown up with a substantial portion of their lives controlled by shock and awe, occupation and civil war.
The bombings last week during the soccer celebrations were some of the most cruel and horrible acts against humanity. They really did make me angry.
The victory/flag images can be used dishonestly to portray success in iraq, true, but when there is a glimmer of unity and normalcy… isn’t that a step in the right direction? Don’t we [even on the left] want to see the country emerge from the chaos into a civil society? If the US troops were gone and we saw this kind of image (which would then support the idea of post occupation unity) wouldn’t we be elated?
There’s daily evidence that the surge, the bombing, the millitary solutions are failing. Who can refute that?? Seeing that the spark of humanity is still glowing under all that rubble is a GOOD thing. Saying that this shows that the horror is over and we can relax in victory is laughable, at best.
Johanna

Americans don’t feel as passionately about soccer as the rest of the world. This win is a great thing for them, and we should be entirely happy about it. But Dunc and other naysayers can be glad that the head of the team has said he will not return to Iraq for fear of being killed, thus dampening what might have been a victorious homecoming. It’s NOT a tough call whether this event is good or not — can’t they have some enjoyment, for god’s sake?
http://www.lettuce.org Lettuce

Well, this sort of thing certainly can ruin a photo display: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/30/iraq-soccer-captain-i-want-america-to-go-out/
http://www.lettuce.org Lettuce

oops — Johanna beat me to it…
Still, it’s proof that a single quote can be worth a thousand pictures.
http://www.nocaptionneeded.com Hariman

It’s not a tough call whether the event is good for Iraqis. It is harder to judge the play of the images in the U.S. media.
http://wordfight.blogspot.com Dunc

The role of critiquing coverage is not to unconditionally reject the coverage of an event, but to be wary of its implications and full meaning: my local paper had an article about the soccer game right next to one about how US led utility reconstruction continues to fail due to corruption and the inability of contractors to complete projects on budget and on time.
Kitt

Instead, you mostly see people waving flags in the street, or cheering the TV.
Apparently only men and boys are celebrating this. I saw a couple of women, one a reporter, talking to another woman. None on the street that I could see.
Snowden

The Iraqi flags are missing the arabic script between the stars. Saddam added the words to the flag after the Iran-Iraq war as some sort of sop to the Islamic hard-core. I forget what it meant. Now, however, it is gone. Hummmmm………
Snow
Jacques

Come on, normally I like your analyses, but this one is off the mark. They look like a bunch of kids who are happy that *their* team won. And I’m glad that they have something to be happy about, beyond just making it through the day.
Brendan

Nothing’s worthwhile until summer is over and the temperature dips under 100. Until then everyone is inside trying to move as little as possible. A great soccer victory is one of the few things to get up about in the heat. Even the insurgents take a break in summer, that’s why our Surge is in the summer (opposition is hibernating) and we’re waiting until September to hark the good news, “Look, attacks were down in July and August AND the Iraqi people united behind their soccer team. Victory!” The first is part of the plan, the second was dumb luck.
ummabdulla

“Nothing’s worthwhile until summer is over and the temperature dips under 100.”
100 would be wonderful… in Kuwait, it’s been over 50C/122F the last few days, and I think Baghdad is almost as hot.
The Arabic script on the Iraqi flag says “Allahu Akbar” (God is great/the greatest). As far as I know, that’s still the official flag; I don’t know if these guys just have old flags or if that means something.
jtfromBC

“Beyond strength in the face of hopelessness or pride for an imagined nation state, the celebration images serve the Administration strategy of justifying an occupation and a war.”
This may serve the Administration and its ill informed citizens BUT it reminds Iraqis of their country before it was carved up by the invaders.
Beyond nationalism, patriotism and big business, for millions and millions of boys, girls and adults in the big world beyond the USA who play or watch football this comment from the Uruguayan Writer Eduardo Galean would resonate
-from an interview with Amy:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/19/1324216
“..I don’t know why the miracle exists, and soccer is always able to give you a feast, a feast to the eyes watching it when it’s very, very well played and a feast to the legs when you’re playing it. And there are, there still are. I don’t know how, but there they are. Ronaldinho, for instance. Players able to play for the joy, the pleasure of playing, instead of playing just because they are obliged to do it, professionally obliged to do it. It’s like an election. We are all making each day, being as we are, obliged to live life as a duty, but secretly willing to live it as a feast.
jtfromBC

Duncan I’m confused by your “all circus and bread” remark, otherwise I think I get the general gist of your overall commentary.
There’s no ‘bread and circus’ in this article but thoughtful and provocative comments about all that flag waving at http://www.ukwatch.net/article/united_by_a_goal
two excerpts
“If ever there was an example of a sporting event bearing a wider social significance, then Iraq’s heroic victory in football’s Asia Cup would be it’.
“..Plainly no amount of victories on the football field can end the American occupation, defeat sectarian forces or rebuild Iraq’s shattered society. But the Iraqi team’s victories speak eloquently, and forcefully, in favour of that nation’s best hope for a better future – a unified nationalism crossing ethnic, religious and tribal lines with the strength to defeat both the occupation and the sectarian terrorists and death squads. As 1920’s nationalist revolution against British rule demonstrated, a popular sense of patriotism has been present in Iraq since very early in the life of the country. If it is an idea whose time has come again, then the national football team will have played a significant role in rekindling it in the nation’s heart. The power of symbolism in politics should never be underestimated. Nor should the emotional power of sport, and its capacity to produce such potent symbols.”