Defeat

The sheer sight of those NDP guys attending the match really got me thinking. Do I really want Egypt to win and for those tyrants to think that they can actually do something good through their corrupt system? Part of me really wanted Egypt to win, but the other part could not really conceive of such a thing happening.

After my last post, I realized that we were destined to lose. I alluded to it and I think it’s the only thing that makes sense. As I was writing what I wrote before, I knew I would also have to write what I write now. I don’t know how to explain it exactly, but according to all my analogies, we had to lose because we don’t know how to keep winning and because it wouldn’t be fair to give people false hope, that they can do one thing right when everything else has gone wrong.

Defeat might sometimes be a good thing. Maybe the people in Algeria were spared, and maybe we now know that we have very few friends in the region, and maybe now people can pay attention to all that’s gone wrong with the country. We don’t deserve to lose, but we should. As a country we should lose, not as an isolated team. They played well, they had the most horrible of luck. Sometimes your best just isn’t good enough, you really need other people’s best too.

It sounds pompous to say that I had a strong feeling we would lose, specially now after we actually did, but I suppose I didn’t really want to jinx it. That hope and energy that I had the first time round wasn’t there anymore, like I didn’t care or didn’t believe, like the spirit died down. I suppose we’re like the seed that lands in the path, we don’t have enough roots.

But if it’s any consolation we were defeated a long time ago and even if we had won we would have been defeated, not for losing a ‘friend’, Algeria, but for having lost ourselves sometime back. We had our chance to say that we’re alive, but we have demonstrated what we do with second chances.

Defeat stings if you put your hopes up high enough. I felt defeated before the match for so many reasons, the spirit died down and victory was intoxicating. Isn’t it safer just not to hope? It is, but I suppose you may get some joy out of it and as CS Lewis says in the movie ‘Shadowlands’, “The pain now is part of the happiness then.” I accept the loss, it’s part of accepting the victory.

To those who were perplexed by the spirit in the street thinking it’s stupid, well they’re spared and they won’t have to listen to my reasons. I’m not going to South Africa and Egyptians won’t be able to unite for any cause even if it’s as silly as football. There’s much sadness in defeat, but luckily in this case, it’s only a game.