The 2022 World Cup, with the Qatar difference

The 2022 World Cup continuing in Qatar shows a serious difference in many respects compared with all past cups. Of course, apart from the games played on the pitch, through the atmospheres, debates and social environment of a festival in which a tournament takes place that accompany the cup. Unforgettable moments that remind us at every opportunity that football is not just football are being recorded in memory as the special moments of the Qatar World Cup.

Smear campaigns launched long in advance against Qatar's hosting of the cup escalated greatly as the date of the cup drew near. In fact, hosting a cup is always part of diplomacy and counter-diplomacy. Friend and foe take their sides in this event too according to the measure of enmity. Faced with Qatar's ambition out of proportion to its geographic size, making arguments against it seemed easier to some. Especially in the face of its more consistent adherence to Islamic principles compared with other Arab countries, the cheapest means were resorted to for moves to corner it. But Qatar's manner of receiving and managing all of this was, above all for Muslims, among the most eye-filling and most valuable scores of the tournament.

Against the imposition that tries to make it seem obligatory for football tournaments to be accompanied by the Western world's immoderate hedonistic debauchery, Qatar displayed a very mature and uncompromising stance. Without falling into any inferiority complex, it was stated that these have nothing to do with football and that whoever wants to come to Qatar must also be prepared to abide by the rules here. In the end, some debates displayed in the first days were settled amicably in a short time as the rules of the host country were observed. No one witnessed those scenes again. The absence of LGBT shows or of open drinking and rowdiness took nothing away from the quality of the cup; on the contrary, it ensured that all attention was focused more on football. A consensus-level impression has formed that a much more decent, much higher-quality tournament has taken place. In this way it has in fact been shown that a different kind of attendance for football, not making football a meze for other lusts, is possible.

Qatar's Foreign Minister Muhammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani said in an interview published in the Washington Post that they were hosting the most comprehensive tournament to date because of the very diverse fans who came to watch the World Cup, but that despite this they had been subjected to an unprecedented attack. Saying that the behavior of some media outlets toward Qatar was negative and disappointing, the minister added that nonetheless the best reward for Qatar was the way fans enjoyed the World Cup.

In fact, up to the stage at which the second match of the semifinal (Morocco-France) will be played, the greater part of the success recorded in hosting lies in Qatar's performance in showing its own cultural difference on this occasion. Qatar had something to say to those who came to its country. And it said what it had to say. But the greater word, the beauty of beauty, again emerged through the difference put forth by the footballers and the teams.

That Germany, which at the outset headed the movement against the LGBT shows that Qatar did not permit, could show no performance in football and was eliminated in the very first round may be related only to the quality of its football, but the feelings it aroused were quite different. On the other hand, the way the players of the winning teams in the tournament shared their joy with their families, their mothers and their wives was also an expression of a magnificent victory on behalf of the family.

The meaning, sincerity and warmth of Moroccan national team star Sofiane Boufal's sharing his joy, after the victory over Portugal, by dancing before the whole world with his mother, who wore a simple Moroccan djellaba, told the whole world a great many things. Before Boufal, the footage of Achraf Hakimi kissing his mother after the Belgium match had likewise become the talk on the very first day of the World Cup.

The prostration into which first the Saudi and Tunisian players, and then the Moroccan national team, fell after every match they won against strong opponents has increasingly produced an important idiom that found its place in World Cup jargon: The prostrators (Sajidun). That the winners, instead of falling into arrogance and conceit, express their gratitude to God in this way is like the discovery of a beauty forgotten on behalf of humanity, the one that suits human beings most.

With the successes of the Moroccan national team, new idioms and symbols also entered the stage. The idiom "Dîru'n-Niyye," that is, a Maghrebi idiom meaning "intend, spend every effort within your power, then put your trust in God." This idiom, never absent from the Moroccans' tongues, now brings up a world of feeling and meaning on which all commentators dwell.

Another image that stood out in this tournament was all the Arab teams' sharing their successes with Palestine. It is fitting to say that the Palestinian cause has never been voiced so strongly on any other occasion on the world agenda. These are images that also show that entertainment, which generally stands out by its aspect of making one swoon and lose oneself, may well become an occasion for returning to oneself.

The Emir of Qatar's personally attending all the matches played by the Arab teams in particular, and the support he gave carrying those teams' flags, seems likely to be much discussed for its quite distinct results in terms of football diplomacy. It is a fact everyone sees that, as the first Islamic country to host the World Cup, he has gained a very special and distinct position in the Islamic world.

Today the second match of the semifinal will be played between Morocco and France. The winner will play the final on Sunday, that is, on Qatar's National Day, with the winner of the Argentina-Croatia match. We of course hope the winner will be Morocco; were that so, its meaning and its emotional and spiritual impact would be very great. But even if it does not win, as the first African team to have risen to the semifinal, while being the real surprise of this cup, it has also succeeded in uniting the entire African, Arab and Islamic world in one feeling and excitement.

There is as much truth as Hakan Albayrak said: everyone in the whole Islamic world is watching it now as one would watch Muhammad Ali.

Winning in football of course does not mean winning in every field; perhaps this gain does not eliminate the distortion in real relations, but it is quite clear that it has an important effect in repairing an honor continuously wounded for two centuries, and in the awakening of a sleeping consciousness.