Soccer World Cup matches in Qatar find Arab diaspora in Latin American torn by divided loyalties
Sao Paulo: The World Cup is a big deal in Latin America, with cities in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and other countries coming to a standstill whenever their respective national teams are on the pitch. But for a section of society in particular, the 2022 tournament hosted by Qatar is particularly significant.
Arab Latin Americans are believed to number around 23 million. There are large communities in Brazil and Argentina, and significant populations in Mexico, Chile, Venezuela and Colombia, made up of descendants of Arab migrants who came voluntarily or as refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. And, like everyone else in these countries, Arabs love football.
The fact that the 2022 World Cup is taking place in an Arab country for the first time provides even more incentive for the Arab diaspora in Latin America to tune in from remote time zones. The only question is whether to support the Arab side that reflects their ethnic origins, or the teams from their adopted countries.
Qatar’s hosting of the contest “certainly generates sympathy among Arab communities; People have been waiting for that World Cup for a long time,” Agustín Dib, director of the Arab Culture Club in Buenos Aires, told Arab News.
According to him, however, most Arab Latin Americans root for the team that represents their adopted home.
“In Argentina, the first Lebanese and Syrian immigrants started arriving at the end of the 19th century,” Dibb said. “The same thing happened in Brazil. So, we are totally into Argentina, Brazil and so on – and love our national teams.
At the same time, however, Arab Latin Americans look to the national squads of the Arab world with pride and eagerly follow the likes of Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Qatar. The Saudi team’s historic 2-1 win against Argentina in their first match in Qatar undoubtedly captured the imagination of many.
There are large Arab communities in the border areas between Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. In these regions, the World Cup campaign could temporarily split Arab groups.
Saleh Al-Shehri celebrates with Saudi Arabia forward #09 Firas Al-Buraiqan after scoring his team’s first goal during the Qatar 2022 World Cup Group C football match between Argentina and Saudi Arabia at Lusail Stadium. (AFP)
This is certainly the case in the divided Brazilian city of Chuy and its Uruguayan counterpart, Chuy, where several thousand Palestinians live. Most of the time, this community pays little attention to the geographic boundary that separates them. But a World Cup could change that.
“Generally, we cheer for both Uruguay and Brazil,” Jaber Nassar, a 43-year-old shopkeeper who lives in the Brazilian part of the city, told Arab News. “But if there is a match between the two teams, each side will support its own national team.”
The rest of the time, however, there has traditionally been a historical bond between the two communities when it comes to football. In 1987, he founded the Central Palestinian Football Club. Active for a little over a decade before closing as a result of lack of funds, Central Palestino was part of the Uruguayan League and made waves in the 1990s when it reached the finals of a national championship.
“When I was a boy, I used to watch many matches with my mother. Central Palestine was a local champion and we would travel all over Uruguay to watch them play,” said Nassar, whose brother-in-law was part of the team for many years.
Nasser said, the Palestinian community regularly turns out to watch as many matches as possible during a World Cup. Some of his friends had also gone to Qatar for the tournament.
“Of course, we will focus on the Arab teams,” he said.
Nasser said that the Palestinians’ love for South American football is not just a byproduct of immigration. That said, even in Palestine many people cheer for Brazil during international competitions.
Fastfact
* The Arab diaspora in Central and South America is believed to number around 23 million.
* The largest Arab communities are in Brazil and Argentina, followed by Mexico, Chile, Venezuela and Colombia.
According to Dibb, this is common in many Arab countries and reflects a recognition and appreciation of the power of the top South American players.
“In countries like Syria and Lebanon, people love Argentine and Brazilian football,” he said. “I lived in Tunisia for a few months and people always asked me about Maradona and Messi.”
Juka Khoury, who fled Syria as a refugee and settled in the Brazilian city of Curitiba nine years ago, said his family cheers for the Brazil national team during every World Cup.
“We also enjoyed watching Italy play,” he told Arab News. “This year Italy is not in the competition so we are rooting for Brazil.”
Anas Obaid, a 34-year-old Syrian refugee, is being held hostage by an armed group in Syria until his family pays a ransom. After his release, he fled to Lebanon where he worked in a refugee camp in Zahle. He has lived in Brazil since 2015 and is now a journalist and human rights activist. He loves football and said that he used to cheer for Argentina when he was a kid.
“I was there during the 2014 World Cup, which took place in Brazil,” Obaid told Arab News. “I supported Germany, because the country was welcoming many Syrian refugees. But some people in the camp are in favor of Brazil.”
Since his arrival in São Paulo, he has become an ardent supporter of the Brazil national team. “Brazilians have a passion for football and it is an honor to have them,” he said.
Although football is clearly a national passion in Brazil, and the World Cup is a major event for the people there, the number of Brazilian fans who buy tickets for matches in Qatar, 39,546, far outstrips the Argentines (61,083) and the Mexicans. is less. (91,173).
Mexico regularly sends a large contingent of fans to the World Cup. According to Hector Chamlati, a member of the advisory board of Centro Librenas, a community association in Mexico City, the majority of Arab Mexicans are of Lebanese descent. The number of Mexicans in Lebanon is estimated at around 500,000, most of whom are Christians.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino shows the thumbs up during the Qatar 2022 World Cup Group G football match between Brazil and Switzerland at Stadium 974 in Doha. (AFP)
“We have a very strong relationship with the Mexican national team,” Chamalti told Arab News. “But many of us enjoy watching Arab teams play. I am happy to see that Tunisia was able to draw with Denmark (on 22 November).
The grandson of Lebanese immigrants, he said the Mexican community feels a deep connection with Lebanon and that if the country’s national team were competing in Qatar, many of them would surely root for them.
“But I think to see the potential success of any Arab squad is special,” he said.
Jose Alejandro Serio Haddad, a 25-year-old Lebanese Mexican, had gone to Qatar with his friends to watch Mexico play. It was his first visit to an Arab country and proved to be a cultural shock.
“I think the Qatari and Lebanese cultures are very different,” he told Arab News. “Besides, there are not many Arabs here. We meet mostly South Asian people. We feel like foreigners all the time.
Serio Haddad was not convinced of any Arab team’s chances of progressing from the group stage to the final stage of the tournament “but we certainly feel more sympathy with them than Latin American teams like Argentina.”
Regarding the fact that the World Cup is being hosted by a Muslim country for the first time, Obaid said it was certainly remarkable, but he was unhappy with the criticism being leveled against Qatar.
“I am worried about the reaction of the international community,” he said. “It could be a way of fighting prejudices on Muslims and Arabs. But at the same time people are paying more attention to Qatar’s social contradictions than they did when (the contest) was in non-Muslim countries.
Dibb said he is holding talks to discuss the general distortions in the way Western countries view the World Cup in Qatar.
“Since the first World Cup in Uruguay in 1930, for example, there have been corruption scandals,” he said. “But the media now focuses almost exclusively on Qatar’s problems. It’s a case of bias.”
In any other context, Dibb said, the global press would have talked about the construction marvels achieved by the host country “but given that it is an Arab nation, it would have only talked about the deaths during construction”. Is.”
He said: “I am not saying that these problems are not important, but the special attention given to them is a problem. It is related to orientalism as defined by Edward Said.”
In his 1978 book “Orientalism”, Said established the term as an important concept to describe the often contemptuous Western depiction of the East.
Dibb said that many Arab Latin Americans are not comfortable with the biased coverage of Qatar – which has also been echoed in Latin American media – because they feel “the assault on Arab culture as a whole continues.”