Sports and politics can be a combustible mix. But there is no escaping the political import of remarks made by members of the Iraqi Olympic soccer team in Athens 2004. Gamal Nkrumah writes Politicians want to play politics. Sportsmen, on the whole far more level-headed and sensible than the politicos, prefer to keep their minds squarely on the ball. The pitch and not the political constituency is the focus of the players' attention, the centre of their affections. Sportsmen stick to the rules of their respective games and rarely dabble in politics. Politicians often thrive on the unscrupulous manipulation of people and events. Politics is a dirty, often despicable game. Sports, on the other hand, is the world's favourite pastime. It is in this context that the response by Iraq's soccer players to the insensitive and conniving remarks by United States President George W Bush was swift and curt. They wanted no-one to be left in any doubt about how they felt or to where those sentiments were directed. Any person who loves his or her country will protest under such provocation. The remarks of the Iraqi players came in the wake of statements by President Bush in which he extolled nascent Afghan and Iraqi democracy explaining how US-style democracy had triumphed over terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also applauded Iraq's interim government. The players denounced Bush's scandalous and half-hearted attempt to democratise the once sovereign nations of Iraq and Afghanistan by dropping bombs on innocent civilians and deposing their former leaders, shamelessly installing US-created and backed puppet regimes. Iraqi football midfielder Salih Sadir -- who will play for the Egyptian club Zamalek starting this season -- said that he would be fighting US occupation forces in Iraq had it not been for the Olympic Games in Athens. "Iraq as a team does not want Bush to use us for the presidential campaign. He can find another way to advertise himself," Sadir said. "We do not wish for the presence of the Americans in our country. We want them to go away." The Iraqi players responded in a dignified and eloquent manner. Their words were as powerful and convincing as the war of national liberation waged by resistance fighters in Falluja, Najaf and Sadr cities. Their cutting comments reverberated throughout the international mass media. The message was loud and clear: Iraq's players do not appreciate being used as pawns in Bush's election campaign. With three months to go until the US presidential election, Bush's snide comments could not have come at a worse time. The Bush administration's policies are causing mayhem in Iraq. The country is afire. The current rekindling of the uprising by Moqtada Al-Sadr and his fighters in Sadr City, Najaf and other parts of southern and central Iraq, where the overwhelming majority of the population is Shia, is testament to the country's turmoil. Al-Sadr is popular among the Shia urban poor. The vast cemetery of the holy city of Najaf is virtually a war zone. No part of Iraq is quiescent. Saboteurs have set alight Iraq's South Oil Company headquarters in Basra, Iraq's chief port and second largest city. Iyad Allawi, Iraq's interim prime minister, presides over a lawless and ruined country. The country doesn't even have a national carrier anymore. The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) volunteered to fly the Iraqi team to Greece. Athens was thus a propitious setting for the Iraqis to vent their frustration. And it came as no surprise that the Iraqi footballers were so outspoken when it came to conditions at home. The team came out of nowhere to reach the semi-finals before going down 3-1 to Paraguay. The players spent their entire lives in the cut-and-thrust of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, enduring a great deal of hardship during the reign of terror unleashed by Iraq's former Olympic committee under the leadership of Uday Hussein, Saddam's son, who was killed in Mosul by US forces soon after the invasion. Under Uday's iron fist, the Iraqi team never quite got its act together, its players too terrorised to perform their best. But in Athens they have outdone themselves. And they did not leave politics at home. Coach Adnan Hamad said he was deeply suspicious of the Bush administration's plans for Iraq and openly declared that he was at once both furious and pained by the fast deteriorating security situation in Iraq. "The American army has killed so many people in Iraq. What is freedom when I go to the stadium and there are shootings on the road?" Bush's assertions were ostensibly made to enable him to continue posturing as a man of peace, a beleaguered international peacemaker who also just happens to be the most important world leader at the centre of global politics. But he is seen as having the nerve to indulge in cheap self- congratulatory speeches when his decision to invade Iraq ruined their homeland. The anger and the sense of disillusion of Iraqi sportsmen with the US is palpable. In Athens, Arab and Muslim sportsmen spoke their minds. Iran's Arash Miresmaeli is a case in point. His refusal to compete against an Israeli national, Ehud Vaks, out of sympathy and solidarity with the Palestinians, provoked a storm of criticism in Athens. And while the International Judo Federation (IJF), egged on by the Israelis, threatened to impose an exacting punishment on Iran, the Iranians remained defiant. The Iraqi football team's remarks and performance in Athens have been one of the highlights of the Olympics for it has had to perform a tricky balancing act between its competence on and off the pitch. Considering the international acclaim and respect it has won, it is doing exceptionally well on both counts.
