Syrians have found themselves completely forgotten during the World Cup. While the massacre against them continued unabated, there were brief news items about Syria reporting the fall of a barrel here, or about a beheading or execution there.
News of the drowning deaths of Syrian refugees in the Mediterranean also went unreported. The media ignored the racist attitudes of some politicians in the Arab region towards the Syrian tragedy. And so it has become a daily tragic path and a mixture of tears and death, displacement and destruction, which subjective observers described as the hardest tragedy since World War II.
The Syrian reality is no longer interesting for the international public who have found in the World Cup an escape from the daily economic concerns. Nor is it any longer interesting for the Arab public, which has escaped its moral responsibility for the enthusiasm for the Algerian team, praising its anti-Israel statements and thanking it for its donations to the children in besieged Gaza. It is no longer interesting for Muslim public opinion either, as more importance was given to praising the players who prayed before they entered the field. The Muslim public cannot be enthusiastic towards anything but some offensive cartoons about religious symbols; while the killing of thousands of people is something negotiable.
Who will carry the cry of Syrians and deliver it to the other, who is busy with his own concerns, his balls or his cartoons. He is busy with either conflicts on Facebook, or with temporary partisanship, with the preparations for the re-election of the existing bodies, or with the Machiavellian plots for the formation of new bodies, with the emotional or material satisfaction from this party or that, or with the search for a place under the lights to satisfy his giant ego.
Syrian blood fills the World Cup stage, but it cannot find someone to stop its bleeding. The Syrian people are required to recover their humanitarian unity, away from politics and war, in order to cooperate in mitigating death and a dark future. While the ball rolls between the feet of the players with emotions high, Syrian heads roll between shelling, slaughter and execution, along with pain and disappointment.
The British press said that the no 'Caliph' was skillful in playing football, and that his companions likened his skills to those of the Argentine Lionel Messi. He is now playing with the lives of Syrians and their heads.
Translated and edited by The Syrian Observer
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