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Merina Khanom - AlJazeeraTalk - Manchester
 In the aftermath of the 2007 AFC Asian Cup final, I could not help but to ponder over the significance of the event. Most reports that I had come across the following morning, focussed on praising the amalgamated force behind an eclectic team made up of Sunnis, Shias, Kurds and Turks, news stories accredited an Iraqi team, who in the face of adversity stood strong and gave a war torn nation, for the first time in a long while, reason to rejoice.
Indeed, the win gave commentators an unexpected match to report on and as positively infectious as the jubilations and morale boost were, I paused to ask myself, why, as much as the win had given me a slight spring in my step on the way to work the next morning, had this come to dominate international headlines?
From Manchester to Madinah, the story had eclipsed front page news across the globe, and as happy as the world was to share in that joy, something was telling me that what had happened wasn’t just about football.
This was a story that went far beyond the rejoice of a victorious moment, as glorious as it may have been, and far beyond the bat of an eyelid, as unexpected as the win may have been. This was an event moreover, whose significance penetrated much deeper than the political pats on the back for the approval of a model that realised the strength of a nation through its unity, and much deeper than a sympathetic salutation to a team that jumped numerous hurdles.
I would like to be so bold, if I may, in saying out aloud what the rest of the international community has conveyed through its actions if not through it’s verbal discourse, and in the process perhaps shed some light on what exactly had afforded this story so much gravitas.
In true Pinteresque fashion – the consensus amongst the world’s media to assign the story with front-page status silently spoke of an international community that has been starved of hope, and robbed of pride, like a hungry child who eats after days on an empty stomach.
I make no apologies for my lack of faith in the G8’s commitment to attaining the world poverty targets by 2015, glamorously given a PR injection that same week with Gordon Brown’s public prioritizing of it in that same week. Nor do I apologise for my skepticism in the underlying themes behind the Millennium Development Goals. Deliberating over Churchill’s conjecture that “history is written by the victors,” I might add with conviction that I would affably agree.
This time it might not be such a bad thing however, since history has recorded a “fairytale victory.” As children we are encouraged to dream through the medium of narrative and it is only through the process of ageing and its inherent exposures that we are socialised to attune ourselves to the reality that stories don’t always have happy endings. History sometimes has an awful habit of renouncing our dreams and sentencing us instead to gloom and despair.
What I hope that this “fairytale victory” instills in all of us though, is an ability to dream again, in harmony with the acceptance that it’s okay if the story doesn’t end how it was originally intended. We cannot direct the wind but we can change our sails. The message in this bottle encapsulates a reminder, that no matter what we face, there is always hope, and so long as we have hope, we can make our own history.
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