Mohammad Fadel is Full Professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, where was previously the Canada Research Chair for the Law and Economics of Islamic Law. He is also a DAWN fellow.
This was a record-setting year for Egyptian football. The national team became the first to qualify for the knock-out round at the World Cup, as well as the first to win an elimination game. Were it not for some bad luck and questionable officiating, it could very well have pulled off one of the greatest upsets in the history of the World Cup. The team made all Egyptians proud, to say nothing of the positive impression it left on the Middle East and the global community. Their tenacity, creativity on the pitch and never-say-die approach to the game garnered universal respect, a dynamic that contrasts strongly with the modern Egyptian state and its repressive policies.
It was not only their superb play on the pitch that earned global praise for the Egyptian national team: the bravery of their outspoken coach, Hossam Hassan, who insisted on centering Palestine in numerous public statements during the World Cup, earned him accolades around the world. When Hassan used the publicity Egypt received to remind the world of the historical and ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people, he reminded us that it is impossible to separate sports from politics. In this regard, there are many lessons that Egyptians and the world can learn from the success of Egypt's national team in this year's World Cup.
Successful teams in sports are a microcosm of a smoothly operating democracy. A democracy, like a team, is also more than a sum of its parts.
- Mohammad Fadel
A successful football team is more than the sum of its parts. The 26 players on the team come together and produce something greater than any individual on their own. Through teamwork, Egypt's national team managed to surpass expectations derived from their individual biographies. Unlike many of the established football powers, like Argentina, only a handful of Egyptian players — Mohammad Salah and Omar Marmoush in particular — have played in top-tier European football leagues. Despite the relatively unknown status of most of its players, the Egyptian team proved it could compete at the highest level.
Successful teams in sports are a microcosm of a smoothly operating democracy. A democracy, like a team, is also more than a sum of its parts. Just as a successful team does not erase the individuality of its players, so too does a democracy. Built on the rule of law and respect for the rights of citizens, it recognizes and honors the individuality of its citizens. Because it guarantees their rights, citizens become free, like the different players on a team, to develop their talents and apply them in a context democratically determined to achieve a public good.
Football teams approach a match with a finely-honed strategy, with each player expected to utilize their talents to execute that part of the strategy for which they are responsible. Similarly, a democratic citizen naturally follows their country's laws — the country's strategy, so to speak — because they are the author of those laws and, therefore, are internally motivated to use their talents and skills to ensure its success.
Democracies succeed for the same reason as sports teams: They respect what each individual can contribute to the common good and design their policies based on trust in their citizens to use their freedom in furtherance of the common good. A good coach understands that they cannot give precise instructions to each player, yet the aim is to drill each player sufficiently so that the player can successfully use their judgment to further the team's general strategy. The same applies in a democracy, where the state does not attempt to direct every decision for its people but is content with laying out broad policy plans, adopting appropriate incentives to encourage citizens to use their skills and judgment in a socially productive way. The government in a democracy necessarily trusts its people to use their judgment to further society's common aims instead of working exclusively for themselves.
Democracies succeed for the same reason as sports teams: They respect what each individual can contribute to the common good and design their policies based on trust in their citizens to use their freedom in furtherance of the common good.
- Mohammad Fadel
An authoritarian regime, by contrast, can be compared to a group of players that, despite constituting a "team," are a group of individual players. Each seeks to be the hero. Yet because they fail to work together or restrain themselves in the pursuit of their individual achievements and interests, they are less than the sum of their parts. Despite a roster full of stars, they lose to teams whose individual players are far less accomplished.
We are all familiar with teams whose rosters are full of stars but nevertheless fall to teams with less skill. Authoritarian regimes share the vice of a team full of stars, none of whom are willing to sacrifice for the common good. Star-laden teams often fail because the desire for individual success keeps them from recognizing the value of the contributions or potential contributions of their teammates and the system. An authoritarian regime, too, due to the need to attribute all successes to the leader, necessarily disrespects the capacities and talents of individual citizens in favor of continually affirming the decisions of that leader.
This dynamic not only deprives the country of the talents and efforts of its citizens but increases the likelihood that the ruler will make disastrous errors in decision-making. Unlike the successful coach or a well-run democracy, where the players and citizens are trusted to pursue the common strategy using their judgment, the authoritarian ruler requires all to bend to their will and vision. A command-and-control vision of the state might work in a very primitive community, where problems needing resolution are relatively limited and well known, but it cannot work in the context of a modern state and economy. The complexity of modern life means that it is beyond the capacity of even the most able and intelligent statesman to understand, much less formulate solutions to, every challenge facing the country.
Authoritarian states fail because they, simultaneously, vest too much trust in a leader who claims special knowledge and expertise that surpasses all others, and too little trust in the capacities of the ordinary citizen. Like a poorly run team, authoritarian states fail even when they have ample potential. Egypt's national team, by contrast, shows us that when the talents and abilities of the individuals constituting the whole are respected, great milestones can be achieved.
Egyptians should take this moment of pride in the national team to reflect on whether the current Egyptian government is leading in a way that respects the rights and capacities of all Egyptians, or whether, by denying them a meaningful say in their own affairs, it is paving the way for disastrous failures. Egypt is a country of over 100 million people, with immense human potential. To unlock that potential, however, the Egyptian state must cease treating its citizens as threats. Rather, it must unshackle them and allow them to use their talents freely to pursue the common good, just as Coach Hassan empowered each member of Egypt's national team to contribute to the country's historic World Cup run.
The views and positions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of DAWN.
