HIBAPRESS – Rabat
Mustapha Ramid considered that football is no longer just a means of entertainment, but has become an investment and commercial field and a development program that carries strong symbolic dimensions, stressing that it has become an intangible capital and a soft power capable of mobilizing the people and unifying collective feelings around comprehensive national issues.
Ramid explained, in a post published on his Facebook account, that people usually experience a complex interplay of feelings in which individualism and selfishness prevail, but that major events are capable of overcoming this situation and creating unified collective mobilization, recalling prominent national models from Moroccan history, and highlighting that the national football team has become today one of the most prominent of these psychological and collective engines. He stressed that interest in the national team has come to include various segments of society, from young and old, women and men, in cities and villages, where eyes and hopes turn towards the national team, and the dates of matches turn into national moments during which daily preoccupations stop in favor of following the confrontations with great enthusiasm. Ramid highlighted that this popular turnout reflects a psychological state in which the collective national sense prevails, considering that sports victory carries symbolic connotations that are no less important than material gains, and that the team at these moments turns into an expression of the collective self, where the fans and players share feelings of joy and brokenness in common. He pointed out that sport contributes to uniting what interests and differences separate, and embodies one of the images of national unity and collective mobilization, noting that football defeat does not affect the team alone, but extends psychologically to the public, which confirms the national dimension of sports competition between peoples. Ramid stressed that this popular momentum should not obscure attention from the basic social and economic issues, while at the same time expressing his hope that sports victories will be reinforced by parallel achievements in the fields of development and combating poverty, unemployment, disease and various manifestations of underdevelopment.
