by James Blake
“My family came to the US because we wanted to get away from the war,” Keflezighi said during our conversation. His accent is still apparent even after so many years in the United States. “Growing up in Eritrea during the war, you didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, you didn’t know what the future held for you. You had very few opportunities. I grew up in a village that didn’t have electricity or running water. If I had stayed I would probably have been a farmer.
“The war was for independence, and my father was an independence supporter. We knew we had to escape or we could end up in prison or we could be killed. So there was not much choice. We decided to take a chance and go to Sudan, which was 225 miles away. The journey was across wilderness. There were hyenas and snakes. In Sudan, we were separated from our father for five years while he was in Italy. He sent us clothes and whatever he could afford. We didn’t have much. We shared our shirts, our jeans, all of it. The clothes he sent didn’t always fit, but luckily I had siblings, so what didn’t fit me would fit one of my brothers. Sometimes it was difficult; it was like the makeshift soccer games we would play. We had the long socks, but no shoes. So we just played with whatever we found in ditches. It was hard, but I have good memories of playing soccer without shoes or even a plastic ball that bounced.
Eventually my father was able to send for us and we went to Italy. Then we came to the United States. It was a blessing for us to come to the United States. I’m telling you this just so you have appreciation for everything that you had as a child. Food to eat, to be able to play sports or you know, make pictures with your pencil. We didn’t take any of this for granted.”
Given that Keflezighi came here as a refugee, I wanted his perspective on both the 2017 executive order to limit refugees and today’s political climate. Some Americans have argued that the refugee-vetting process is extreme enough, while others don’t think it is. Some people argue that it’s a matter of safety; others feel it might be about something else, whether that is discrimination, bias, or even xenophobia. I wanted to know his thoughts, given that Keflezighi and his family have been through that refugee program.
“Like my family, ninety to ninety-five percent of the people that come here, come with the best intentions,” Keflezighi answered. “Why not help them? I don’t think the ban is fair to women and their children. Five-year-olds, eight-year-olds. I can understand if there are eighteen-year-olds or twenty-two-year-olds. Sure, do more background checks, do a thorough background check. But not when it is a wife, mother, or widow coming with three children . . .
“We came here looking for refuge, to eat and feel safe from war. We were willing to work. Nothing is guaranteed when you come here. Nothing is handed to you. I was lucky to have a god-given talent as a runner but I was willing to work at it. It was never by accident that I got a good grade in a class. I worked hard and was studious. It is the same for the refugees coming to the States now. What we achieve here is not by accident, and we give back because this is now our country too. We become runners, athletes, engineers, doctors, poets or writers or filmmakers. We contribute. As an athlete who achieved some sort of success, I’ve made it my goal to help someone else achieve success. I think some of the fear is that we are not as social as in the past and I don’t mean social media. We need to be more interactive people. We are always on the Internet, which makes us solitary and internal. We lose a feeling of community when we don’t even know who our neighbors are.”
I agree with Keflezighi’s perspective. Today, more than ever, our country feels divided and divisive. We are operating more on fear and a need to isolate ourselves. But that is never the answer. We should instead make an effort to get to know our neighbors, especially if they are different, ethnically, culturally, or religiously from us. So much of our communication today isn’t personal, it is digital, especially via social media such as Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. We don’t have as much of a personal interaction with one another anymore. That has its positive side, such as giving athletes the ability to easily reach their fans, but the downside is that less of our interaction is on a personal level. This doesn’t allow us as citizens to really get to know our neighbors or our community. And if they are different from us, all we know is what we see in the media or read about, which could contribute to fear. That makes it so much easier to fall victim to divisive rhetoric. As a refugee seeking asylum and now as an American citizen, Keflezighi has experienced both aspects of exclusion and inclusion in American society. Does he think that there is a better way to approach the vetting system, a way that is more inclusive and less divisive yet still keeps the country safe?
“I can only speak from my own experiences when I first came here, but you have to think, as a country, how you are perceived when you are welcoming. When you make kind gestures, sweet gestures, they are never forgotten. I still remember the people who helped me when I first came here thirty years ago. We were in the welfare system. My father supplemented that by driving a taxi, and he helped out at restaurants. He did whatever he could. We came here to the US, and I started ninth grade. We didn’t have much. A memory that has stayed with me is when the teachers at my school put together money to buy me a letterman jacket because my parents couldn’t afford one. I remember things like that, acts of kindness. My foundation is my way of giving back for what was given to me. The opportunities I had by being in this country, to have the opportunity to run and to win races in New York and Boston, has put me in the position to use my voice and position to help others.”
Keflezighi’s background, what he experienced, the way he grew up, and the atrocities he saw in Eritrea made him want to make a better life here and also for others, and influenced him to start his foundation. Keflezighi wanted to give back for what he received here and for the kindness shown to him in this country. That is lost in today’s discussion about refugees and immigrants. They are seeking asylum, but they give back tremendously to the country and in so many ways. The list of immigrants who have contributed to American culture and society is too long to list, but they are in every industry—sports, commerce, technology, media, manufacturing—and have changed the way America communicates or operates. We would not be the country we are today without their contributions. I think they make these contributions for a few reasons. One, they were welcomed here when they sought refuge, and two, they feel an affinity for and a sense of belonging to America after living here for so many years. And note that many immigrants become naturalized citizens. Considering the divisiveness the immigration ban is creating in our country and in the world I wanted to know if Keflezighi thought he would feel welcome in the US today, the way he was welcomed when he first arrived. His response was immediate and emphatic.
“I was welcome here in 1987. But now, no.” Keflezighi shook his head. “There’s been so many attacks that happened all over the country and world. Now people have to think twice before becoming a refugee or immigrating. In my experience and from my own perspective I think that’s unfair, obviously, because when you’re kind there’s going to be kindness returned. There are so many people who are coming here to do positive things. When we come here and feel welcomed, a seed blossoms. You want to give back to repay that kindness, to show appreciation, to help the country that welcomed you and gave you refuge.”
Keflezighi won the Boston Marathon the year after the bombing attack at the race killed three people and injured more than 260. I could only imagine that for him, winning was particularly special after the horrible tragedy there the year before. What was the crowd like and the feeling that year?
Keflezighi’s eyes lit up as he answered. “I was the first person CNN interviewed who was an African American with an accent so it was very special. Especially after the bombing the year before. Many people, refugees, immigrants, visa holders, wanting to come here stopped going to that airport in Boston right after it happened. You feel singled out, like more eyes are on you. It’s always unfortunate when something like that happens, but that it was caused b
y immigrants. The bombing. The year I won the Boston Marathon I wanted to do something positive. Whether it was winning, whether it was doing something for the families that it affected. That was my goal, to try to bring us all together.”
Meb Keflezighi wanted to do something positive during the 2014 Boston Marathon. He wanted to bring people together after the tragic bombing the year before. And he did. When he crossed the finish line, as a former refugee who is now an American citizen, he showed the world that the divisive acts of a few do not represent the majority of refugees and immigrants who live in the United States and want to do good and be a positive influence here. As a former refugee and an immigrant, Keflezighi showed that we cannot and should not be divided by ethnicity, religion, race, or sex. It does more harm than good and engenders resentment and a lack of unity. He was so determined to replace the negative act of the year before with a positive one that he not only won the marathon, but did it in record time and set a personal best.
How Sports Changes Perceptions and Lives
The idea that sports changes lives and perceptions is more than a slogan on a T-shirt or a way to sell merchandise. Anyone who has become more assured or developed a competitive edge by mastering a sport, or felt the camaraderie of being a part of a team, understands how sports can make you more confident, more focused, more determined, and more driven. Playing a sport, training your mind and your body to excel, can change not only your perception of yourself but also how others perceive you.
We find evidence of this in the most unlikely of places: a refugee camp in the middle of the desert. It was there that a group of girls, living in one of the most traditional and conservative countries in the Middle East, came together as a team. These young women who had never played sports before changed not only their families’ and community’s perception of them, but also their perception of themselves and of what they could do and be. Displaced by the war in Syria and living in Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan, these sheltered young women excelled in a game that was forbidden, but ultimately helped to spread a message of female empowerment, hope, and inspiration. It also strengthened their community and their families, and allowed them to escape from the daily life as refugees in war-torn Syria.
Women’s soccer has become one of the most exciting and popular sports, one in which standouts like Mia Hamm and Megan Rapinoe have electrified the field, without their gender downplaying their prowess and athleticism. Thousands of miles away in a harsh Middle Eastern desert a group of young girls also changed the perception of soccer and a girl’s role in sports, yet none of them had kicked a soccer ball until a few months earlier. In the blinding, arid desert, two Syrian girls’ teams played the biggest game of their lives. Soccer was a sport that until then they were not allowed to play because of their religion. That day, they changed perceptions of what girls are capable of and challenged traditional beliefs.
Sarah Leah Whitson, the Middle East executive director of Human Rights Watch, has called the war in Syria “one of the greatest humanitarian and political catastrophes we are facing.” Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria since 2000, has used Scud missiles, military planes, and other weapons to quash the uprising against what a large part of the population considers dictatorial rule.5 According to BBC News:
When protests against his government began in March 2011 he gave orders to crush the dissent, rather than tolerate it, and he refused to meet protesters’ demands.
The brutal crackdown by the security forces did not, however, stop the protests and eventually triggered an armed conflict that the UN says has so far left more than 250,000 people dead.
More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to Mr Assad and those opposed to his rule battle each other—as well as jihadist militants from Islamic State (IS).6
The brutal ongoing war in Syria has displaced and separated families, moved them from their homes to refugee camps miles away in the middle of the desert, and left them shell-shocked from the daily onslaught of gunfire and mortar fire. It was one of those mortar shells that killed twenty-nine students and a teacher when it slammed into their school outside Damascus. The death tolls rose on a daily basis as dead bodies pummeled by rocket fire piled up in the streets, and the cloying odor of burning cars filled the air. These are the memories that thirteen-year-old Rama Khalid Jwaba and her six sisters and brother took with them when they left Syria and headed west to Jordan, to a refugee camp eight miles from the Syrian border.
“It was a miserable experience. It was terrifying. You could expect to be bombed or have a rocket fired at you,” Rama’s sister Roweda recalled. Rama and her family were driven from their home in Daraa, a city in the southwest corner of Syria. Daraa was the catalyst for the Syrian civil war in 2011 when a dozen teenagers were arrested and tortured for painting antigovernment graffiti. Rather than hear out the protesters’ demands for a more democratic government in Syria, Assad instead responded by commanding his soldiers to fire into a crowd of protestors. They then went house to house and arrested people they thought were involved in the protest, capturing and torturing thousands of people.
Afraid that the army would arrest her brother, Rama’s family joined the millions fleeing Syria and headed west to Jordan in January 2013 as violence escalated. On the day they left, a neighborhood village was being bombed by jets. They had made it out in just the nick of time. Rama remembers being terrified. After an exhausting journey across the desert, they arrived in Za’atari, a massive makeshift refugee camp in Jordan less than eight miles from the Syrian border. Three years ago, the spot on which the camp sits was just a desert in Jordan. Today, it is home to 82,000 residents and is Jordan’s fourth-largest city.
Life in Za’atari is hard. Jobs are scarce and resources are few. Electricity is unreliable, shutting off for hours at a time. Food and water are strictly rationed, and the camp eventually had to close its gates and not allow any more refugees because of limited resources. Rama’s only brother has returned to Syria to look for work to help the family. Rama goes to school for three hours in the morning. The remainder of her time is spent keeping the house, cooking and cleaning, and going to the mosque. In her spare time she wonders if her brother is okay and if he will return. As with most women in conservative Muslim families, Rama’s traditional role is in the home. Traditional girls in Za’atari start getting married when they are sixteen. Their childhood is cut short alternately by war, displacement, and marriage. The general belief is that girls should stay home and not go outside.
But that did not stop Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, the third son of King Hussein, the king of Jordan, from starting an unprecedented sports program that introduced many girls to a forbidden sport. Prince Hussein is FIFA’s top lieutenant. The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is an association governed by Swiss law founded in 1904 and based in Zurich. It has 211 member associations, with delegates from Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. Its goal is the constant improvement of football. In America we call it soccer.
As FIFA notes, “the founders [of the organization] created the first FIFA statutes, unifying the laws of the game to make it fair and clear to all players setting the foundation for all future soccer development. . . . Football has the power to bring people together and to break down barriers. It gives FIFA a platform to improve standards of education, health and sustainability, and to raise living standards and quality of life across the world.”7
FIFA’s website goes on to describe the history of organized soccer as follows: “Known as the world’s favorite game, football began in 1863 in England, when rugby football and association football branched off on their different courses and the Football Association in England was formed, becoming the sport’s first governing body. The rules and the structure of soccer provide a common, simple language to support unity through fair play and peaceful interactions.”8
In one of the most conservative countries in the world, many be
lieve that sports are not for women and that girls should not play sports at all, especially not soccer. Their doing so went against traditional beliefs. That was one of the challenges Prince Hussein faced. The second was to try to have them play but within the rules of the community. Girls cannot play in front of people, and definitely not in front of males. To abide by those rules, the soccer team enclosed one of the boys’ sports fields, trained all female coaches, and then recruited girls. One day, Rama was sitting outside her house watching the girls play. The coach saw her and invited her into the game. The first time Rama asked her father if she could play, he said no. The second time she asked him, he said no, but she went anyway.
The sports program, which started with very little interest and only a few girls, has since grown to forty coaches and over four hundred participants. Since the girls have been playing, it is clear that it has changed them. They are happier and more relaxed. They laugh more and cry less. They thrive under the camaraderie of their teammates and the competition of the sport. Although having played for only three months, Rama has excelled at soccer and is one of her team’s best players. When the boys see Rama practicing in front of her house, their mouths drop open in amazement because they thought girls could not play soccer—and certainly not the way Rama plays.
Rama’s team did remarkably well and qualified for the summer tournament, and although they would play without an audience, they didn’t seem to mind. They were happy to be together, playing as a team, proudly wearing their blue team shirts. The girls shouted, skipped, threw their hands in the air, and clapped when their teammates scored, the memories of their war-torn homeland and its horrors momentarily forgotten. The difference from the shy girls they were a few months earlier to the confident, athletic young women playing that day was astounding.
