If you invite the world, expect the world to come

There's still opportunity for good to come from Qatar 2022

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

When Sepp Blatter held up that little piece of paper back in 2013 and said, bizarrely, “The World Cup twenty twenty two Qatar” the world, less bizarrely, lost its mind.

How could they do this, was the question. How could they possibly put the World Cup in a repressive region with no football culture?

If you were paying any attention, you shouldn’t have been that shocked by the choice. Journalists such as the late Andrew Jennings had long warned people that organizations like FIFA (and the IOC, where Jennings did some of his most memorable investigative work) were motivated by one thing above all else — greed.

And, they were shamelessly corrupt. There was very little hiding of what they were doing.

So, no one should have been surprised. On a personal level, I was not. In fact, I wrote at the time, that I had expected Qatar to win the bid over the bookies’ favourite, the USA.

I also wrote that the naming of Qatar as host shouldn’t have instantly and universally been dismissed. Sure, the way it happened needed to be attacked, but once it was given, there was an opportunity to make some good out of it.

This was a region that had been ignored and even vilified over the years. It was isolated from much of the West. This was a chance to bring this country — region, even — into the greater world conversation. The hope being that through exposure there would be an evolution towards values and rights that should be universal.

There would also be a chance for us in the West to see this part of the world in a positive way.

Before we go further, we need to back up a bit and talk about ethnocentrism and how that’s different from expecting basic human rights to be adhered to.

Ethnocentrism is expecting other cultures to be the same as yours — for them to bend to your needs and expectations. The stereotypically fat, drunk Brit peeing in a public square and yelling at the locals to speak English is an example of ethnocentrism. Clearly, this is a problem, and no one would be OK with it.

Expecting basic human rights is a tad different. That’s about demanding that all cultures and places allow individuals to live without fear for their safety and with fair access to what they need to survive — food, water, basic health care, etc. There is no excuse to deny anyone this, anywhere. Ever. And, pointing out that a country is failing in this regard is NOT ethnocentrism. Nor is it a universal dismissal of other, more positive aspects of the country. NOR, is it suggesting that everyone in thar country is a bad person.

Canada, for instance, is failing at that in many First Nations communities and we need to be better.

As it relates to the current situation, Qatar is clearly terrible at this in a multitude of ways. The most glaring is with LGBQT+ rights and with women’s and worker’s rights. There are tonnes of good reporting out there that gives voices to those who have experienced it first-hand. To give just one example, listen to The Football Ramble’s Inside Qatar series from this past week.

So, there’s no question that Qatar is poor in this regard and, as such, they need to be called out. As should have been Russia four years ago (and China nine months ago, for that matter). I’m a bit uncomfortable that a Middle East country is getting called out the most, but to ignore the issues now because we failed to address them earlier is just useless whataboutism. So, instead, let’s examine the systemic racism of our own culture separately from the clear issues we are aware of in Qatar.

To do that we first need to identify what it is that we would like to see happen. Something realistic in the short term as well and long term changes.

With the latter, it’s easy: We should want women to be given autonomy over their choices and bodies, workers to be treated with dignity and paid fairly and for LGBQT+ people to be allowed to live their life in safety.

With the former, it’s harder. But, what is an emerging consensus is that FIFA should be fairly compensating the migrant workers. Many were paid shameful wages and were treated as if they were disposable during the build-up to the World Cup.

This seems like the least that FIFA could do.

They can also make sure that this doesn’t happen again — not that we don’t go into non-traditional places again. There’s nothing inherently wrong with playing in the Middle East. The least compelling arguments against this World Cup were the ones that complained about the disruption to the European calendar. It’s a World Cup, not a Euro. Deal with it.

However, there needs to be a baseline of human rights to be met before you are allowed the privilege of hosting the World Cup. That shouldn’t be controversial.

Nor should talking about these issues during the tournament be. Qatar had a chance to reflect and evolve (or even show a willingness to) in the lead up. They could have controlled this narrative, without heavy handily trying to control it. But, they didn’t. So here we are looking at the other way that holding the tournament here provided an opportunity.

That opportunity? To hold a magnifying glass up to Qatar and to ask them uncomfortable questions.

If you feel that interferes in your ability to watch the football in peace, then you should be able to understand how difficult it must be for a LGBQT+ fan to do the same, right?

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