Human Rights in Qatar: Sports-washing and The Hypocrisy Of The West

While Qatar gets to host the FIFA World Cup 2022 and open its field for the most controversial World Cup in history, it came at the unjustifiable cost of the lives of the migrant workers engulfed by the unprecedented building project in preparation for the tournament. Qatar, a rich and powerful country in the middle east, is infamous for its disagreeable laws for migrant workers and its stance on the LGBTQ community. This has led to a mass outrage against the country getting the opportunity to host such a massive tournament, with pundits such as Roy Keane, a famous Irish footballer, amongst many others who have condemned FIFA’s decision [1]. 

It would be erroneous to undermine FIFA's presence and the impact the organisation has on the vast football fanbase. It is especially true in times when countries like Russia and China are increasingly conducting sports washing - a tool where countries use Sports to whitewash their distressing perpetrations [2]. What, however, is also questionable is the selective activism of the countries whose scrutiny of the FIFA 2022 World Cup host reflects western prejudice and “gross double standards”.[3]

The BBC, in protest of FIFA being hosted by Qatar, did not air the World Cup opening ceremony, despite broadcasting the Winter Olympics hosted by China. It is hard to justify, how exactly the definition of justice and fairness has changed  within the last 6 months, when such moral outrage was not afforded to the Winter Olympics host who has indulged in gross human rights abuses of the Uyghur prisoners in their detention camps where people were forced into free labour, alongside other violations [4]. A similar pass was also given to the former FIFA host, Russia, who seemed to get away fairly easily with getting tournament hosting rights, despite passing an anti-LGBTQ “gay propaganda” law and constantly stifling the rights of its citizens.[5] This point of view was reaffirmed by FIFA president Ginanni Infantino, who quoted “I think for what we Europeans have been doing in the last 3,000 years, around the world, we should be apologizing for the next 3,000 years before starting to give moral lessons to people”.[6] Such cherry-picked activism makes it critical for us to observe the linearity of how the west reacts when prospective bidding countries like Canada, Mexico, or the USA (countries with an unpleasant human rights record and a contentious past) win the bid.

 The criticism that Qatar is facing in terms of its poor track record on migrant rights and the LGTBQ community is well founded. However, with each day of growing islamophobia, it remains critical to yield clarity that some of these opinions are masking the underlying bias of the west. There seems to be a bias that Qatar as a country does not deserve to host the tournament due to its lack of sporting history and the intrinsic fact of it being an Arab country. The French newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné published a cartoon depicting “hairy” and “angry” Qatari footballers as terrorists, armed with machine guns and rocket launchers, reflecting a similar bias.[7] This point was vindicated by a credible Egyptian-born journalist Ayman Mohyeldin in his article, where he points out that Europe and the west, the gatekeepers of global soccer, inherently “can’t stomach the idea that an Arab Middle Eastern country will host such a venerable event?”[8].

With the large scale criticism over the unacceptability of Qatar as the host, in western countries like the UK, where 6 of 10 people oppose Qatar hosting the world cup, a healthy dose of self-criticism would be in line.Apart from the startling fact that Qatar is the 10th largest landowner in Britain, Britain has given Qatar weapons sales licences worth billions of pounds since it got FIFA hosting rights.   [9]. As rightfully highlighted by the labour MP Zarah Sultana in her recent tweet, “when we criticise Qatar’s appalling human rights record, let’s not forget the conservatives have licensed them more than 3,400,000,000 worth of arms since 2010”.[10] Therefore, even though Qatar is deserving of the criticism it faces, it gets hard to buy such critique from countries hopping onto the moral bandwagon, who might on some level facilitate such doings.

Moreover, in complete solidarity with the movement for justice for the migrant workers, it would be unfair, as well as counterproductive, to downplay the progress Qatar has made to address some issues. With Qatar scrapping the appalling Kafala system which was used to employ migrant workers, international trade unions and experts have concurred that these efforts are genuine and constitute a great process[11]. Even though these efforts by no means justify the huge progress that still needs to be made, subjecting Qatar to such targeted criticism would definitively pull the plug on the chance for future change and undermine the movement for securing the rights of the migrant workers and the LGTBQ community, whose conditions remain fragile.

There is little doubt that the motives of the countries critiquing Qatar for hosting FIFA are tainted with bias and prejudice. There are undeniable human rights violations taking place within Qatar and we must defend those rightsbut seeking to do so at the cost of fuelling the prejudice and bias against Arabs and the Muslim world generally is no way to go about pursuing this. There is a very fine line between the two and this blurry line must be crystallised so that no more rights are curtailed in the future, and no more prejudices are masked by using important civil rights movements to their advantage. 

Countries and various bodies have been selective with whose claims for human rights they support, and time and again have shown their unreliability and inconsistency. These and similar movements demanding rights need stronger shoulders to stand upon. One that would not turn a blind eye when it is inconvenient to stand up, especially when the perpetrator is the west.

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[1] ITV, S. (2022) 'it shouldn't be here': Roy Keane condemns staging the World Cup in Qatar – video, The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2022/nov/22/roy-keane-condemns-staging-world-cup-qatar-video (Accessed: November 24, 2022). 

[2] Ronay, B. (2022). Uefa and Fifa are too late: Russia’s sportswashing has served its purpose | Barney Ronay. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/feb/25/uefa-and-fifa-are-too-late-russias-sportswashing-has-served-its-purpose. 

[3] MSNBC.com. (n.d.). Opinion | Why Western pundits are so mad that Qatar is hosting the World Cup. [online] Available at: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/world-cup-2022-qatar-schedule-marred-western-anger-rcna57891 [Accessed 24 Nov. 2022].

[4] Pollard, M.Q. (2022). U.N. expert concludes ‘forced labour’ has taken place in Xinjiang. Reuters. [online] 18 Aug. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/un-expert-concludes-forced-labour-has-taken-place-xinjiang-2022-08-18/. 

[5] It's not just Qatar hoping we now 'put politics aside'. it's the hypocritical west, too | Nesrine malik (2022) The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/21/qatar-world-cup-british-double-standards-anger-gifts-property-arms-deals (Accessed: November 24, 2022). 

[6] the Guardian. (2022a). Fact check: 11 eye-catching lines from Gianni Infantino’s speech in Qatar. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/nov/19/world-cup-gianni-infantino-speech-fact-check-qatar [Accessed 24 Nov. 2022].

[7] Staff, A.J. (n.d.). ‘Racism’: Qataris decry French cartoon of national football team. [online] www.aljazeera.com. Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/8/islamophobia-qataris-decry-french-cartoon-of-football-team [Accessed 25 Nov. 2022].

[8] MSNBC.com. (n.d.). Opinion | Why Western pundits are so mad that Qatar is hosting the World Cup. [online] Available at: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/world-cup-2022-qatar-schedule-marred-western-anger-rcna57891 [Accessed 24 Nov. 2022].

[9] It's not just Qatar hoping we now 'put politics aside'. it's the hypocritical west, too | Nesrine malik (2022) The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/21/qatar-world-cup-british-double-standards-anger-gifts-property-arms-deals (Accessed: November 24, 2022).