Desert Storm
The below piece is a commentary on the current debate surrounding the legitimacy of Qatar’s bid, and its subsequent hosting of the 2022 World Cup.
Specifically, was the decision eventually reached by FIFA’s Executive Committee in 2010 misguided? Did Qatar have any merit to their application? And what really makes a nation qualified to host the beautiful game’s most coveted international spectacle?
Naturally, questions ought to be asked when a nation as small, both geographically, as well as in a demographic sense is awarded this honor.
Qatar is a country of just 3 million people, with 85% of the population (~2.7 million) constituting foreign workers, as reported by Axios. To clarify, it’s worth noting that this brigade of ex-pats is by no means enamored with the Qatari equivalent of the ‘American Dream’, nor do they operate under the auspices of a symbiotic relationship with state authorities.
In fact, most of Qatar’s residents are migrants from Gulf States, East Asia, or the African continent. But this isn’t all there is to it. A vast majority of them were sourced from overseas to assist with the development of Qatar’s footballing infrastructure, which for the most part was non-existent up since 2010.
You see, Qatar itself had a lot of catching up to do until recently. At the turn of the 20th century, Qatar was a sparsely populated British protectorate. After coming across rich gas reserves in the mid-century, and gaining the right to self-determination in the wake of World War II, the state was immediately endowed with enormous wealth via its petro-economy.
Fast-forward a few decades, Qatar is now a sizeable actor in the global market. Though like most of its neighbors, Qatar’s economy is extremely one-dimensional given its continued reliance on oil.
This is negative for a couple of reasons.
For starters, petro-states don’t exactly offer their citizens avenues for sustained economic mobility. This is especially the case within the sub-context of an Islamic monarchy. As such, governance over this lucrative resource is rigidly monitored, and for the most part, serves the dual purpose of enriching the royal family and furthering the state’s capacity to conduct international business.
This isn’t to say that Qatar is a failed state. In fact, this statement is very much to the contrary. If you go to the capital of Doha, you’ll find a rapidly-developing metropolis, home to cutting-edge design architecture and luxurious buildings dotting the skyline. For lack of a better term, the city ostensibly resembles a postcard and is one of the safest urban areas in the world.
While the high-rises of West Bay, Doha’s richest commercial district, illustrate Qatar’s considerable wealth, the zones right on the outskirts of city limits paint a different story. Away from all the tourist attractions and 5-star hotels, where business leaders congregate over Karak (tea) and shakshuka, are the existence of shanty towns that house the nation’s migrant population.
It is here where you’ll find a large portion of Doha’s migrant cohort residing. Between the crowded barracks in ‘Industrial Town’ for the city’s construction bridge, and impoverished communes for service workers, these neighborhoods stand in stark contrast to the buildings that populate the Corniche.
Here, there is many a story of the archetypal ‘ex-pat’ who finds themselves at the mercy of (usually) his employers. Often workers aren’t paid on time and labor physically demanding jobs beneath the hot Qatari sun. Despite forming the backbone of this blossoming urban infrastructure, the aforementioned migrants are forced to toil beneath an antiquated employment system, colloquially known as kafala.
In August 2020, the current World Cup hosts announced they had abolished this much-criticized system, and enacted a flurry of liberal reforms that seemingly would satisfy international concerns over labor rights. These included but were not limited to, a new minimum wage, a modern payment system for salary tracking, and additional flexibility when it came to navigating job contracts and Visa constraints.
Though a number of public interest groups have in the past lamented Qatar’s dubious human rights record, there are those today who are quick to point out the social improvements made by the state in recent years.
They maintain the position that yes, development and change occurred beneath the watchful gaze of international media sources, but the fact that it happened regardless is something to be celebrated. More so, they defend this idea of the WC serving as a positive social conduit to compel cultural change, especially within politically intransigent nations. Perhaps these advancements wouldn’t have even happened without Qatar being placed under the Western magnifying glass. I mean who is to say, honestly?
Regardless, the point to take away from all this is that the World Cup as an institution has managed to induce a handful of necessary concessions from the Qataris — and maybe this was the idea all along.
Clash of Civilizations
The notion of sport as a basis for development is hardly a new one, and it’s worth mentioning that previous iterations of the World Cup have succeeded in dramatically transforming the socio-economic landscapes of former host countries.
Take, for instance, South Africa in 2010. The tournament created the milieu for a potent change in dynamics from the traditional sport for development sphere. In particular, there were a plethora of ‘ready-made’ issues to be tackled — poverty, racial inequality, and the AIDS epidemic — especially in the wake of the Apartheid era.
Beneath the limelight of the World Cup, a great number of domestic and external actors coalesced their efforts to mobilize this industry, while also hoping to succeed in a positive nation-branding campaign — one that would hopefully dispel feelings of Afro-pessimism from international spectators, and generate untapped commercial gains for the nation’s emerging economy.
And for the most part, it was largely successful.
But how/why is Qatar different? And can we expect similar outcomes in a nation that’s far more culturally dissimilar to the ‘West’? Let’s explore.
For starters, Qatari legal code operates under the authority of Shari’a law, a system of governance derived from Islamic texts such as the Quran. The statute at the heart of this debate is Qatar’s rigid prohibition of homosexuality, so much so that those donning (anything resembling) rainbow clothing or paraphernalia are barred from entering stadiums.
As expected, the above news story produced a massive international condemnation of Qatari social norms.
Yet this latest episode was by no means a surprise.
In the weeks and months leading up to the tournament, Qatar’s unwavering position on LGBTQ+ rights was a fierce point of contention. During this period, social media platforms like Twitter and Reddit were converted into forums for both sides to voice their opinions on this dispute.
On the one hand, you have the Western ensemble clamoring that Qatar’s discrimination against LGBTQ+ peoples, in addition to its treatment of migrant workers and overall indifference towards the advancement of women’s rights should serve as grounds to disqualify them of their host status.
Conversely, you have those on the opposite end of the political spectrum ‘fighting’ alongside individuals originating from more traditional backgrounds, who view this cultural denunciation as Islamaphobic and orientalist.
Furthermore, they go on to cite the hypocrisy that accompanies judgment over Qatar’s bid to host the World Cup under this premise, especially when there are 8 other nations apart of the tournament that also outlaw public support of homosexuality.
With this said, the politicization of sports is certainly not a new phenomenon.
The 1936 Berlin Olympics is remembered for a number of reasons, but none more so than the powerful image of Jesse Owens standing atop a podium with his 4 Gold Medals, raising a fist to the crowd.
During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet contingents boycotted and counter-boycotted, the 1980 Olympics in Moscow and the 1984 Olympics in L.A., respectively.
More recently, the Russian Federation was banned from participating in this year’s World Cup, yet still managed to host in 2018 after their unlawful ‘reclamation’ of the Crimean territory back in 2014.
Either way, sports, and politics go hand-in-hand. The coverage of Qatar 22' by Western outlets has elevated this dynamic to a new extreme, where the game of football has taken a seat on the proverbial bench while social issues have dominated headlines in the mainstream media.
Between 1930 and 1990, the world’s game held its most coveted jamboree exclusively within Europe or Latin America. In realizing that the global game needed to better serve its diverse audience, FIFA’s Executive Committee decided to open up its gates to the world: The United States (1994), South Korea (2002), and South Africa (2020) — all subsequently gained host privileges.
Following South Africa, only one geographic region was left out of this club — the Middle East. In approving Qatar’s bid, FIFA sought to bring the Arab world under the football umbrella.
This being said, the initial decision to host a World Cup in Qatar was met with uproar from the get-go.
From unproven claims over bribery to a condemnation of the Arab world’s stringent social norms, Western voices have been campaigning relentlessly against Qatar’s legitimacy as a host nation. Amidst the unabating pressure, FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, broke his silence to ask the West to stop giving the Middle East ‘moral lessons’ given its own dark past.
A New Hope
Despite the uproar, it’s important to circle back as to why this tournament could be a watershed moment for the Middle East, more specifically, for Qatar.
Amidst the politically charged narratives and counter-narratives, football, at the end of the day, is a global game that transcends race, national origin, ethnicity, and religion.
Indeed, the Western obsession with reinforcing their own cultural paradigms has undoubtedly assumed center stage at the World Cup, but in doing so has taken away from the onfield magic of the tournament. On opening day, Saudi Arabia defeated (now-finalists) Argentina; Iran managed to bring their traveling fans a dramatic last-gasp victory in the group stages, in spite of the raging political climate back home; finally, Morocco became the first African team to qualify for the World Cup semi-finals — all results which invoked massive pride across the Arab world.
With this said, the Western voice isn’t obsolete in this context, though in some respects it has severely undervalued the achievements of Middle Eastern nations on the pitch in its collective mission to establish cultural superiority.
I guess the underlying message here is that politics shouldn’t undermine the power that sport has to bring people together. Though the case study of the Qatar World Cup brings a few interesting debates to the forefront.
The first is exactly this — should sports be more concerned with fomenting a feeling of global unity, or divisiveness through politicization?
The second is more practical — will Qatar use the vehicle of the World Cup, and the subsequent revenue generated from it to install more liberal freedoms throughout the country? We’ve already seen progress on this end with the abolishment of the kafala system, but who knows, maybe these reforms can extend to human rights as well.
In any regard, let’s remember that this particular event is all about bringing football lovers together from all over the world, and sustaining this feeling of cosmopolitanism. As for Qatari people, the importance of hosting such a spectacle is hardly lost on them. From positive nation branding to a more nuanced understanding of its history, culture, and development track, to falsifying rumors of domestic attitudes toward foreigners, the tournament has certainly proven a lot of naysayers wrong.
Now, what do you think?
