Boycott The Qatar World Cup?

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Rood said:
This is true but let's not pretend that the Qatar bid was the only one to be tainted with curruption - obviously the same people voted for Russia 2018 for a start
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Pintu said:
Not to forget this one.

Trump threatens to punish countries that don’t support North American World Cup bid
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Whataboutism!
 
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your level of hypocricy is actually impressive

the other day moaning about people being nasty in the same post as throwing around insults and now picking out perfectly relevant posts here while throwing discussions wildly off topic in other threads
 
Spain deserve credit for having the most effective boycott/protest of the world cup. They've bored the shite out of people from watching it.
 
"A Qatari whistleblower who was jailed after raising concerns about the mistreatment of migrant workers at World Cup stadium sites was tortured on the eve of the tournament, his family has claimed. Fair Square also released a letter from the family of Abdullah Ibhais, a former media manager in Qatar’s Supreme Committee, who accused Fifa of “callous indifference” for ignoring his case."


https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...blower-was-tortured-claim-human-rights-groups
 
moses said:
"A Qatari whistleblower who was jailed after raising concerns about the mistreatment of migrant workers at World Cup stadium sites was tortured on the eve of the tournament, his family has claimed. Fair Square also released a letter from the family of Abdullah Ibhais, a former media manager in Qatar’s Supreme Committee, who accused Fifa of “callous indifference” for ignoring his case."


https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...blower-was-tortured-claim-human-rights-groups
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This stuff should really matter to anyone watching the world cup, and we should remember that, for all Qatar and Infantino say that criticism of the WC is born out of anti-Arab racism, Arabs, South Asians and Africans are the real victims of this world cup. They're the ones who died or were tortured. The argument that this is about anti-Qatari racism is obscene.
 
Chief123 said:
We all happy to boycott the World Cup for today and tomorrow?
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As soon as we have a slight break from football stories start coming out about workers dying at the world cup and Qataris being tortured for talking about it. Probably not a coincidence - for the first time since the WC began there isn't football to distract people.

Sportswashing!
 
I didn't even come close to boycotting the World Cup even though I don't think it should be there and don't think it should be a winter World Cup. When the first match came along, I tuned in and then tuned in to pretty much every one since. Makes you think doesn't it
 
GreenFieldsGoldenBarley said:
As soon as we have a slight break from football stories start coming out about workers dying at the world cup and Qataris being tortured for talking about it. Probably not a coincidence - for the first time since the WC began there isn't football to distract people.

Sportswashing!
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Strange, the only stories I hear coming out is how the fans who have travelled there are having an amazing experience and the hospitality has been spot on. Even some of the pundits have been saying how good the experience has been.
 
Chief123 said:
Strange, the only stories I hear coming out is how the fans who have travelled there are having an amazing experience and the hospitality has been spot on. Even some of the pundits have been saying how good the experience has been.
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That's sportswashing! The point here is that the treatment of European tourists seems mostly to be really good, but the treatment of the migrant labour work force/locals who criticise the Qatari government is really bad, and fans are being prevented from talking to anyone who might say bad things about the government.

It's obviously really easy to get distracted by the glamour of the football and spectacle, and to ignore the suffering that underlies it all. That's what's really disturbing about the whole world cup.

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...er-reported-death-of-worker-at-world-cup-site

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...blower-was-tortured-claim-human-rights-groups

Here's a pundit talking about how she felt well-treated in Qatar, and how she found herself thinking about the human cost of that:

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...p-and-that-makes-me-feel-deeply-uncomfortable
 
Chief123 said:
Strange, the only stories I hear coming out is how the fans who have travelled there are having an amazing experience and the hospitality has been spot on.
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Haven't you just literally described how sportswashing works?

"Criticised" place holds sporting event, fans travel and say "actually the world cup was great maybe we shouldn't be so hard on them" and then those fans opinions (even though they aren't representative of the place as a whole, rather they represent their experience of a highly stage managed event where the majority of the reasons that the place is criticised won't be occuring openly) will be used as PR to deflect away from legitimate criticisms in future?
 
Chief123 said:
Strange, the only stories I hear coming out is how the fans who have travelled there are having an amazing experience and the hospitality has been spot on. Even some of the pundits have been saying how good the experience has been.
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One of my best mates is there and having a great time, loving the football and the experiences there.
I have no doubt he is and no doubt the fans there are also having a great time.
However it in no way has any impact on my decision not to watch this world cup or the reasons Im avoiding it.
The whole "but everyone is having a great time" angle is weird to me
 
Rhyme Animal said:
I think people are fine to enjoy the footy and at the same time talk about the issues in qatar and push for progress and equality. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. That’s a big part of what World Cups are about.

It seems Qatar really didn’t understand that.
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Hugely important point.
 
Rhyme Animal said:
That’s because you have an intellectual level that’s above being swayed by Sportswashing.

Whether people choose to boycott or not I personally don’t care, but the propaganda (‘criticising our oppression of minorities is racist’) and censorship (you can’t say that, you can’t wear a rainbow, you can’t wear an armband) are the most disappointing things imo.

When you host a WC, the light of the World is shone on your country, and if that light shows things that the World wants to talk about, you can’t then start whining and trying to shut down discourse and throwing your toys out the pram.

Likewise it’s really disappointing to see people in here who’ve chosen to side with the bullshit rhetoric of a cruel and corrupt regime and attempt to steer any criticism or conversation of Qatar’s practices into divisive anti-West whataboutism.

I think people are fine to enjoy the footy and at the same time talk about the issues in qatar and push for progress and equality. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. That’s a big part of what World Cups are about.

It seems Qatar really didn’t understand that.
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This is something most people can't accept. It becomes whataboutism because this sort of criticism is not leveled at the "western countries" when they host international tournaments. For many and the western newspapers and people it might be alright to go and bomb the hell out of non white countries and send them to the stone age. But for most of the rest of the world it's simply hypocrisy.
 
Foxbatt said:
This is something most people can't accept. It becomes whataboutism because this sort of criticism is not leveled at the "western countries" when they host international tournaments. For many and the western newspapers and people it might be alright to go and bomb the hell out of non white countries and send them to the stone age. But for most of the rest of the world it's simply hypocrisy.
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Yeah western countries are never critical of themselves. I definitely wasn't on protests against the Iraq war as a 15 year old in 2003 in a Western country. It definitely is the entire west constantly just going somewhere to bomb something because you live there.
 
Abizzz said:
Yeah western countries are never critical of themselves. I definitely wasn't on protests against the Iraq war as a 15 year old in 2003 in a Western country. It definitely is the entire west constantly just going somewhere to bomb something because you live there.
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I was in London. People protest and would. But the media is the biggest cheerleader is these things. The British media was all for it. And still is. Is anyone protesting about the US troops occupying parts of Syria still? Guantanamo Bay? When NATO bombed Libya and destroyed it? All the while all these sporting events being held in these countries?
 
Foxbatt said:
This is something most people can't accept. It becomes whataboutism because this sort of criticism is not leveled at the "western countries" when they host international tournaments. For many and the western newspapers and people it might be alright to go and bomb the hell out of non white countries and send them to the stone age. But for most of the rest of the world it's simply hypocrisy.
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It's about whether I can trust whatever comes from the western media

For me It's not about defending the boy who caught thieving, it's asking whether the accusation is real or made up.

Foxbatt said:
I was in London. People protest and would. But the media is the biggest cheerleader is these things. The British media was all for it. And still is. Is anyone reporting about the US troops occupying parts of Syria still? Guantanamo Bay? When NATO bombed Libya and destroyed it? All the while all these sporting events being held in these countries?
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Fixed that for ya, sure.. some small section somewhere they're talking about it... but, QATAR! How dare they!
 
Foxbatt said:
I was in London. People protest and would. But the media is the biggest cheerleader is these things. The British media was all for it. And still is. Is anyone protesting about the US troops occupying parts of Syria still? Guantanamo Bay? When NATO bombed Libya and destroyed it? All the while all these sporting events being held in these countries?
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Libya was an intervention into a mess that already existed. It didn't work but it wasn't working before either. Guantanamo is a disgrace to America because it's against American values and an easy cop out. However much of the world just doesn't even bother coming up with a situation like Guantanamo (in effect not having to follow your own laws) because they don't follow their own laws inside their own countries. Have a look at the prisons in some of these countries so outraged at the "west".

Nah it's the cheek of us westerners not to kiss their oil rich feet and take "culture" as an excuse for everything that riles people up. They just come up with hypocrisy because western media has taught them about western failures. (And often enough just straight up make it up too when a country hasn't bombed much for 75 years like they did with Ozil).
 
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Foxbatt said:
I was in London. People protest and would. But the media is the biggest cheerleader is these things. The British media was all for it. And still is. Is anyone protesting about the US troops occupying parts of Syria still? Guantanamo Bay? When NATO bombed Libya and destroyed it? All the while all these sporting events being held in these countries?
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I was in my early teens during the Iraq war and was totally disintersted in anything beyond video games and wanking back then, but I still remember there being a huge debate about its justification at the time including in the media coverage.

I remember a spontaneous debate kicking off in school when someone brought it up. A few people were saying "we need to get rid of sadam" and pretty much everyone else started calling them warmongers.

Dont get me wrong, no one in that room had the foggiest idea what they were on about and just spouted what their parents/peers/media had told them. But it shows there wasn't this mass consent.

Guantanamo, has pretty much become a meme. Everybody knows it's horrendous apart from the extreme minority that love the idea of torture. It has been reported about in the media constantly.

Syria is a hot mess and and just about everyone is involved in that conflict. No one has clean hands there.

Libya was a disaster. And everyone seemed to see this at the time. I saw very little cheerleading for it anywhere and cameron was slammed for it (no where near enough imo). It definitely should be talked about more though. The recklessness was insane.
 
Rhyme Animal said:
No. This bullshit, divisive take is just so far off the fecking mark and it’s bang out of order.

So many of us marched and protested against the disgusting actions of Blair and Bush and the havoc they wreaked in the ME.

We are not them, we made that clear to the fecking World (yes, if you disagree with a repulsive leadership you CAN voice that and stand against it). We have benefitted nothing from their actions and don’t support them.

This dangerous, bullshit angle that Infantino spewed out of basically - ‘if you criticise Qatar, dats racist’, is so fecking wrong and offensive. Not to mention slippery and cowardly of him.

Trying to make it a binary issue of West vs ME to deflect from fifa and qatar and using weaponised language that prevents discussion.

The irony in this, is that the exact same people who are disgusted by Qatar’s treatment of gay people and migrant workers are same fecking people that marched against those bombings you’re using as argument leverage - do you realise that!?

The reasoning being the same - ‘that’s fecking wrong, stop treating innocent people like shit’.

They’re the same people that’ve argued the case against Islamophobia in Britain and America - they’re not the fecking racists. They’re the type of people that hate oppression and will call out shithead regimes and corruption WHEREVER it’s occurring.

Go look in the CE forum - how did people react when Boris Johnson made racist comments about Muslim women? They called him out, as a fat, idiotic xenophobic cnut. That’s the same people that wanna call out homophobia in Qatar, whether it’s considered religious ‘values’ or not.

The people that are repulsed by Qatar’s censorship and oppression aren’t fecking Tommy Robinson fans mate, they’re the opposite.

Indeed, the right wing xenophobes who couldn’t give a feck about gays or migrant workers and likely supported the bombings you’re talking about - they’re the ones aligning with Qatar’s stance here.
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Great post.
 
Rhyme Animal said:
No. This bullshit, divisive take is just so far off the fecking mark and it’s bang out of order.

So many of us marched and protested against the disgusting actions of Blair and Bush and the havoc they wreaked in the ME.

We are not them, we made that clear to the fecking World (yes, if you disagree with a repulsive leadership you CAN voice that and stand against it). We have benefitted nothing from their actions and don’t support them.

This dangerous, bullshit angle that Infantino spewed out of basically - ‘if you criticise Qatar, dats racist’, is so fecking wrong and offensive. Not to mention slippery and cowardly of him.

Trying to make it a binary issue of West vs ME to deflect from fifa and qatar and using weaponised language that prevents discussion.

The irony in this, is that the exact same people who are disgusted by Qatar’s treatment of gay people and migrant workers are same fecking people that marched against those bombings you’re using as argument leverage - do you realise that!?

The reasoning being the same - ‘that’s fecking wrong, stop treating innocent people like shit’.

They’re the same people that’ve argued the case against Islamophobia in Britain and America - they’re not the fecking racists. They’re the type of people that hate oppression and will call out shithead regimes and corruption WHEREVER it’s occurring.

Go look in the CE forum - how did people react when Boris Johnson made racist comments about Muslim women? They called him out, as a fat, idiotic xenophobic cnut. That’s the same people that wanna call out homophobia in Qatar, whether it’s considered religious ‘values’ or not.

The people that are repulsed by Qatar’s censorship and oppression aren’t fecking Tommy Robinson fans mate, they’re the opposite.

Indeed, the right wing xenophobes who couldn’t give a feck about gays or migrant workers and likely supported the bombings you’re talking about - they’re the ones aligning with Qatar’s stance here.
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Let's see what happens in the next world cup. Would there be any of this when it's being hosted in USA and Canada and Mexico? I bet nothing much would be said about the bombings, occupation and Guantanamo.
As another OP was saying that Guantanamo is as bad as some prisons in other countries is why not much is said about it. This is exactly why people should shout the same about each and every country. Some guys shouting in a forum is not going to make much of a difference but the western newspapers were all cheering for these kinds of bombings and invasion and occupations. Let's see what they say in 4 years time.
 
Rhyme Animal said:
Indeed, the right wing xenophobes who couldn’t give a feck about gays or migrant workers and likely supported the bombings you’re talking about - they’re the ones aligning with Qatar’s stance here.
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Right wing xenophobes support a World Cup in Qatar?

Obviously not
 
Rood said:
Right wing xenophobes support a World Cup in Qatar?

Obviously not
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That's the thing though, they do bizarrely. In these times of culture wars and lack of nuance there are sections of right wing xenophobes who do support it because the wokerati have an issue with it. Also backing perceived strongarm governments in en vogue. Americans backing Putin would he unheard of in times past. It's a disaster and that's why this debate is a mess of whataboutery and rarely touches on the crux of the issue and we end up talking about so many irrelevant and bizarre analogies instead of the welfare of the individuals in question. It's often not about them at all.
 
moses said:
That's the thing though, they do bizarrely. In these times of culture wars and lack of nuance there are sections of right wing xenophobes who do support it because the wokerati have an issue with it. Also backing perceived strongarm governments in en vogue. Americans backing Putin would he unheard of in times past. It's a disaster and that's why this debate is a mess of whataboutery and rarely touches on the crux of the issue and we end up talking about so many irrelevant and bizarre analogies instead of the welfare of the individuals in question. It's often not about them at all.
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I haven't seen this anywhere - any examples ?
 
Rood said:
I haven't seen this anywhere - any examples ?
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I've just explained. It's partly right wing xenophobes in America that have had sympathy for Putin and Kim Jong in the last few years. Same counter intuitive lack of logic. It's not a clear a case of the Klan supporting North Korea, its part of the polarising culture war that often contradicts because its not actually ideological.

Conversely the lefties who want a boycott are apparently the racists despite being pretty much the same people who support things like BLM and opposed the gulf wars.
 
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