On 2 December 2010, Qatar became the first Arab country to host the FIFA World Cup, beating the US in the bidding procedure final round. The result has been hotly debated ever since, with Qatar under continuous scrutiny by international institutions and media, accused of ‘sportswashing’ for its poor social and environmental records and its aggressive geopolitical strategy.
Gas and power
Qatar, a desert peninsula in the Persian Gulf, became a British protectorate in 1916. When in 1971 it achieved independence, the UK guaranteed a conniving Qatari elite relatively autonomous control of their natural resources to maintain geopolitical power in an increasingly crucial world region. These privileges allowed Qatar to exploit its enormous reserves of liquified natural gas, thanks to which the Gulf peninsula is now the world’s wealthiest per capita economy, owning a sovereign fund estimated to have £10bn assets in Britain alone. Qatar’s economy grew along with its international ambition, taking a series of independent decisions challenging the current balance of power in West Asia, refusing the detente with Israel, supporting the Muslim Brotherhood through Al Jazeera, and maintaining relations with Hezbollah in Palestine, the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Iranian regime. Although this autonomy led to significant regional tensions, it should not obscure the fact that, on a global level, Qatar is solidly on the side of the Western powers, participating in the wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. In March 2022 it was awarded the prominent status of US Major Non-NATO Ally.
Semi-slavery with and without ‘kafala’
Qatari’s aggressive geopolitical strategy rests not only on the extraction of its natural resources but on its equally destructive exploitation of migrant labour. Of its 2.6 million inhabitants, only 12% are Qatari and have citizenship rights. All the others arrive from India and other South Asian countries to provide the low-skilled and low-waged labour power necessary to work in the countless building and extracting sites. This inherently classist and racist system was based on the infamous ‘kafala’ system. In exchange for the initial sponsorship, employers were allowed to keep their workers in a status of semi-slavery, withhold their salary and passport, and commit all sorts of abuses for starvation wages. Under the pressure of international institutions in the wake of the World Cup designation, in 2020 Qatar issued a new labour law, which put an end to ‘kafala’ only in words, as employers can still retaliate, report and deport workers who object to their unbearable working conditions. A year later, a Guardian investigation stated that 6,500 migrant workers had died in Qatar since December 2010. The government’s failure to clarify this figure or even demand employers pay compensation to the deceased workers’ families abroad has spread further rage and anger, amplified by allegations of illegal detention and physical abuse of the LGBT Qatar community. The rights of workers’ and of the LGBT community have thus become the main issues which have prompted sections of the ruling class in many countries to protest against the Qatar World Cup and call for a boycott.
Bourgeois double standards on human rights
When the World Cup began, Western protests opted for a ceremonial and superficial form. Suffice to see how meekly the English and the Welsh team accepted FIFA’s imposition to drop even the ultra-liberal ‘OneLove’ captain’s armband following the ‘threat’ of a yellow card. Their cowardice was shown up even more shamefully by the Iranian players, who in their first match refused to sing their national anthem in a political statement against the Iranian regime. Closely observed, however, it seems that more than a lack of courage, it is a lack of interest that is keeping Europe away from any more significant friction with Qatar. Now more than ever, European ruling classes are desperate to replace sanctioned Russian gas, and Qatar seems to be the main alternative. Furthermore, contrasting the criticism of the European bourgeoisie with its record on migrants, workers and LGBT rights in the old continent, one can see how hypocritical their arguments are. Since 2014 more than 20,000 migrants have died trying to cross the Mediterranean, and 220,000 have been returned by the UK.
In Italy, 7,000 workers have died since 2010, the highest rate of fatal accidents at work in Europe; in 2020, one-third of Poland has proclaimed itself an ‘LGBT-free zone’. But not only is the West responsible for a comparable attitude towards workers and LGBT communities in their own countries, it is also responsible for the current reactionary political situation in Qatar, which it supports in exchange for energy and military deals. This is why, by propagandistically raising the issue of workers’ and LGBT rights in Qatar, the Western bourgeoisie achieves a double win: it covers up its own dreadful record on these issues while weakening a direct rival in international competition. In front of Qatar’s sportswashing, made of new stadiums and skyscrapers, there stands another one, made of human rights t-shirts and rainbow armbands.
Working-class boycott
This World Cup is organised by a state under the same unjust and unequal economic system as exists in Britain, with the same social and political contradictions, if in a more intense form. This is why moralising interventions by the decaying bourgeoisie of the UK, EU and Qatar only serve to further divide the oppressed sections of the working class. Until now, they have been successful, as in response to Western fans calling for a boycott, fans in West Asia have been denouncing Western racism and neocolonialism. Nothing can be more detrimental than this one-sided condemnation, in which working classes fight each other according to the interests of their respective bourgeoisie. Instead of condemning each other’s capitalism and imperialism, working classes worldwide should recognise the unity of the system that oppresses them, and fight it.
Alexander Trome
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 291 December 2022/January 2023
