If you are melting down over the World Cup in Qatar; ask yourself why you didn’t have a similar meltdown over the one in Russia in 2018? Be honest about it. At that point in the world, despite Russia genocidally ravaging Syria, annexing and waging war against Ukraine and overseeing the fatal persecution of homosexuals and much internal dissent. Putin was being praised for putting on a helluva World Cup. Kinda like Hitler in 1936; when Berlin hosted the Olympics.
The Holocaust had already began, though no one bothered to try to look behind the veneer but rather were just effusive with praise of the show the Nazis put on and how well the country was run. Less than two years later he would initiate a war that cost 50 million lives.
Qatar’s human rights situation is a concern. I have really easy solution for FIFA and any other international governing body; and now, given it seems everyone is so concerned with human rights in Qatar (but surely it can’t be just in Qatar?), every other sport and event holder: only hold sporting events in countries that don’t have tyrannical government and that don’t commit mass human rights violations?
The UN should set the precedent. What about that COP conference, isn’t that the cause celebre these days? Oh yes, they just held that in Sisi’s sub-totalitarian state where human rights are non-existent.
I’d much rather someone said they didn’t give a fuck about human rights and just wanted to watch soccer than those who selectively carp about Qatar’s moderately bad human rights record. The same people happily travel to those autocratic Neo-Raj hellscapes that comprise the UAE, one of the most dangerous and, you best believe, vicious states on earth. Or Egypt. Or Saudi. Or, worst of all, China.
