Dr M W Malla

Qatar has a knack for earning international headlines regularly and often negative ones. In the lead-up to the global football event, World Cup 2022, starting Sunday, November 20, 2022, at the Al Bayt Stadium Al-Khor, a coordinated campaign against Qatar emerged which bordered on racism and Islamophobia. Hardly has any sporting event brought this much attention and scrutiny to a host state as Qatar has been subjected to since being awarded the hosting rights back in 2010 by the global football governing body, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).

This systematic hate begets the question of whether there is an orientalist gaze at work where the westerners cannot fathom how a third-world country could host a global event that they perceive only they could. It appears that the campaigners, predominantly westerners, are yet to make peace with the fact that a small Muslim state could host such a grand event, something they deem their prerogative.

Most of the Boycott Qatar Campaign has centred around the contested working conditions of the migrants, who have played the central role in building the required infrastructure for the mega event, importantly including stadiums, metro, and a new airport, to name a few. Besides Qatar’s stated position on LGBTQ+ relationships have also attracted wide criticism.

This was on display when BBC decided to shun its coverage of the opening ceremony of the FIFA World Cup as the global event went underway at the Al Bayt Stadium, effectively aligning with the Boycott Qatar campaigners. The British public broadcaster went a step further and decided to air a programme lecturing and preaching Qatar on these contested issues, inviting scorn from many including some Britons. The famed British broadcaster Piers Morgan rightfully called it “outrageously disrespectful to Qatar” and called out this hypocrisy. “If they’re that appalled, they should bring home their vast army of employees & spare us this absurd hypocrisy,” he tweeted.

The other virulent manifestation of this blatant racist and Islamophobic campaign included the cartoon representation of the Qatari national football team members by the French magazine satirical weekly newspaper Le Canard enchainé in its October 2022 issues.

 Source: October 2022 issue of Le Canard enchainé (https://www.lecanardenchaine.fr/acheter-au-numero/dossiers/qatar-envers-du-decor/)

The illustration portrayed twelve bearded men including seven players with their shirts inscribed with “Qatar” across their chests, with one wearing an explosive-laden belt. The players are bearing arms like matchets, guns, and rocket launchers while the five men on the sidelines don white robes. The depiction is distasteful and derogatory, to say the least, and outrightly smacks of naked Islamophobia.

In another case, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser made coloured remarks and stated that “it would be better than tournaments are not awarded to such states,” drawing widespread condemnations. Interestingly, she made a U-turn within a week and heaped praises on the Qatari laws after visiting the country. It is a daily reminder of how the majority of the west continues to suffer from the oriental gaze and does not want to shed its perceived inherently entitled supremacy.

Let’s look at the issue of the rights of migrant workers, which dominates this discourse and attracts Qatar widespread criticism from international human rights organizations like Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW). Most of the reports flag Doha’s labor laws, the Kafala (sponsorship) system, as the casus belli for abuses like unpaid or delayed wages, arbitrary deductions (wage thefts), and illegal recruitment fees for working in Qatar. While I do not intend to belittle the everyday struggles of the migrant workers, this small Gulf state has made considerable amendments to its labour governing laws, bringing in significant reforms, as confirmed by institutions like the International Labour Organization (ILO). The ILO stated that despite some challenges, these reforms have brought considerable changes in the working conditions of the workers like denting the Kafala system, assuring minimum wage and wage protection, access to justice, and occupational safety and health, among others. It stated that “the most problematic and restrictive elements of the kafala (sponsorship) system were dismantled, including removing the requirements for workers to obtain exit permits to leave the country, and no-objection certificates to change employers.”

The second major issue of concern that the Boycott Qatar campaigners have pointed out is Qatar’s stated position on the LGBTQIA+ community. The constitution of Qatar explicitly in Article 1 declares Islam as its official religion and Shari’a as the “main source of its legislations.” It does not match their religious and cultural sensibilities, which remain deeply entrenched in and influenced by traditional Islamic views on gender and sexuality. Therefore, to expect Qataris to accede to demands which run contrary to the religious exegesis runs too far. It looks like for a month-long event, the campaigners want to change Qatar’s religious beliefs and cultural mores to their liking.

Instead, the international community must appreciate the smaller steps that the state has taken as Doha has affirmed it would not restrain people from sharing accommodations by the same or opposite genders despite no ‘legal’ relationship. This is a considerable departure from its earlier stated position. What Qatar expects, and I don’t know why anyone should have any problem with it, is respect for local cultural and religious mores, which does not encourage any form of public display of affection (PDA), without any regard for gender orientation or relationship status, including married ones. This is not common to Qatar, for which it needs to be denigrated or ostracized.

A cursory observation reveals that these campaigns are motivated by actors uninterested in having a meaningful change in the sociopolitical sphere of Qatar but to delegitimize the progress that this small state has made in the region, which remains undoubtedly under the reign of monarchism. It is quite patronizing of the westerners to lecture Qataris, save the people from the Global South, on these issues, which smack off of its 20^th-century colonial understanding and imperialist mindset when they justified the tearing apart of the societies under their colonization as a necessity to civilize the ‘uncivil’.

Notwithstanding this, there is blatant hypocrisy on display here. The proponents of these campaigns are the ones who turn a blind eye when it comes to other controversial issues in the region, in their countries, and around the world. When a state like France can enforce its social codes on the ex-pats, and immigrants, based on so-called secularism which in essence values Christian beliefs over others, on what basis do they base their activism to force a sovereign state to mold its sociocultural and religious codes as per their likings and disliking’s and accommodate their demands? This preaching is nothing but an oriental gaze on display. Had that been the case, there would not be any silence when France for example, criminalizes its Muslim women by banning outfits like Burkinis and forcing them to expose their bodies against will.

As highlighted above, Qatar has already acknowledged the positive criticism that has come its way. Still, as much as these campaigns without substance get exposed, it is very evident that these are motivated by the actors aiming to undercut Qatari influence in the region and beyond. It hardly suggests that these actors are interested in engaging with the state toward a meaningful positive transformation. As Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani remarked, “it seems difficult for some to accept that a small country, a small Arab country, should be allowed to host the World Cup.”

At the same time, it is endearing to see that FIFA has called on the people and teams to respect the local laws as opening up slowly is the way ahead than a shock that the west is accustomed to without any rational thought of what those pushes will unleash and result into and hence the small gains should be appreciated and the state should be encouraged than ostracized and pushed further into the abyss.

* The article has been updated on Nov 20, 2022, incorporating BBC’s shunning of the opening ceremony coverage on Nov 20, 2022.

Dr M W Malla holds a doctorate in Middle Eastern Studies from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India.