Motives for political employment of the Qatar World Cup

Being Arab and Muslim means that you are - for some peoples of the world - either a potential source of terrorism, as is the case in Western societies, a view that has seriously prevailed in the last two decades as a result of the emergence of terrorism, or lagging behind in keeping pace with civilizational progress.

Unfortunately, some other societies - including a few Arabs who are ashamed of their Arab and Muslim identities - are ignorant of the greatness of Arab and Muslim culture and its great scientific contributions to the renaissance of nations.

I present this problem today, while Qatar is being subjected to an organized smear campaign by Western countries and destinations because of its hosting of the FIFA World Cup.

The West is not accustomed to looking at the Arab world from a perspective other than that perspective, which it sees as a region full of ignorance, chaos and conflicts, and a source of global terrorism and refugees who threaten Western culture.

This view is of course incorrect, although it is realistic in some of its limited aspects, but it is by no means a global exception.

The dark history of the West before the modern period was much worse than the Arab case in terms of the bloody conflicts that wiped out entire generations.

Also, this modernity - even if it succeeded amazingly in scientific progress and in developing the concept of the state and democracy - often practiced imperialism on the other world and sought to impose controversial social values ​​on it.

As Arabs and Muslims, we cannot underestimate the self-crisis that we are experiencing in keeping pace with progress in the scientific, political and economic fields, which is mainly due to political tyranny that limited the chances of renaissance, and not to culture or religion per se.

However, this does not hide the Western role in deepening this crisis.

Europe and the United States only view the Arab region from the perspective of Israel and oil and their interests.

For two decades, the United States waged bloody wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a campaign of terrorism in Syria and Iraq, leaving behind failed states, destroyed cities, and millions of civilians without shelter, suffering from poverty and starvation.

It is my hope that this tournament will make the world think about the importance of promoting openness between East and West as a much needed tool today in this turbulent world facing the threat of nationalism and political extremism.

Westerners are not accustomed to facing the reality of their role in the Arab tragedy to which they contributed, but they are adept at practicing superiority and racism against Arabs and Muslims, as does the systematic campaign against Qatar.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino was admirably audacious when he lashed out at critics of the Qatar World Cup, accusing European countries of hypocrisy and saying they were not in a position to offer moral lessons to Qatar and the Arabs.

Infantino was particularly right when he demanded that Europeans apologize for the next 3,000 years for what they had done in the world before they began to theorize about Qatar's moral lessons.

It is known that some of the motives of the campaign against Qatar are linked to political jealousy of a Middle Eastern country that, thanks to its great capabilities, was able to prepare an amazing organization for this global sporting event, but its most dangerous aspect is the supremacy that takes moral values ​​as a cover for it.

I have read in some Western newspapers recently that the sporting history of the State of Qatar does not qualify it to host the tournament.

In addition, a French newspaper obsessed with Islamophobia published a cartoon showing the Qatari national team, consisting of players carrying guns with signs of anger and brutality on their faces.

When was hosting this sporting event exclusive to countries that have the skill in the ball?

We did not hear such criticism when, for example, South Africa hosted the tournament.

We did not see a cartoon depicting the Russian national team players as armed when Russia hosted the tournament, only 3 years after it annexed the Ukrainian Crimea peninsula by force.

Let's also look at some of the stated motives for the crackdown on Qatar.

Some European nations have been at the forefront of the pre-tournament criticism, with some national football associations joining calls for a compensation fund for the families of workers who died or were injured during stadium construction work in Qatar ahead of the tournament.

Although raising this issue has political motives in the first place, it also opens the discussion on the often immoral dealings of European countries with immigrants.

Thousands of immigrants have perished at sea while trying to reach Europe without a chance to find another life, while the Gulf opens its doors to Asian labour.

There is no doubt that the conditions of this employment do not seem completely ideal, but working in the Gulf has helped many Asian workers build a new life.

Then we did not witness such European criticism of Greece, which deliberately drowns immigrants in the Aegean Sea, and we did not see anyone demanding that Athens pay compensation to the families of these people.

In fact, this campaign reflects an incomprehensible and immoral hostility to a country simply because it is Arab and Muslim, and it is now allowed to change the stereotype in the West about the Arab world as a region that, despite its difficult circumstances, is able to push the world to look at it from a different perspective.

Another argument in the campaign is the climate and the hot weather that most of the teams participating in the tournament are not used to.

This argument can be answered simply by the clever engineering that Qatar has pursued in cooling the stadiums.

And some critics absurdly resorted to raising the issue of carbon emission from stadiums due to smart engineering, which is very low for the occasion and constitutes only 0.01% of global emissions this year, as confirmed by FIFA.

And if there is talk in this campaign about carbon emissions, it is more useful to criticize the European Union countries that occupy the third list in the world in terms of carbon emissions after the United States and China, while Qatar, paradoxically, ranks 58th in this list.

And we come to another argument, which is the issue of tyranny used by campaigners.

This country held the first legislative elections a year ago within the framework of the internal political openness led by Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Such a transformation should be commended in an Arab region that suffers most of the dilemma of political closure.

I deliberately left for the last part of this article to talk about the most controversial argument, which is the issue of Qatar’s opposition to homosexuality, because in my opinion it does not deserve much discussion and I see it as a brazen attempt to politicize sports in order to impose divisive values ​​between societies and nations.

Qatar is a conservative country, but it has shown commendable keenness to combine its conservative values ​​with providing the maximum appropriate conditions for other cultures coming to it in order to enjoy watching the tournament and learn about the Arab and Muslim cultures.

While the World Cup is supposed to be an important opportunity to introduce peoples and nations to each other's cultures, the smear campaign seeks to deepen the cultural and societal gap between East and West.

Today, every Arab and Muslim feels proud of Qatar's success in organizing this event efficiently, and for giving us the opportunity for all nations to see the hospitality and good morals of the Arabs, regardless of our cultural and religious differences.

It is my hope that this tournament will make the world think about the importance of promoting openness between East and West as a much needed tool today in this turbulent world facing the threat of nationalism and political extremism.