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Revealed: Qatar's World Cup 'slaves'

theguardian.com

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Re: Revealed: Qatar's World Cup 'slaves'

#11

Post by bsullivan01 »

jlgreco wrote: post #7
bsullivan01 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to object to The Guardian's use of scare quotes in the title. You need to read more on the subject then. They have a very different definition of human rights in that part of the world. http://www.bing.com/search?q=maid+abuse+arab+countries

So did The South. I don't care what they think, I consider it slavery, and so should everybody. Cultural relativism can go to hell when we are talking about fucking forced labor. I am not going to dampen my language just because they think forced labor is just fine, and neither should The Guardian.

Huh? You objected to Guardian using "scare quotes" or something and I told that this type of abuse happens there all the time. Human rights don't exist.In fact, several of them have been arrested for pulling the same crap in USA http://www.kbur.com/2013/09/20/saudi-princess-scheduled-to-b...

Re: Revealed: Qatar's World Cup 'slaves'

#12

Post by bsullivan01 »

icecreampain wrote: post #4

This is shocking... how? The arab empire was built on the slave trade. The whole of Dubai exists solely due to external workers, from engineers to the bricklayers. This should not shock anyone.

The whole of Dubai exists solely due to external workers, from engineers to the bricklayers.

External workers are fine since workers are different from slaves or "slaves". If they paid me $150K a year, I'd go there and lay bricks myself and for $1000 a month they'd get probably a billion applications. What they did is they screwed the poor Indians, Bangladeshis, Filipinos etc, once they got there.

Re: Revealed: Qatar's World Cup 'slaves'

#13

Post by jlgreco »

bsullivan01 wrote: post #11
jlgreco wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So did The South. I don't care what they think, I consider it slavery, and so should everybody. Cultural relativism can go to hell when we are talking about fucking forced labor. I am not going to dampen my language just because they think forced labor is just fine, and neither should The Guardian.

Huh? You objected to Guardian using "scare quotes" or something and I told that this type of abuse happens there all the time. Human rights don't exist.In fact, several of them have been arrested for pulling the same crap in USA http://www.kbur.com/2013/09/20/saudi-princess-scheduled-to-b...

"Scare quotes are quotation marks placed around a word or phrase to imply that it may not signify its apparent meaning or that it is not necessarily the way the quoting person would express its concept. Thus, the quotes are used to establish a use–mention distinction, in a similar way as verbally prefixing a phrase with "so-called". When referred to as "scare quotes", the quotation marks are suggested to imply skepticism or disagreement with the quoted terminology."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes

Re: Revealed: Qatar's World Cup 'slaves'

#15

Post by kvinnako »

I am appalled by the conditions but I don't think any of these articles is going to change a single thing in Qatar. I believe it will continue happening in Qatar. Only way to stop it is educate people from poorer countries to not go there no matter how enticing it seems(just like a mirage).

Re: Revealed: Qatar's World Cup 'slaves'

#16

Post by yapcguy »

jlgreco wrote: post #2

From the article: • Evidence of forced labour on a huge World Cup infrastructure project. • Some Nepalese men have alleged that they have not been paid for months and have had their salaries retained to stop them running away. • Some workers on other sites say employers routinely confiscate passports and refuse to issue ID cards, in effect reducing them to the status of illegal aliens. • Some labourers say they have…

> This summer, Nepalese workers died at a rate of almost one a day in Qatar, many of them young men who had sudden heart attacks.

It was always a stupid idea to have footballers running around in temperatures of 100-120F, let alone manual laborers toiling over stadiums and roads.

FIFA are now looking to move the World Cup to the winter... except it would clash with the Winter Olympics and the busy schedule of domestic leagues.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/soccer/news/20130918/uefa-q...

Re: Revealed: Qatar's World Cup 'slaves'

#17

Post by crazygringo »

jlgreco wrote: post #2

From the article: • Evidence of forced labour on a huge World Cup infrastructure project. • Some Nepalese men have alleged that they have not been paid for months and have had their salaries retained to stop them running away. • Some workers on other sites say employers routinely confiscate passports and refuse to issue ID cards, in effect reducing them to the status of illegal aliens. • Some labourers say they have…

I'm not sure it's helpful to call this actual slavery. Actual slavery is when human beings are legally owned by others.

This is not actual slavery, but it is atrocious working conditions and very serious human rights violations. The conditions may approach slave-like conditions, so there's good reason to use the word, but quotation marks are probably accurate. This is journalism, after all, not propaganda. (But, you definitely make a good point.)

Re: Revealed: Qatar's World Cup 'slaves'

#18

Post by jlgreco »

yapcguy wrote: post #16
jlgreco wrote: post #2

From the article: • Evidence of forced labour on a huge World Cup infrastructure project. • Some Nepalese men have alleged that they have not been paid for months and have had their salaries retained to stop them running away. • Some workers on other sites say employers routinely confiscate passports and refuse to issue ID cards, in effect reducing them to the status of illegal aliens. • Some labourers say they have…

> This summer, Nepalese workers died at a rate of almost one a day in Qatar, many of them young men who had sudden heart attacks. It was always a stupid idea to have footballers running around in temperatures of 100-120F, let alone manual laborers toiling over stadiums and roads. FIFA are now looking to move the World Cup to the winter... except it would clash with the Winter Olympics and the busy schedule of domesti…

> It was always a stupid idea to have footballers running around in temperatures >100F

I assume they could probably get some strong evaporation cooling from the well-hydrated field, but I am not really familiar with that sort of extreme climate.

Re: Revealed: Qatar's World Cup 'slaves'

#20

Post by jlgreco »

crazygringo wrote: post #17
jlgreco wrote: post #2

From the article: • Evidence of forced labour on a huge World Cup infrastructure project. • Some Nepalese men have alleged that they have not been paid for months and have had their salaries retained to stop them running away. • Some workers on other sites say employers routinely confiscate passports and refuse to issue ID cards, in effect reducing them to the status of illegal aliens. • Some labourers say they have…

I'm not sure it's helpful to call this actual slavery. Actual slavery is when human beings are legally owned by others. This is not actual slavery, but it is atrocious working conditions and very serious human rights violations. The conditions may approach slave-like conditions, so there's good reason to use the word, but quotation marks are probably accurate. This is journalism, after all, not propaganda. (But, you…

The distinction is purely academic, and worthless for real-world use. Sex slaves in America or the UK are not legally owned, but they are nevertheless slaves as far as anybody sane-minded is concerned. You would not dream of referring to them as "Sex 'slaves'".

Particularly, The Guardian has not made this distinction in the past, search for "site:theguardian.com sex slaves"

(Further note that one of the methods of coercion being used in Qatar, taking the persons documentation and putting them in an immigration bind, is famous for being used in the sex slave industry)

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