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Revealed: Qatar's World Cup 'slaves'

theguardian.com

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

#61

Post by ihsw »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #28
morgante wrote: post #22

As someone who lives in the Emirates, I have to object to the allegation of "slaves." This is not slavery. It's indentured servitude, which is definitely distressing but not quite of the same character. Most importantly, in the talks I've had with workers, the vast majority of them still are happy to have these jobs despite the conditions. They're paid an order of magnitude more than they make in Nepal and if you go…

>This is not slavery. It's indentured servitude Considering wages are being held and passports are taken, I'd say the use of the word slave is justified. >Most importantly, in the talks I've had with workers, the vast majority of them still are happy to have these jobs despite the conditions. Survivor bias. The ones who haven't been killed or run away like working there (or are too scared to tell you otherwise).

> Considering wages are being held and passports are taken, I'd say the use of the word slave is justified.

Slavery has a very unambiguous definition -- people are treated as property where they're traded and sold, and forced to work. If passports are being collected and passed around in a slavery market then I'd agree with you, but as it stands there is no such evidence of that.

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

#62

Post by gknoy »

sonnyz wrote: post #41
jlgreco wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

I disagree with your assumption that sex slaves aren't by definition 'slaves' because they aren't legally owned. They are bought and sold (from what I've learned at the movies) so to me they are actual slaves.

Note also that his emphasis was on legally, not on "owned": It's not legal to buy and sell people, therefore one cannot legally own slaves. The fact that people exchange money for them, and treat them as property, does not make it legal, but their treatment definitely makes it slavery.

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

#63

Post by jcdavis »

As someone who spent 4 months in Qatar several years ago, I am unfortunately confirm the pathetic treatment of foreign physical laborers there.

As an example, one thing all the malls there do is "family day": the idea in theory being that it's then to make Muslim women feel more comfortable. Turns out in practice though, a decently dressed Arab male can go in, as can a white male. "Family day" is really "no laborers at the mall day", and it just so happens to be on the one day most workers get off

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

#64

Post by the_watcher »

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…

I grew up in the Palm Springs area (summers regularly in the 100-125F range), and played soccer my entire life, through the summer. It's absolutely possible to do it, although it is not fun. The issue is that you have to hydrate completely differently, and to be fair, our substitution rules were different (unlimited subs, and you could be subbed back in), so players who have never played in that environment are at risk. Also, it gave us an extreme home field advantage whenever clubs from the California coast came into town to play.

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

#65

Post by ihsw »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #39
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 only shocking thing is how we in the US put up with this behavior from governments we send billions in aid to every year. You'd think we'd have the balls to suspend some their aid and have them put an end to this type of abuse.

How is that the US' responsibility? It has nothing to do with balls at all, either.

If you think the US has any interest in exerting its economic or military power in the interest of morals and ethics then I've got a bridge to sell you.

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

#66

Post by the_watcher »

404error wrote: post #57
peter_l_downs wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the US be involved in this issue? I would think that it's FIFA's fault for choosing the location.

IMO you are spot on that its FIFA's fault for choosing the location. The Cup will be moved to the winter and will affect European football due to league play. The US was runner up and should have been awarded the World Cup in 2022. The 1994 Cup in the US was one of the most, it not the most, profitable World Cup. The infrastructure is in place in the US to host the World Cup. Can you imagine what political ramificati…

Do you have sources for it being so profitable? For who? Everything I understand about events like the World Cup and Olympics is that they are massively wasteful, corrupt, publicly funded economic disasters. Is that just the Olympics?

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

#67

Post by cabalamat »

rayiner wrote: post #44

It pains me that the U.S. has absolutely no balls to stand up to the Middle Eastern sheikdoms. And American businessmen are slobbering like puppies trying to get a slice of that oil capital. It's all quite disgusting really.

> It pains me that the U.S. has absolutely no balls to stand up to the Middle Eastern sheikdoms.

It's not that they haven't the balls, it's that the USG doesn't care about middle eastern (or anywhere else) countries having a poor human rights record, so long as those countries support US foreign policy.

So for example, the USG has been a lot more vocal about human rights abuses in Syria and Iran (enemies of USA) than Bahrain and Saudi (allies).

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

#68

Post by sudomal »

jlgreco wrote: post #9
wnevets wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like modern day slavery to me

That is exactly what it is. The author and/or editor should have had a spine and made the headline: "Revealed: Qatar's World Cup slaves"

Better to let the reader make up their own opinion rather than to push your own.

'Slave' is a loaded term, it's like calling someone a 'terrorist' or a 'murderer'.

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

#69

Post by saljam »

vowelless wrote: post #19

As referenced to in the article and highly relevant, the Kafala System [1] which has roots in Islamic adoption jurisprudence [2]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafala_system [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_adoptional_jurisprudenc...

That's incorrect. The word kafalah roughly translates to sponsorship. Migrant worker sponsorship and adoption have nothing to do with each other.

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

#70

Post by nkoren »

nether wrote: post #51
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 have to object to The Guardian's use of scare quotes in the title... I don't think this is scare quotes, more like conservative British journalism that handles any story-relevant term delicately by emphasizing it's a quotation, and not their interpretation. I've seen it lots in the BBC: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0... 'emits flammable gas' 'played dead' 'bad habits'

You're absolutely correct -- "scare quotes" are an element of American English, not British English. In this context, they're simply indicative of the fact that somebody (not the paper) has called these workers "slaves".

Two countries divided by a common language, as they say. When I moved to the UK from America, this was admittedly one of the more confusing points of differentiation for me.

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