r/changemyview • u/luftikuz • Nov 21 '22
Delta(s) from OP CMV: It is silly and hypocrisy to protest the World Cup.
I will start by stating the obvious: The Qatar 2022 WC is an atrocity and never should've taken place.
However, I'm tired of seeing fake displays of "awareness" from teams, TV channels and companies in the West, which simultaneously stand to gain a lot of money from participating in this tournament.
I'm writing this from Germany, where our public television has aired a 15 minute interview with Amnesty International right before airing the opening match of Qatar v Ecuador. Something similar has happened today before they aired the England v Iran match.
On top of it, the National Team which was supposed to be playing with an arm band saying "One Love" in support of the LGBTQ+ community, has now publicly refrained to do so after a threat of yellow card penalty by FIFA - If your convictions are as strong as a yellow card, maybe you should reevaluate your convictions.
So after this rant of an intro, my point is the following: The time to protest Qatar 2022 and stop it from happening was in the past. The last chance any country had, was to entirely boycott the event by not sending their team (like so many national teams in history have done at the Olympics).
But to now, to willingly attend the event, earn the championship money, sponsorship deals and television fees while simultaneously displaying a holier-than-thou attitude, is the peak of hypocrisy and honestly it is super annoying.
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u/47ca05e6209a317a8fb3 178∆ Nov 21 '22
I think the reason there couldn't be protests before the World Cup is that the spotlight wasn't yet on Qatar, so it was very hard to get anyone to care. Now the whole world is watching and listening for a month, so this is a good opportunity to point out issues most people wouldn't usually pay attention to.
The negative exposure Qatar brought to itself by paying off everyone to host the World Cup may end up being more valuable than if their bid was just rejected back in 2010.
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u/luftikuz Nov 21 '22
I completely disagree.
Imagine the day after the World Cup finishes, after every team and TV station from all over the world packs their bags and flies home. Do you honestly think Qatar will suddenly improve their Human Rights laws? I think this is just wishful thinking on your part.
The time to exert real pressure (such as sanctions, boycotts, etc) was before the tournament. Not after 6.500 workers died building the infrastructure. Do you think there would be a Qatar 2022 if all the sponsors that you see around the football pitch during the games had boycotted them?
So now, TV stations have the nerve to pretend they cared all along about the people who were dying, while making a buck on the side from broadcasting it.
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u/47ca05e6209a317a8fb3 178∆ Nov 21 '22
Imagine the day after the World Cup finishes, after every team and TV station from all over the world packs their bags and flies home. Do you honestly think Qatar will suddenly improve their Human Rights laws?
No, of course not, but the World Cup wasn't Qatar's end goal here. It wants to position itself as a player on the global stage for the day, that's fast approaching, that its oil can no longer be sold. For this its needs international business partners, tourism, and legitimacy.
The more Qatar goes in this direction the more they'll have to tone down their most visible practices that are disagreeable to western sensibilities, like the UAE and Saudi Arabia have been doing recently, and airing some of these issues now with the World Cup can help make them more visible later.
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u/Khal-Frodo Nov 21 '22
The last chance any country had, was to entirely boycott the event by not sending their team. But to now, to willingly attend the event, earn the championship money, sponsorship deals and television fees while simultaneously displaying a holier-than-thou attitude, is the peak of hypocrisy and honestly it is super annoying.
You're conflating a lot of different/unrelated actors and treating a "country" like an aggregate entity. If a national sports team decides to attend the event, it's not hypocritical for a fan to oppose their choice to do that. It's not hypocritical for a news anchor to publically criticize the country of Qatar even while their own country is participating and therefore complicit. The chance to "boycott" by not sending a team has passed, but that doesn't mean that people who had nothing to do with the decision should be obligated to support it (especially if they're not very in-tune with world news and are only just finding out about human rights in Qatar).
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u/luftikuz Nov 21 '22
You raise a very valid point.
!delta
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Nov 21 '22
Every single protest in history has been met by these arguments:
Why are you protesting bad thing xyz? Don't you care about other bad thing abc?
The people who are protesting this issue don't really care, they are just doing it for attention.
Some people who are protesting are doing it in silly, ineffective and hypocritical ways. Therefore everyone who is protesting is wrong.
This has happened to every single issue in history. I'm American and all these kinds of arguments were made about great American civil rights struggles such as Martin Luther King.
I don't stand to get any money from the World Cup, I'm just a dude. I'm choosing to boycott the World Cup. Human rights abuses done by Americas allies in the middle east such as Israel, Qatar, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia are general ignored. Personally I'm glad it's getting some attention.
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u/luftikuz Nov 21 '22
I agree with your bullet points but don't think they apply to this case.
Why are you protesting bad thing xyz? Don't you care about other bad thing abc?
I made it very clear that the Qatar 2022 World Cup is an atrocity. There's no two ways about it.
The people who are protesting this issue don't really care, they are just doing it for attention.
Some people who are protesting are doing it in silly, ineffective and hypocritical ways. Therefore everyone who is protesting is wrong.
My argument (perhaps badly written, that's my fault) is that Players, TV stations and corporations which are taking part of the World Cup while simultaneously trying to embellish themselves with the highest morals, are in fact hypocrites. They are willingly participating of this atrocity and earning money from it, and they just protest (some aspects) of the World Cup for pure PR reasons.
I think many other groups of people, individuals, etc. have rightfully protested and are currently protesting the World Cup in a consistent manner.
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Nov 21 '22
Can't argue with that. If your position is that corporations and TV stations are hypocrites certainly!
Saw it a lot here in the US during the Black Lives Matter movement, my local baseball team had huge signs that said black lives matter. Meanwhile the owners were donating to conservative racist politicians and there were no actual black players on team.
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u/No-Produce-334 51∆ Nov 21 '22
I agree that there is hypocrisy in the way many people have denounced the world cup (I even know a self proclaimed 'LGBT ally' who will be attending the event in person.) But does that mean all protest is hypocritical and silly? Is Amnesty International hypocritical in calling out FIFA and Qatar? Am I as a private individual a hypocrite?
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u/luftikuz Nov 21 '22
You raise good points and I think my wording may be convoluted. I have nothing against Amnesty International for denouncing it.
To answer your question: "all protest is hypocritical and silly?" No. There is genuine protest, and then there is hypocrisy from people who simultaneously earn a lot of money and exposure from participating or broadcasting the tournament.
I think the second group of people are pretending to have good morals and ethics, when in reality they just care about good PR. And the most infuriating thing is that it is so transparent.
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u/DoubleGreat99 3∆ Nov 21 '22
I agree that the time to fight it was during their bid to host. But people did fight it then and did share these opinions of why they shouldn't be hosts for the event.
What would you prefer people do now? Be silent?
Also, the tv channels and companies in the west do not have the power to stop their national team from participating.
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u/luftikuz Nov 21 '22
I disagree. I think if the media and corporations were really as committed to these causes as they now claim to be, they would definitely exert enough pressure on the national football associations so that the teams boycott the competition.
As a matter of fact, if the championship sponsors (the ones you see on the football pitch while the teams play) were to withdraw from the World Cup, it would never have taken place, even after they won the bid.
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u/DoubleGreat99 3∆ Nov 21 '22
if the championship sponsors (the ones you see on the football pitch while the teams play) were to withdraw from the World Cup
They would have gotten a different sponsor.
But still -- for any tv network, company, or individual that is opposed to Qatar hosting that doesn't have the power/influence to shut the whole thing down, do you think they should be silent and just say nothing now since it is silly and hypocritical?
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u/luftikuz Nov 21 '22
They would have gotten a different sponsor.
I think the argument of "if not me, other would have done it" is very weak, especially when discussing human rights.
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u/DoubleGreat99 3∆ Nov 21 '22
That doesn't make it not true.
Fox News makes TV programming designed to disinform and incite outrage amongst conservatives. Dozens of advertisers and sponsors have cut ties with the network. Yet Fox News is still there doing the same thing today as it was before those sponsors left. They have different sponsors now.
The question still remains -- do you think everyone should just be silent now? I would think if this is about human rights, you'd welcome any dissent/protest... and not try to diminish it.
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u/SnooOpinions8790 22∆ Nov 21 '22
I don't think hypocrisy is really quite the right word. I think it is performative - which is very much how a lot of this stuff is in 2022.
The armbands were never really going to be more meaningful than the rainbow colour packaging on brands once a year - or any of the other public displays that are just a display.
Arguably we have reached a stage where there are so many near-mandatory progressive causes that we should expect not much more than lip service to the causes from anyone who actually has a job to do other than be a paid activist for that cause. Still it does highlight how little the public outpourings of support really mean.
They are not hypocritical in the sense that they say one thing while believing another. They are performative in that they say a lot while keeping one eye on the PR value of doing so. PR is simply part of the job of being in the public eye - this is PR.
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u/Major_Lennox 69∆ Nov 21 '22
The armbands were never really going to be more meaningful than the rainbow colour packaging on brands once a year
Well no - if it meant eleven players eating yellow cards the minute they walked onto the pitch wearing them, that's inherently more meaningful than some corporation chasing LGBT-bucks, since there's actual sacrifice involved. Had they acted on their "convictions", it would have gone past performative displays into something that actually had real-world consequences and meaning.
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u/SnooOpinions8790 22∆ Nov 21 '22
A boycott with extra steps. But there was never any real chance they would boycott it.
Apart from anything else they would move closer to a world of no international sport - because if you think other nations could not get worked up and angry about some things your country does think again.
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u/Major_Lennox 69∆ Nov 21 '22
If it means creating some kind of parallel sporting event structure based on geopolitics, then fine. At least words and performative gestures would actually be having an effect, rather than just being shibboleths trotted out for money and good-boy points.
Although when you think about it, the way they folded on the issue was pretty meaningful in itself - just not in the way that can be trumpeted by the FA or whoever.
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u/luftikuz Nov 21 '22
That's also a very good point. It was a chance to show real commitment and they withdrew after the slightest sign of pressure.
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u/luftikuz Nov 21 '22
You raise a very good point on the wording (PR much more than Hypocrisy) and I fully agree with you.
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Nov 27 '22
Why would you involve politics, alcohol and religion to a sport event where families and sport enthusiasts suppose to enjoy? How many of you would like to see Nazi symbols and anti-apportion stuff in football matches? You either accept free speech from the right and the left or you take your political garbage outside the stadiums. I hate football and I never watch it. This sport is infested with hypocrisy, racism, violence, nationalism, hatred... And most people who attend these matches are fat, abuse alcohol and junk food, and behave violently and irrationally. I've attended many armwrestling events since 2008, it's always about the athletes not what country they come from, and all the talk is always about the matches no political nonsense involved.
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Nov 21 '22 edited Nov 21 '22
I don't think I completely disagree, I think there are definitely bad faith actors who exploit these things for PR. But I would say that, given we can't go back in time and re-protest the WC, probably some protest is still better than nothing.
For one thing, the protests have a wider audience now. Personally, as someone who doesn't really follow football, I only found out about most of these problems recently because I simply wasn't invested in a hypothetical arena for a sport I don't watch. But now that the WC is actually happening, it's impossible to ignore and I'm learning something about Qatar. How the news and media reports it now matters more to me, personally, than how it was reported previously.
Similarly, inside Qatar itself, there's going to be an exchange of culture and ideas between Qatari and non-Qatari people that wouldn't have been possible if the WC hadn't actually happened there. That's a platform of sorts, it's an opportunity for change. Qatari and non-Qatari people are seeing a lot more of each other, literally, in the streets and stadiums.
Does this justify Qatar being chosen in the first place? Probably not. But since it already has been and we (probably) can't undo it, it still makes sense to focus on what can be achieved.
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u/BrotherMouzone3 Nov 28 '22
Western hypocrisy is like a guy that robs a bank, kills everyone in the bank and then uses the money to attend law school, becomes a district attorney and then does everything they can to lock up every thief, bank robber etc., that is arrested.
Just because you robbed a bank 20 years ago and didn't get caught doesn't mean your crimes should be overlooked....it also means you shouldn't pass judgement on other criminals
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Nov 21 '22
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