One night in the summer of 1993, I flew—not literally—from Cairo, Egypt to Manama, Bahrain. It was the worst flight of my life. There was no danger per se, but it was very uncomfortable in that cramped airplane with air so stale and filthy it could choke a horse. On the other side of the aisle was a woman wearing a thick, black leather burka; not even her eyes were visible. All of that is beside the point, which is that we had a 30-minute stopover in Doha, the capital of Qatar.
Qatar is in the news these days. It was chosen to host the 2022 World Cup soccer tourney amid some controversy. Why, many asked, should a country with no athletic tradition to speak of be allowed to put on the world's biggest sports event? (I say this as an American-born person who knows little about soccer, and would not hesitate to rank the Super Bowl, the World Series and the summer Olympics well above the World Cup.) FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, made the call. Critics contend that it was bought and sold, and that only kickbacks and corruption can explain FIFA putting the event in Qatar.
Even more attention has been paid to the weather. The World Cup is always played in the summer, and it gets rather hot in the Middle East during that season—up to 122°F (50°C). I fail to see how athletic contests can be held in such stifling heat and wonder how many fans will show up. The Qataris say they are seeking to develop some high-tech means of air-conditioning outdoor stadiums, but I am unconvinced. Now I hear of discussions about holding the event in the winter, but that is sure to wreak havoc with European pro leagues. There is no simple solution, and FIFA has only itself to blame. Sepp Blatter, the organization's greasy director, recently admitted that while the Qatar decision had been a mistake it cannot be revoked. A staggering $220 billion is expected to be spent preparing for and hosting the 2022 World Cup, sixty times more than the figure for South Africa in 2010.
But there is a much bigger issue than providing optimal comfort and convenience for athletes and fans. Qatar is a strange place. Its government is an authoritarian regime, an absolute and hereditary emirate ruled since the mid-19th century by the Al Thani family. Blessed with an abundance of oil and gas, it is the richest country in the world as measured by the per capita income of its citizens. But just 225,000 Qataris live there along with about 1.8 million foreign workers. These expats are primarily from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. Even before the announcement that the World Cup was coming to Qatar, they had hard lives—marginalized, with few economic and political rights. And now, with numerous soccer stadiums, hotels and other forms of infrastructure being built, their numbers are ballooning further. Another half-million foreign workers are expected to arrive in the next few years.
These invariably poor men (and a few women) must pay steep fees to recruiters and then have faith that fair treatment awaits them in distant Qatar. All too often, it does not. We have reports of exploitation and abuse of many kinds. Workers live in appalling conditions, their visas are sometimes confiscated, and wages are withheld. It seems cruel that their supervisors would refuse to provide them with sufficient drinking water, but such a story has been told enough times to give it the ring of truth. Go to the police? Good luck with that, because the cops have no motivation to help them or to enforce the existing—rather weak—labor laws. The death rate of foreign construction workers in Qatar continues to rise. Almost one per day dies, not just of industrial accidents but of heart attacks. Think about it. Why would so many otherwise healthy guys, some as young as 16, die of heart attacks? It is because they are being forced to work under incomprehensibly stressful conditions.
For some reason, the Nepalese are suffering the worst. Forty-four of them died between June 4 and August 8, 2013. Nepal’s government and ambassador have protested but wield little leverage with the Qataris. At one end of the Kathmandu airport, tearful friends and family members say goodbye to men leaving for the desert with hope of making enough money to improve their lives. And at the other end, coffins of migrant workers are unloaded to be collected by loved ones. In some cases, this gruesome round trip has been completed in less than two months.
At the current rate, 4,000 men will die before the World Cup starts nine years hence. Some people call it modern-day slavery, others call it human trafficking. Those are strong terms and perhaps unfair since the Nepalese, Indians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Filipinos et al. go to Qatar voluntarily. But they do so, trusting that they will receive humane treatment in exchange for their work. Qatar, Dubai and a couple of other Gulf Coast countries are in a frenzied race to see who can modernize the fastest. There is a lot of building going on. Needless to say, however, penniless expats will continue to perform strenuous labor under the broiling sun, not the natives.
I am reminded of an interview I did 20 years ago with Dr. Larry Lake, who was then the chairman of the Department of Petroleum Engineering at the University of Texas. We were discussing Saudi Arabia’s great good fortune of sitting on such a huge bed of oil and gas, and its effects on the people. “Saudi Arabia is a drone society,” Dr. Lake stated. “Nobody really works.” Of course, he knew that some people in the Kingdom—as in Qatar—are not pampered and in fact work exceedingly hard. But they are outsiders and thus get very different treatment.
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