Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

 The World Cup has started.  Before it started, there has been controversies regarding Qatar hosting the competition.  Western media have accused Qatar of bribing to be the host.  This, of course, has been debated over 12 years.  But add human rights issues, including the bad treatment of foreign workers, and you have critics and defenders of the country going at each other.  The head of FIFA said that given Western countries' human rights record in the past, they have no right to complain about others.  He was then being criticized for "what aboutism".  In other words, defending someone by accusing others of doing the same in the past.  So here is my take.

Regarding bribes, I think it is pretty well-known that money and favors are exchanged in deciding the host of every major sporting event.  Salt Lake City was accused of that in securing the Winter Olympics.  Even if no money directly changed hands, there are always direct or indirect favors secured for the votes.  Members of the committee to decide the host are wined and dined at every candidate city.  They are all rich people with perhaps business deals in the backburner.  Qatar, I am sure bribed.  But the whole system was installed by Western powers with most of the powerful positions controlled by Western countries.  So the Western media should attack those people and countries, not candidate cities who are only playing the game the way it was set up.

Qatar was not the only host country in a major sports events who was accused of human rights abuses.  But it is the only country I think of that is actually created by Western powers, especially the UK.  It was an UK "protectorate" until 1971 when it was given independence.  Basically, the British and Americans chose a monarch that was on their side and promised free flow of oil.  The UK set up the government for Qatar.  The Western powers all know that this government is not democratic nor would it uphold human rights.  But they did not care.  Even today, they get more angry with the decrease production of oil from OPEC than their human rights abuse.  It is like the police letting the mafia run the city and is benefitting from that arrangement and yet pretend to be shocked that the mafia is extorting money!  This is not about "what aboutism", but about hypocrisy.