“What we don’t know won’t hurt us” — a phrase Americans love to live by these days.
Why should the most influential country on the planet and its citizens care about a tiny Middle Eastern country called Qatar that’s filthy rich with oil money and otherwise fairly unknown?
Because Qatar is currently the home of a slave labor system that is killing one person a day, all in the name of soccer.
In November 2010, Qatar beat four other countries — the United States, Japan, Australia and South Korea — for the right to host the 2022 World Cup. The Rhode Island-sized country, which has never qualified for the tournament it will host, has since embarked on one of the most extensive urban development projects the world has ever seen.
In 2011, British newspaper The Guardian uncovered evidence that proved Qatar corrupted the voting process by paying millions of dollars to representatives of the FIFA executive committee who selected Qatar to host
the tournament.
Corruption within FIFA is old news, and a complete rundown of their unethical acts would take a lifetime. But never before — as far as we know — has FIFA or a country hosting its most important tournament sponsored a crime against humanity like the one currently happening in Qatar.
To complete its 10-year plan to construct nine stadiums and multiple cities from scratch that can accommodate the influx of visitors during the World Cup, Qatar turned to imported foreign construction workers, primarily from Nepal and India.
According to an investigation by The Guardian released last week, these workers arrive almost exclusively from poverty-ridden villages and upon arrival in Qatar, become what can only be described as slaves.
There are substandard living conditions, forced labor, unpaid work, denial of water breaks
despite 120-degree temperatures, and more. Name something despicable that could be forced upon these workers, and you’d be hard-pressed to not find it in The Guardian’s report.
According to the report, the working conditions have led to 44 deaths – mostly from cardiac arrest – in the month-long period between June 4 and August 8. There’s still nine years before any soccer team will take the field in Qatar, and if the current death rate continues, as many as 4,000 workers will die.
Almost more sickening than the slave labor itself is the complete ignorance and apathy shown by the American public since The Guardian released its investigation.
If an average of one worker per day was dying on an American construction site, the story would be unavoidable.
The cover of every newspaper and the first story of every broadcast would bombard American eyes with the latest uncovered travesty. Facebook and Twitter timelines would explode with pleas for a nationwide effort to stop these inhumane acts.
But hey, it’s not American construction workers dying in droves, so why on earth would anyone show any concern? Let’s just turn a blind eye and worry about Miley Cyrus twerking too much instead.
Besides, it’s not like this is a venue for the Super Bowl these workers are building. We’d have a serious problem on our hands if that was the case, but this is just stadiums to host some silly soccer tournament. Let the Europeans worry about that.
It’s only human lives.
Spencer Hutchinson is a 21-year-old mass communication senior from West Monroe.