The Dutch attitude towards the World Cup in Qatar is once again one of unprecedented drooling, from both the KNVB and the cabinet.
The national team of Iran, in support of the uprising against its own tyrannical ayatollah regime, dared to remain silent during its own national anthem for the first time, despite all the threatening repercussions at home. As a clear statement about the FIFA blackmail, the visiting sports ministers from Germany and Belgium openly wore the OneLove bracelet, without both disappearing into a Qatari dungeon afterwards. The German football team, after being banned from wearing that band, demonstratively posed for a photo with their hand over their mouth.
And the Dutch national team? That already did it in the pants in advance. ‘We want to win’, that’s what it came down to, and sports and politics really had nothing to do with each other. Louis van Gaal, not the only sporting hero who has gone far over the horse in this country, quickly made it clear that it had to be over now and he didn’t want any more nagging: from now on we are only here for the sport.
And the Dutch cabinet? Months ago, Prime Minister Rutte had already set the tone for the future with his – even for him, extremely stupid – comments on the thousands of dead construction workers: we cheer for the team, not for the stands.
pin
Sports minister Conny Helder therefore opted for a very small pin. “Such a pin is a bit more chic than such a band,” says director of professional football Marianne van Leeuwen. That not only felt more pleasant for the KNVB, but also more pleasant for the minister himself, that that pin was not so visible, otherwise it would be so provocative, and that dear emir might take offense at it. He must have felt uncomfortable with an unveiled woman next to him on those damned stands that Rutte could not count on loud cheers.
Helder made an extra mud figure with her oh so chic pin, because the Minister of Justice of Qatar had demonstratively put on a tape, one with which he expressed support for the Palestinian cause. Now there is indeed a lot to be said about Western (and certainly Dutch) hypocrisy and double standards, where illegal Israeli land grabs are systematically ignored – Putin has not invented such a thing completely new. Not that the Qatari minister cares at all about the fate of ordinary Palestinians; that, as with all his wealthy counterparts in the Gulf states, is only rhetoric for the stands.
But I am curious how now Fifa mafia boss Infantino reacts, who had banned political activities at the World Cup. Is the Emir now denied access to his own gallery? Or will Infantino soon get back on his knees, after he had already accepted all kinds of freedom-restricting measures under pressure from Qatar or implemented them himself?
Now that the World Cup prize has been won, the emir clearly has no interest in previous agreements, which he had seen as religio-culturally unacceptable concessions. For example, the chairman of the organization of the World Cup in Qatar, Hassan al-Thawadi, was also able to casually admit this week that the number of construction deaths was not three, but a hundredfold. How must Infantino, who had defended all lies with verve, feel now? He is now tearing the hairs out of his bald head in despair at his own incredibility.
ventriloquist dummy
Earlier, Infantino had thought he should rail against Western human rights activists, citing three thousand years of European misconduct. Putin, who recently also screened the Western slavery past in his rant against the ‘satanic’ West, will have noted it with pleasure. With such a willing ventriloquist dummy in the all-powerful world football association, financing all those narcissistic wappies around Thierry Baudet is no more than anti-democratic fiddling in the margins.
Now there is undoubtedly something to be said about the exploitation of foreign workers in Europe and certainly also in the Netherlands, in greenhouses and construction. About their poor housing in German border municipalities, for example, with which greedy employers have literally thrown part of the problem over the neighbour’s hedge for high profits and minimal costs.
But let it be precisely the one right-wing political party that is least bothered by this, that does not want to complain in Qatar either and that puts economic self-interest first – yes, that of the fancy pins and the unwelcome stands – while the critics of the Qatari abuses are also the first to raise similar abuses in their own country.
Colonial coolie system
There is another interesting parallel in that regard. The proponents of no-whining try to silence the critics by stating that the Qataris themselves are proud of the World Cup organization. Yes, it will: the Qataris themselves. They make up the wealthy 10 percent of the total population. Qatar is a decadent slave state, reminiscent of the colonial coolie system of the Dutch East Indies: an all-powerful upper class on an ethnic apartheid basis, prosperous and complacent, on the backs of the rest. Also something that right-wing circles in the Netherlands did not see as a major problem at the time, and also not long afterwards.
Thomas von der Dunk is a cultural historian.