Discussions about the WK in Qatar start in a single place in the middle of the steekwoorden. Rijke sjeiks, high clouds crabs, a woestijn was not big, aangevuld met a leger aan migrant workers on the right. Het zijn ‘promising clichés’, according to Neha Vora, connoisseur of the golf states and as an anthropologist connected to Lafayette College in the United States. Most months heeft ze met woorden as ‘slavernij’ the vaak opduiken in opiniestukken over de precaire situatie van arbeidsmigranten – also in de kolommen van deze krant – and who land in the valley of Westerse aanleiding ware voor opproepen tot een WK-boycot.
As a migrant worker in Qatar, you must invoke a paspoort, say a lot about the work, and don’t leave the country in the first place. Het is not allowed to be considered as a modern slavery?
“I’ll have it sooner or later. Door someone een ‘slaaf’ of ‘tot slaafgemaakte’ te noemen, gum je zijn of haar menselijkheid uit. Je doet alsof ze geen grandchildren autonomous wil of keuze hebben, waardoor he geen grandchildren talk more is om ever met ze te praten. Terwijl deze mensen heus not onwetend zijn. Because of that, the word ‘slavernij’ is explained by the enormous weight in the onmenselijkheid van de slavernij so that we know it from the divorce.
“The migration to the Golfstaten gaat decennia terug, and loopt not heel differently than elders ter wereld. Kijk naar hoe Mexicanen been uitgebuit in de Verenigde States. Overall, that was an option, so it should be kept from the maximum winst. Kijk naar hoe other global sporting events in Brazilië and Zuid-Afrika tot stood kwamen, en hoe local bewoners vaak most wijken voor de komst van stadions. I’ll try to get something wrong in the shell. Qatar heeft miljarden te bested, the regering pakt het groot aan.”
The 48-year-old Vora does hair via a video connection vanuit a hotel camera in Dubai, also from other Arab mini-states, the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Ze is he for a cort works and family bezoek. Dat ze zich opwindt over the Qatar debate, heeft niet alleen met haarwerk te maken, maar also met haar family divorces. Haar Ouders, both arts, verhuisden in de jaren zeventig van het Indiase Mumbai naar New Jersey, was Vora opgroeide. Soon he went over the golf states. “Everyone in the Indiase community did not have a need of one. Het was enormously important in our wording. As a child, I thought that Dubai was a city in India.”
Begin the new year went to Dubai, and did a hair promotion in the middle class of India in the small emirate. Het mondde in 2013 uit in Haar book Impossible Citizens – Dubai’s Indian Diaspora. Nadia relocated the hair to the Qatar Hoofdstad Doha, was said to be the end of transnational migration in Lesgaf to a dependance of the American University A&M Texas.
Prior to this there is a risk of censuur, but that means that the work is done beforehand. ‘In the classes aan like ik Lesgaf, were a lot more diverse. We can discuss with each other about the bezetting of Palestina, a topic that ever in America can cost. In Qatar there was a problem, but that has changed since the Abraham Accords (the vredesakkoorden uit 2020 between Israël and Bahrain and the UAE, red.).” In haar meest recent book, Beyond Exception – New Interpretations of the Arabian Peninsula uit 2020, beschrijft ze hoe ze as lid van de faculteit will be considered a hoofddoek en ruim zittende kleding te dragen. Ze deed het zonder morren, maar kreeg van sommige Amerikaanse collega’s op de campus schokte reacties.
Tegen the ‘witte’, veroordelende look at Qatar verzet ze zich. Above all he shows meteen bij dat ze absolutely geen ‘apologeet’ van de overheid is. This is not known to be wrong, and it is required that this is the case in the future. Wel stoort ze zich aan de blikvernauwing waaraan veel media zich volgens hair guilty maken, en daarin state ze niet avenues. Colleague Wetenschapper Crystal Ennis (University of Leiden) betoogt in a opiniestuk op de nieuwssite Middle East Eye that de uitbuiting van arbeiders ten rights wordt afdescribed as inherent aan de Arabe cultuur.
Zelf knows what is going on between the divorced and the notorious kafalah-system. Migrants who want to work in Qatar, must have a request of privépersoon (‘sponsor’) to comply with the voor hun veiligheid instaan, huisvesting rules, maar vaak ook hun paspoort innemen. Differently than what was thought heeft het systeem niet zoveel te maden met de Arabe cultuur, maar gaat het terug tot longeveer honderd jaar geleden, toen Qatar – that pas in 1971 onafhankelijk were – a Brits protectoraat was. Olie was not yet discovered, precious parels wel. There will be a massacre op gevist. The responsibility for the duikers – also al afkomstig uit Zuid-Azië – was deliberately overwritten by the Britten on the chapters of the Vissersschepen, hun ‘sponsors’. Vora: “Toch the Golflanden has been recognized as a good reason to think about it. There’s a racist ondertoon in there.”
Do you know that?
“When it comes to the divorce of the golf states, there is a lot going on there with Britse and later also Americas oliebelangen. De Wetten zijn vaak opgesteld met behulp van westerse consultants. Hetzelfde money for the institutes that are arranged. For such a system, the authoritaire says no as a few responsible persons.
“Migrant workers do not work in all areas of the Qatari government, but also for Western multinationals. The ovens druk uit op regeringen om arbeids- en milieuwetgeving af te zwakken. Ze gaan per definitie transnational te work. De uitbuiting begins and ends not zomaar bij een landsgrens. For the sake of it, we want to make a lot of wins. Het komt multinationals prima uit hen neer te zetten as partijen afkomstig uit het walhalla van de democratie the toevallig zakendoen land in onvrije. We would like to ask you: how does he earn?”
In a recent wetenschappelijk article he writes that het toezicht op Qatarese bouwplaatsen vaak wordt gehouden door landgenoten van de arbeiders: Pakistanen, Indians, Sri Lankans. Do you suggest that there is a military solution for the building system?
“I want to owe a debt. Het gaat mij erom te understood in wilke context de uitbuiting plaatsvindt. The managers on the bouwplaatsen zijn nooit Qatarezen, maar meestal landgenoten. Witte mensen kom je er ook niet tegen, want ‘within’ state in the Golfstaten synoniem voor informed, and the wordt is indicated in the bestuurskamers van beursgenoteerde bedrijven. Op billboards zie je steevast een vrolijk, wit winkelpubliek, met op de achtergrond wat Qatarezen in long, white waden. This is the ideal plan for many Americans and European expats near the golf course. As ever he raises about the enormous differences in the golf states, so we are always aware of that.
“The most critical points of the WK are vaak geen benul van all betrokken parties. How can you ask for human rights? De lompe stereotyperingen van steenrijke, Islamic ministaatjes helpen niet. Daardoor gaat de deksel op het geprek, in plaats van dat we nieuwsgierig blijven.
“Voortdurend wordt the suggestion that the rijkdom in the golf onverdiend is, terwijl: a country than de VS heeft zijn rijkdom also vergaard op base van slavernij, en toch kijken maar weinigen op the manner in de VS. Wereldwijd wordt nu gezegd: hoe bestaat he dat we in Qatar gaan voetballen? No one shows: hoe kun je in Russia gaan voetballen (from the previous World War in 2018, red.)? No one shows: what is going on in the Netherlands, with a racist distinction from colonialism? Het zijn alleen de Golfstaten op die Toon been announced.”
Veel critici gaat het om het gebrek aan transparency aan Qatarese kant. When a worker was described as being part of a hitteberoerte, he was told about an autopsy and noted that it was ‘hard standing’, so there was a natural dood.
“Zeker, that betwist I also not. I think all that we don’t have is the complete plan for the war. The problem with many infrastructuurprojecten in the Gulf is that the largest multinationals for each class has an additional requirement, which op zijn beurt weer an additional requirement. Op the way ontlopen de partijen boven aan de ladder hun responsibility.”
In a recent wetenschappelijk article noemt and de criticism of human rights organizations ‘simplistic’.
“There are only a few more parties to the human rights issues, not avenues in the Qatari state. As we want it to change, we want to convert the state of affairs in Qatar into racist stereotypes that are described as kwaadaardig. We would also like to raise over the uitzendbureaus, over wereldvoetbalbond Fifa and over the landen was deze migranten vandaan komen. What does it mean for those masses to be trekked? India is bijvoorbeeld the largest leverancier van work aan dit land immediately. How does India earn money from working migrants in the word Teruggestuurd om your family in the home? Why isn’t he allowed to do so because of the enormous workload?”
What are the aspects of the Qatari system that you consider to be the most important?
“Mijn collega-onderzoeker Zahra Babar en ik hebben het over ‘raciaal kapitalisme’. We zien capitalism as a project that vanaf het prilste begin raciaal van karakter was. That ze terug aan de winst that in the colonial tijd will be made by the exploiters of North and South America. Raciale verillen zijn altijd het uitgangpunt weweest: how does he like a ‘mens’ zijn and how never? Which work we as geschoold and which as ongeschooled? How does he like vrij zijn en wie niet? The logica zie never avenues in de Golf, which zie ever overal.
“I didn’t understand that it wasn’t meant to be done with the workers themselves. When you want to think about Qatarezen, you have to ask that question. As everyone understands the experience of labor migrants, they must speak to each other.”
Nou, human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are not welcome in Qatar, and they cannot do any work. Hetzelfde money for journalists: he is geen persvrijheid. At the moment when the country entered the verslaggevers het land, it was spied on. Previously there were two North American journalists in the country.
“Zeker, maar the surveillance ze ever land in zoveel. Why is Qatar being talked about in the spotlight?”
That’s what we have to do to organize it for you.
“Zeker. In that case, it’s pretty much toe toe.”
We can not do that onderuit that the work bets are open for the Qatarezen zelf?
“Of course, we are now working with the British and the Americans. That does not mean that the Qatarezen vrijpleit, but we would like to request what is added on. As we are willing to change aan het systeem, so we can’t do that for you, unfortunately, because it’s marked.”