Avoiding the Drop

Gentlemen ... to evil!

Following the decision to award Qatar the 2022 World Cup, I was one of those who kept losing their head about not only the issues surrounding gay rights in Qatar, but the mainstream media’s blatant ignorance of the issue.  I’m still pissed off about it, and don’t see that changing at any point between now and June 2022 — or February 2022, whenever they’re going to hold this thing that shouldn’t be in the first place.  But anyway.  We are lucky enough around here to have contact with some of the anti-homophobia groups involved in the sport and I thought we should reach out to them to do a guest piece on FIFA and Qatar.  The folks at Red Card Homophobia (twitter @RChomophobia) were kind enough to take us up on this and have provided us with a fantastic guest post.  I did not give them a prompt of any sort, but the direction they went with it was just what I was hoping for: calling for action from FIFA regarding their own preposterous double standards.

So give it a read, check them (and others, like the Gay Football Supporters Network) out, and screw you Sepp.

In an era where social, political and cultural frameworks are geared toward progressive change and the habits of a bigoted past are increasingly condemned, optimists view the prospect of Qatar hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup as a much-needed step forward in promoting football in new corners of the globe and promoting a more integrated international culture of football. However, the globalisation of football requires the export of ideas of acceptance and diversity if such a move is to be genuinely, and not merely superficially, progressive. The spotlight has turned to the anti-gay laws in the country that, in twelve years, is to host FIFA’s biggest competition, and the time has come for FIFA to set a positive example in the fight against homophobia, just as it has done against racism.

Anti-homophobia groups have expressed concerns regarding the Islamic state of Qatar’s restrictive shari’a laws on the tolerance of homosexuality. The country’s standing penal code provides that acts of homosexuality between consenting adults may be punished with detention, hefty fines and up to five years’ imprisonment – a law which has, in the past, been extended to non-citizens as well as citizens. Additionally, Qatar has seen the mass arrests and deportations of both domestic and foreign workers due to accusations of homosexuality, raising concerns about a climate of homophobia that is a human rights concern in itself.

Of particular concern to us as supporters of diversity in the beautiful game is that such laws and practices threaten to endanger the safety and rights of gay football spectators traveling to Qatar for the tournament and supporters of gay rights more generally. Should these customs continue to stand come 2022, FIFA will have promoted a tournament that does not permit significant factions of the international community to participate.

We certainly hope that Qatar will make positive steps toward a more progressive system of laws dealing with homosexuality between now and 2022 and see the World Cup as a unique opportunity to show the world how warmly its culture may embrace people from different backgrounds and of different beliefs, practices and sexual orientations. However, while twelve years is a long enough stretch of time to see these practices overturned, it is not sufficient to passively hope that this will occur. The challenge presented to the international community is that of engaging the Middle Eastern and Qatari communities and the gay community and proactively seeking solutions that provide for greater harmony between the two in the lead-up to the tournament.

FIFA has championed an anti-discrimination campaign that has seen slogans like “Say No To Racism” and “A Time To Make Friends” make their mark on domestic and international football matches around the world. The positive moves that FIFA has made in promoting the anti-racism cause in particular is admirable and forms a strong foundation for similar progress to be made in other causes under the anti-discrimination umbrella, including anti-homophobia.

“In FIFA, and this is in the statutes of FIFA, whether it is in politics, whether it is in religion, we don’t want racism, and we know what this means, and neither do we want discrimination,” FIFA president Sepp Blatter has said. “What we want is just to open this game to everybody and open it to all cultures and this is what we are doing in 2022.” The leadership role that FIFA holds in promoting anti-discrimination causes should not merely be rhetoric, but should be backed by concerted, practical moves in furthering acceptance of homosexuality in football all over the world.

It is for this reason that recent apathetic and distasteful comments made by Blatter, dismissing calls for concern regarding Qatar’s poor gay rights record, are particularly reprehensible and highlight FIFA’s reluctance to acknowledge the need for progress in this issue. When questioned as to how gay football spectators are expected to enjoy the tournament in Qatar, Blatter callously joked, “I would say they should refrain from any sexual activities.”

This kind of apathetic attitude is exactly the kind of display of casual homophobia that organisations such as Red Card Homophobia condemn. It does little to suggest that FIFA takes seriously the need to address concerns over gay rights violations in a future World Cup host country and in football more generally. Furthermore, it effectively aims to deny the existence of the gay community and of its rights, pushing it into closets from which it has struggled for many decades to escape. Blatter’s callousness provides an unfortunately strong indication of the progress that is yet to be made in promoting more accepting and educated attitudes toward homosexuality even in circles, organisations and societies that pride themselves on being open-minded and intolerant toward all forms of discrimination.

Blatter argued that resounding calls for the Qatari state’s intolerant treatment of the gay community are premature given the years that lie between these discussions and the 2022 World Cup: “I think there is too much concern for a competition that will be done in 12 years.” However, it is immeasurably destructive to do nothing now – to wait and hope that these questions of fundamental human rights and freedoms sort themselves out. Never in the history of human rights struggle have debates like these resolved themselves; what is required is proactive leadership by the international community and, firstly, a recognition of the struggle at hand.

FIFA made the move to bring the World Cup to the Middle East, and alongside other political and sporting actors, it should accept the responsibility for ensuring that the World Cup is played, staged and spectated responsibly and with genuine, substantive anti-discrimination efforts – which should include efforts against homophobia and against laws prejudiced against homosexuals. Indeed, Blatter’s expressed denunciation of “discrimination against any human beings be it on this side or that side, be it left, right or whatever” expands his mandate of responsibility to include ensuring that members and supporters of the gay community will be as able as everybody else to enjoy the 2022 tournament. Blatter’s thoughtless ‘joke’ about gay people concealing their identity in the Qatar World Cup constitutes a step backwards by an organisation that should be leading the campaign against homophobia under its anti-discrimination crusade.

In trying to emphasise the non-issue of religious barriers to freedom of sexual expression, Blatter rather optimistically asserted that “in football we have no boundaries”. However, the legal restrictions placed on the gay community in Qatar highlight the prevailing need for leaders on and off the field, particularly at FIFA, to commit to promoting progressive change. We at Red Card Homophobia hope that FIFA will mirror its efforts against racism in promoting greater acceptance of homosexuality in Qatar in the lead-up to 2022, and will help to lower the boundaries rather than naïvely wait for them to disappear. It is time for FIFA to lead by example; it is time for FIFA to speak out against homophobia just as it speaks out against racism.

Thank you for your support of ending homophobia in football.

- Red Card Homophobia

Thanks again to Red Card Homophobia for doing this for us, good people.

So everyone have a safe New Year’s Eve, and do me a favor, if you’re like Sepp Blatter, stop being such an asshole in 2011.