What I'm reading during the World Cup that I'm definitely watching
I wouldn't be a journalist if it weren't for this chaos
Heyyyy! 👻
How are you? It’s been a minute, I know.
I stopped writing this newsletter when I started reading things just to be able to send out a weekly newsletter instead of sending out a weekly newsletter of things I already read and liked. That felt fake and clout chase-y in a way that I’m not irl.
I don’t know how often I’ll send out more, but hopefully that means that whatever I do send will be genuinely interesting. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Do excuse any typos and/or bad English. My lawyer (my sister) wasn’t immediately available to proofread.
I decided I was going to be a journalist when I was 15, watching the men’s World Cup in my parents’ basement in New Jersey, with tears in my eyes watching the closing ceremony and final in South Africa.
I was moved by this one month that brought the entire world’s eyes to one country. The ways that journalists set out to find the stories that show how soccer brings out the best, worst, brightest, and ugliest sides of the human condition. I was radicalized by the way the Spanish press villainized a woman journalist for Spain’s loss in a match during a tournament it ended up winning.
I never wanted to write match reports or debate tactics, but I wanted to get into the tension points in politics, culture, and corruption that soccer brings to light. I wrote my Common App essay on all of this, which made up for my awful test scores and got me into nearly every college I applied to, I think.
Life took me down a different path. I long ago gave up on my dream to be a soccer writer. I’m 27 now, watching the group stages of the 2022 World Cup in my parents’ family room (upgrade?) in a knockoff Mexico jersey that’s still just as tight as when I bought it on Amazon four years ago.
I don’t write about soccer but I am very much a journalist. I started learning Spanish from World Cup stories and now I’ve written my own stories in Spanish. A huge part of the world opens up to me and informs my journalism because my initial soccer nerdiness pushed me to learn another language.
There are countless little ways that soccer has marked my life. The start of every World Cup forces a check-in with who I am, who I’m becoming, and what I stand for because it’s impossible not think about who I was during the previous tournament. In this tournament, plagued with controversy, it feels weird to make the World Cup personal. To say that I’m happy and excited and in a good place with so many parts of myself while everyone else is so unhappy.
This is indeed a different World Cup than years past. It’s in the northern hemisphere’s winter for the first time. It’s in a Muslim-majority country for the first time. There are women referees officiating matches for the first time.
These are all interesting and positive developments and hard to celebrate when the decision to take the World Cup to Qatar was shrouded in claims of corruption and bribery, the stadiums and an entirely new city were built by exploited, low-paid migrant workers in an obscenely rich country, and the head of FIFA — arguably one of the most corrupt organizations on Earth — said that he knows what it’s like to be discriminated against because he was bullied for being a redhead.
There are plenty of valid, alarming reasons to criticize this tournament. I don’t not feel ick about a lot of it. But none of these problems — many of which also exist and persist in western countries — started or will end with Qatar, which is what much of the internet makes it sound like.
Qatar is problematic for a laundry list of reasons but so much of the coverage and tweets I’ve seen are orientalist, reductive, and Islamophobic. And that’s just in English.
More than anything, it’s not about improving any of these issues for the people who are most affected by them. It’s just been a way for western countries to chastise another country, turning a blind eye to the very same issues in their own while they pat themselves on the back.
To be able to verbalize this is the gift of the World Cup. Every four years I get to deep dive into places and people and histories that are new to me that inform and change my understandings of the world. This is what I love. The challenge to get uncomfortable, to learn, to grow. It’s why I became a journalist. I don’t have mixed feelings about that.
Here are some of the stories and the people that are helping me make sense of this moment.
Why the World Cup Belongs in the Middle East
By Abdullah Al-Arian for The New York Times Opinion section
The Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish once noted that football “is the field of expression permitted by secret understanding between ruler and ruled in the prison cell of Arab democracy.” The game, he added, “represents a breathing space, allowing a splintered homeland an opportunity to join together around something shared.” In the decade since the Arab uprisings, many countries in the Middle East have become even more repressive, making the breathing space of football feel more urgent than ever.
The World Cup’s Forgotten Team
By Tariq Panja and Bhadra Sharma for The New York Times
Neighbors soon gather, and other stories pour out. Nearly every villager has experienced working as a migrant laborer or has a relative overseas. The ones who have not, the locals say, are desperate to go.
Shiva Kumar Sada is among them. For now, he says, all there is to do is “time pass,” a common euphemism in South Asia that refers to idling. The only work he has is weaving baskets out of bamboo, which takes all day to complete and earns maybe a quarter of what he might make for a day’s labor in the Gulf.
Kumar Sada knows life abroad can be hard. He was at a worker protest over unpaid salaries in Saudi Arabia in 2018 that ended with soldiers’ firing live rounds into crowds. But that has not put him off from returning. He is desperate to go back. The reason, he said, is simple.
“Money,” he says in English, rubbing his thumbs. “Food,” he adds, bringing one of his hands to his mouth.
Migrant worker abuse shames whole world, not just Qatar
By Crystal A Ennis for Middle East Eye
Exceptionalising Qatar allows observers to dismiss abuse as something inherent in Middle Eastern societies or cultures. A cogent example is how quickly inaccurate reporting on migrant worker deaths has gone viral, informing narratives on the region that readers have been primed to believe. Facts matter if we are to effect change.
Exploitation under temporary migration regimes is far from exceptional and should be understood as structural. Certainly, we should highlight exploitation and be enraged about abuse, but this should not be exoticised as something uniquely Qatari.
Instead, consider whether you are equally upset about migrant worker abuses in your own country. Demonstrate solidarity with workers close and far from home, especially migrant workers. Pressure international capital that benefits from exploitative conditions in different contexts.
A global competition rooted in local Arab culture
By Rizwan Ahmad for Middle East Eye
But while the symbolism of past mascots has tended to revolve around football, La’eeb goes beyond this, representing a complex cultural icon. The name, design and choice of accent symbolise Arab culture and identity. The word “La’eeb” contains a unique guttural Arabic sound, "ayn" (represented with the Arabic letter ع or with an apostrophe after the “a”).
La’eeb’s shape and colour are inspired by the traditional white Arab ghutra, secured with an "egal", a black cord. In Arab culture, these two pieces of headgear have powerful cultural significance.
These subtle linguistic and cultural symbols are strengthened by the architectural design of the Qatari World Cup stadiums. Al-Bayt Stadium, which hosts the opening match between Qatar and Ecuador on 20 November, is modelled on the traditional Arabic tent, while Lusail Stadium, which will host the grand finale, is designed after bowls and other vessels used throughout the Arab and Islamic world. Al-Janoub Stadium is modelled after the dhow, a traditional boat used for pearl-diving and fishing.
Will FIFA World Cup LGBTIQ+ fans be safe at Qatar 2022?
By Andrew Chapelle for SBS News