Slave labour in Qatar

FIFA has excelled itself. Not content to take Qatari kickbacks in return for handing the resource rich Sheiks the 2022 World Cup, they are now embroiled in a bleak controversy which has seen the death of hundreds of Nepalese and Indian labourers as they toil in subhuman conditions on Qatari infrastructure projects. Forty Nepalese guest workers have died in the past two months alone. Denied even the most basic of human rights, these desperate workers have had their passports confiscated to prevent them leaving the country. Wages are routinely withheld and overtime in fifty degree heat is mandatory. Even fresh water is rationed. The catalogue of abuse, uncovered by a Guardian investigation, is staggering. It amounts to slave labour and guess what, FIFA feigns shock and disbelief at the Guardian findings.

FIFA would do well to consider that, in this desert hell, all the brand new football stadia currently being built in preparation for 2022, are being constructed under a system of modern day slavery. Even we in London have a constant reminder of this brutal fact; the gleaming new Shard is precisely a monument to that slavery.

Nothing comes from nothing. All the artificially created Gulf States are allowed to exist only on the premise that their abundant oil and gas reserves flow to the West on very favourable terms. But the gangsters running these mafia states may be ruthless and cruel but they are not stupid. They know these resources will eventually run out so they are busy diversifying their portfolios. Turning the Gulf States into a financial and entertainment global mecca is their current strategy. Winning the FIFA World Cup is the jewel in the crown. But there is one inconvenient fact. They have no indigenous workforce prepared to do the hard and dirty work so all their labourers have to be imported from the Indian sub-continent.

The whole criminally sordid affair is a powerful reminder of what modern day globalism is all about. Over a million workers from the sub-continent are currently engaged in this desperate work, and they send, each year, some seventy five billion dollars worth of their meagre wages back home to their impoverished families. Consequently, the Indian and Nepalese governments are reluctant to intervene. Everyone knows the appalling conditions under which these guest workers labour under but it suits everyone, including FIFA to turn a blind eye. But now the truth is firmly in the public arena. If nothing changes, by the time of the 2022 World Cup, it is estimated some 4000 workers would have perished on the Qatari building sites. Wealthy football fans will be mindlessly cheering their teams while standing on the unmarked graves of countless unknown labourers. And you can bet your last dollar that not one guest worker will be among the cheering football fans. They will either be dead or repatriated home so as not to tarnish the Qatari make-believe.

We should not kid ourselves that this is an isolated affair, far from it. The ubiquitous mobile phones that we all use, the trainers and sports gear that we all love to wear, in fact nearly all manufactured goods that swamp the developed world, are invariably the product of sweat shops in the developing world. Exhausted lives, silently lived out in dire conditions, just to service our insatiable demand for cheap consumer goods. Whole factories collapse killing hundreds but the authorities do nothing. Workers commit suicide in desperation but nothing changes.
Will FIFA help put a halt to this modern day slavery? Will Western governments withdraw their tacit support? Will the Indian government demand an end to the slaughter? Don’t hold your breath on any of these fronts. There is only one sure way to halt this globalised outrage; trade unions must become international. What should be inscribed on their banners? An abuse of one worker should be regarded as an abuse of all. Sounds like a return to Marx and so it is. Ralph Milliband got it absolutely right. In the real world there is no such thing as responsible capitalism. The desert kingdom of Qatari, with its viscous, corrupt, homophobic, women hating, feudal monarchy, running a Middle East capitalist franchise for Uncle Sam, is a glaring testament to this irrefutable fact.

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