False. People respond in that way because certain atrocities get talked about all the time and other, arguably worse atrocities never get talked about (or if they are talked about, the key perpetrators of those atrocities never get held to account by the media) for very nefarious reasons. It's not about 'defending' any particular wrongdoing, it's about exhorting people to 'keep that same energy' across the board. Otherwise what are we doing?
I've seen reports of 6,500 workers dying in Qatar. A tragedy. But dozens of Western corporations do business with them because they're oil rich. That's OK apparently. A million Iraqis died in the war for oil but there's no issue holding the World Cup in the UK or the US. Why? Because it's OK to kill a million people outside your borders but not 6,500 within them?
It's OK to hold the World Cup in Russia but Qatar is where we draw the line? I guess Russia's sort of in Europe so that was OK at the time? Brazil was another comtroversial choice due to human rights issues. But it's the home of football so that's OK? The competition was previously awarded to Argentina when it was under a military junta, and thousands of dissidents were literally killed as the tournament was going on. Let that sink in.....
I just want to know who is coming to this with clean hands and the right to lecture others. That's all. Football is corrupt. The world is corrupt. From top to bottom. If you're going to be logically consistent, you basically shouldn't watch football at all, and peg it as a convenient distraction from the real things that are going on in the world
Well that is complete rubbish. Football doesn't belong to brutal, oppressive regimes, or to greedy, amoral corporations, or with corrupt governing bodies. If we are talking moral consistency then there is plently of football that exists entirely free from any reasonable moral objections. I was just watching my nephew play football around the house, where is the corruption here?
The world is full of corruption and to differing degrees and scale depending on where it occurs. There is hypocrisy and double standards but that is no argument for moral nihilism and turning a blind eye to suffering and cruelty.
Moral standards and objections are always going to be on a scale. Just because I might have gone over the speed limit slightly and increased the risk of hurting someone by a fraction that doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to criticise or attempt to prevent someone who is trying to commit a rape or murder in my vicinity.
Russia, Israel, Uk, US etc. are all worthy of criticism but let's keep the criticism to the abuses carried out by Qatar in the Qatar boycott thread shall we. Surely that makes sense
We don't need to compare how clean each others' hands are before granting the ability to speak out against the morally objectionable.
This should be fecking simple.