Qatar will soon make history. On Sunday, it will become the smallest country to host the world’s biggest sporting event. To appreciate the contrast, think of the vast countries that hosted the two previous editions of the FIFA World Cup: Russia and Brazil.
Even if the “soft power” and “smart power” present in Qatar’s diplomatic inventory have been recognized by many for this moment, the World Cup deserves to be considered beyond the sole prism of international relations. As scholars of postcolonialism appreciate Edward said and Gayatri Spivak (PDF), the Euro-American imagination has long dictated what is “good” while determining how the Eastern “other” is represented.
The World Cup offers a chance to reset these narratives.
After all, there is something magical about the World Cup taking place in Qatar. Since winning the bid to host the 22nd edition of the World Cup, Doha has been preparing for the global competition, leveraging revenues from its hydrocarbon industry to modernize the country’s infrastructure, particularly roads, transport and technology.
Qataris are increasingly becoming avid users of information technology. Doha continues to modernize at a rapid pace, transforming from a pearling village to a smart city home to diverse expat communities. It is equipped with cutting-edge technology, providing Qataris with greater accessibility and digital connectivity, whether in the areas of e-governance, efficient banking or healthcare.
Yet while football fields are meant to inspire international unity and sportsmanship, there is no escaping constructions of otherness at global gatherings like football’s greatest carnival. In this case, this can be seen in the systematic, relentless and racist campaign waged in the West against Qatar in the years leading up to this World Cup.
How else can we explain the way in which Qatar has been vilified like no host before it? No other small countries with extreme weather conditions, like Switzerland in 1954. No superpowers like the United States, where the Los Angeles area hosted the World Cup final in 1994, just two years after being witness to some of the nation’s worst race riots in decades. Not Mussolini’s fascist regime and the brutality of Argentina military junta. Not in Brazil, where people living the favelas were evicted as the country sought to hide its poverty from fans traveling for the 2014 World Cup. Not Russia, which hosted the 2018 event in the middle rise of homophobia.
These countries were considered rightful hosts – no matter what they did – because, one way or another, football belonged to them and is still considered to belong to them. On the other hand, Qatar was viewed with contempt as soon as it won its candidacy, treated as an outsider attacking an elite party.
In fact, as in other Arab, Asian, African, and South and Central American countries, football came to Qatar via colonialism, when the country was a British protectorate between 1916 and 1971. L ‘Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC), the forerunner of England. Petroleum (BP) began oil exploration and production in the late 1930s. Football followed in the 1940s. Doha Stadium was the first football stadium with a grass pitch in the Doha region. Gulf. League competitions began in the 1960s, several years before independence.
Ironically, studies of postcolonialism have little to say about football – even though many of the slums of former colonies have produced major stars, from Pelé in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to Raheem Sterling in Kingston, Jamaica. Many Arab players – from Algeria’s Rabah Madjer to Egypt’s Mohamed Salah – have made similar trips to wealthy European clubs.
The Football World Cup should not simply be an exercise in new forms of cultural mimicry of former colonial powers. Even as Western football struggles with racism – Brazilian player Richarlison recently had a banana was thrown at him in a friendly match in Paris, the Qatari edition of the World Cup could help decolonize biased ideas about Arab and Muslim societies by using their diverse cultures to enrich the global football experience.
For example, Qatar’s alcohol-free stadiums during the World Cup could serve as an example. They will allow more people to come to matches without worrying about the alcohol-fueled violence, racism and foul language that is common in European soccer arenas. As Qatar welcomes fans from around the world, it can present another way to enjoy the sport – one that does not import a generic football fan experience while ignoring Qatar’s local values.
Qataris are used to living with foreigners and the World Cup is a new opportunity to display their affinity for multiculturalism to counter the Western stereotype of the “fanatical Muslim” – as seen recently in Islamophobic and anti-Islamic media. -Islamic. French racist cartoons representing the Qatar national team.
By presenting an alternative narrative to the way the Muslim world and football have been perceived in the West, this World Cup could help decolonize the language of sport. “European football” is not white. “African” or “Arab” football are not signs of color or ethnicity. Yet these labels are too often used as codes for dominant ethnicities and races in how sports are covered.
This is where postcolonialism can serve as an antidote, placing – to paraphrase the Harvard University professor and critical theorist Homi K Bhabha – the ex-colonized between different worlds and perspectives.
The Arab world is full of literary minds who have tackled stereotypical representations and unequal encounters in their work – and who can serve as inspiration as the region seeks to welcome the world on its terms. Sudanese writer Tayeb Salih’s 1966 book, Season of Migration to the North, captures the essence of the in-between highlighted by Bhabha.
The brilliant Saudi novelist Abdulrahman Munif coined a special term: al-teeh (loss, confusion). His classic novel of five stories, Cities of Salt (Mudun al-Milh, published 1984), is one of the best examples of postcolonial literary studies. It tells a story of political, economic, environmental and cultural devastation when the neocolonizers (American capitalism and petrodollars) and the neocolonized (the Gulf) meet.
These writings are a poignant reminder that hosting and organizing the FIFA World Cup is an opportunity much more than just parading Westernized lives.
During the colonial era, Arabs encouraged anti-colonial resistance by, among other things, wearing local clothing and ensuring that their traditional culture was preserved. Today, they wear the Arabic “thobe” (ankle-length tunic) made from fabrics from Japan. This reflects the blending of the global and the local – in a way that Qatar and the Arab world could build on as the region hosts major sporting events.
The FIFA World Cup must be a shared space for a new modernity that is neither white nor colonial. A modernity which addresses Arab, Asian, African, indigenous and Latin values of tolerance, human rights and good governance, and which challenges the stereotypes often imposed on the countries of the South.
A modernity that aspires to a fairer, more equitable and – truly – decolonized world, which challenges and resists neocolonizing hierarchies. A modernity that demands the right to cultural self-determination and affirms shared futures and experiences with mutual respect.
Through the World Cup in Qatar, “the beautiful game” can help reverse colonizing tendencies and cultural narcissism in our multicultural world.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
