Weekly Blog - 19 December 2022 - The World Cup and Human Rights
World Cup and human rights in Qatar
The World Cup in Qatar finished on Sunday 18 December with Argentina securing victory against France in what many are calling the most thrilling World Cup final ever. The tournament has shone a spotlight on human rights abuses in Qatar. Women’s rights are severely restricted in the country, they need permission from their legal guardians (father, brother, husband etc.) for many basic life decisions. Homosexuality is completely illegal. Religious minorities face severe restrictions, such as Christians having only one plot of land in the whole country where they can build churches and worship. All evangelism is forbidden, and conversion from Islam to another faith is punishable by death.
Some 90% of the workforce in Qatar, over 1.7 million people, are migrant workers. Including tens of thousands who have worked on building the stadiums and other infrastructure for the World Cup. Their rights are often severely restricted, they face abuse and low pay, and thousands have died as a result of unsafe working conditions, long hours of labour in the intense heat, and poor living conditions. Freedom of expression and assembly is severely constrained.
To take just one example, Amnesty International reports the case of Malcolm Bidali, a Kenyan who worked as a security guard. As a result of his work as a migrant workers’ rights activist and blogger he was arrested on 4 May 2021 and kept for a month in solitary confinement without being informed of why he was being held, without being charged, and with no access to legal representation. Then on 14 July 2021 the Supreme Judiciary Council fined him for supposedly disseminating “false news with the intent of endangering the public system of the state” without the benefit of a trial or due legal process. He was forced to leave Qatar after paying the significant fine.[1]
Human rights and democracy around the world
Qatar is of course just once example of dozens of countries around the world that have terrible human rights records and little or no democracy. Indeed, after decades of gradual improvement, in the past fifteen years or more, the progress of democracy has slowed, and the levels of human rights and civil liberties around the world have been declining from a high point in the mid 2000s. This has happened as regimes (even in some of the world’s longest standing western democracies) have used anti-terrorism and security concerns to clamp down on basic freedoms. This should remind us that democracy, human rights and peace, can never be taken for granted (even in the most historically democratic and peaceful countries with good human rights). They must always be protected and strived for.
As Christians, we know that God wants all governments to rule with justice, and with good rights and freedoms, and equality for all. As the prophet Jeremiah challenged the authorities of his day, “Hear the word of the LORD to you, king of Judah, you who sits on David’s throne – you, your officials and your people who come through these gates. This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.” (Jer 22: 2 – 3)
Reform Movements
So what can we do in countries like Qatar where this is often not the case? Where are the Jeremiahs of our times? A major report from Arise, The Arise Manifesto, looks in detail at what the Bible has to say, and what history and the world’s leading academic experts have to teach us, about what works best for dramatically improving democracy, human rights and good governance. It finds that overwhelmingly the most successful way of doing this is through mass, popular, peaceful, bottom-up uprisings, like the ones we have seen this year in Iran, China, Russia and many other countries.
In the Bible we see how the people of God endured multiple repressive regimes over centuries. Yet throughout, God’s command to them is not to take up arms against such regimes. Such violence only produces more bloodshed, and often ends up replacing one brutal regime with another. Instead the Biblical model is that Christians should peacefully speak truth to power in a bottom-up way. We see this in Joseph and Moses influencing and challenging the pharaohs of Egypt. Later, the prophets like Jeremiah did the same to the kings of Israel and Judah; and Daniel, Esther, Ezra and Nehemiah influenced Babylonian and Persian kings. In the New Testament, John the Baptist and Jesus himself spoke out against injustice from Herod, tax collectors, soldiers and Jewish religious authorities.
Turning to the lessons from history, academics and researchers show how around the world in recent decades, bottom-up popular peaceful reform movements have again and again proved to be the most successful method of dramatically improving democracy, human rights and good governance. We have seen such movements in Serbia, Madagascar, Georgia, Ukraine, Lebanon, Nepal, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, East Germany, Slovenia, Mali, Bolivia, the Philippines, Zambia, South Korea, Chile, Argentina, Haiti, Brazil, Uruguay, Malawi, Thailand, Bulgaria, Hungary, Nigeria, and many other countries.
Such peaceful bottom-up reform movements avoid playing into the hands of autocratic regimes by confronting them in the area of physical force, where the regime is strong. Instead they peacefully refuse to cooperate with the regime, and continually expand the numbers involved, increasingly isolating the regime until it is forced to concede. Where such reform movements have been successful, they have seized the initiative with a clear strategy and tactics that continually evolve, to keep the regime off balance and reactive. They have built ever larger coalitions and attracted mass numbers of people who have demonstrated peacefully in visible city centres. They have also used non-violent direct action like strikes, sit ins and occupying areas. Where autocratic governments have responded with force, they have turned that against them, using the outrage it sparks to gather ever greater support. Successful reform movements have made good use of inspirational leaders, and used social media and other communications routes well, to get their message out. They have captured the sympathy of the international community, the media, and more and more sectors of society, increasingly isolating the regime, until even the police and military see which way the wind is blowing and begin to defect, and the regime is forced to concede.
Of course such movements also require great courage and perseverance from those involved. They are not guaranteed to succeed every time. But overwhelmingly the power of ordinary people peacefully refusing to submit is remarkable, and has continually proved the most successful way to improve democracy, human rights and good governance in nations around the world.
Christians at the heart of Reform Movements
Christians and churches have played a hugely important central role in such reform movements in nations all around the world. They have worked well alongside journalists, academics, activists, students, trades unions and others in the movement.
Supporting such bottom-up Reform Movements in countries around the world (and the Christians that are so often at the heart of them) is one of three key focus campaigns for Arise. They are one of the brightest hopes for our world.
The journey to a free, democratic Qatar that fully respects human rights will no doubt be a long one, with many setbacks along the way. But the recent focus on human rights abuses as a result of the World Cup will have played an important part in that, if it can be used to support indigenous Qataris and migrant workers leading the call for reform in their country.
Find out more
Find out more about how bottom-up reform movements, with Christians at their heart, have transformed our world, and have huge potential for positive change in the future, in the Arise Manifesto. This report is Arise’s big picture, researched, Biblical, holistic and practical vision for a better world. It looks at what the Bible says, and what we can learn from the best data and the world’s leading experts on the five major areas of evangelism, discipleship, social justice, development and the environment. It then draws these lessons together into a practical road map for the changes we need to see in our world, which the Arise movement campaigns to achieve.
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[1] Qatar 2021, Amnesty International, https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/qatar/report-qatar/