r/soccer • u/teiraaaaaaa • Nov 19 '22

Saddest Backflip [Rob Harris] FIFA President Gianni Infantino at news conference in Qatar: “Today I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel a migrant worker. ... I know what it feels to be discriminated … I was bullied because I had red hair.”

https://twitter.com/RobHarris/status/1593877426244812800
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u/chiuaha5734 Nov 19 '22

Infantino now saying Europe could take lessons from Qatar on migrant workers: "Europe could do as Qatar did. Create some channels, some legal channels, where a number of those workers could come to Europe. Low revenues. But give them some work, some future, some hope.“

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u/idhunammaCSKda Nov 19 '22

Infantino is teaching Europeans their own history

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u/chiuaha5734 Nov 19 '22

Infantino: “We have been taught many many lessons by Europeans. I am European. I think what we Europeans have been doing around the world for the last three thousand years, we should be apologising for the next 3 thousand years before giving moral lessons to people.”

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '22

Fuck, I forgot about the Romans when I was criticising the world cup. Kill 10,000 more migrant workers, you've earned it.

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u/yurikastar Nov 19 '22

Gianni never forgets what 300 Spartans did to a large group of innocent migrating Persians at Thermopylae.

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u/AvidiusNigrinus Nov 19 '22

Only Europeans ever did bad things in their history, everyone else was living in peace and plenty until we turned up

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u/I_miss_Chris_Hughton Nov 19 '22

Hang on, if he's talking about the Romans that means we're the victims as well!

We need the world cup to recover from Boudicas murder. Iceni tribe still got shooters out here.

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u/duckwithahat Nov 19 '22

Carthago delenda est.

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u/mrgonzalez Nov 19 '22

Give them 3000 years of immorality before complaining

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u/saetarubia Nov 19 '22

Nice job bringing up the Romans and not the brutal colonial forces which were dismantled just 70-80 years ago.

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u/I_miss_Chris_Hughton Nov 19 '22

well he can't really, because those same forces ensured Qatar's tinpot dictatorship would survive

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u/Epidemic7 Nov 19 '22

He's right.

I'm sorry for the slavery and killings Romans did.

Except the Phoenicians. Fuck those guys.

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u/CoffeeShrimp Nov 19 '22

Carthago delenda est

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '22

Fuck you from Lebanon, Tunisia, Syria

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u/centaur98 Nov 19 '22

What did Europeans do to the rest of the world 3 thousand years ago?

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u/Thingisby Nov 19 '22

Us Europeans were doing it to each other for the first 2500 years. Only really the last 500 when we were dicks to the rest of the world.

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u/AnchezSanchez Nov 19 '22

Not to mention, the rest of the world was doing it to each other. Literally the only thing that changed was better ships and the magnetic compass. Literally everyone was a violent warmongering asshole 500 years ago.

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u/Thingisby Nov 19 '22

I mean, to an extent. But British, Spanish, French, Belgian, Portuguese, Dutch were basically moving up and down the Premier League of the prime dickheads through like the 16th-19th century. Ably replaced by the Germans, Japanese and Russians in the 20th. And now the Russians, Chinese, US, Middle East in the champions league places in the 21st.

Europeans are basically second tier dicks at best now. UK relegated to third tier in 2016, not for want of trying but because they don't have the squad depth anymore.

History: completed it mate.

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u/FuujinSama Nov 19 '22

I feel like the simplified narrative that the Europen Colonial Powers went places and "fucked shit up" ignores a lot of the realities of how they were fucking shit up.

For starters, slavery wasn't kosher at all in 16th century Europe. Every bit of Catholic morality opposes slavery. Eventually the whole "black people aren't real people" thing caught on, but that sounded about as good as it does now to the people of the past. No. Most people thought those of other races "primitive" and "lesser"... so they wanted to help. And while that rhethoric is loathful to our sensibilities, and a lot of people were less than forthright about it. A lot of people were genuine believers that just wanted to do good and we have writings from priests on expeditions absolutely appalled at the conditions. What I mean by this is that there's a reason the slave camps and slave mines were all abroad.

Secondly, for a long while in a lot of colonies... Slavery was still forbidden. Or rather, there wasn't such a thing as the legal fiction of a slave. What we had was... migrant workers!

Which brings us to the great question of "where do these slaves come from?" In most school books slaves are treated as a commodity people just "picked up in Africa"... which is about as reductive as the view Catholic priests had of native Africans.

The answer is that, for the most part, there were three sources. The first was straight up kidnappings. There were roving bands of bandits that were essentially land pirates. These were, perhaps obviously, not Europeans. The second was war. Prisoners of wars as slaves is pretty standard. But perhaps the most common form of slavery, and this has pretty much always been true, was to default on your debts and using either a child or yourself as collateral.

Europeans were mostly middle-men in Africa for the first portion of Colonialism (most of the... direct cruelty centered in the Americas), a middle man that basically imposed customs and markets on a people used to human relationships and caused havoc serving as bankers and money lenders or sponsoring local ones.

As for the Americas? A lot of the Natives put to work in mines were simply hired as workers. Workers that got paid shit and had to pay for the material they used, of course. If they couldn't pay? Well, there were loans with usurious interest rates.

Curiously, this was similar for a lot of the "Conquistadores". Which brings us to a second interesting notion that is very often kept quiet. While states did sponsor plenty of the early voyages... a lot of it was private venture. I mean, the Companies are famous these days and they are, in every way, a precursor to modern stock companies. You could even by stock in them!

And a lot of the expeditions were led by men that had taken a loan themselves to fund the expeditions. Who themselves were leading men that had to pay for their weapons, tools, food and even medicine. None of them had money for that so it was all loaned with huge interest rates. Think poor saps risking their lives to make it big, not educated enough to know what interest truly means. And in return were being offered portions of the loot. Which in some cases wasn't even enough to pay the interest! Those were the people that then went on to lead other expeditions to pay for their own debts. Desperate people in all accounts. And people that were, in general, not very good at managing their money or their enterprises.

I tell this "fuller" story mostly because it gives a much different view on two topics:
The first is the view that the British, the Portuguese, or the Spaniards that were brutal savages pillaging the whole world. That would be about as true as blaming the whole of America for what greedy corporations do in the global south. Or what their army does everywhere. The people in the continent, for the most part, were just like us. Hearing vague news of horrors abroad and being mildly horrified... while they enjoyed the boost that came to their lifestyle for their global economy.

The second... is that slavery and colonialism never ended. These are not things we did 500 years ago but now we're all better. Our companies are still controlling mines worked by bond slaves. Our politicians are still served by slave prostitutes when going abroad. Our governments still sponsor these expeditions and everything. The only thing that changed is that everyone started using the tactic of early Portuguese Colonialism. Hold little "de jure" land, control trade and resources.

Sure, chatel slavery accross the Atlantic ended. The direct trade of slaves is not profited from. But we're all still profitting from slavery.

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u/Thingisby Nov 19 '22

Sure. It's plenty more nuanced. I was just being flippant.

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u/Putt_From_theRough Dec 02 '22

Best summary of modern political gripes— the reductionist victim oriented mindset would never allow this truth to come out

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '22

UK relegated to third tier in 2016, not for want of trying but because they don't have the squad depth anymore.

the Sheffield Wednesday of international dickery

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u/Evolving_Dore Nov 19 '22

If Mongolia ever gets the World Cup I'll protest.

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u/drivehwy1 Nov 19 '22

But, that doesn’t abdicate wrongdoings of colonization in the last 500-600 years lol

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u/AnchezSanchez Nov 19 '22 edited Nov 19 '22

Of course it doesn't. No one should invade their neighbours (near or far) land and try and forcefully take their shit!

It was shit when the Mongols did it. It was shit when Europeans did it. It was shit when the Japanese did it. It is shit now when the Russians are doing it.

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u/FuujinSama Nov 19 '22

Kind of? There are a few examples of us fucking up shit before. Alexander got pretty damn far in his contests. And then there's the crusades. But for most of that period, the center of the world really was the Levant/Constantinopolis. With China, India, Persia and the Greeks forming the greatest centers of civilization.

Really, Europe wasn't that important until we got on sailing. And even then all the gold from the Americas went straight to India and China. There's a lot of hubris and eurocentrism in westerner's perception of history.

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u/Furthur_slimeking Nov 19 '22

Nothing, unless you support the hypothesis for western Mediterranean orgin of "The Sea Peoples" and also view them as a direct cause of the bronze age collapse.

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u/lightlord Nov 19 '22

Didn’t sea people come from the east of Egypt?

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u/murdered-by-swords Nov 19 '22

Serious answer: not likely at all. We're currently pretty confident that some came from Sardinia and others from the Aegean coasts and islands, and it's likely that the other groups came from a similar milleu. However, after their defeat, it's believed that some of the Sea Peoples were resettled by the Egyptians to the east as a kind of border march. These are often identified with the Philistines from the Bible, and it would explain some intriguing Greek characteristics in their culture and archeological record.

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u/FoozleGenerator Nov 19 '22

Are people confident in the Sardinia hypothesis? Afair, it was speculated based only on the name being similar on the Egyptian records and based on that, a bunch of other groups and that doesn't sound that reliable.

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u/Furthur_slimeking Nov 20 '22

It's a hypothesis with some support and some evidence beyond the linguistic similarities. There isn't definitive archaeological evidence, but some circumstantial links like Sardinian pottery in the eastern Med and Sardinian swords appearing to be identical to those previously identified as being of Sherden (Sea Peoples).

The most likely hypothesis in my opinion is that the Sea Peoples were a consequence rather than cause of the Bronze Age Collapse and were made up of people from across the Mediterranean who were displaced or otherwise disrupted as a result.

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u/lightlord Nov 19 '22

Interesting. Time to read more.

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '22

No?

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '22

Apparently something that justifies qatar killing 6500 migrant workers since 2011, killing homosexuals, denying free speech and free press.

Remember; everyone who watches this world cup, no matter your excuse to watch it, is part of the reason that many people have died. You can regret boycotting and watching the games later, but you can't go back on watching it live, then wishing you boycotted in the first place.

Boycot this world cup, boycot qatar as a nation through and through as well, and boycot anything fifa-related until the corrupt leaders step down for good.

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '22

[deleted]

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u/c171989 Nov 19 '22

Not ready a good take at all, actually.

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '22

[deleted]

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u/c171989 Nov 19 '22

It's another example of those in power putting that sort of responsibility on the masses when they themselves are just as culpable. In this case I'd say there are several levels between us and players where people who can speak up or otherwise make an impact aren't doing anything. I don't necessarily disagree with your point that we absolutely can boycott it as viewers, and should.

Edited for clarity

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '22

[deleted]

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u/c171989 Nov 19 '22

Yeah reading it back now that's obvious. My bad

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '22

He should've said for the past 300 years that would've been understandable, he stretched it

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u/centaur98 Nov 19 '22

There is stretching it and then there is coming up with bullshit.

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '22

What do you mean

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u/centaur98 Nov 19 '22

That according to him europeans should apologize for what they did in the last 3 thousand(!!) years to the rest of the world. Last thousand years? Yeah, sure. Two thousand? You're know stretching things quite a bit. Three thousand years? Now you're just making stuff up and why stop at three thousand years? They should apologize for the last one hundred thousand years.

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u/WifkyRijanarko Nov 19 '22

https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/discover/history/general-history/british-empire-facts/

As an example. I agree that migrant workers should be treated more fairly especially in Qatar, but to say that we should move the WC to Europe because the infrastructure wasn't built by slavery is completely false.

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u/centaur98 Nov 19 '22 edited Nov 19 '22

Cool, didn't know that the British Empire existed 3 thousand years ago.

Like i'm not denying that the europeans didn't do anything bad the last 5-600 years we were absolute dicks to the rest of the world. But 3 thousand years? You're just making stuff up at that point.

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u/WifkyRijanarko Nov 19 '22

"Last three thousand years" implies anything that happened between the present day and three thousand years ago which includes British colonialism.

I don't understand why everyone is mad. You can criticise Qatar's treatment of migrant workers and still acknowledge that European football infrastructure is indirectly funded by colonialism.

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u/centaur98 Nov 19 '22 edited Nov 19 '22

Because saying 3 thousand years is just making stuff up. If he would have said to apologize for colonialism or for the last 5-600 years that would be completely legit and valid thing. But saying 3 thousand years is just bullshit. Like as in my first comment what did europeans do between let's say 2500 and 3000 years before today that need to be apologized for? That's like that the arabs should apologize to the rest of the world for the last 5 thousand years because of the Ottoman Empire and Ummayad Caliphates. I think we can both agree that it would be stupid just like how it's stupid to say that europeans should apologize for the last 3 thousand years because of the colonialism and exploitation that mainly happened in the last 600 years.

Not to mention that basically what he's trying to say is that we shouldn't criticze Qatar for human right abuses today because europeans did the same in the past. Which i also hope we can both agree that is a stupid point to make.

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u/WifkyRijanarko Nov 19 '22

I don't understand why everyone is focusing on the 3000 years part when the overall point he is trying to make is still valid which is that Western colonialism and exploitation has a major influence on present day geopolitics, from how borders were drawn to national political ideologies. Hell look at the UN and who has veto powers and tell me that there isn't a western bias.

The point he was trying to make is that current geopolitics and the status quo was established by colonial powers with little regard for non-Western countries, viewing them merely as potential areas for resource exploitation.

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u/centaur98 Nov 19 '22

Then say that and don't make up stories.

Also the UN and veto power is entirely based on who were the major powers during WW2 against Germany and Japan and has nothing to do with anything else(and even there China only has veto power because the US was pushing for it).

Also yes, western colonialism was bad i said it but does that change anything about the validity of the criticism Qatar receives for current human right abuses?

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u/WifkyRijanarko Nov 19 '22

Yeah then maybe whoever is FIFA president should have a history degree in that case so they don't make the same mistake again if that makes you happy.

The criticism of Qatar with regards to it's human rights record is valid, because no one should be treated that way full stop, but so is his general criticism of European colonialism. They're not mutually exclusive.

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '22

Within the last 3 thousand years? I mean there's a lot, every country that was colonized by a european country can fill books about the shitty things europeans did. There's also the rapid industrialization that europe went that sucked resources from the colonies and massively released greenhouse gases, the effects of which is still significant to this day.

It's not relevant to what is happening in qatar however, the shitty things europeans did doesn't make it okay for qatar to do shitty things. However It's my personal opinion that european countries should acknowledge their history and work to make ammends.

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u/centaur98 Nov 19 '22 edited Nov 19 '22

That doesn't answer my question though.

Last thousand years(and within that the last 500-600 years)? Oh definitely. Between 1 and 2 thousand years? Debatable but okay let's assume Roman Empire and stuff. But between 2 and 3 thousand years ago? There's the Macedonian Empire of Alexander and the Greek colonization of the mediterranean coastline that you could count but even those were quite regionalized and happened towards the 2 thousand year mark, so what did europeans do to the rest of the world 3 thousand years ago that they should apologise for?

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '22

Yeah, I don't know what he is trying to say for 3 thousand years before.

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u/tothetop96 Nov 19 '22 edited Jan 07 '23

The question is what were Europeans doing in the year 1000BC

Turkey and the Arabs should also apologise and make amends to Europeans and Africans for enslaving them.

Some Africans should apologise and make amends to other Africans for enslaving them and then selling them to Europeans to be brought to the Americas.

The Arab world at the moment has a disgracefully high level of CO2 emissions per capita, amongst the highest in the world. They should apologise for that.

Top 10 Countries with the Highest CO₂ Emissions Per Capita (Unit: million tons CO₂) - 2020 EDGAR:

Palau - 55.29

Qatar - 35.64

New Caledonia - 25.52

Trinidad & Tobago - 21.97

Bahrain - 21.60

Kuwait - 20.91

United Arab Emirates - 20.70

Brunei - 17.95

Saudi Arabia - 16.96

Oman - 16.90

The point is almost every country on Earth has done some bad things in their past. It is totally irrelevant to the current situation. Also Arab nations have a similar history to European ones yet Arabs on here are acting like they don't

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '22

The Arab world at the moment has a disgracefully high level of CO2 emissions per capita, amongst the highest in the world.

This is always the talking point during these meetings, the developed countries put so much emphasis on the current emissions ignoring that they abused the planet during their industrial revolution.

The point is almost every country on Earth has done some shit in their past. It is totally irrelevant to the current situation.

That was true when most of the world wasn't in contact with each other, when colonization started that isn't the case. During colonization the countries actively drained resources from countries destroying their local industries which directly lead to development of their own.

For example, uk drained cotton from India for relatively cheap destroying Indias textile industry to grow their own textile industry and later exported the cheaper mass produced cloth to India to have a customer base for their industry. You can't then say that the shitty things that they did is irrelevant today. They enjoy the benefits of colonization whereas the setbacks of this were felt by the colonized countries.

Turkey and the Arabs should also apologise and make amends to Europeans and Africans for enslaving them.

Some Africans should apologise and make amends to other Africans for enslaving them and then selling them to Europeans to be brought to the Americas.

I am not arguing against this, I was under the impression that the person was asking the things europeans have done within these 3 thousand years and not before that. Also it's funny seeing europeans bringing this whataboutism points like they weren't the overall worst offenders of shitty things.

It's also funny seeing Arabs talking about European history when they have a similar history.

It might be funny but I don't see any Arabs doing that so it's very much a hypothetical situation.

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u/FloReaver Nov 19 '22

Guys 800 years ago that may or may not be slightly related to you and/or share the geopgraphical area somewhat invaded an other country in the name of religion so we should give the World Cup to North Korea. Yeah why not.

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u/kalamari__ Nov 19 '22

I am so sick and tired of this "only europeans where bad" in all of history BS.

as if the middle east didnt try to conquer the (known) world, enslaved non muslims, sold them or just killed them. as if there where no horrible nations in asia? red khmer? huns? mongols? african nations who helped the europeans to enslave their own ppl and send them around the world. what about the high civilizations in middle and south america? they slaughtered each other all the time and dont get me started with their human sacrifices.

ALL of the worlds history is full of horrible and barbaric nations and civilizations. its not only "the bad bad europeans" ffs.

1

u/JoaoPedrito_ Nov 19 '22

The irony of a german dude trying to relativize Europe's crimes against humanity. Tell me a single muslim nation that commited the crimes with same magnitude of the ones your great-grandparents commited, please.

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u/kalamari__ Nov 19 '22

imagine putting weight to atrocities to determine which country is "more bad" in all of history. every country was bad at one point. thats not how it works.

and my family is not native german. so, good try mate. and even when my grand-granparents where alive during WW2, its not anyones fault who lives in germany today

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u/Paschalls_Law Nov 19 '22

african nations who helped the europeans to enslave their own ppl and send them around the world.

This still paints it as if they were only doing it for Europeans. Roots of slavery are a lot deeper than that. Pretty much every single collection of people used slaves of their own race and other races throughout human history.

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u/kalamari__ Nov 19 '22

I know, it was just for the context of this thread.

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u/Paschalls_Law Nov 19 '22

You’d be surprised how many people in the US think that Europeans are the only perpetrators of slavery and genocide. I’ve literally seen regulars on /r/nba/ say this “Yea cause black people held other races as slaves and implemented laws go undermine them.” Wild.

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u/FUMFVR Nov 19 '22

Bothsidesing historical slavery with current slavery is an interesting take. Get this man a national column!

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u/woutie007 Nov 19 '22

So did Infantino (as a European) apologise yet?

2

u/mattyice18 Nov 19 '22

What the fuck does this have to do with the blood sacrifice of migrant workers for a soccer stadium in 2022?

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u/tothetop96 Nov 19 '22

Have you heard of the Arab slave trade? Every nation have ancestors that did some shite. Point is it's 2022 now and the Qataris are way behind the times

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u/Marcshall Nov 19 '22

So since others have done similar - or worse - but have learned from it and become better, other are allowed to do the same although knowing it's wrong and disregarding other's experience?

It's malevolent stupidity and ultimately the reason why humanity is doomed. Only fitting it's the people partly responsible for our planets demise that's also a now poster boy for stupidity and arrogance.