The Press in Qatar | The great malaise

(Doha) The sky is hazy, the color of sand. The weather’s nice. It’s hot. Very hot, even. Thirty-three degrees — before the Humidex index. In Quebec, it would be the hottest day of the year. Here, it is a rather pleasant day.

Compared to what ?

Compared to the great heat of summer. In August, the mercury can reach 42, 44, 46˚C. The record ? 50˚C. “The first time I went out for a run in the summer, I came back with bubbles in my skin,” Lily Saad, a Montreal marathon runner who has spent the past decade in Qatar, tells me.

Sophie Laporte, expatriate here for two years, draws a parallel with the weather in Quebec. “When it’s -35˚C, the less adventurous stay indoors and wait for the winter to pass. It’s kind of the same here. From June to September it is so hot that people stay indoors with air conditioning. Temperature has a direct impact on lifestyle. »

That’s why this World Cup will start in November, rather than June, as usual. There will also be 24 games played in the middle of the night, from 10 p.m. to midnight local time. The risk of heat stroke is lower when the sun is elsewhere. Then there is this new technological toy, developed here, of which the Qataris are particularly proud.

Air conditioning in open-air stadiums.

Uh… It must be a bit polluting, right?

No, swear the Qatari engineers. The technology will not be powered by fossil fuels, which have made the emirate rich, but by solar energy. And then look elsewhere: all those outdoor stadiums heated in winter in Europe, all those skating rinks growing in the desert in the United States… Our World Cup, promise the organizers, will be green, green, green.

Really ?

Because even with my pink glasses, this Cup seems rather gray to me. The Qataris are the world champions of CO2 emissions₂. Nearly 30 tonnes per capita per year. This is by far, far the worst record on the planet.

They just built not one, not two, but seven new soccer stadiums. And since we are in the desert, where there are as many lakes and rivers as snowmen, it will be necessary to desalinate phenomenal quantities of water to maintain the lawns of stadiums and training complexes. It’s very energy-intensive, all that.

The organizers have other ecological arguments. Our country is very small, they argue. No need to take a domestic flight between matches. A subway ride will suffice. That’s true — on the condition of being able to stay put. Because Qatar is so small, precisely, that it does not have enough rooms to accommodate everyone. Consequence: tens of thousands of foreign spectators will stay in a neighboring country, and will have to fly back and forth on match days.

Until now, there were six daily flights between Dubai and Doha, reports the specialized site Simple Flying.

From Sunday?

Forty-Eight.

The muezzin has just finished his fourth prayer. It’s 5 p.m. Night is already setting in.

In search of a little freshness, I go to the Corniche, a promenade that borders the sea. The street is closed. Thousands of people celebrate there. They sing, they dance, they drum or blow their vuvuzelas. The atmosphere is carnival. A bit like the Nuit blanche, at home, except that it’s + 30, rather than – 30.

It is the Corniche which offers the most beautiful view of Doha. From here, the view of the city center is spectacular. A skyscraper takes the shape of a tornado. Another, that of a sail. There is even one that looks like a phallus. No, I don’t think crooked. The French architect Jean Nouvel fully assumes the virility of his tower.

These are not the only amazing buildings. Near my hotel, there is a soccer stadium built with 974 recycled containers. It will be one of the eight official stadiums of the tournament. Think about it: eight outdoor stadiums with 40,000 seats or more, in a country as big as Montérégie, to serve a population similar to that of Greater Montreal.

Do you know of another city of 3 million inhabitants that relies on so many sports facilities of this quality?

Neither do I.

Doha is amazing. Looks like a metropolis in SimCity, in cheat mode. Cataclysms disabled, unlimited budget. We contemplate it, and we wonder: but how did the Qataris do it? How were they able to build all these marvels, under a blazing sun, so quickly, while in Montreal, it took 13 years—13 years! — to build a rapid bus service on Pie-IX?

The miracle of Doha is the work of foreign workers. They came from the poorest parts of Asia, hoping to improve their quality of life. They largely contributed to building the city, under unbearable heat, for a salary of $10 to $15 a day. Many died on the construction sites.

How many ?

Too. Too much.

Bayern Munich supporters recently unfurled a banner that read: “15,000 dead for 5760 minutes of soccer”. The formula shocks, except that it is misleading. This figure came from a study by Amnesty International, according to which 15,021 foreigners died in Qatar between 2010 and 2019. Not on construction sites. In all.

Another figure circulated widely: 6500. This one comes from a survey by the Guardian. According to official documents, this is the number of workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka who have died here since 2010. Again, not necessarily on the construction sites. The Qatari government maintains that only 37 workers died on the World Cup sites.

Let us rely on a credible third party: the International Labor Organization (ILO), associated with the United Nations. According to the ILO, in 2021 alone, more than 50 migrant workers died in Qatar, and 500 others were seriously injured. His field missions report dangerous working conditions. Example: one worker out of three found himself in a condition of hyperthermia during a work shift. “It is a relatively frequent phenomenon,” reports the organization.

Criticized from all sides, Qatar finally undertook reforms. He introduced a minimum wage. It has modernized its labor code. He agreed to collaborate with the ILO. He has also initiated a dialogue with groups that defend human rights.

Unfortunately, for the victims, these reforms come 10 years too late.

The protest is strong. The discomfort is great. Not on the streets of Doha, but in foreign capitals. Many players too. England captain Harry Kane will wear a rainbow armband during the tournament to denounce the repression of members of the LGBTQ+ community in Qatar. Other players have announced their support for migrant workers.

Should Western countries have boycotted this World Cup?

The question is relevant. Just like it was during the Beijing Winter Games. Or those of Sochi. Or during the last edition of the World Cup, presented in Russia. Or that of 1978, when the host country, Argentina, was controlled by a military dictatorship.

However, boycotts of sports competitions are effective if and only if they are accompanied by other even more punitive measures. I am not talking here of a diplomatic boycott, but of dramatic gestures, such as an economic blockade imposed by a great nation. Otherwise, the impact is almost nil.

Who suffered the most from the boycotts of the 1964, 1976, 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games? The governments of Japan, Canada, the USSR and the United States, or the athletes deprived of competitions?

Also, Qatar was within its rights to apply for the organization of a World Cup. The real problem is that the international federation — FIFA — ignored all the red flags and awarded the event to him. “A mistake,” former FIFA President Sepp Blatter admitted a posteriori last week.

Now, it’s too late. The toothpaste came out of the tube. He won’t be going back.

Qatar will indeed host the next World Cup. That is why The Press is here in Doha. As we were also at the Games in Beijing and Sochi. As our vice-president and assistant publisher, François Cardinal, wrote just before the Beijing Games, “we don’t choose the countries we cover according to our degree of agreement with their governance”. Our job is to bear witness to what we see. To tell the goals, the stops, the hopes, the victories, the defeats.

And sometimes drama.