As I’m writing this, the FIFA World Cup is about to start up in Doha, Qatar. Many people have called for a boycott on human rights grounds. I agree, though my focus has been on a different boycott: the 2023 World Science Fiction Convention in Chengdu, China. It’s interesting to look at the arguments for and against the Qatar boycott and see how they apply to China.
The case against Qatar is strong. Migrant workers building the infrastructure have been ill-treated, and the number of deaths has been put in the thousands. Homosexual sex is illegal in Qatar, with a penalty of up to seven years in prison. The law is actively enforced. Human Rights Watch has reported multiple cases of “severe and repeated beatings and … sexual harassment in police custody.” Detainees have been subject to “physical abuse, ranging from slapping to kicking and punching until they bled.”
Freedom House gives Qatar a rating of 25 out of a possible 100, with 7 points for political rights and 18 for civil liberties. That’s better than China’s score of 9, but it’s still poor.
Qatar’s foreign minister has called the criticism of his country “very racist.” We’ve heard the same accusation lobbed at critics of Chinese oppression. The implicit idea in both cases is that liberal democracy is only for Western whites and holding other countries to the same standard is “racist.” The idea that non-whites aren’t suited for freedom is, in fact, a deeply racist idea, one that helped to justify colonialism. Human rights aren’t just white rights.
There is a legitimate case against the boycott, though. Contact between cultures does more to liberalize them than isolating them does. The World Cup has helped to draw worldwide attention to Qatar’s miserable human rights record. The World Cup has undoubtedly provided many opportunities to talk with people in the country about issues of concern. It hasn’t had much visible impact, though; many of the reported law enforcement abuses have been recent.
I think the people who decided not to go to Qatar, watch the games, or buy related merchandise have made the right choice. I also think that the case for staying away from the Chengdu Worldcon is even stronger. Here are a few differences:
- A Worldcon, more than a World Cup, deals in ideas. You can play soccer under the eyes of a censorious government; you can’t freely discuss social and political issues, which are central to a science fiction convention, under those circumstances.
- Bad as Qatar’s government is, China’s is worse. Qatar doesn’t run concentration camps for ethnic minorities or threaten to take over a neighboring country. I haven’t heard of employees of the Qatar embassy assaulting protesters in other countries.
- A Worldcon in China can’t draw attention to the country’s abuses the way the World Cup in Qatar has. It may be important to us, but it won’t make headlines. At the same time, boycotting Chengdu won’t have much public impact either. It’s our own choice as members of a community. Do we personally want to give an OK and a small financial benefit to a brutal regime? The answer to that should be clear.
In both cases, the argument for a boycott is strong, but it’s even stronger with Chengdu than with Doha.