9.5

I woke up bemused as I’d slept for 9.5 hours, something that hasn’t happened for multiple decades. Another surprising development was going to a bar on Coco Beach and being interested enough to watch the opening match of the World Cup, Qatar vs Ecuador. I am not outright boycotting the World Cup for the reasons many are citing around LGBT rights in Qatar. By living and working in a country where LGBT rights are horrendously curtailed, I already subscribe to the view that there is an element of flexing to the majority view if it would be counterproductive to do otherwise, and accepting that when something is so entrenched that it’s futile to try and overturn.

You can’t shock people into changing their value systems overnight. Look at the way right wing Brits react to non-white representation in the John Lewis Christmas advert. By crying that their culture (which is ten pints of Carling and a kebab on a Satdee nite?) is under a barrage of threat from a left-wing propaganda agenda (the agenda being something so heinous as … pushing for fair representation).

It’s a slow painful journey to acceptance and open-mindedness. Although I wish these things could be turned on like a switch, they can’t be, so I don’t think gay rights in Qatar in their current state are the hill to die on.

I’d rather deprive FIFA of viewing revenue because of the more simple reason that its decision to hold the World Cup in Qatar led to the deaths and whatever other litany of mistreatment of thousands of migrant workers. I’ll be on an upcoming work trip with some colleagues who are football fans, but otherwise I shan’t be watching any matches proactively. My engagement in football has almost completely waned over the years, since the frigid evenings spent at the Britannia Stadium in Stoke during my sixth form college years.

Anyway, Qatar, you had a shocker and have set a record for losing the opening match as the host nation. My heart bleeds. But less than the bodies of the workers who you’ve abused.

It’s also worth remembering that the hostility towards the LGBT community in many countries including Tanzania is carried in large part by toxic rhetoric spewing from Christian leaders and devout followers. The religion was promoted here by European missionaries and hasn’t modernised as it has in other parts of the world. So let Europeans not hold such views in pure contempt now without some understanding of how we got into this sorry state.