Kneeling For Slavery While Ignoring Qatar?

Matt Treacy ✒ Part of the rationale for the Black Lives Matter kneel is to express either anger at the treatment of “people of colour”, if you are a person of colour, or alternatively remorse at the treatment, past present and future of people of colour if you are a white folk.

One of those injustices obviously is slavery. So there was Stephen Kenny once again kneeling to expunge the shame which attaches to the Irish people over our having kept slaves in the past. Funnily enough, and I grew up only down the road from Kenny, I don’t ever recall seeing any slaves in the fields between Tallaght and Greenhills. They kept that quiet.

And who were the opponents of the FAI team on this occasion? Why, it was Qatar. The next World Cup is to be held in Qatar and as we referred to a few days ago, some of the teams likely to play there in 2022 have protested over the event having been awarded to the feudal monarchy. Norway looks increasingly likely to boycott the tournament.

Part of the reason for unease over Qatar is undoubtedly related to the millions of dollars in bribes which Qatar is believed to have paid to FIFA officials to buy their votes. Most of those who voted for Qatar have either been indicted, sacked or are still under investigation.

The call for Norway to boycott Qatar came from top club Tromso. In it they specifically referred to the fact that Qatar is not only building stadiums under atrocious labour conditions, but that the feudal elite has over 30,000 slaves. According to agencies who monitor global slavery, Qatar has proportionately the fifth highest number of slaves in the world.

Those slaves are from countries such as India, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and some are African. It is estimated that around 6,500 people have lost their lives in the building of World Cup facilities.

So what in the name of all that is Holy, are the Irish soccer team even playing a “friendly” against the national team of this state? And, more to the point why are they engaging in some nonsensical gesture spawned by the American far left while keeping their mouths shut in regard to actual slavery. Now, as we speak, in Qatar.

Matt Treacy has published a number of books including histories of
the Republican Movement and of the Communist Party of Ireland.