THE MORAL CODE OF THE WEST

The Qatar 2022 World Cup officially started amid massive controversies surrounding the World Cup. Since Qatar was announced as the host of the 2022 World Cup , it has been so controversial for this one tiny nation. It is so significant that BBC did not air the opening ceremony in favour of the Qatari criticism.

One of the biggest critiques is on the legal status of homosexuality in Qatar. A key point that everyone seems to be missing is that other previous World Cup hosts do not fully support homosexuality in their own countries. For example, South Korea, the 2002 World Cup host, is more prone to violence and employment discrimination of LGBTQ+ individuals. People seem to bash Qatar for not being fully supportive, yet many previous host countries have laws and regulations to make it harder for LGBTQ+ individuals to thrive. Qatar also put out a statement saying, "Everyone has to be welcomed; everyone that comes to Qatar is welcome whatever religion, race, sexual orientation, or belief she or he has." Therefore, the criticism of homosexuality being illegal in Qatar should also apply to other countries with "hidden" ways of making homosexuality illegal.

Another criticism of the Qatar World Cup is the human rights abuse allegations of migrant workers, which is valid to draw attention to. However, the criticism is one-sided and implies Qatar is alone in having this issue—as though it does not occur in other ways, in other countries.

Has everyone magically forgotten what happened in the world's western hemisphere for the past 4,000 years? In Canada, 150,000 Indigenous children were seized and transported to schools riddled with sexual and physical mistreatment, in what was organized and cruel cultural genocide. Today, Indigenous peoples continue to lack basic access to clean drinking water, struggle to have adequate housing and shelter, and, in the words of Indigenous elder Lorraine Whitman, have “been treated like second-class citizens in [our] own lands” [1]. When the 2026 World Cup is hosted by Canada in 2026, will this be addressed? Will anyone care?

One-quarter of countries that have hosted the World Cup have laws that outlaw homosexuality. Not to mention the amount of "hidden" ways that land in the west used to violate human rights and their rules about homosexuality being "legal." If this is the stick that the world will use to beat Qatar, you have to beat everyone else. The criticism of the Qatar-hosted World Cup is laced with pure hypocrisy. A simple solution is to stop putting countries on a pedestal and call out any country that commits injustices. This way, we can hold everyone accountable and bring an end to hypocrisy.

The Middle East has been left hungry for decades, and no one has blinked an eye. Women, children, and people just like us are left to starve and are deprived of their lives. In Yemen, 11 million people were underweight between 2016 and 2018, up from 6.2 million between 2004 and 2006. Conflict and rural change are key indicators of hunger under the sustainable development goals (Statista). The starvation crisis has become a normalcy all across the MENA region. The world needs to discuss this, the largest humanitarian crisis. It is becoming more urgent, and the West must stop ignoring it.

The West has continued to ignore famines, crises, and conflicts caused by their direct actions. The execution of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi in November 2018 coincided with the news of this humanitarian crisis, and would become the first time ever that it was acknowledged to a public audience. It made the front page of the New York Times. According to a survey conducted by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) among Americans, one-third of the population had never heard of the Yemeni conflict. The Western world is ignorant of the countless that are starving because of their actions. "It is not simply a failure of global empathy that makes the famine possible. It is the possibility of dismissing the famine as an event of global insignificance and ignorance that fails those starving." The famine in Yemen highlights this fact (Tanielian). Western countries are to blame for the famine in Yemen and others in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, as they were trying to serve their own purposes of furthering their military agendas and did not think of the repercussions innocent civilians face in the aftermath.

The Russia-Ukraine war is making the starvation problem even worse. The world's most significant humanitarian and refugee issues are in the MENA region. 50% of the wheat consumed in the area is imported from Russia and Ukraine. The worst affected are nations like Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, and Palestine, which are already suffering from high inflation and a global disaster. Despite the loss of livelihood for people, the war on Ukraine is driving prices to all-time highs. “Prices are soaring, imports are going to be diminishing so humanitarian needs are going to increase exponentially,” states Aaron Brent, CARE Director in Yemen.” The hyperinflation caused by the war has exacerbated the crisis. More are going hungry and there is neither enough money nor enough food to be purchased for these people.

The world has chosen to ignore the ever-growing MENA region's starvation. The Middle East has suffered from implicit complications caused by civil conflict and wars, to the new obstacles caused by the war between Russia and Ukraine. The Arab world deserves to have food on its table. The Middle East deserves to eat.

“Deteriorating Hunger Situation an Urgent Crisis for Millions Caught in Armed Conflict.” International Committee of the Red Cross, 11 July 2022, www.icrc. org/en/document/deteriorating-hunger-situation-urgent-crisis-millions-caughtconflict. Accessed 22 Nov. 2022. Statista, Canada. “Yemen: Number of Undernourished People 2018.” Statista, 2018, www.statista.com/statistics/1172552/yemen-number-of-undernourishedpeople/. Accessed 22 Nov. 2022.

Tanielian, Melanie S. “Essential Readings: History of Modern Famine in the Middle East | MESPI.” Mespi.org, 6 Oct. 2018, mespi.org/2018/12/06/essentialreadings-history-of-modern-famine-in-the-middle-east/. Accessed 22 Nov. 2022. Toper, Ezgi. “Nearly One Third of the Arab World Is Experiencing Food Insecurity.” Nearly One Third of the Arab World Is Experiencing Food Insecurity, 16 Oct. 2021, www.trtworld.com/magazine/nearly-one-third-of-the-arab-worldis-experiencing-food-insecurity-52711. Accessed 19 Nov. 2022.

UNICEF. “Hunger and Malnutrition in the Arab Region Stand in the Way of Achieving Zero Hunger by 2030, UN Report Warns.” Www.unicef.org, 24 May 2021, www.unicef.org/mena/press-releases/hunger-and-malnutrition-arabregion-stand-way-achieving-zero-hunger-2030-un-report.

---. “Yemen: Acute Hunger at Unprecedented Levels as Funding Dries Up.” Www.unicef.org, 14 Mar. 2022, www.unicef.org/press-releases/yemen-acutehunger-unprecedented-levels-funding-dries.

“Yemen Crisis Explained.” Www.unrefugees.org, 14 July 2022, www.unrefugees. org/news/yemen-crisis-explained/.