The people in any place now are not the people in that place in the past. And for the most part, the only thing the masses are able to change is common thinking. Therefore, if you feel you're from a now enlightened society that once was bad, then you absolutely can criticise a society currently doing the same bad things.
This is exactly the cavalier attitude that caused colonialists to be colonialists. They called themselves ENLIGHTENED enough to go around colonizing the world and removing them from their "barbaric" cultures. We see the same behaviors and attitudes today.
Qatar has a rule against drinking and the western world does not like it. They have a rule against LGBT acts and the world doesn't like it. The Hypocrisy is not only they had the exact same rules less than a decade ago, but also they were far worse to LGBT individuals for centuries discriminating and treating them like less than human beings.
Qatar wanted the World Cup knowing full well that these issues would come up. They wanted it so badly that they colluded with FIFA officials to get it, over places that the majority of fans would have preferred.
Racism and Supremacist culture/politics literally exists because people today think their life got significantly hard since colonialism and slavery ended.
>>So are we forever to have it held against us that some of our ancestors did that?
Lets hold you to the present. Why is the west involved in so many invasions and intervensions almost on an every day basis even today?
>>Qatar wanted the World Cup knowing full well that these issues would come up.
They have local laws just like you do. Isn't crossing the road a punishable crime in the US? I think laws controlling alcoholism do make lots of sense compared to jailing people for crossing the road, or letting kids walk unattended.
And the speaker making that comment missed a big point... Most fans of football didn't want this country hosting. None of this would have been a problem if they had rolled back that decision when the corruption was discovered.
I'm not from the US. I agree with your argument on local laws. Fans and players should have rebelled against the corrupt FIFA decision and forced change 10 years ago.
However, I disagree with being told we can't criticise due to the actions of others who happen to be our ancestors or even present day in my own country. I'm from the UK, I marched against the Iraq invasion, but the intimation here is that because the UK went to war anyway my voice is forever to be dismissed.
Not past, those nations that are lecturing on morals are themselves accused of far worse as we speak. Either way if you are a net beneficiary(which you obviously are, as you are a UK citizen) of your ancestors having did all this, you have NO moral rights to lecture others. Or pay reparations and then speak.
>>I'm from the UK
Honestly, I think you really should lecture your own countrymen on countless things you guys continue to do till date. Iraq/Afghanistan is a strong example, but what happened after Arab Spring is another one. Whole countries flattened to the ground, because your prime minister apparently doesn't have good english reading/comprehension skills to read a simple report about the presence/absence of weapons in Iraq.
And for heaven's sake you are a democracy, which means you(the people) and only you(the people) are responsible for all the mess your government does(in your name).
Of all the ills that plague the world, not having the independence to drink beer for three hours isn't even in the vicinity of destroying whole countries. So please.
I kind of envy those guys watching the game live in Qatar. I hope I was the one there.
It's hypocrisy plus a little something to agree to provide alcohol to get the deal and then go back on it at the last possible moment.
If you share the privilege and beneficial conditions, with that territory comes the guilt and responsibility too.
>>The people in any place now are not the people in that place in the past.
They literally are, given Western led invasions and interventions are happening almost on a weekly basis. And never really stopped.
> If you share the privilege and beneficial conditions, with that territory comes the guilt and responsibility too.
No, you don't. Nobody can control to whom they're born. Most people don't understand their privilege position. We can still develop and speak moral positions regardless.
I don't know you, you may live in pitiful conditions. But if you don't, then your wealth, large or small, is likely built on the blood and bad behaviour of your ancestors. Every single person would need to give up all and we start again?
> They literally are, given Western led invasions and interventions are happening almost on a weekly basis.
No there aren't. In any case, that doesn't mean that each and every intervention that has happened over the years has been a bad thing. I certainly support some and not others, and wished some to happen that did not. One can take a selective approach rather than a blanket view that is always wrong. Also ceding that we have little control anyway.