Name: Muhammad Iqbal

NIM : 2211421151

Capitalism Practices by Qatar Causing Thousands of Dead Migrant Workers

In 2010, Qatar was nominated as the host of the World Cup 2022. As a small yet rich
nation, it should have been a huge pride for them to be trusted hosting such a mega global
festival for being the first host nation from the Middle-East after 90 years. Realizing there
were so many lacking infrastructure and facilitation they had to be equal with the
international level, there have been lots of development changes that were built in Qatar since
then. To prepare Qatar to be the host of World Cup 2022, other Middle-East nations also
participated to help Qatar improve their facilities by money supply. As a result, after 12 years
of development, there are eight stadiums and other accommodations that have world class
standards. It took about 300 billion USD to make all of this happen. But beside the fanciness
and glimmering success that achieved by Qatar, there’s also a dark side hidden behind it.
There are 6,500 expatriate’s lives that have been sacrificed due to this excessive building
project.
Basically, this injustice issue and inequality is appropriate with the theoretical study of
capitalism. In capitalism, it’s always about gaining much profits for one side which is called
bourgeois side, while the other side gains disadvantages as the capitalist side gains its profit,
which this disadvantaged side is called proletariat. In this case, the Qatar government is the
bourgeois while the foreign workers are on the proletariat side. In a nutshell, Qatar as the
bourgeois is advantaged on the economic rate, social status, and their culture value, yet at the
same time, laborers' side as the proletariat are heavily disadvantaged because of and on the
same aspects.
The first one is on the economic background of Qatar. Logically, in order to prepare
themselves as the World Cup host, they must have prepared a huge modal to embody their
goal and needed enough laborers to reach their deadline. After seeing the money that Qatar
government has spent to make them become a World Cup-class country, it is clearly non-
sense to be compared with the economic background of Average Qataris. According to the
income data of Qatar, GDP per capita of its citizens is 179 billion dollars, which is far less
than 300 billion dollars. Thus, after getting such a massive money supply, Qatar used all of
it to build this mega project. But the thing is the Qatari netizens are not able to force
themselves to be the project’s workers because of their numbers. It is accumulated that there
are about 300,000 of Qatari netizens, whereas there are about 2.7 million of immigrants who
live in Qatar. Therefore, the Qatar government utilized this opportunity to hire these
expatriates to work for them, and eventually solve the problem that was initially caused by
their economic situation.
 On the other hand, the lives of laborers are on the edge of a cliff. Due to the mad ambition
of building world-class facilities, these laborers have been the victim in the hands of the Qatar
government. It is reported that there have been 6,500 migrant workers who died during World
Cup 2022 development for more than a decade, with 37 deaths on the stadium building are
considered as a common death caused by certain medical issues, which were brought within
the dead workers instead. By stating that these dead workers were caused not by the deadly
construction, which is the actual reason, the Qatar government no longer has the
responsibility to pay the insurance as compensation for the left family. This is a cheeky yet
dirty way to get away from the unlucky situation. Meanwhile, the family who lost their head,
has no main financial support to sustain their life. The other laborers who still survive also
don’t get sufficient attention from the government. They are paid low-wage, which is not
worth it with the challenges they are facing during work. In earning the quantity advantage
of the workers, Qatar has also applied the “kafala” working system on the foreign laborers.
The kafala system is a job contract that binds the expatriates’ movement. It is an official
contract between Kafeel, as the employers and the foreign workers. Without the permission
of Kafeel, these workers can neither visit nor quit the country. By keeping these big groups
of workers stuck in the country, no wonder the Qatar government along with the Qataris are
able to keep regenerating their outcomes and finally benefit their country. It is estimated that
Qatar has earned revenue of more than a billion dollars from the World Cup 2022.
The main factor why Qatar government was very urged for this over-ambitious project is
because of their desire to enhance their social class among the Middle-East nations by
utilizing their cultural background, football. For Qataris, football is the most respectable
culture in Qatar. Every Qatari loves playing football, even football has been fantastically
ingrained in Qataris’ veins. Before entering the periods of the World Cup, Qatar’s football
has been developed with the strong effort and determination shown by the local football
federation. Influential football figures such as Santi Cazorla and Xavi ever existed in Qatar’s
football league. For being elected as the host for such a tremendous event, it’s the obvious
chance for them to take Qatar’s football to the next level, and also the social status of their
nation in the Middle-East. According to the social level between Middle-East nations, Qatar
is still competing with neighbouring countries such as the UEA, Dubai, and others. Each
nation is disputing their socio-economic rate by relying on their main resource. For instance,
Qatar with the oil and gas production and importing as their main resource, are having high
tense competition with UEA also with their oil business. By getting money supply from the
neighbouring nations as their contribution to support of Middle-East football, it is also
advantageous for Qatar to win the social status competition. So, their social stage will
significantly be increased against their competitors and their most-loved culture, football,
will get huge reputation across the world, during and after The World Cup 2022.