re: "European teams say won't wear 'OneLove' World Cup armband" (BP, November 21, 2022)
Dear editor,
It is extremely disappointing to read of FIFA's caving to the bad values of intolerance and hatred that Qatari officials insist on to protect their fragile sensibilities and presumably to shield their citizens from exposure to what is good, just, beautiful and right. No one disputes that Qatar has every right to make such laws as it sees fit and to enforce those laws. It is equally true that such unjust laws founded on corrupted moral values, fake claims about non-existent entities, and unreason deserve to be called out for what they are and to be protested against.
FIFA players from democratic nations have every right to protest such unjust laws and ugly social norms that flatly contradict their beautiful sport's own embrace of inclusivity. FIFA has seriously let the side down and deserves due contempt for its craven stance of appeasement.
Regarding the ugly, fake comments quoted from former Qatari international and World Cup ambassador Khalid Salman that being homosexual is "damage in the mind," it should be noted that the only damaged minds are those that in 2022 could still hold such a backward notion, one more fitting for a primitive, cloistered desert culture of patriarchy than any modern, global society.
But it is for the 5% of Qatari people who love members of the same sex for whom I feel most sad. They are forced by their own fellow citizens and the state that should care for them into dark closets haunted by the risk of anyone knowing who they really are. Qatari law and social norms thereby breed dishonesty and distrust in society, along with the hatred and intolerance dictated by the religion that the state dictates all be subject to.
Felix Qui
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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.
The text as edited was published in PostBag on November 24, 2022, under the title "Fifa vs One Love" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2445160/apecs-echo
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