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Comment by CogitoCogito | Hacker News Reader

From the article:

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Nasser Al-Khater, chairman of Qatar's 2022 World Cup organising committee, has said that all World Cup attendees will be safe regardless of their sexual orientation or culture.

In December 2021 Al-Khater did confirm that "homosexuality is not allowed" in the emirate, but promises that LGTBIQ+ fans will have the right to travel to the country and attend matches.

"Qatar and the region are a lot more conservative," Al-Khater told CNN.

"And this is what we ask fans to respect. And we're sure that fans will respect that.

"We respect different cultures and we expect other cultures to respect ours.

"Qatar is a tolerant country. It's a welcoming country. It's a hospitable country."

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Al-Khater seems to define "tolerant", "welcoming" and "hospitable" differently than I do.

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if a man travelled to USA with a 10 year old wife he could end up in prison for decades, while in many cultures such an arrangement is normal and accepted. if we wanted to achieve "absolute tolerance" we would simply have to remove all laws because they are all intolerant in some way against someone.

tolerance does not mean that we have to accept the behavior of people who act in ways which are offensive to us. tolerance is the mutual respect of eachother's boundaries, namely that the people who visit Qatar respect the culture and laws of the country, and the people of Qatar in return respect the rights and freedom of those visitors

Tolerant means being able to tolerate (and respect) people with different ideas and opinions about how the world works.

Someone is bound to wheel out the old "no tolerance for intolerance" line, which is fine, but doesn't mean you can go to someone else's country and tell them that they're wrong and should be doing things the way you do them.

> if a man travelled to USA with a 10 year old wife he could end up in prison for decades, while in many cultures such an arrangement is normal and accepted.

This isn't about whether or not to wear shoes indoors or not. It's not about regional cultural quirks, but about fundamental human rights. What actually constitutes fundamental human rights depends on the framework, but the correct one (and importantly the one FIFA follows obviously) is the "liberal/progressive/secular" one. Which is why an organization that supposedly values those rights shouldn't let a country that doesn't value them host a world cup.

> tolerance is the mutual respect of eachother's boundaries, namely that the people who visit Qatar respect the culture and laws of the country, and the people of Qatar in return respect the rights and freedom of those visitors

That loses the context of the World Cup. Basically saying "we want to host the world cup" is synonymous to saying "we don't mind gay people holding hands". If not, then FIFA isn't actually championing the values they say they are (which is probably the case)

Who defines "fundamental human rights". I think once you start poking, you'll easily see that such a definition is frail and subjective.

> Who defines "fundamental human rights".

The United Nations do. Why?

Why do I (or anyone) have to abide by what the UN says?

Because what UN says is voted by member countries and (partly) incorporated into their laws.

Seems to be as tolerant as most people I talk to:

You can believe whatever you want to believe, so long as you act in accordance with ours laws.

This seems to be how many people view tolerance. Their laws are different. If you do not like that, do not go there.

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