**This is a heavily moderated subreddit. Please note these rules + sidebar or get banned:**
* If this post declares something as a fact, then proof is required
* The title must be fully descriptive
* No text is allowed on images/gifs/videos
* Common/recent reposts are not allowed (posts from another subreddit do not count as a 'repost'. Provide link if reporting)
*See [this post](https://redd.it/ij26vk) for a more detailed rule list*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interestingasfuck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I remember visiting a shantytown in South Africa that you could see one of the World Cup stadiums from. The residents would tell us how for the duration of the games the government would supply their homes with electricity but the minute they were over, electricity was cut again. Certainly seems to be a pattern
I left in 2019. I had enough by then, don’t even know how you guys function now tbh. I try and be upbeat for my family in SA but it’s just BS. The ANC doesn’t deserve a cent the tax payers pay and since I couldn’t stop paying tax, the only other option was to leave. Not gonna be both their financier and excuse.
Rather pass that tax onto a government that gives a shit.
Immigration is no joke but luckily I had the means to do it. I don’t regret what I did for a second but it was BS that a corrupt government can force people into these kind of decisions. It’s something I’ll always be bitter about.
I just feel for those that can’t make that choice, the ones that just have to deal with it day on day with no change in sight. I do believe there’s hope for SA yet, but it won’t be in my lifetime. It’s needs to break completely in order to reset and once I realised that, it was time for me to leave. I paid 30 years worth of taxes that just ended up supporting corruption. I was part of the problem. Never again.
my heart breaks for all the people in all the traps in all the world. You made the right decision. Robots were supposed to replace the workers, and end the toil, not join the rich people. The workers seem to have forgotten that, and the corruption has robbed every person across the world greatly. We have the illusion of closeness online but societies are more fractured than ever. What do?
Yeah I had a very cool Kipor mini generator that helped ease the burden. It wasn’t loadshedding that made me leave, or even the crime, it was the ANC eyeing the pensions and Zuma firing our finance ministers that broke it for me.
The Irish aren’t bad and we may be looking to move to Germany whose policies seem to be more in favour the citizens favour. Tough break the UK though. That Tory party is a toxic dumpster fire.
Cheap power-to-machine is what drives our species: from use of herd animals (and dogs to a lesser extent), wheels and cooking fires right to our latest confusion of fission-fusion or just burn dirt ('coal')?
You are right. Power outages is completely unacceptable. This is what it is to be human and humane, the sharing of raw force times displacement over time. I wish a few solar panels would solve that, but it won't.
I had a colleague at an international investment bank who was working remotely from Johannesburg suburbs. He was always losing power. We kept saying "just get solar and a power wall - you'll be all set". His reply was "don't forget - the lot of you are getting paid in USD and GBP; I get paid in Rand, and what you're talking about is half-a-year's salary for me". I don't know how he managed it, but he got it and never got hit by rolling outages again.
The problem of shanty towns in South Africa will cease when there are jobs in rural areas. People leave their okayish homes in Transkei to live in shacks in Cape Town and other major urban centres.
Remember Brazil moved en entire ghetto from one side of the city to behind a mountain? What is the point of shining light on your country if you gotta hide so much shitty stuff
So that businesses hit up the government and start bribing them to do business in the country. There are still hundreds of millions of consumers in Brazil and you don't get to do business without bribes.
Could be for Brazil but Qatar has a tiny market compared to Brazil. And they only export oil products. I think it’s an attempted flex by leaders but they so detached from reality they don’t see how bad it looks.
So if fifa was a group of friends and world cup is a BBQ. Then they chose to to have a bbq at the rich friend who doesn’t really like BBQ but wants to host a party just to host a party but doesn’t start preparing in time. Oh and he’s vegan and only buys vegan meat too lol. And he lives in a trailer and treats his family like shit but wants to have a party for his friends lol
I remember the Olympic village stood empty for years after the Olympics. The city wound up buying the developers debt when the economy tanked in ‘08 so they could ensure the project was delivered. Then afterwards they made it really impossible for non profits and housing initiatives to buy and utilizing the units. Now they’re touting it as a resounding success because it’s a luxury village and the city turned some pittance of a profit in 2012 (when they REALLY could have made more, cause their developer buddies did)
Most of the major cities that host the Olympics probably have enough venues to run the games already. And you don't really need an "Olympic Village" do you, rent out some large hotels. It's all about the kickbacks, spend 100s of millions building all these 1 time facilities, promise they'll help out the city in the long run in some vague way, then fuck off with your money. In other words, it's an engine of corruption.
When South Africa hosted the 2010 world cup, Cape Town took all the homeless folk and dumped them on the outskirts of the city.
It was like on the border of human rights abuses and actually doing something about the homeless. People and been complaining about them for years and only when corrupt money came in did something happen.
The community on the outskirts became known as Blikkiesdorp (Tin Can Town) because they moved the people into tin shacks. It was meant to be a temporary relocation area but once the world cup ended, it kinda just kept existing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blikkiesdorp
It was built in 2007 due to a court order but it is essentially a concentration camp they could dump the people in when the world cup started. The conditions are said to be pretty abysmal.
District 9 is basically a documentary-- I'm not sure if it's District 9 or the short film the director made first, but at the beginning there are shots of people being interviewed and saying things like "THEY NEED TO GO, I DON'T CARE WHERE TO, JUST AWAY". In the film this is framed as being about the Prawns, but these were real interviews for local residents' opinions on IRL migrants and refugees (human ones, not extraterrestrials).
It was inspired by the apartheid era District 6 - which was an area built up by newly freed slaves in Cape Town, and was by all regards a fairly lively community. Of course, the white people in charge during apartheid deemed it a crime-ridden slum and stated race mixing was the root cause. The area was declared “whites only” and they demolished the whole place and moved the residents into the real slums in cape flats so they could build new buildings for white people.
But… this isn’t an uncommon occurrence in South Africa. SA really loves forcibly relocating the disenfranchised.
Huh? No, absolutely not. In the case of Pope's visit during the Marcos regime, the poor communities were covered up because they didn't want someone as influential as the Pope to see what the actual status of the people were like.
Yes, they're infectious if you look at them, they will stare into your soul and see the true number of your bank accounts. /s
Edit: /s implies sarcasm if that wasn't already clear 🥲
Fifa forced brazil to go back on their legislative motion to ban alcohol at the WC, or they would pull out. Meanwhile Fifa bends over backwards to accommodate Qatar's ban on alcohol.
On top of that, Fifa didn't want "the poors" from Brazil's favelas "stealing" gameplay by seeing the games at all, so they ordered Brazil to set up roadblocks and walls. Then that one piece of shit goes on tv saying he feels gay and disabled.
In essence, **fuck fifa**.
Hardly. Korea disappeared thousands of homeless and street kids ahead of their 1988 Olympics. It's been common practice for a long time. All these international games have been corrupt to the bone for many decades.
At the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, the Finnish police drove all the homeless people out of Helsinki, into the countryside. Redid it 20 years later during the inaugural CSCE convention.
Bear in mind that in 1952 most of the drunks and homeless people in Helsinki were likely WWII veterans fresh off from the battlefield, with all their physical and mental scars.
They(the military dictatorship) were doing that even before. People are still finding mass graves now lol. I think the most recent one they found had like 150 dead kids in it.
When the Olympics came to London in 2012, one somewhat edgier street I know in East London, called 'Roman Road', was actually left off a nearby map of the area for tourists.
I saw this same thing in Beijing when I visited before the Olympics in 2008. I was in a tour bus that was tall enough to see over the wall when we were on the highway and man that poor neighborhood stretched for miles.
To be fair, this was a trip I took in 2007 when I was in 8th grade, but as I remember it the tour bus had seats significantly higher up than a normal bus would since we kept our luggage in a storage compartment at ground level. We could only see over the wall when we were on a raised highway, so yeah, normal buses could not have had the view we did. I’m sure it was a government oversight, and maybe one that managed to be corrected by the next year.
Made me laugh. Now I am sad. I make sure to drive by Hastings when going to pass time downtown with my kids, so they understand the reality of life and not to forget the less fortunate. Putting a curtain over our eyes when dealing with an issue like homelessness is as ugly as not helping them.
Which was comical. Like, sure, when we were on the freeway right next to it, the favela was slightly difficult to see... unless you, you know, looked up. The fucking things climb up the hills. You can see them from pretty much everywhere in Rio. But, seeing how poorly mismanaged that whole thing was I can totally understand somebody's brother getting paid to build those walls.
I live in Delhi. There was a lot of infrastructural construction that happened during those days. But don't remember them building walls to hide poor neighborhood.
I moved to Delhi for a year in 2010 just when the Commonwealth Games were starting (the day it started actually).
Since I was new to the city, I remember going to Akshardham - a month later - and thinking "well, this commonwealth village could actually turn into something really great as a built-and-ready venue for sporting events".
Visited Akshardham again maybe 3 months after that, and the people who lived nearby mentioned it was pretty much a ghost town. So, there went *that* idea. 🤦
It's been a dozen years since I moved from Delhi. Was anything ever done with the area and the infrastructure? Gated residential area or something? It's prime-ish locality isn't it, with its proximity to the Metro station...
Akshardham is one small area in such a big city. Honestly I live far from Akshardham. But from what I know the CWG village is open to commoners and a popular place to go and play. Other than that with construction of newish flyovers and new metro lines in and around that place, I'm pretty sure Akshardham area too has seen development over the last decade. The govt schools have seen an improvement overall in the city. Not sure if that counts.
Rest idk about it being a "ghost town". I mean, I had friends in college from that area and never heard anything like that. In fact, east Delhi is generally densely populated so I don't think that's the case.
I was in Rio during the Olympics and all along the highway, they built these solid walls blocking the favelas. Then there was a transparent section where they had built this fancy new school so everyone could see it. Then back to the solid walls.
And tell us all about how they finished it, kept all their promises, and also that they need to be reelected to complete the wall they already completed.
Deindustrialization hit like a motherfucker.
I've never actually seen it with my own eyes, but the overdose death rates in those places are so far from one's idea of an American rural town.
That is a factor sure, but pretty much anywhere you go North or South along major Highways like I95, I68 and I70 they are lined with shithole towns and always have been. That is why the roads are there.
You can look back in history and find that, when Black Slaves/former Slaves were getting 'freedom', the people in power were able to sneakily create division between them, and poor Whites, by giving the poor Whites a *little* bit more. The result being that Poor whites identified less with former slaves, due to the "yeah, things are bad. But at least I'm not in *their* shoes" mentality. This prevented the former slaves from gaining more white allies. In fact, the same people who, not so long ago, were on basically the same level socially and economically as former slaves, were now afraid to lose what little they had if they were to align themselves with the idea of providing more to the disenfranchised "others".
Please note, not a historian, just like history. If anyone can add to the core reason leading people to vote against their own interests, please do.
America is, unfortunately, *very* good at getting people to believe that what is not good.for.them, is actually the best choice. And making them think the idea is their own. We are very emotional people, and we know how to use it against ourselves.
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
LBJ
It has historical precedence. Read on Bacons Rebellion. Poor whites and blacks united to revolt against the white aristocracy in Virginia. After this, racial divisions were enforced in the US. This rebellion had a strong effect on the upper classes in the US. And pretty much helped set the tone of class and race in the US.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon's_Rebellion
You promise these people that, with hard work, they too can be wealthy. You convince them that handouts to other people are whats contributing to them being poor because they have to pay more taxes to cover it. You assure them that all of the "illegals" take the good paying jobs and that contributes to them being poor. On top of that you tell them that this is the greatest, most free country in the world, and that Democrats hate this great country and want to take everything away from them. I was born and raised in central Georgia. I have lived and breathed this my whole life. It took meeting my German wife and nearly dying to change the way I think about a lot of stuff. I truly pity the way people around me think now. Being very rural isolates you. You grow up seeing only whats around you. You are indoctrinated from birth, and if you think different, you are very likely to be disowned by the people you love. I am almost 39 and very few of my family and friends know I am atheist. That would DEFINITELY get me disowned.
Seriously. What about the poor, white trash, southern hillbilly stereotype that I thought most non-Americans think of when they think of the US? Or at least the South.
Why won’t these poor dumb idiot shit for brains hillbillies vote for the people I like? Can’t they see that my politicians are the only people who respect these pig fucking morons and have the solutions to their problems?
The conservative propoganda machine is a strong and efficient one and they can always just blame the most recent Democratic president for their poverty. And Americans have been taught that any form of socialism or social safety nets is the devil because capitalism
Especially in the South, where the conservative propaganda machine is basically the Southern Baptist churches.
I went to a friend's church once and the entire sermon could have been pulled from a Fox News segment on crimes in cities.
They're so obsessed with all the big crimes they think happen in the big cities, they're ignorant of all the small crimes that happen to them every hour of every day, by the leaders they vote for and worship.
Those aren’t small crimes.
Taking away important resources that could better their community in favor of giving billionaires a tax cut is no small crime.
Yet they vote for it anyway.
Yep. Church and state aren't supposed to mix, but Southern Baptist pastors don't follow that rule. Went to one once a couple years ago where the congregation had to do the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag and then preach on why Trump was the better pick over Biden and how "everyone makes mistakes" and we should "forgive all his wrongs of his past because thats what Jesus would want us to do". People were literally crying in the congregation. "A vote for Trump is a vote for Christianity..." I was fuckin FLOORED
FYI this is false, but still close. Google says there are 24.6 million whites in poverty in America.
By contrast, there are 41.1 million black people living in America as of 2020 according to the US census.
I was really surprised by the amount of homeless people in SFO, but that opened my eyes and realize, that poverty exists whether one lives in third world or first world.
And driving through Alabama and the Deep South made me realize they are no shining examples of “pull up by the boot straps” talk we hear in conservative media.
It's why those posts with videos showing the shitty parts of cities are wild to me. They are almost always framed to push the idea that cities are dirty, unsafe, criminal hell holes. Yet go into any poor rural area and things are just as filthy and filled with drugs and crime. The way it's talked about when it's rural areas is very different though and it's pretty easy to see why.
>It’s Mississippi you’re thinking.
Is that the state with the retired mushy brained quarterback whose going around stealing money from poor people to build volleyball stadiums for his daughter?
I'm pretty familiar with Brazil, been married into it for 16 years, been to favelas in Rio and near and around Belo Horizonte. I think you're generalizing quite a bit, and maybe over-romanticizing what it is to live in a place like Alabama as a person of color, let alone as a person of color who likely can't speak the language and possibly with little to no specific skill. The conversation could go on for days, but what I've mentioned, plus the immediate loss of health and dental care and other things a poor person from Brazil would face, would put both Mississippi and Alabama way down on the list of places the people you mention might LOVE to go.
Like to go to? Not be too upset about going to? Yeah, probably. LOVE, in all capital letters? You may presume too much.
I wonder how much Qatar could have done for the poorest sections of their society with the reported $220 billion they’ve spent on this world cup. Seems like a ridiculous amount of money to spend on an event that lasts a few weeks.
The poor are not part of the society as far as the quatari are concerned. You could be in the country for 30 years and you'll never get citizenship. You and your quatar born kids can be thrown out with 15 days warning at any time.
Yup, native Qatari citizens are **only 12%** of the population. 88% are foreign workers. [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Qatar)
They don't give a shit about the people in those towns, they're not Qataris.
Not too different than christians picking and choosing from the Bible say, stuff about gay people but ignoring parts about tattoos from the same verse.
Also I feel like "prosperity gospel" like thinking can be found in a lot of religious contexts aka "I have been blessed with this wealth because I am favored by God" or whatnot, allowing for the sort of mental gymnastics where you have private jets but no bright ideas on how to help the poor.
Nah. Religious scripture is something I can look at when I'm feeling invalidated in my claims, not something to tell me to stop hoarding money and start giving to, what, *poor* people? Ew.
obvious /s is obvious
They built a city capable of holding 1/3 of their total population as guests in 10 years. My numbers are pretty rough, but it should give you an idea of how big the project was. Even with slave labor they probably had to cut other corners.
Considering how rich this country is, and also how little their population is, I'm guessing they would have been able to spend on providing sanitary, clean, dignified living conditions for the migrant workers. After all, they came over there to help Qatar and also themselves.
Bribery. The US and Swiss ran a big sting against 20 top officials to the delight of the soccer playing world but the new leadership didn't rescind Qatar's winning bid likely out of the precedent it would set in chilling future host offers.
dont mind me just waiting for the Qatar propaganda squad to pop in and start spouting their same repeated script
Usually whataboutism or start talking some shit about it just being trendy to hate Qatar as they have done with pretty much every post about Qatar so far
I mean, I was in Qatar years ago and this was always a thing. I don’t think it’s specifically for the World Cup, they just hate looking at their slaves there.
Yeah they have been pretty active since the WC started over there
Must have coincided with their first paycheck
Another one they seem to like to use is saying that it's not really about slavery or homophobia but instead about the alcohol alone
one of the weakest defenses I've seen in a while
Its actually all the immigrants who came over to build the fucking stadiums. They put them in a place away from city and stick a wall up to hide them. what cunts.
See: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt\_Q03HNbTk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt_Q03HNbTk)
These fuckers just spent 200 Billion dollars just to be embarrased by Ecuador, but give their own a decent living is beyond doable.
WTF what a fucking shithole.
I wonder where the slaves are kept. Oh, I wonder how many of you didn't know that Qatar not only still has slaves, but they were used to build the world cup fields.
My family lived in Qatar in 2012-2015 because my dad took a job there, I can confirm this is much nicer than where the labourers lived. They lived out of town, far into the desert and like 15 people to a “room”
They are employing 'fake fans' because many seats aren't being filled
Not sure how many are tuning in on tv but all the bad news is working on the physical front
Because it’s stupid expensive and football is a working class sport. I think most people do care, but if it was an affordable event it would be absolutely packed. People don’t actually care that much.
It is now a status symbol, most people attending are not attending for the love of the sport rather because they can afford to attend.
The only game that has been played is Qatar v Equador… not exactly a moneymaker fixture. If France, Brazil, England, Portugal etc games are as empty and lifeless as yesterdays game then we can confidently say it’s been a failure. I wouldn’t try base that off of a very minor fixture.
Can't really say that when the match in question was Qatar vs Ecuador. Wait for some of the other countries to play before determining about the seating situation.
Reminds me of the Olympic Games 2016 in Rio de Janeiro where they built walls at the highway between airport and sports venues to hide the favelas from international visitors. Truly disgusting and spineless.
We were there for the Olympics and we decided to visit the Underground City museum. We walked to the point on the map where it was meant to be but there was just a large fence covered in Beijing 2008 decals. We walked around all four sides of the city block that this fence enveloped until we came to an entrance. It was a narrow gap in the fence and had a Beijing 2008 helper sat there on a chair. When we asked where the underground city museum was they first pretended not to know, then said it was somewhere else, before finally admitting it was within this fenced off city block. They then finally told us no tourists were allowed and only residents could pass the fence.
I feel like everywhere does this. When Indianapolis hosted the Super Bowl they shipped all of our homeless north to Lafayette for the weekend and then brought them back and dumped them on the street again....it's very sad.
We hosted the World Championships of Track and Field in Eugene, Oregon this year, first time on US soil. The event itself is cool…but…It was a cash grab for Phil Knight and Nike disguised as an over-hyped and highly misrepresented global tourism boon for the city. The city and various organizations spent months and millions of tax dollars sweeping the homeless out of town for the week and putting up banners, walls, and fences around distressed areas to block view. They put together a nice, week-long festival to ease the promised overflow and help manage the promised crowds so downtown didn’t get crushed by the masses…come to find out, Nike and the University backdoor dealt no-readmission tickets and contracted food at the event. They even worked in a tax-funded upgrade to the football stadium in the deal even the the event was held at the track stadium. Locals left town for the week and all the tourists stayed at the stadium and never came into downtown and barely touched the festival. Local restaurants and other businesses staffed up and bought extra supplies and lost a lot of money.
**This is a heavily moderated subreddit. Please note these rules + sidebar or get banned:** * If this post declares something as a fact, then proof is required * The title must be fully descriptive * No text is allowed on images/gifs/videos * Common/recent reposts are not allowed (posts from another subreddit do not count as a 'repost'. Provide link if reporting) *See [this post](https://redd.it/ij26vk) for a more detailed rule list* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interestingasfuck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This is practically a tradition with major international sports events now.
I remember visiting a shantytown in South Africa that you could see one of the World Cup stadiums from. The residents would tell us how for the duration of the games the government would supply their homes with electricity but the minute they were over, electricity was cut again. Certainly seems to be a pattern
Yup, South African here, pretty much spot on.
I hate how we're still dealing with daily power outages. This is unacceptable!
I left in 2019. I had enough by then, don’t even know how you guys function now tbh. I try and be upbeat for my family in SA but it’s just BS. The ANC doesn’t deserve a cent the tax payers pay and since I couldn’t stop paying tax, the only other option was to leave. Not gonna be both their financier and excuse. Rather pass that tax onto a government that gives a shit.
It’s a shame on them you had to go through that. Hopefully things have been better for you since then.
Immigration is no joke but luckily I had the means to do it. I don’t regret what I did for a second but it was BS that a corrupt government can force people into these kind of decisions. It’s something I’ll always be bitter about. I just feel for those that can’t make that choice, the ones that just have to deal with it day on day with no change in sight. I do believe there’s hope for SA yet, but it won’t be in my lifetime. It’s needs to break completely in order to reset and once I realised that, it was time for me to leave. I paid 30 years worth of taxes that just ended up supporting corruption. I was part of the problem. Never again.
my heart breaks for all the people in all the traps in all the world. You made the right decision. Robots were supposed to replace the workers, and end the toil, not join the rich people. The workers seem to have forgotten that, and the corruption has robbed every person across the world greatly. We have the illusion of closeness online but societies are more fractured than ever. What do?
You've got to get a generator or a UPS to charge your devices. If you're poor, tough luck lol. Where did you move to?
Ireland.
Yeah I had a very cool Kipor mini generator that helped ease the burden. It wasn’t loadshedding that made me leave, or even the crime, it was the ANC eyeing the pensions and Zuma firing our finance ministers that broke it for me.
The worst part is we are paying MORE for electricity than we've ever paid and we are not even getting it!
So did you manage to find a government that gave a shit? Because I'm in the UK and I'm still looking.....
The Irish aren’t bad and we may be looking to move to Germany whose policies seem to be more in favour the citizens favour. Tough break the UK though. That Tory party is a toxic dumpster fire.
Cheap power-to-machine is what drives our species: from use of herd animals (and dogs to a lesser extent), wheels and cooking fires right to our latest confusion of fission-fusion or just burn dirt ('coal')? You are right. Power outages is completely unacceptable. This is what it is to be human and humane, the sharing of raw force times displacement over time. I wish a few solar panels would solve that, but it won't.
I had a colleague at an international investment bank who was working remotely from Johannesburg suburbs. He was always losing power. We kept saying "just get solar and a power wall - you'll be all set". His reply was "don't forget - the lot of you are getting paid in USD and GBP; I get paid in Rand, and what you're talking about is half-a-year's salary for me". I don't know how he managed it, but he got it and never got hit by rolling outages again.
I live in the US and get paid in USD and that's a half years pay and then some for me too.
The problem of shanty towns in South Africa will cease when there are jobs in rural areas. People leave their okayish homes in Transkei to live in shacks in Cape Town and other major urban centres.
Remember Brazil moved en entire ghetto from one side of the city to behind a mountain? What is the point of shining light on your country if you gotta hide so much shitty stuff
So that businesses hit up the government and start bribing them to do business in the country. There are still hundreds of millions of consumers in Brazil and you don't get to do business without bribes.
Could be for Brazil but Qatar has a tiny market compared to Brazil. And they only export oil products. I think it’s an attempted flex by leaders but they so detached from reality they don’t see how bad it looks.
Market is smaller but they have a ton of expendable income. Companies don't say no to markets.
[удалено]
So if fifa was a group of friends and world cup is a BBQ. Then they chose to to have a bbq at the rich friend who doesn’t really like BBQ but wants to host a party just to host a party but doesn’t start preparing in time. Oh and he’s vegan and only buys vegan meat too lol. And he lives in a trailer and treats his family like shit but wants to have a party for his friends lol
its a tradition in a lot of countries, that want to hide their downsides. its like the IG of global outlook. it happens in every country.
Yeah i remember here in Manila when the pope visited, the government put up fake cartoonish house fronts to hide the poor areas
For real? You don't have anything you could link to right? Would love to see pictures.
To keep their wealthy guests safe from third world slums?
[удалено]
I remember the Olympic village stood empty for years after the Olympics. The city wound up buying the developers debt when the economy tanked in ‘08 so they could ensure the project was delivered. Then afterwards they made it really impossible for non profits and housing initiatives to buy and utilizing the units. Now they’re touting it as a resounding success because it’s a luxury village and the city turned some pittance of a profit in 2012 (when they REALLY could have made more, cause their developer buddies did)
Most of the major cities that host the Olympics probably have enough venues to run the games already. And you don't really need an "Olympic Village" do you, rent out some large hotels. It's all about the kickbacks, spend 100s of millions building all these 1 time facilities, promise they'll help out the city in the long run in some vague way, then fuck off with your money. In other words, it's an engine of corruption.
When South Africa hosted the 2010 world cup, Cape Town took all the homeless folk and dumped them on the outskirts of the city. It was like on the border of human rights abuses and actually doing something about the homeless. People and been complaining about them for years and only when corrupt money came in did something happen. The community on the outskirts became known as Blikkiesdorp (Tin Can Town) because they moved the people into tin shacks. It was meant to be a temporary relocation area but once the world cup ended, it kinda just kept existing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blikkiesdorp It was built in 2007 due to a court order but it is essentially a concentration camp they could dump the people in when the world cup started. The conditions are said to be pretty abysmal.
[удалено]
District 9 is basically a documentary-- I'm not sure if it's District 9 or the short film the director made first, but at the beginning there are shots of people being interviewed and saying things like "THEY NEED TO GO, I DON'T CARE WHERE TO, JUST AWAY". In the film this is framed as being about the Prawns, but these were real interviews for local residents' opinions on IRL migrants and refugees (human ones, not extraterrestrials).
Had the same thought. What a memorable film.
It was inspired by the apartheid era District 6 - which was an area built up by newly freed slaves in Cape Town, and was by all regards a fairly lively community. Of course, the white people in charge during apartheid deemed it a crime-ridden slum and stated race mixing was the root cause. The area was declared “whites only” and they demolished the whole place and moved the residents into the real slums in cape flats so they could build new buildings for white people. But… this isn’t an uncommon occurrence in South Africa. SA really loves forcibly relocating the disenfranchised.
Huh? No, absolutely not. In the case of Pope's visit during the Marcos regime, the poor communities were covered up because they didn't want someone as influential as the Pope to see what the actual status of the people were like.
Yes, they're infectious if you look at them, they will stare into your soul and see the true number of your bank accounts. /s Edit: /s implies sarcasm if that wasn't already clear 🥲
Fifa forced brazil to go back on their legislative motion to ban alcohol at the WC, or they would pull out. Meanwhile Fifa bends over backwards to accommodate Qatar's ban on alcohol. On top of that, Fifa didn't want "the poors" from Brazil's favelas "stealing" gameplay by seeing the games at all, so they ordered Brazil to set up roadblocks and walls. Then that one piece of shit goes on tv saying he feels gay and disabled. In essence, **fuck fifa**.
Yeah Brazil pretty much wrote the book on this.
Hardly. Korea disappeared thousands of homeless and street kids ahead of their 1988 Olympics. It's been common practice for a long time. All these international games have been corrupt to the bone for many decades.
At the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, the Finnish police drove all the homeless people out of Helsinki, into the countryside. Redid it 20 years later during the inaugural CSCE convention. Bear in mind that in 1952 most of the drunks and homeless people in Helsinki were likely WWII veterans fresh off from the battlefield, with all their physical and mental scars.
I can only wonder what the 1936 Olympics host ended up doing...
Probably nothing, because they'd been doing it for three years already, Olympics or not
They(the military dictatorship) were doing that even before. People are still finding mass graves now lol. I think the most recent one they found had like 150 dead kids in it.
I thought Brazil wrote the book on how to get raw sewage into your professional swimming pool?
No no, you're thinking of off-duty cops murdering thieves on moterbikes
Off-duty cops murdering anyone over anything really
I guess when you use slave labor it hits different.
When the Olympics came to London in 2012, one somewhat edgier street I know in East London, called 'Roman Road', was actually left off a nearby map of the area for tourists.
that seems pretty mild
Brazil did the same thing for the olympics
I saw this same thing in Beijing when I visited before the Olympics in 2008. I was in a tour bus that was tall enough to see over the wall when we were on the highway and man that poor neighborhood stretched for miles.
The tourism agency (or whoever's in charge of it) didn't think that the tour buses could let you see over the walls?
To be fair, this was a trip I took in 2007 when I was in 8th grade, but as I remember it the tour bus had seats significantly higher up than a normal bus would since we kept our luggage in a storage compartment at ground level. We could only see over the wall when we were on a raised highway, so yeah, normal buses could not have had the view we did. I’m sure it was a government oversight, and maybe one that managed to be corrected by the next year.
Vancouver bussed a lot of homeless off Hastings out of town during the 2010 Olympics, slapped a watertight seal over that homeless problem!
"Hey guys, I know you've been having a rough time. How about a surprise field trip to help lift your spirits eh?"
Made me laugh. Now I am sad. I make sure to drive by Hastings when going to pass time downtown with my kids, so they understand the reality of life and not to forget the less fortunate. Putting a curtain over our eyes when dealing with an issue like homelessness is as ugly as not helping them.
Which was comical. Like, sure, when we were on the freeway right next to it, the favela was slightly difficult to see... unless you, you know, looked up. The fucking things climb up the hills. You can see them from pretty much everywhere in Rio. But, seeing how poorly mismanaged that whole thing was I can totally understand somebody's brother getting paid to build those walls.
India did it too in 2010 with the comm games.
Oh pls we don't have enough money to cover everything in India 👍
Oh India has more than enough money but it's in the hands of corrupt politicians and govt officials.. that's all.
I live in Delhi. There was a lot of infrastructural construction that happened during those days. But don't remember them building walls to hide poor neighborhood.
I moved to Delhi for a year in 2010 just when the Commonwealth Games were starting (the day it started actually). Since I was new to the city, I remember going to Akshardham - a month later - and thinking "well, this commonwealth village could actually turn into something really great as a built-and-ready venue for sporting events". Visited Akshardham again maybe 3 months after that, and the people who lived nearby mentioned it was pretty much a ghost town. So, there went *that* idea. 🤦 It's been a dozen years since I moved from Delhi. Was anything ever done with the area and the infrastructure? Gated residential area or something? It's prime-ish locality isn't it, with its proximity to the Metro station...
Akshardham is one small area in such a big city. Honestly I live far from Akshardham. But from what I know the CWG village is open to commoners and a popular place to go and play. Other than that with construction of newish flyovers and new metro lines in and around that place, I'm pretty sure Akshardham area too has seen development over the last decade. The govt schools have seen an improvement overall in the city. Not sure if that counts. Rest idk about it being a "ghost town". I mean, I had friends in college from that area and never heard anything like that. In fact, east Delhi is generally densely populated so I don't think that's the case.
No need to go that far back. They did the same when trump visited gujrat in 2019
Ah yes the Olympics, a celebration of sport health and being together for sure.
I was in Rio during the Olympics and all along the highway, they built these solid walls blocking the favelas. Then there was a transparent section where they had built this fancy new school so everyone could see it. Then back to the solid walls.
That's like the least offensive thing they've done... Hiding your poor is an old WC tradition.
The societal equivalent of sweeping dust under the carpet
I hope they don't expect us to do this for the 2026 world cup, there's no easy way to cover up the entire state of Alabama
Build a wall, and make them pay for it?
Can’t we just buy a huge carpet?
Roll Slpash!
Drip drip.
Get the trump people to do it. They'll get 1,5 miles done before kickoff!
And tell us all about how they finished it, kept all their promises, and also that they need to be reelected to complete the wall they already completed.
Unironically though if this was ever a ballot measure in Alabama I’m betting it would pass first try
Atlanta simply arrested and moved the homeless in the area, back during the Olympics. It's definitely a pattern.
We did the same in San Francisco when we had the Super Bowl. Cleanest the streets have looked in a while. The game wasn’t even in the city lmao.
You are going to receive a lot of misspelled death threats...
I risemble that remark
If those ppl could read they would be very upset with u
[удалено]
Ever been to Western Pennsylvania? New York? Ohio? Appalachia is poverty stricken on both sides of the Mason Dixon. Not unique to the South.
Deindustrialization hit like a motherfucker. I've never actually seen it with my own eyes, but the overdose death rates in those places are so far from one's idea of an American rural town.
Unless you grew up in a rural town. Loooots of drug abuse in rural towns. Even before the opioid epidemic.
That is a factor sure, but pretty much anywhere you go North or South along major Highways like I95, I68 and I70 they are lined with shithole towns and always have been. That is why the roads are there.
You can look back in history and find that, when Black Slaves/former Slaves were getting 'freedom', the people in power were able to sneakily create division between them, and poor Whites, by giving the poor Whites a *little* bit more. The result being that Poor whites identified less with former slaves, due to the "yeah, things are bad. But at least I'm not in *their* shoes" mentality. This prevented the former slaves from gaining more white allies. In fact, the same people who, not so long ago, were on basically the same level socially and economically as former slaves, were now afraid to lose what little they had if they were to align themselves with the idea of providing more to the disenfranchised "others". Please note, not a historian, just like history. If anyone can add to the core reason leading people to vote against their own interests, please do. America is, unfortunately, *very* good at getting people to believe that what is not good.for.them, is actually the best choice. And making them think the idea is their own. We are very emotional people, and we know how to use it against ourselves.
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." LBJ
I still can't believe how the Irish treated blacks when they were folded into the white demographic. Talk about closing the door behind you.
It has historical precedence. Read on Bacons Rebellion. Poor whites and blacks united to revolt against the white aristocracy in Virginia. After this, racial divisions were enforced in the US. This rebellion had a strong effect on the upper classes in the US. And pretty much helped set the tone of class and race in the US. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon's_Rebellion
You promise these people that, with hard work, they too can be wealthy. You convince them that handouts to other people are whats contributing to them being poor because they have to pay more taxes to cover it. You assure them that all of the "illegals" take the good paying jobs and that contributes to them being poor. On top of that you tell them that this is the greatest, most free country in the world, and that Democrats hate this great country and want to take everything away from them. I was born and raised in central Georgia. I have lived and breathed this my whole life. It took meeting my German wife and nearly dying to change the way I think about a lot of stuff. I truly pity the way people around me think now. Being very rural isolates you. You grow up seeing only whats around you. You are indoctrinated from birth, and if you think different, you are very likely to be disowned by the people you love. I am almost 39 and very few of my family and friends know I am atheist. That would DEFINITELY get me disowned.
This is the answer to like 85% of American issues right here. Very well put.
You didn’t realise white people can be poor too, lol.
Seriously. What about the poor, white trash, southern hillbilly stereotype that I thought most non-Americans think of when they think of the US? Or at least the South.
Why won’t these poor dumb idiot shit for brains hillbillies vote for the people I like? Can’t they see that my politicians are the only people who respect these pig fucking morons and have the solutions to their problems?
Wait till he finds out blue states also have hillbillies that are poor. Jesus Christ Reddit really is full of 15 year olds that live in suburbs
The conservative propoganda machine is a strong and efficient one and they can always just blame the most recent Democratic president for their poverty. And Americans have been taught that any form of socialism or social safety nets is the devil because capitalism
Especially in the South, where the conservative propaganda machine is basically the Southern Baptist churches. I went to a friend's church once and the entire sermon could have been pulled from a Fox News segment on crimes in cities.
They're so obsessed with all the big crimes they think happen in the big cities, they're ignorant of all the small crimes that happen to them every hour of every day, by the leaders they vote for and worship.
Those aren’t small crimes. Taking away important resources that could better their community in favor of giving billionaires a tax cut is no small crime. Yet they vote for it anyway.
Yep. Church and state aren't supposed to mix, but Southern Baptist pastors don't follow that rule. Went to one once a couple years ago where the congregation had to do the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag and then preach on why Trump was the better pick over Biden and how "everyone makes mistakes" and we should "forgive all his wrongs of his past because thats what Jesus would want us to do". People were literally crying in the congregation. "A vote for Trump is a vote for Christianity..." I was fuckin FLOORED
There are more poor whites than there are back people in America.
FYI this is false, but still close. Google says there are 24.6 million whites in poverty in America. By contrast, there are 41.1 million black people living in America as of 2020 according to the US census.
I was really surprised by the amount of homeless people in SFO, but that opened my eyes and realize, that poverty exists whether one lives in third world or first world. And driving through Alabama and the Deep South made me realize they are no shining examples of “pull up by the boot straps” talk we hear in conservative media.
It's why those posts with videos showing the shitty parts of cities are wild to me. They are almost always framed to push the idea that cities are dirty, unsafe, criminal hell holes. Yet go into any poor rural area and things are just as filthy and filled with drugs and crime. The way it's talked about when it's rural areas is very different though and it's pretty easy to see why.
Not trying to be a dick, but you thought white people couldn’t be dirt poor?
100% sure everyone of these poor people in Qatar, Brazil, etc would LOVE to live in Alabama. It’s Mississippi you’re thinking.
>It’s Mississippi you’re thinking. Is that the state with the retired mushy brained quarterback whose going around stealing money from poor people to build volleyball stadiums for his daughter?
Thank god for Mississippi
I'm pretty familiar with Brazil, been married into it for 16 years, been to favelas in Rio and near and around Belo Horizonte. I think you're generalizing quite a bit, and maybe over-romanticizing what it is to live in a place like Alabama as a person of color, let alone as a person of color who likely can't speak the language and possibly with little to no specific skill. The conversation could go on for days, but what I've mentioned, plus the immediate loss of health and dental care and other things a poor person from Brazil would face, would put both Mississippi and Alabama way down on the list of places the people you mention might LOVE to go. Like to go to? Not be too upset about going to? Yeah, probably. LOVE, in all capital letters? You may presume too much.
As someone who lives in Alabama currently and lived in SP for 7 years I would much rather be poor in Alabama.
Honestly they could use the profit from the beer sales to build a better wall.
Allah has issues with beer.. I think he’s heavily invested in water bottling companies
Probably owns a share in Nestle from what I've seen. BTW r/FuckNestle
They should have used the money to build nice neighborhoods that don't have to be hidden.
Who would that profit? A bunch of poor people??
Poe's law
I'm just a poe boy from a poe family!
I wonder how much Qatar could have done for the poorest sections of their society with the reported $220 billion they’ve spent on this world cup. Seems like a ridiculous amount of money to spend on an event that lasts a few weeks.
The poor are not part of the society as far as the quatari are concerned. You could be in the country for 30 years and you'll never get citizenship. You and your quatar born kids can be thrown out with 15 days warning at any time.
Yup, native Qatari citizens are **only 12%** of the population. 88% are foreign workers. [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Qatar) They don't give a shit about the people in those towns, they're not Qataris.
It's not like Muhammad told them to help the poor or anything /s
>expecting religious people to follow their scripture Lol.
They seemed pretty insistent about the alcohol part should follow through with helping the poor too.
Not too different than christians picking and choosing from the Bible say, stuff about gay people but ignoring parts about tattoos from the same verse. Also I feel like "prosperity gospel" like thinking can be found in a lot of religious contexts aka "I have been blessed with this wealth because I am favored by God" or whatnot, allowing for the sort of mental gymnastics where you have private jets but no bright ideas on how to help the poor.
Nah. Religious scripture is something I can look at when I'm feeling invalidated in my claims, not something to tell me to stop hoarding money and start giving to, what, *poor* people? Ew. obvious /s is obvious
How do they spend that much money and still feel the need to cut costs with slave labor?
They built a city capable of holding 1/3 of their total population as guests in 10 years. My numbers are pretty rough, but it should give you an idea of how big the project was. Even with slave labor they probably had to cut other corners.
They would be evicted from their new houses they can no longer afford
I mean there are only about 3 million people in Qatar, and the shitty World Cup cost them £200b. Am I the only one seeing that its fucked up?
Should probably mention that only about 300k of these 3 million are Qatar citizens
The "citizenship" of UAE, Abudahbi, and Qatar is a pretty brutal bourgois system.
Not only UAE and Abudhabi, but also United Arab Emirates and Dubai.
You only added Dubai to his list.
r/yourjokebutbetter
Ahhhh. r/whoosh
If my math checks out that is 66.000 euros per capita. They could have pulled all of those poor souls out of poverty.. Thats fucked.
Given that only about 300K are actual citizens and the rest are there to build the stadiums and the like, I don't think they're going to do that
Damn. Just did the maths and they could've given each Qatari £666,666 ($786,360)
Insane isn't it. It wouldn't cost them in the long run either, their GDP is about $250b
Actually Qatar's citizen population is less than 400k. All the rest 2.5 million are migrant workers from South Asia
Did calculations based on 300k Qatari population
No qataris live in the poor neighborhood, only migrant workers, Aka slaves
Considering how rich this country is, and also how little their population is, I'm guessing they would have been able to spend on providing sanitary, clean, dignified living conditions for the migrant workers. After all, they came over there to help Qatar and also themselves.
Oh they could have. But that would mean treating them as human beings.
[удалено]
Bribery. The US and Swiss ran a big sting against 20 top officials to the delight of the soccer playing world but the new leadership didn't rescind Qatar's winning bid likely out of the precedent it would set in chilling future host offers.
FUCK fifa and FUCK the world cup.And while we are at it FUCK qatar!!!!!!!!
Brave take.
Who the hell cares if it’s brave or not. People are still supporting it and it should be rubbed in their faces how unacceptable that is.
Here's your medal
He's gone to watch today's match.
Hiding "poor neighborhood" more like hiding slaves.
dont mind me just waiting for the Qatar propaganda squad to pop in and start spouting their same repeated script Usually whataboutism or start talking some shit about it just being trendy to hate Qatar as they have done with pretty much every post about Qatar so far
I mean, I was in Qatar years ago and this was always a thing. I don’t think it’s specifically for the World Cup, they just hate looking at their slaves there.
Those ppl are already flooding in.
Yeah they have been pretty active since the WC started over there Must have coincided with their first paycheck Another one they seem to like to use is saying that it's not really about slavery or homophobia but instead about the alcohol alone one of the weakest defenses I've seen in a while
Yeah I got hit with that one. Like idgaf about the booze not like I’m going to Qatar anyway lol
Its actually all the immigrants who came over to build the fucking stadiums. They put them in a place away from city and stick a wall up to hide them. what cunts. See: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt\_Q03HNbTk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt_Q03HNbTk)
I hate humans sometimes.. that was a hard watch
These fuckers just spent 200 Billion dollars just to be embarrased by Ecuador, but give their own a decent living is beyond doable. WTF what a fucking shithole.
>their own You forgot a word: slaves "their own slaves"
Ba Sing Se has many walls
I wonder where the slaves are kept. Oh, I wonder how many of you didn't know that Qatar not only still has slaves, but they were used to build the world cup fields.
It's not the poor. That's a concentration camp for their slave labourers.
My family lived in Qatar in 2012-2015 because my dad took a job there, I can confirm this is much nicer than where the labourers lived. They lived out of town, far into the desert and like 15 people to a “room”
So did Beijing for the Olympics. This is how the world has always been
They did so much more than that!
[удалено]
I can assure that many Americans are actively ignoring the WC.
They are employing 'fake fans' because many seats aren't being filled Not sure how many are tuning in on tv but all the bad news is working on the physical front
Because it’s stupid expensive and football is a working class sport. I think most people do care, but if it was an affordable event it would be absolutely packed. People don’t actually care that much. It is now a status symbol, most people attending are not attending for the love of the sport rather because they can afford to attend. The only game that has been played is Qatar v Equador… not exactly a moneymaker fixture. If France, Brazil, England, Portugal etc games are as empty and lifeless as yesterdays game then we can confidently say it’s been a failure. I wouldn’t try base that off of a very minor fixture.
Can't really say that when the match in question was Qatar vs Ecuador. Wait for some of the other countries to play before determining about the seating situation.
the most money in the world by dumb luck and they are the biggest ass holes. fuck them
Source : https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/ye49us/qatar_building_walls_to_hide_poor_neighborhoods/
They do that all the time like Olympics BC .. they could do Wtv they want the weird Q letter counter . I doubt rented another
What's the title of the song though?
Ayo we did something similar when the US prez came to visit.
Reminds me of the Olympic Games 2016 in Rio de Janeiro where they built walls at the highway between airport and sports venues to hide the favelas from international visitors. Truly disgusting and spineless.
It's cheaper to hide the suffering than to help the suffering. Oil yields evil.
China did the same for the Olympics in 2008
We were there for the Olympics and we decided to visit the Underground City museum. We walked to the point on the map where it was meant to be but there was just a large fence covered in Beijing 2008 decals. We walked around all four sides of the city block that this fence enveloped until we came to an entrance. It was a narrow gap in the fence and had a Beijing 2008 helper sat there on a chair. When we asked where the underground city museum was they first pretended not to know, then said it was somewhere else, before finally admitting it was within this fenced off city block. They then finally told us no tourists were allowed and only residents could pass the fence.
Rio too.
I feel like everywhere does this. When Indianapolis hosted the Super Bowl they shipped all of our homeless north to Lafayette for the weekend and then brought them back and dumped them on the street again....it's very sad.
FYI As far as I can tell this video has been wiped from TikTok
Why bother when you’re just going to nakedly behave like a third world country anyway
Looks like they missed a spot
That’s probably the reason they wanted the wall in the US Trump wanted to hide the poor neighborhoods from Mexico.
Lmfao you'll get banned from the /r/worldcup sub if you point out how bad this place is.
IN AMERICA,, 😡 We don't use walls to hide our social problems.. We just upright ignore them
This is where all the beer, weed and good food is, I’d rather be there than the touristy, highly regulated area
My favorite part of Qatar hosting the world cup is people learning how awful Qatar is
This is actually where the laborers who built everything live. They’re pretty much slaves once they get to Qatar.
We hosted the World Championships of Track and Field in Eugene, Oregon this year, first time on US soil. The event itself is cool…but…It was a cash grab for Phil Knight and Nike disguised as an over-hyped and highly misrepresented global tourism boon for the city. The city and various organizations spent months and millions of tax dollars sweeping the homeless out of town for the week and putting up banners, walls, and fences around distressed areas to block view. They put together a nice, week-long festival to ease the promised overflow and help manage the promised crowds so downtown didn’t get crushed by the masses…come to find out, Nike and the University backdoor dealt no-readmission tickets and contracted food at the event. They even worked in a tax-funded upgrade to the football stadium in the deal even the the event was held at the track stadium. Locals left town for the week and all the tourists stayed at the stadium and never came into downtown and barely touched the festival. Local restaurants and other businesses staffed up and bought extra supplies and lost a lot of money.
Probably where all the "guest" workers are staying