- Aug 5, 2006
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I think there are subtle shades in all of this, and it needs to be considered in a pragmatic way as well. It's very easy to take the moral high ground in debates but it's good to try and root that in reality as well.FIrstly, my contention isn't that Guardiola's support of Catolonia is disqualified by his employment by the Al-Nahyan's. My contention is that it is hypocritical of him to be paid by tyrants while at the same time decrying the tyranny of Spain. Again, one is either opposed to political oppression or one isn't. Is it not hypocritical to say that this type of political oppression is OK, while that one isn't?
Moving on, is it your contention that someone is only qualified to speak out against oppression, racism, sexism, discrimination in general by having actually done something about it? Where is the line? What qualifies as doing something about it? Isn't talking about it, doing something about it? Doesn't that count? If not, I'd ask: what has Guardiola actually done about the situation in Catalonia, seeing as all he's seemingly done is wear a yellow ribbon and make fatuous speeches about humanitarian gestures?
Next I would ask, can you point to an American film company that is owned by the US government? Or the French? Or the British?
So in the case of Guardiola, if he doesn't like what the City owners have been associated with does that mean he should never have accepted the job in the first place? Maybe. But if he wanted to compete in the PL and he liked what they were doing on the football side of things then that's the job he needs. In the real world we put aside these sorts of moral worries all the time - particularly when it comes to our lifestyle choices - so why apply a different standard to Pep?
The film company example is another good one. If you are Universal or Warner Brothers you might heavily disagree with US government policies, but what are you going to do about it? Leave America? Hollywood is in America and that's where that business takes place so those companies take the pragmatic choice to work in a location that is run by people they disagree with. It shouldn't disqualify them from making anti-whatever movies.
The company Mondelez have done some pretty terrible things in the past, but if your parents come back from holiday and get you a Toblerone from the airport do you throw it in the bin and chastise them for their poor judgement, or do you say thanks and eat the chocolate? When Mondelez bought Cadbury do you instantly stop buying Cadbury products? Nestle have done some pretty bad stuff too as it goes, so getting through Easter and Christmas holidays is going to be a tough moral justification!
We all buy into products created by morally questionable companies or that use morally questionable source ingredients or work forces. We all buy into products created in countries run by morally questionable regimes. It doesn't mean we condone these things... but we have a life to lead and you can't always get 100% moral perfection.