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Because that’s where the money is.

Ian Buruma:

Western businessmen, architects, artists, university presidents and museum directors – or anyone who needs large amounts of cash to fund their expensive projects – now have to deal with non-Western autocrats… [P]andering to authoritarian regimes and opaque business interests is not a wholesome enterprise. The contemporary alliance of Western interests – in the arts and higher education no less than in sports – with rich, undemocratic powers involves compromises that might easily damage established reputations.

One way to deflect the attention is to borrow the old anti-imperialist rhetoric of the left. Dealing with despots and shady tycoons is no longer venal, but noble. Selling the franchise of a university or a museum to a Gulf state, building yet another enormous stadium in China or making a fortune out of soccer favours to Russia or Qatar, is progressive, anti-racist and a triumph of global fraternity and universal values.

Margaret Soltan, May 28, 2015 4:47PM
Posted in: merchandise

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