We’re familiar with the notions of gender and racial discrimination, but what’s being described here is nationality discrimination. It’s at its most naked and unabashed in Qatar, partly because the whole world meets there. But it exists in every global city and international workplace. Nationality discrimination only partly overlaps with racial discrimination: a black American will generally have higher status than a Ghanaian, just as a Swede ranks higher than a Lithuanian. This unspoken hierarchy of nationalities distorts many of our life paths.
The basic idea is that nationality is treated as a skill. The author Alex Bellos writes: “The phrase ‘Brazilian soccer player’ is like the phrases ‘French chef’ or ‘Tibetan monk’. The nationality expresses an authority, an innate vocation for the job — whatever the natural ability.” A Brazilian footballer will therefore be valued above an equally good Mexican, while a German engineer will get hired faster than a Guatemalan.
All of us are, in part, our national brands. Our nationality is the first thing that many potential employers see in us. The academics Jon Horgen Friberg and Arnfinn H Midtbøen write in their study of the Norwegian hotel and fish-processing industries: “Applying for a job as a hotel receptionist? Your ‘Swedishness’ may signal the ability to provide friendly and pleasant service. Applying for a job as a fish packer? Being Lithuanian assures employers that you will work hard and not complain about long hours.”
Someone with the “wrong” nationality cannot easily jump to a job that matches their talents. One Norwegian hotel manager told Friberg and Midtbøen about a former receptionist of Turkish origin: “She was diligent, polite, answering mails and helping guests. Still, she never received any positive guest feedback. So she asks me, ‘What’s wrong?’ I had to tell her, ‘You know what, this just doesn’t work. You do everything right, but it’s just too close and personal for you.’” He moved her to a backstage role.
Another Norwegian hotelier explained his hiring of technical-support workers to help run conferences: “They have to be able to calm people down and inspire confidence . . . So these workers are usually Norwegian, or at least from Sweden. We have had talented foreigners applying — university students from Africa or whatever — but that would create uncertainty, so we can’t do that.” These cases are a mix of racial and nationality discrimination.
Even when people of different-status nationalities do identical work, their pay can diverge. In the private sector in the United Arab Emirates, in the same jobs, “Western expatriates tend to make more than Arab expatriates, who tend to make more than south Asian expatriates,” write the academics Angela T Maitner and Jamie DeCoster. Westerners, explains McManus, get paid partly for their skin colour and “the ability to bullshit the role of ‘expert’.”
In my own sector, punditry, the man from a high-status country — above all, until now, the US or UK — is invited to explain the world. The man from a low-status country gets to explain his country. The woman from a low-status country is at best invited to explain the situation of women in her country. Similar dynamics have played out over Ukraine. Traditionally, it was Russians or high-status westerners who got to interpret the country to the world. Even now, Ukrainian views risk being dismissed as partial or emotional. The historian Timothy Snyder says: “It seems to me that that’s a kind of imperialism, when you say, ‘I can see reality and you can’t see reality because you’re a small unimportant country.’”
High-status nationalities are valued for their ability to fit into high-status workplaces, but lower-status nationalities are valued for their exploitability, as Irish labourers used to be in Britain. Here’s a manager of a Norwegian fish factory praising Poles and Lithuanians: “There are never any complaints if they have to work three hours extra.” Yet national hierarchies can change. As Poland has grown richer, and Polish immigrants have got accustomed to Norway, they will probably become more confident in claiming their right to sick days.
How to get rid of nationality discrimination? As with all kinds of discrimination, step one is to see it. Anyone who recruits labour needs to learn to recognise and correct their unconscious assumptions that Nationality X is the right “fit” for a job while Nationality Y isn’t.
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