We discovered another side to Qatar, a deeply conservative, authoritarian nation, personified in my mind by the man who stopped his car as we tried to take some pictures in a park.
Strong winds have lashed the tiny Gulf-state of Qatar over the last few days, scooping up a thin layer of sand from the Arabian Peninsula and chucking it all over the country’s capital city, Doha. Its fanciful office blocks of rippling glass and thrusting steel have faded from view – the city’s ultra-modern face, displaced for a time by the desert.
As the silica-laden clouds swirled, I kept asking myself a simple question – where am I? On one hand it appears a progressive looking place, with impressive infrastructure and extensive government services for eligible residents. However, we discovered another side to Qatar, a deeply conservative, authoritarian nation, personified in my mind by the man who stopped his car as we tried to take some pictures in a park. “Stop that, stop that,” he screamed. “We have rules here.”
We arrived in Doha seeking reaction to a series of allegations printed in the Sunday Times newspaper, about Qatar’s bid for the 2022 World Cup – a competition it ultimately won. By all accounts, the country’s youthful bid committee ran a superb campaign in 2010, promising a compact, fan-friendly tournament in a part of the world that has never played host to the event. Yet the British newspaper, citing millions of secret emails, says a prominent Qatari citizen offered up millions of dollars in bribes in support of the country’s bid.
We soon discovered that it was an extremely difficult place to work. No one in any position of influence or responsibility wanted to talk to us – and when we pulled our camera out, people often looked scared or alarmed.
It seems strange then that Qatar owns – and bankrolls – the Al Jazeera television news network. It’s an award-winning outfit that has championed the Arab Spring and the protection of human rights the world over. Doha also plays host to a branch of one of America’s best journalism colleges. Yet this country is an exceedingly difficult place to work as a journalist.
We heard stories about reporters being arrested for covering news that reflected poorly on the authorities. We were told that some Qatar-based cameramen have to use their smart-phones to record pictures for fear of being stopped by the police. It makes me wonder how this country would cope with the full force of the international media and hundreds of thousands of beer-swilling football fans, if the 2022 World Cup does go ahead here.
Qatar’s indeterminate identity reflects the thinking of the ruling Al Thani royal family. Over the last couple of decades, they have created a half-way house between the west and more conservative Islamic states, an approach encapsulated by Qatar’s pursuit of the World Cup – and more recently, its pivotal role in a prisoner-exchange between the United States and the Taliban.
Unsurprisingly perhaps, Qatar has become a major source of irritation for neighbouring states like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE. They don’t like the country’s independent-minded foreign policy and they don’t like trouble-making al-Jazeera either (critics point out that it does not apply the same rigorous eye to its home territory).
Qatar may look, and behave, like a transnational bridge between two worlds – but what kind of country is it exactly? Is it politically and culturally conservative, or open, western and liberal? Ultimately, the people who run this country may have to make a choice.
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