Qatar: Land of steel and sand

Right now, as I sit in my posh Mopicken hotel room, my view from the 25th floor is rather dismal. As I discussed with Steph last night, we feel like we have already left the Middle East. Doha is a bizarre land, straight from a science-fiction movie. I expect to see Will Smith flying around in a car. A feast of modern architecture, towers of steel buildings soar upwards. They cover the dry land made of sandy dirt and concrete. The sun is powerful but foggy because of the sand, and everything is dusty. The city is right on the water, the Persian Gulf but it doesn’t feel at all like a “beach town”. New towers are being built in every direction, construction zones and cranes are everywhere. The wealth in this area is astounding.

Skyline of construction

Closer view of some buildings

A building through our bus window

There is an ice rink in one of the enormous malls. Why.

And then there is the heat. Unlike anything I have ever seen, the temperature here today was about 105 degrees Fahrenheit. It felt hotter outside today than in the hotel’s sauna. For the brief periods of time I was outside the last couple of days, I found myself literally moving slower, as if shutting down. I could not really open my eyes, and found it difficult to breathe. At this point of heat, being covered definitely works to your advantage, since the sun is so powerful. My mom said to me before I left that I would probably find people covered themselves more here because of the weather. In this particular environment, I would say she is definitely right. The men traditionally wear a white long sleeve/long pants garb with a head covering. What I do not understand, at all, is why the women traditionally wear the same but in black, and sometimes with their face covered as well. I am sure everyone is aware that black is the worst color to wear in intense sunlight. Why, then, must women wear this color. Tradition? Oppression? Choice? Self-inflicted pain in reverence for Allah? Social pressure?

The only answer I have was given to me by Raya, the editor of the very popular website IslamOnline.com, and a woman who herself was fully veiled for several years. Raya explained that there is a Hadith (the contextual stories of Quranic verses) which justifies women being completely covered in black. This Hadith says that when Mohammed announced the verse which calls for women to be modest in their dress, his women followers were found the next day to be dressed “like crows”. And apparently people have historically interpreted this to mean that women were dressed head to toe in black. In my Islam class last semester, we spoke a lot about how the Hadiths are not always relevant or reliable, but include a lot of writing which can be used to justify certain practices in Islam. For example, what if crows at the time were in fact white? Can we really know what looking like crows means? I don’t have any problem with women wearing a veil, if it is their choice. But why black?

Qatar seems to be famous for its freedom of speech in an area traditionally with less freedom to say what you want. Yesterday, we toured the international headquarters of Al Jazeera, the most popular Arab/Middle Eastern independent satellite news channel. The channel is known in the region for tackling issues head on, without bias, and with context. We met with a Program Editor (a Brit) and the Head of International and Media Relations (a Canadian).

Al Jazeera English television studio

Obama was on their computer's screensavers

Talking with the people behind the curtain

A political cartoon hanging in their office

“I want to take Al-Jazeera with me” Steph just said, sitting next to me finishing up her blogs. We have really enjoyed Al-Jazeera English, a station that reports news without all the glitz and unnecessary drama of stations like CNN or the dreaded Fox news.

The people we met with at Al-Jazeera explained their freedom to report what they want from the haven of a country where the royal family has taken pride in Qatar’s freedom of speech. As long as they have that support, their funds are basically limitless. People from all over the world are drawn to work at Al Jazeera, for its strong credibility as a real news organization, with a focus on finding the voices of the traditionally unheard, from the southern hemisphere. Many people back home have a misguided idea of Al Jazeera, as the medium through which Al Qaeda launches its videos etc. This is simply not true.

I asked our presenters about Al Jazeera’s reaction to Obama choosing the other major news channel in the region, Al Arabiya, for his first televised interview in the region. At first, they said they were simply happy about the interview for the region’s sake, but eventually admitted that it must have been a tactical decision on the part of the Obama administration to avoid direct interaction with Al Jazeera, but they hope this will change in the future. Especially since Al Jazeera English will be broadcasting from Washington DC beginning next month.

Today we heard from a producer at the Doha Debates center. The Doha Debates are an important forum for discussing a variety of issues to do with the Arab world or Islam. (Learn more www.dohadebates.com). They are conducted entirely in English however and the prestigious and highly educated people they choose to debate are required to speak English. This struck me as odd, and I asked the producer about it. She explained that the targeted audience was mainly English speaking. From what I can tell, English speakers in this region are the upper class and highly educated. So it sounds a bit like the elite sitting and discussing the commoners’ problems without involving them…but I could be wrong, something for further research.

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