Qatar begins to buzz

By David Lepeska
The National, Oct 25, 2010

Performers prepared their jokes, audience members tossed red squishy-balls and a film crew jostled through the jam-packed upstairs room of the Colombiano Coffee House last Sunday as the pre-show chatter reached fever pitch.

"This is amazing," said Mahmoud El-Achi, 27, crouching in his chair amid the hubbub of the Doha Tweet-Ups' comedy night. A Lebanese telecoms manager, he was born and raised in Doha. "There's almost nothing to do here, compared to Beirut," he added. "So I wasn't expecting this kind of turn-out and energy."

A small, roiling sea of students, artists, academics and professionals had successfully injected the event with that most rare and precious quality in Qatar: buzz.

Maybe it's a sign of things to come.

"The scene is young, but it's maturing," said Tariq al Jaidah, a Qatari entrepreneur and the founder of Doha's first private gallery, Waqif Art Center. "The Arab Capital designation has been a good inspiration and put Qatar on the map for these activities."

Doha is the UN-backed Arab Capital of Culture for 2010. But as recently as a few years ago this city had no major museum and hosted only the occasional small art exhibition. Now, a government vision that views cultural development as integral to national growth has begun to take root.

In 2007, a couple of small galleries opened in Souk Waqif, the faux traditional Arab market in downtown Doha. Late 2008 saw the debuts of IM Pei's Museum of Islamic Art, a cubist masterpiece regarded as an arts anchor, and the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra. And last year the inaugural Doha Tribeca Film Festival put Qatar on the international movie map.

In addition to the second edition of the film festival, which kicks off this week, consumers of culture should have a full plate over Doha's final months as the cultural capital, including an Oriental music festival, a major musical production, an exhibition of Ottoman art, a series of national cultural weeks and the launch of the much-anticipated Arab Museum of Modern Art, called Mathaf.

Opening on December 30, Mathaf will house a collection of 60,000 works spanning 170 years. The Qatar Museums Authority has been promoting the museum on a regional road show. Antonia Carver, the director of Art Dubai, was among the speakers at a recent stop in Beirut. She believes it will be the world's largest public collection of modern Arab art.

"There's been a major shift of international attention towards the Arab world over the past 10 years, and it's been a phenomenon, really," Carver said during a recent interview. She appreciated how Mathaf officials had amassed their collection methodically and incorporated an educational aspect.

"What's really exciting is to be able to trace back through history and find those threads that pull out on the whole development of the Arab world and the Gulf and the connection between the two," she said.

Al Jaidah was also looking forward to Mathaf. "The new museum will change art in the Middle East because it will change the perspective and take Arab art to another dimension," he said.

Mathaf's opening is among the more promising events of an autumn schedule that, since the end of Eid, has seemed relentless. Qatar's National Theatre has hosted a steady stream of cultural weeks involving dancers, musicians and singers from countries such as India, Syria and Sudan. Still to come are Venezuela, Lebanon, Iran, Tunisia and the UAE.

In Souk Waqif, Al Markhiya Gallery is hosting the Lebanese artist Ginou Choueiri's solo show, For Your Eyes Only, a series of paintings exploring the veil and the women behind it. It's part of the gallery's ongoing survey of Arab artists under 40 years old.

As of last Wednesday, four new galleries at the Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim Al Thani Museum began showcasing Islamic art and works of Qatari heritage. On that same day, the gallery at Virginia Commonwealth University-Qatar launched New York Chronicles, a month-long exhibition featuring eight Arab artists' creative responses to New York City.

Christie's, the leading London-based auctioneer, recently hosted a two-day exhibit of paintings from the collection of the Egyptian collector Dr Mohammad Said Farsi at Doha's Four Seasons Hotel. At the opening gala, the director of Christie's Middle East, Isabelle de la Bruyere, said the Middle East art market was the world's fastest growing.

The show, called Journey Through Modern Art, included works by modern Egyptian, Iranian and Lebanese artists worth up to $400,000 (Dh1.5million). "People in Qatar are starting now to see art as a symbol of status," al Jaidah said.

The Museum of Islamic Art remains the defining symbol of Doha's cultural status. This autumn, MIA is hosting a series of arts and historical lectures. In December, Bruce Lawrence, MIA's scholar-in-residence, will speak about Ibn Khaldun, the father of sociology.

The Orientalist Museum, which has no physical home and no plans for one, is launching an exhibition of Ottoman art there on Friday. Most works are from its own collection, but several are from Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum and private collections. The show will conclude with a two-day international conference at which scholars from around the world will discuss the exchange between Ottoman and European cultures.

New cultural education developments include Doha Kalakshetra, a secondary school for Indian classical music and art that opened this month. It will instruct students in dance forms including Kathakali and Bharatnatyam, and in musical instruments such as guitar, tabla, piano and flute.

And the Qatar Foundation is set to open the Qatar Music Academy in January. It will focus on Arab music, highlighting links to American jazz and European composition.

This year's DTFF will, naturally, shine a spotlight on Arab film, and it's not alone in Doha. The $200 million Al Noor Film Fund is one of the region's largest film production firms. The executive director Raja Sharif says the fund has received hundreds of film ideas and plans to make several movies each year.

The Doha Film Institute, which aims to build a sustainable film industry in Qatar, launched this May. DFI has been helping a handful of local filmmakers make 10-minute films that are likely to be shown at DTFF. DFI also manages the Doha Film Fund, which will provide financial backing to up to 10 films per year.

DFI's camera crews are regularly seen at events around Doha, including last week's Tweet-Up comedy night, where Mohammad Kamal, a Qatari student at Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar, made light of his compatriots' foibles. "The first thing a Qatari says in a fight: I cancel your visa!" he said to a burst of laughter.

Hannadi Hassan, another Qatari student, explained how she could always tell a Khaleeji in London. "They wear their jeans too high," she said to titters.

Still, the road to cultural prominence is not always smooth. Earlier this year, Qatari officials promoted the Qatar Marine Festival at press conferences and in newspapers. A programme was announced and a website set up. Suddenly, the event fell off the radar, never to be heard of again.

"They promoted it and then it was just cancelled," said George Ayache, general manager of International Fairs and Promotions' Qatar, which organises conferences and exhibitions. He expressed disappointment in the number of events this year. "There's really nothing major here, in terms of cultural exhibitions."

Optimists call for patience. "This is a very young country, with very young minds," said al Jaidah. "They cannot immediately jump and make themselves equal with major players, there needs to be time to progress, and it is happening."

Next year will see the completion of five new theatres, according to cultural minister Hamad bin Abdulaziz al Kuwari. The highlight will be the Cultural Village, or Katara, which is hosting DTFF during its forthcoming soft opening. When completed, the 100-hectare arts compound is expected to include an opera house, an enormous state-of-the-art amphitheatre, a cinema/theatre, souk, bookshop and beachfront, in addition to the offices of theatre, music and fine arts organisations.

QMA is to begin construction on the Jean Nouvel-designed Qatar National Museum this autumn, aiming for a 2013 opening. With 40,000 square-metres of exhibition space, it will be larger than the MIA. Also next year, production is set to begin on Al Noor Film Fund's $150m epic on the life of the Prophet Mohammad.

For now, though, Doha residents and visitors are focusing on other films, as they dust off their tuxedos and ready themselves for the red carpet.



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originally ran in 25 Oct 2010, The National, www.thenational.ae

A Ramadan where old meets new

DOHA // This is not your grandfather’s Ramadan.

Thousands of visitors strolled through the Doha Summer Fun Park one evening this week, stopping to nibble on cotton candy and ice cream, check out some Islam-themed television serials or watch their children smash into each other on bumper cars.

Organised each year by the Qatar Tourism Authority, the amusement park is larger than ever in 2010, and starting this year, has been extended to include Ramadan and Eid.

It is all part of a new, more festive commemoration of the holy month.

“When I was little we played simple games for Ramadan, or packed up a picnic and went to the beach,” said Hamad Salman, a Doha native and marketing executive for Qatar Petroleum. He had come to the fun park with his teenage son and daughter for the second time, and planned to come again.

“This is much better,” added Salman, looking around the colourful, brightly lit, 12,000 square metre space, children shouting and laughing as they were spun around, up and down. “All these games and rides make a big difference.”

Droves of Qataris and other Doha residents attend similarly lively affairs late into the night across the city, from malls to hotels to cultural centres. Gondolania, the indoor amusement park at Villaggio mall, has extended its opening hours past 2am, so kids can bowl and ride go-karts and roller coasters late into the night.

Qatar’s only water park is set to open its doors in the coming weeks, and host Ramadan events. Fanar, the Qatar Islamic Cultural Centre, has organised an evening to teach expatriates more about Ramadan and its traditions this weekend.

Doha’s four- and five-star hotels are hosting lavish nightly iftar and suhoor events, some with Egyptian dancers, Lebanese bands, henna tattoos, falconry exhibitions and up to 50 dishes for tasting. As part of its Ramadan celebrations, the W Hotel Doha is giving away airline tickets that enable the holder to fly anywhere in the world on Qatar Airways.

The fun park is one of the more popular events, with some 4,000 nightly visitors to the cavernous Doha Exhibition Centre. “Breaking away from past events, which were held in shopping malls, Doha Summer Fun Park takes full advantage of the space,” said Lahdan al Mohannadi, head of internal exhibitions at the Qatar Tourism Auhtority and lead organiser of the fun park. “In addition, this year the event is free for all.”

Buoyant Arab and carnival music fills the space. At one end is a souk, filled with shops offering Yemeni honey, leather purses, perfumes, jewellery and more. At the other a food court offers doughnuts, hot dogs, pizza, fried chicken, and shawarma. In between are a couple of dozen rides, including a choo-choo train and caterpillar coaster for toddlers, and dodgems, video games and a dozen more active rides for the bigger kids.

The al Mannai brothers – Hamad and Ahmed, 10, and Mohammad, 13 – enjoyed the Tilt-a-Whirl so much they got right back on and did it again. “That was a lot of fun,” said Mohammed as the trio walked away dizzily.

These events, most of which aim to entertain the whole family, may be bringing a sense of community back to Ramadan in Qatar. “We’ve lost some of our traditions, of course,” said Moza al Malki.

A family therapist and commentator, she has seen Ramadan change several times in recent decades, from more to less strict and back again. “But nowadays we are going back to some of these old traditions.”

For the first couple weeks after the fun park opened, on-stage performances included clowns, magic shows and games. Starting with Ramadan, the stage has been re-made into a traditional Qatari house with garden, and programming includes a series of plays, a theatre group performing folklore tales and a Syrian band playing traditional music.

“Several new activities were added to instill traditional values during the holy month,” said Mr al Mohannadi. The fun park and Doha’s Heritage Village are both hosting Garangou (also known as Karankou) events for families.

Garangou is a traditional Gulf children’s festival held on the 14th day of Ramadan. Children will play heritage games and sing traditional songs, along with other activities and competitions.

“We are staying together more, families going out together,” said al Malki. “Also generosity, giving food to our neighbours, this is also returning.”

In Al Mansoura, on the edge of Doha, the W Hotel Doha and the Islamic Bank of Qatar have set up an air-conditioned tent to provide iftar to the underprivileged.

More than 150 male labourers turn up daily to break their fast with dates, laban, fruits, rice, bread, chicken and lamb.

“These are the people that really need the full meal,” said a spokesperson for Islamic Bank of Qatar, which has done the charity tent for three years running. “A lot of the staff from the bank also volunteer – everybody pitches in.”

Back at the Doha Exhibition Centre, Mr Salman watched his children on the City Hopper ride. “Ready to come down yet?” he shouted to his son, whizzing past overhead.

The teenager smiled and shook his head.



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Ran with photos in the 20 August 2010 The National, www.thenational.ae

Qatar's healthcare crisis

DOHA // Feeling ill? You might not want to be in Qatar.

The country has about 1.4 hospital beds for every 1,000 people – the lowest total in the GCC, one-fifth as many as Turkmenistan and Slovakia and fewer than poor countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“It’s not a good situation,” said Moza al Malki, a writer and family therapist. “Sometimes people go to be hospitalised and they can’t find an open bed.”

Despite a spike in government spending and the hiring of thousands of health-care workers, Qatar’s few hospitals and clinics are under severe strain because of a tripling of the population in the past dozen years.

“This huge increase in the population has put a huge load on our public health facilities,” said Jamal Khanji, head of the government’s medical licensing department. “There is a definite need for expansion, and that expansion is happening.”

Qatar has four public and five private hospitals, but the lynchpin is Hamad Medical Centre. The country’s primary health facility, it receives more than 80 per cent of public health-care spending.

Since 1999, that spending has risen from QR850 million (Dh858m) to QR4.3 billion, and the number of both nurses and doctors has tripled. Yet no major new health facilities have opened since 2004, and relative to population, the numbers of doctors, dentists, nurses and pharmacists fell anywhere from 15 per cent to 40 per cent during the past five years.


On a recent afternoon in Hamad’s emergency room, dozens of workers sat waiting for medical attention. Several limped, two held their stomachs and one held a bandage to his bleeding face.

Hamad’s bed occupancy rate, in the low 70s a decade ago, has hovered around 90 per cent for two years. A March study from the University of Michigan Health System found that occupancy rates above 80 per cent increase the risk of in-patient death by nearly six per cent.

Qatar’s foetal death rate, at 4.8 per 1,000 births in 2005, is now near eight per thousand, its highest in a decade. This is similar to rates in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Many residents have turned to pricey private providers or travel outside Qatar for health care, abandoning essentially free services at government-run facilities. Zakia Ali Malallah, a Qatari poet and commentator, recently wrote a column in the local Arabic language daily Al Watan about her three-hour wait to see a doctor at Hamad, vowing to never return.

And when Ms al Malki’s son was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident, her family sent him to Germany for treatment despite the high costs. “Nobody trusts Hamad now,” she said. “Even if I had to sell my house I would’ve sent him.”

The government is spending billions to alter that mindset. Set to come online in the next few years are paediatric and orthopaedic hospitals, a cardiac surgery centre and, at a cost of US$3 billion (Dh11bn), the Sidra Medical Centre. Construction is to begin this year on three hospitals exclusively for male labourers.

Qatar’s 2.25 doctors per 1,000 people is higher than Germany (2) and the UK (1.8) and just below the United States (2.43), according to the Organisation for Economic Development’s annual health data report. Yet specialists are rare.

Qatar has one specialist in tropical medicine, for instance, despite the presence of hundreds of thousands of people who hail from and regularly return to the Philippines, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The Supreme Council of Health recently gave all primary health centre employees a five-per-cent salary rise, in an effort to increase retention, and began a recruitment drive for doctors and other health staff from across Arab countries.

“If you look at the need for nurses in this country, I would like to tell you we are talking about thousands,” Mohammad Fathy Saoud, the president of Qatar Foundation, said at a recent event.

A new policy allows the wives and adult children of resident healthcare professionals (except physicians) to work as trainees until the fulfillment of the experience required for licensing.

Last month, the government created the Qatar Health Practitioners’ Council to monitor medical licensing. The new body appeared shortly after the licences of 32 general practitioners were revoked because they were found to be practising without medical doctorates. All were given three years to earn a post-graduate degree, failing which their clinics would be closed permanently.

Health-care staffers could also use certification training. As a western expatriate was being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance this week, an emergency medical technician tried to take his blood pressure but failed to use the electronic machine properly. The machine constricted the patient’s arm until his fingers turned blue.

“The nurses and some other staff, we have to admit it, are mostly unqualified,” said Ms al Malki. “They don’t know what to do.”

That may be starting to change. Last month, the University of Calgary-Qatar graduated the country’s first university-trained nurses, the result of a programme nurtured by Qatari First Lady Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned.

“There is a huge move to improve health services here,” said Mr Khanji. “The leadership of this country wants Qatar to be a hub for medical services in the region and you cannot achieve that without competent staff, a high level of safety, and recognised accreditation systems.”


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originally appeared in the july 9 2010 The National (www.thenational.ae)

Doha summit aims to adapt tools of global cooperation

DOHA // The World Economic Forum’s Global Redesign Initiative could hardly be more ambitious. Its main objective is to adapt the tools of international co-operation – the G20, UN bodies, the World Bank, World Trade Organisation and the like – to the complex challenges of the 21st century to ensure the long-term security of humanity.

It also aims to create a more inclusive global system.

“Legitimacy comes from people,” Kishore Mahbubani, the dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and a former Singapore ambassador to the UN, said during the opening session of this week’s Global Redesign Summit in Doha. The report the WEF prepared for the event is titled Everybody’s Business.

“We have to learn to listen to the voices of 6.8 billion people,” he added. “The real purpose of this meeting is: let’s figure out how we can get the whole world involved in this, and not just some parts of it.”

Backed by the governments of Qatar, Tanzania, Singapore and Switzerland, the WEF launched the redesign initiative more than a year ago, in the depths of the financial crisis. A key aim was to move away from the so-called Washington Consensus and Bretton Woods-style institutions, created and led by industrialised countries, in the hopes of avoiding future catastrophes.

“The world has gone through a heart attack,” Arif Naqvi, founder of the Dubai-based Abraaj Capital, the region’s largest private equity firm, said during the opening plenary. “We have to work very carefully through this moment to make sure everyone acts in concert to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

The GRI tasked more than 1,000 analysts, officials and policymakers to re-envision international institutions to better address global health, security, sustainability, development and the financial system. At a series of meetings over the past year, their ideas matured into proposals, which Doha participants sought to put into action.

“We have lots of ideas that now need spouses,” the WEF vice chairman, Mark Malloch-Brown said, advising government officials to choose a proposal and work to implement it.

Inclusion may be easier said than done. Despite the call for innovation and bold rethinking, many speakers at the event held fast to traditional institutions of co-operation.

Richard Samans, the WEF’s managing director, explained that the redesign initiative did not intend to replace the existing system for international co-operation, but rather augment it.

“We are not here to overthrow the system,” agreed He Yafei, the Chinese ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva. “Global redesign of the system is not a revolution; it’s more an evolution.”

Few of the 58 proposals, which are to be finalised at Davos, Switzerland, in January, are revolutionary. They include strengthening the financial safety net, the creation of an international financial risk monitor, expanding the capacity of the International Labor Organisation and improving a UN-supported programme called Education for All.

“A lot of the proposals are what you might call ‘punting’,” passing the problem on, said Parag Khanna, the director of global governance at the New America Foundation, who previously worked for the WEF. He sat in on several meetings over the past year and attended several sessions during the Doha summit. “It’s not quite redesign yet.”

In addition, one sizeable demographic was mostly absent.

“For everything, whether it’s financial or climate change, we should look at the poor as part of the process, rather than beneficiaries,” said Harish Hande, the founder and managing director of Selco, a provider of sustainable energy solutions to rural India.

He was speaking on Davos Debates in Doha, a YouTube channel set up for the event. “Redesign needs to happen where the poor become part of the implementers, designers and thought processes,” Mr Hande said.

In the end, the GRI may be less redesign than makeover. In calling for change, one prominent observer complained of a hidebound system dominated by inertia.

“International deadlock is the norm; cynicism and mistrust are common currency,” said Queen Rania of Jordan, who is on the redesign council for education. “If just enough people are happy, there’s no need to change it.”

Mr Khanna acknowledged that the GRI is in part a branding exercise. But it could still effect change. “I think we might see in a couple years’ time that international organisations move towards sharing resources and collaborating more with NGOs and corporations,” he said. “And it will partially be attributable to WEF.”



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originally ran in 1 June 2010 The National, www.thenational.ae

The fresh voice of youth at Aljazeera film fest

DOHA // Many of the nearly 200 films screened during this week’s Aljazeera International Documentary Film Festival offered a glimpse into the unsettled lives of youth across a region experiencing great and sometimes violent change as it opens up to, and crashes against, the modern world.

“Young people today are more likely to be bicultural and travel a lot,” Hamid Naficy, a film professor at Northwestern University-Qatar, said after watching several shorts by young filmmakers at the free four-day event.

“They experience different languages and ideas, and are no longer seeing the world through the national perspective, but a personal one,” he added. “They are constructing their own identities, and we’re seeing a shift from roots to routes.”

Launched in 2005, the festival has grown steadily. This year’s films, from more than 90 countries including the United States, China, Russia, Yemen, Japan, Senegal, Argentina, Spain, Iran and the UAE, were chosen from nearly 1,000 submissions. They competed for awards in four categories: full-length, medium, short and New Horizons, for young and first-time directors.

The festival theme was Freedom, but a number of films highlighted the hardships of where they were made. Sons of the Sun, made by the Doha-born Egyptian filmmaker Ahmad Abdul Nasser, examined the marginalisation of albinos in Egypt.

Petty Dreams, by the Qatari film student Tariq el Makki, addressed the increase in suicide among expatriate workers in Qatar. The story focused on South Asian labourers but also presented two Arab expatriates painfully recalling how deceptive recruiters destroyed their lives.

“The underbelly of the Qatari economy is blue-collar workers,” said Prof Naficy, who has written three books on exile and diaspora issues. “One part of globalisation is this incredible displacement of people, resulting in a ‘labour diaspora’ that covers a gamut of motivations and social classes.”

One social group with a strong presence in this year’s festival was women. They directed more than 50 of the selections, including Breast Cancer, a New Horizons short made by two second-year journalism students at Northwestern University-Qatar.

The film, for which Thouria Mahmoud and Zainab Sultan received top marks in their visual media class, details how despite advances in modern science, the illness remains a taboo subject across the Gulf.

“It’s always blamed on the woman here,” Ms Mahmoud, 19, a Palestinian born and raised in Qatar, said after the film’s screening. As a result, no locals were willing to speak about their experience on film. The young filmmakers instead focused on the difficult experiences of expatriates.

“Qatari women are involved in activist programmes,” said Ms Sultan, 21, an Indian raised in Saudi Arabia. “But they may not want to come out in such a public forum.” In the end, the film seemed to suggest that only by bringing the illness into the light could it be defeated.

The Syrian filmmaker Su’dad Kaadan, meanwhile, sought to upend gender roles. Looking for Pink tells the story of four Syrian women who excel in professions generally reserved for men in the Arab world, including a musician, a kickboxing champion and a pilot.

“They are in different fields and living distinct personal lives,” Ms Su’dad told the Qatar Tribune. “But they face the same kind of pressure from their families and society.”

Other films held fast to deeply rooted traditions.

Abdel Rahman El Bazanji’s A Tale from Mesopotamia uses Iraq’s narrative tradition – the birthplace of writing; the oft-told tales of Baghdad; the popularity of poetry – to frame the effect of the US invasion.

In making The Falcon, meanwhile, the veteran Australian wildlife filmmaker Lyndal Davis zeroed in Qataris’ centuries-long love for falcons.

Riham Assi also examined nature, but from a different angle. In her short film Forgotten Flower, which she made as her graduation project at St Joseph University in Beirut, a tobacco plant expresses abandonment and neglect as it is cut, dried and packaged for shipping.

“In the Middle East and beyond there has been a real emergence of women filmmakers, and along with that there is a new experimentation with style,” Prof Naficy said. “This is essentially an autobiographical story told from the point of view of the plant, and it’s told with great sensitivity and environmental consciousness.”

With bold thinking, cheaper equipment and the ease of online distribution, such experimentation among Arab filmmakers is leading to a blossoming akin to that of Iranian cinema in the 1970s, Prof Naficy said.

One hurdle, however, is that most major film and television ventures in the Gulf, such as Alnoor Holdings’ film fund, worth US$200 million (Dh734m), have their eyes turned to the West.

“Going towards Hollywood is one way, but going local is another way that can be equally exciting,” he said. Prof Naficy teaches students from 15 countries. He envisions them returning to their homelands to work, yet keeping in regular contact with their former classmates.

“A sort of lateral network will develop that might replace the national,” he said. “Governments would do well to create more venues and events like this festival to increase the opportunities for their creative youth.”

That is not to say there are no opportunities today. While leaving the screening of their film on Tuesday, Ms Mahmoud and Ms Sultan were introduced to a producer from Al Jazeera News. Prof Naficy advised the two journalism students to apply for jobs.

“We will,” said Ms Mahmoud, smiling.


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originally appeared in 23 April 2010 The National (www.thenational.ae)

Visa row over, Muslim scholar to visit US

Just as Tariq Ramadan was preparing to take up a professorial post at the University of Notre Dame in August 2004, the United States government revoked his visa, denying him entry on ideological grounds.

The US State Department lifted the ban in January, and the Swiss scholar is set to arrive on American soil later this week for a series of speaking engagements – his first visit since losing his visa.

“It was a mistake by the Bush administration, to prevent intellectuals from being critical,” Ramadan said during a recent interview in Doha. “The main thing is for me to go there and build bridges.”

It can sometimes be difficult to tell if Ramadan – rigorous scholar, champion of Islam and outspoken advocate for the rights and assertiveness of Muslims in the West – is building bridges or burning them.

Born and raised in Switzerland, the 47-year-old is a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University and the grandson of Hassan Al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.

He is often named among the world’s most influential public intellectuals yet regularly excoriated in both Muslim and Western media for a seeming lack of commitment to their respective values: he regularly denounces global capitalism, for instance, and says women should decide for themselves whether to wear the veil.

Last week he lectured in Doha at the request of the Faculty of Islamic Studies, where he will teach a course on contemporary Islam later this year. Before delivering his speech he considered the tensions within Gulf societies.

“You have some people that are very reactive to anything that has to do with the West, saying ‘this is the end of Islam,’” he said. “And you have some others saying, ‘No, we have to follow in the footsteps of the West because this is the way to be developed and modern,’ and in between you have people trying to find their way.”

In his next book, to be titled The Quest for Meaning: Developing a Philosophy for Pluralism, Ramadan writes about the shared values between Islam and the West.

“My understanding of Islam makes it clear that there is no contradiction in the Islamic values and the Western values,” he said. “To deal with modernity doesn’t mean that you lose your Islamic background.”

Yet since Al Qaeda's attacks on New York and Washington, DC, in September 2001, signs of a clash have been near-constant. After a unanimous parliamentary vote last week, Belgium inched closer to becoming the first nation in the world to ban the full Islamic veil in public. Ramadan's home country, Switzerland, recently voted to prohibit the construction of minarets.

And in the wake of Farouk Abdulmattalab's attempt to blow up an Amsterdam to Detroit flight on Christmas Day, the United States has increased background checks on visa applicants from Muslim majority countries.

But in US President Barack Obama, Ramadan sees a leader with a considerable grasp of the situation. Though impressed by Obama's speech to the Muslim World in Cairo last June, he thought the time for words had passed.

He pointed to Iraq, where despite elections terrorist attacks, such as Saturday's massacre of two dozen members of a single family in Baghdad, are still common and society remains fragmented along sectarian lines. He cited the lack of progress with Israel, which has continued to announce settlements in East Jerusalem despite the Obama Administration's repeated calls for a freeze.

“Netanyahu is sending a very strong message: 'we don’t care,'” said Ramadan.

Despite what he sees as Palestinians' continued suffering and the marginalization of many Muslim communities in the West, Ramadan believes Muslims must look forward, not back. “We need to stop nurturing the victim mentality,” he said.

This is among the key points of Ramadan's 2009 book, What I Believe, that Muslims living in the West need to engage positively and work to become full partners in Western democracy.

“As citizens it is our Islamic duty to abide by the law of the country as long it does not contradict with our religious beliefs,” he said during the Doha lecture. “We must criticise the government while remaining loyal to the law – this is critical loyalty.”

Dr Basma Abdelgafar, a professor of public policy at the Faculty of Islamic Studies who has read several of Ramadan’s books, attended the lecture and came away impressed.

“It’s a very useful type of contribution to our understanding of Muslims in the West,” said Abdelgafar, a Canadian of Egyptian heritage who was looking forward to having Ramadan as a colleague. “It has nothing to do with a person’s creed or belief, it’s that they are representing something that’s right.”

Ramadan's critics, however, see him as a dangerous radical. “I don't see anyone today who is as effective as Tariq Ramadan in furthering fundamentalism in France,” French journalist Caroline Fourest, the author of an anti-Ramadan book, said last year. She accuses him of double-speak – saying one thing to Muslims and another to Western audiences.

Paul Berman, a journalism professor at New York University, goes further. “The problem lies in the terrible fact,” he wrote in a lengthy 2007 article, “that Ramadan's personal milieu -- his grandfather, his family history, his family contacts, his intellectual tradition -- is precisely the milieu that bears the principal responsibility for generating the modern theoretical justification for religious suicide.”

That may be going too far. Ramadan has distanced himself from Al-Banna's political opinions and denounced radical violence. His website prominently displays a large banner ad supporting non-violent resistance in Palestine.

Still, he does have some views unlikely to sit well with some Westerners.

“The neo-liberal economy, the way it’s now impacting lives and killing people every day because of the injustices of the economy, this is a'anam al harb (the world of war),” Ramadan said during the interview in Doha. “This economic order is killing people, and this is why we need ethics in our economy, and this recent global crisis is telling us exactly this.”

Taking an anti-capitalist, even socialist, stance is neither illegal nor in opposition to the West. But his position on certain huddud punishments may be more problematic.

Ramadan was asked if he saw any contradiction between his stated commitment to Western values and his calling, on French TV in 2003, for a moratorium on the stoning of adulterers in order to debate the merits of the punishment.

“As long as we don’t have answers to these questions we have to open a debate,” he said last week in Doha. “It’s not a contradiction, because Amnesty International, a Western organization, is calling for the same thing on the death penalty. So why is it not a contradiction for them and it is for me?”

In truth, the New York-based rights advocate takes a rather less equivocal stance on legal executions. “Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases and under all circumstances,” according to their website. “The organization works for an end to executions and the abolition of the death penalty everywhere.”


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an edited version appeared in 5 April 2010 The National, www.thenational.ae

Story of the artist as a...Qatari

DOHA // Indian-born artist MF Husain has been seeking sanctuary for a long time. “Since my wife passed in 1996 I had no home,” Husain said during an interview at his West Bay villa in Doha.

Barefoot and wearing a loosefitting Arab kandoura, he tapped and twirled an oversized black paintbrush as a servant poured tea. “At this stage of my life, my mission is to work,” he said. “And I like to work in maximum peace and comfort.”

Realising these are two things he might never find in his homeland, Husain, 94, relinquished his Indian passport this week and accepted Qatari citizenship. With that, India lost a national treasure and Qatar gained a living legend.

“The arrival of a world-renowned artist like him, it will be a blessing for Qatar,” said SAM Bashir, an Indian businessman who has lived in Qatar for 20 years and is the former president of the Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre in Doha.

Husain’s paintings hang in museums from New York to Shanghai and controversy has mostly brightened his star. Today his works sell for up to US$2 million (Dh7.3m) at auction – as pricey as the work of any living non-western artist.

“But it is a national disgrace for India,” added Mr Bashir. “I don’t know why anyone from the Indian government didn’t make any attempt to solve the problem and bring him back to India. It’s a total failure of our democracy and secularism.”


Born in Pandharpur, near Bombay, in the fall of 1915, Maqbool Fida Husain had a rather progressive upbringing. “Nobody was religious, we were nationalist,” he said. “We were very secular right from the beginning.”

He began painting when he was six years old, and later attended art school. In 1947, the year India gained independence, Husain cofounded a progressive artists’ alliance.

He had a well-received solo show in Munich a few years later, followed by exhibitions in the United States and Europe. He moved into filmmaking, and his first film, Through the Eyes of a Painter, won the Golden Bear at the 1967 Berlin Film Festival.

The Indian government honoured him with top civilian awards in 1955, 1973 and 1991.

The trouble began just months before Husain’s wife died in 1996, when an Indian magazine published images of naked Hindu deities he had painted decades prior. With religious sensitivities running high in the wake of several communal clashes, Hindu nationalist groups responded angrily, filing lawsuits, burning effigies and threatening his life.

Husain left, bouncing between Europe and the Middle East for years. He spent a lot of time in Dubai. He visited Doha and struck up a friendship with the royal family, who bought dozens of his paintings for their new Museum of Islamic Art.

New works continued to spark controversy. In 2006 he painted India as a naked woman (Mother India). After the November 2008 terrorist assault on Mumbai, he depicted that woman being raped (The Rape of India), whipping right-wing Hindu groups into an anti-Husain lather. Returning home seemed out of the question.

Around this time, Qatari First Lady Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned learnt he was working on a series about Arab civilisation and offered to serve as his patron, promising housing, facilities and creature comforts.

“I wanted a sponsor, so I accepted,” said Husain.

More than 1,200 court cases have been filed against him in India, mainly for impugning religious and nationalist beliefs. Hindu extremists threaten to chop off his hands or gouge out his eyes if he returns.

Husain blames the government’s lack of response to the venom of Hindu nationalist groups such as the Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena, which are linked to India’s leading opposition political party, the BJP.

“The government was weak, and it’s still weak,” he said. “The whole thing is political, it has nothing to do with art or religion – they only want to get some votes.”

The sacred and the profane have mingled in Hindu iconography for centuries. Examples include the erotic carvings at Khajuraho and certain engravings within the Ajanta and Ellora cave complexes not far from Husain’s birthplace.

Though he has not set foot in India for five years, the decision to renounce his Indian citizenship was not an easy one. “I still love my country,” said Husain, who is working on a series of paintings on Indian civilisation.

Like Sheikha Mozah, many Doha residents look forward to his future contributions to the Gulf.

“This is the first time a big Indian celebrity is taking a passport from the GCC, from an Arab country, so I think this is very good,” said PN Baburajan, an Indian property agent who has been living in Qatar for 25 years. He also works as a correspondent for a Malayalam TV news channel. “Now he loves Qatar and he’s going to do some work for Arab culture and civilisation.”

Earlier this week, several dozen large, completed works were scattered about Husain’s villa, clogging the hallways and leaning against the walls and furniture. Most had never been publicly exhibited. They included a sombre work called Palestine Blue and a large, disjointed painting entitled Yemen.

In addition to his thousands of paintings, Husain has six children, 11 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Most of his family remains in India, where some observers see the artist’s decision as a defeat for free speech.

“A large body of people stood up and spoke for you in the confidence that you are with them in this struggle,” analyst Shazi Zaman wrote in open letter to Husain in the Calcutta Telegraph this week. “We thought that a person as privileged, as loved, liked and respected as you would certainly fight. But you took a flight out to Qatar.”

Sipping tea in his new home, Husain had a different perspective. “I am not a leader, I am a painter,” he said. “My job is to paint.”



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first appeared in 12 March The National, www.thenational.ae

T time in Qatar

Style is not necessarily the first word that comes to mind of when you think of Qatar, but that might be about to change.

When The New York Times launched T magazine in the autumn of 2004 it was something of a revelation for the oft-stodgy daily. A hundred-plus pages of rich, seductive photography and articles focused on the hip and stylish: a look at the “under-the-radar cool” of Brussels, the style choices of Lenny Kravitz and his daughter Zoe, and Pedro Almodóvar’s favourite red carpets, to name a few.

The European demimonde gave its official seal of approval a few years later. At a lavish and ultra-exclusive gala for the launch of T’s International Herald Tribune edition, held in a cavernous Milan exhibition space, editors, designers and contributors mingled with the likes of Domenico Dolce, Stefano Gabbana, Donatella Versace, the Oscar-winning Rachel Weisz and the ubiquitous Mischa Barton.

The old grey mare of American journalism – with its black and white graphics and substance-heavy content – had become the belle of the ball.

Now that same smart style has come to the Gulf, in the form of T Qatar, a partnership between The New York Times and the Doha-based Oryx Advertising, which will publish the local edition. Time will tell whether the new publication will give Doha the same sort of makeover, but inside sources say the idea took root fast.

“They were looking to deploy in the Middle East, scouting the market, and came across us,” says Ravi Raman, the vice president of Oryx, talking about his company’s first meeting with the Times last April. “Both sides were immediately on board.”


The pairing is not a complete shock. T Qatar represents the second major New York-Doha cultural tie-up in the past year. The Doha Tribeca Film Festival imported Big Apple buzz, cinema and celebrity with its inaugural event last October. And T magazine’s raison d’être has always been the advertisements – glossy appeals for the latest Ferrari sunglasses, Yves Saint Laurent fragrance or Girard-Perregaux watches.

With Qatar on the cusp of a great boom – the IMF estimates GDP growth of 18.5 per cent in 2010, the world’s fastest – and top-of-the-line property and retail developments such as the Pearl and Lusail coming online in the coming months and years, the greater Doha area will soon be a high-end marketer’s paradise.

No surprise, then, that T Qatar previewed its first issue at this week’s much-hyped watches and jewellery exhibition and on the boardwalk of the Pearl. At first glance, it’s much like an issue of the original magazine, with gorgeous design, sumptuous images and dozens of luxury ads.

Upon closer inspection, it is in many ways an old issue of T; all but a few of the stories are reprints from earlier issues of the New York version. The cover story, on the British actor Michael Fassbender, for instance, is lifted from an issue of T published last autumn.

Mr Raman says that even when T Qatar hits its stride next year – the magazine will be every two months in 2010, monthly in 2011 – only about a third of the content will be original.

Those stories will focus on Qatar and the region and also run in Arabic towards the back of the magazine.

In the first issue, the original stories were a profile of a Doha expatriate artist, an assessment of the Museum of Islamic Art, and a look at the Pearl.

“This is about not just fashion, not just style, but with a culture and art focus,” says Raman. “Basically we’re looking at a person who is stylish and appreciates quality, quality of design, quality of life.”

Will those quality-seekers spend 20 Qatari riyals for travel, design and style insights that have been available free at the T website for months? That might feel like arriving at a fabulous party just as it’s winding down, the buzz evaporating.

Yet Oryx is sure to highlight the fresher, local content. Even slightly dated, this intelligent and locally flavoured ode to consumerism, style and the high-end zeitgeist will, for wealthy Gulf denizens, probably become the sort of status symbol advertised in its pages.

With any luck, T Qatar will in a few years throw a coronation party that outdoes T magazine’s Milan shindig. It will coincide with some anniversary or product launch. It will be held at the Museum of Islamic Art, perhaps during the Doha Tribeca Film Festival. And Mischa Barton will be there.


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originally appeared in Feb 21 The National, www.thenational.ae

Hillary busts out the "D" word on Iran

DOHA // The US secretary of state deployed the Obama administration’s harshest critique yet of Tehran yesterday, saying the country was growing into a military dictatorship.

“Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship – that is our view,” Hillary Clinton said during a town hall-style meeting with students at Education City here. She explained that any future sanctions against Iran would target “the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which we believe is in effect supplanting the government of Iran”.

As she visits the region to rally support for increasing pressure on Iran, Mrs Clinton’s rhetoric might mark the start of a tenser phase in the West’s nuclear stand-off with the Islamic Republic.

“It is very understandable that the US is expressing deep frustration,” said Hady Amr, director of Brookings Doha, the Qatar branch of a US think tank. “It’s no longer just about the nuclear programme; it’s also frustration with how the regime has responded to the aftermath of the elections.”

After Iran’s presidential elections in June, a mass uprising calling for votes to be recounted was forcibly silenced with beatings, arrests, detention and, in recent months, executions. The repression continued last week with the smothering of protests during anniversary celebrations of the Iranian Revolution.

That same day last week, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced that the country had successfully enriched uranium to a 20-per-cent level needed to fuel a medical research reactor. “The US is trying to signal,” Mr Amr added, “that it’s not really willing to wait a lot longer before it changes its policy.”

Yesterday, however, the director of Iran’s atomic energy organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi, said that the major world powers with which it is at loggerheads over the issue have made a new offer to Iran for a supply of nuclear fuel in return for its shipping out of most of its stocks of low-enriched uranium.

“After the decision by Iran to produce its own uranium enriched to 20 per cent, France, Russia and the United States presented a new proposal which we are in the process of considering,” Mr Salehi said, according to the ILNA news agency.
He gave no details of the new offer. France quickly denied yesterday that such an offer even existed.

Mrs Clinton is spearheading the Obama administration’s full-court press of the region this week, meeting with the leaders of Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Along with the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain, Qatar is one of four Gulf countries that accepted US missile-defence systems designed to shoot down short-range Iranian missiles.

“They worry about Iran’s intentions, they worry about whether Iran will be a good neighbour,” Mrs Clinton said. “The question is what can Iran do in order to allay the worries and the fears of its neighbours … and yet I don’t see much progress there.”

Beyond Iran, Mrs Clinton’s discussion topics with the students included US-Islam engagement and building a dialogue with Muslim youth. “We will not agree on everything. I don’t think any family agrees on everything,” Mrs Clinton said. “What I look for are ways that we can celebrate our differences but narrow our disagreements and find common cause.”

Some expressed doubts about the US ability to eradicate stereotypes and move beyond rancour. Mrs Clinton said it would be up to the next generation to bridge the divide. “The decisions that are made here at Education City and in my own country are really about what kind of future we will help provide for those of you who are students today. The education you are receiving here is absolutely critical. The important thing is not what you wear, but what’s in your head and your heart.”

Farah Pandith, the US state department’s first special representative to Muslim communities, who joined Mrs Clinton at Education City, highlighted the potential of today’s young Muslims.

“Every single day since 9/12, on the page of every magazine or newspaper around the world, you see Islam defined in a particular way,” Ms Pandith on Saturday at the US-Islamic World Forum, which concluded here yesterday. “This generation is having to navigate through that and understand what it means to be modern and Muslim – and also is really searching for a way to be connected.”

She urged businesses and foundations to invest in Muslim youth, to listen to their ideas and help them innovate and build partnerships. “New media are playing a gigantic role in what these young people are hearing,” said Ms Pandith, referring to them as the “social network generation”.

“There is really something going on right now with young people, and if we do not harness what is taking place with the youth demographic we will have missed this unbelievably important window.”

Amr Khaled, an Egyptian televangelist and one of the most influential Muslim voices, also worried about Muslim youth. He called on the United States to launch a “Project for Love”, and invest US$10 billion (Dh36.7bn) over five years on education, poverty and health in the Muslim world.

“America is fighting already wars against terror and injustice, why not a third?” Mr Khaled said. “Millions of Muslim youth will stretch out their hands to you.”

At a Sunday morning panel, the Malaysian opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, urged Barack Obama to engage smartly. “Yes, President Obama, engage with hope, but you must engage the aspirations of the whole people,” he said, pointing the inclusion of leaders, non-governmental organisations, intellectuals, Islamists and secularists. “Because if you miss some of them, you will have a continuation of this problem.”

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an edited version of this story appeared on page 1A of the 16 Feb edition of The National, www.thenational.ae

Doha drives home lesson in safety

Last summer, Nasser al Thani edited together a series of grisly crash images: cars split in two; front ends flattened; vehicles entwined, like pretzels. He added an operatic soundtrack and posted the video on YouTube in an effort, the Qatari said, “to raise awareness of road safety.”

More than six months later, the message may be getting through.

From Kuwait City to Muscat, the hazards of the road are real and growing. But they are particularly acute here in Qatar, which has seen traffic and serious road accidents mushroom in the past decade as Doha’s population has doubled.

For every 10,000 vehicles on Qatari roads today, seven people are killed in crashes each year – a rate nearly five times higher than most western nations (in Britain, 1.5 people are killed annually per 10,000 vehicles).

“If you look at traffic, this is a serious and fundamental problem that impacts safety, environment, and productivity,” said Dr Adnan Abu-Dayya, the executive director of the Qatar University Wireless Innovation Center (Quwic).

Qatari officials and business leaders have in recent months moved to stem the tide – importing outside analysts, launching major infrastructure projects, devising technological solutions and hosting instructional workshops.

A ride on the roadways of the Qatari capital is seen by many locals as equal parts frustration and trepidation. Many of Doha’s primary arteries are clogged for much of the day, and the Qatar International Safety Centre (QISC) said more than 100,000 accidents occur in Qatar each year, and that a person is seriously injured on Qatari roads every two hours.

To improve public safety, Qatari officials asked the advice of the US transportation department, which manages a system of more than 250,000km of roadways. Earlier this week, US Federal Highway Administration officials submitted a preliminary report on the state of Doha’s roadways. “Our mission here is not only preventing injuries on the country’s roads from vehicular accidents,” said Craig Alfred, a transportation safety specialist. “We are also focusing on how to save lives.”

The analysis included general comments on traffic and safety and recommendations on street parking, constructing motorway barriers and isolating industrial and other areas of heavy commercial traffic.

The report, a final version of which will come next week, also called for pedestrian protections, such as wider walkways and more footbridges.

“This was the biggest review we’ve had in regards to what we need to take care of,” said Jamal al Kaabi, the chairman of infrastructure affairs at the Public Works Authority (PWA). “We are definitely considering a lot of the issues they brought up, because safety is one of our top priority issues, especially in new roads and highways.”

To that end, the PWA is building fencing along all major highways to keep people from attempting to cross, and adding separated bike lanes to major new roads.

Two major infrastructure projects aim to further improve safety by decreasing congestion. Last week, the government announced plans last week for a six-lane tunnel that will run under Gulf waters from Doha’s new airport, opening in 2011, to the city’s densely populated West Bay. “We are still waiting for the final concept design,” said Mr al Kaabi, adding that the cost and start date remain unknown.

Last November, Qatari Diar announced a 300km, US$25 billion (Dh92bn) metro and light rail system, built in partnership with the German transportation company Deutsche Bahn, to begin construction across Doha next year.

A variety of smaller initiatives approach Qatar’s traffic and road safety problems from different angles. Quwic’s traffic monitoring system delivers real-time data to help drivers avoid the busiest routes. The University of Texas A&M at Qatar recently gave 40 engineers from the PWA a short course on traffic safety, highlighting the importance of road design and traffic light placement. Also on the Education City campus, designers at Virginia Commonwealth University-Qatar are studying the effectiveness of Qatar’s road signs and their ability to communicate their messages to drivers.

Despite all this attention, the precise level of danger drivers face on Qatari roads is unknown. “It’s very difficult to get good information,” said Mario Virgili, the director of road safety at QISC. “We can’t guarantee our figures are correct, given that the traffic police don’t provide the information we need.”

While the Qatari interior ministry reported 230 vehicular deaths in 2008, for example, the QISC estimates 346.

What is clear is that the majority of accidents result from a lack of awareness. A study by Qatar’s Emergency Medical Services found that the top reasons for road accident deaths were speeding and failure to wear seat belts, while the QISC said the majority of drivers involved in accidents are under 30 years of age.

Doha design show with graphic point

DOHA // Mirko Ilic has worked with the graphic design legend Milton Glaser for years, served as the art director for Time magazine and the New York Times’ editorial pages and managed his own firm.

With more than three decades in design, he has come to appreciate the power of images, their ability to seduce and persuade, unsettle and motivate.

“We love to use graphic design to sell you products or corporate ideology,” the New York-based graphic designer said. “Sometimes designers decide they are still citizens of this world, and try to make this world a better place.”

A few dozen posters protesting against a variety of issues from around the world went on display on Wednesday as part of Virginia Commonwealth University-Qatar’s Design of Dissent exhibition -- the first showing of the exhibition outside of the US. Curated by Mr Ilic and Mr Glaser, the show presents a small but sharp visual sampler of international public discourse.

At the opening reception, Mr Ilic spoke of his respect for the medium and screened a film on the life and work of his friend and mentor.

The 80-year-old Mr Glaser was born and raised in the Bronx. He studied art at New York’s Cooper Union and in Bologna, Italy, before embarking on an unmatched career: making countless posters, book jackets, album covers and restaurant interiors that helped define modern branding; co-launching New York magazine; and creating the image I <3 N Y.

In recent years Mr Glaser has embraced the political, designing covers for The Nation, a leading liberal magazine, and making buttons that read, Facts not Fear, or W stands for Wrong. “In the 1960s, we were full of naive enthusiasm that love could conquer all,” he says in the film. “Here we are in a moment of time where all of that has been blown away, by a dark vision ... our part is to be on the side of the light.”


In 2005, Mr Glaser and Mr Ilic put together a book of protest posters entitled Design of Dissent: Socially and Politically Driven Graphics.

The book addressed communism, Palestine/Israel, the Iraq war, peace, media, religion and more. In conjunction with the book the duo held an exhibition of the material at New York University’s School of Visual Arts, where both remain faculty members.

By 2008 Design of Dissent had been translated into several languages and the related show had run in several American cities, including Boston, where visitors included Muneera Spence, the chair of VCU-Q’s graphic design department. Impressed to see “graphic design in a new light,” as she put it, Ms Spence brought Design of Dissent to Doha.

Mr Ilic noted the host country’s diversity, particularly in Education City. “All these people from around the world, that exchange of ideas can only be a plus for young people,” he said.

On opening night, scores of students, professors and locals strolled through the gallery, sipping tea, nibbling biscuits and pausing to discuss the work on display.

One poster, called Blood Bath 2002, shows a tub filled with a deep red liquid beneath the words “Israel Palestine.” Another presents french fries shaped into a handgun, highlighting the health risks of fast food. In a third, George W Bush’s mouth is smeared with a dripping black liquid, above the question “Got oil?”

“We all understand a picture, an image, so this type of design can be very powerful,” said Reem al Hajri.

The 23-year-old Bahraini is studying fashion design and graphic design at VCU-Q. “In the West, this sort of work is accepted because it’s been done for a while.”

For Mr Ilic, Qatar’s position of strength carries with it responsibility. “Qatar is a wealthy and successful country, and the world can only survive if wealthy countries pay attention to those less fortunate,” he said. “This kind of show raises awareness about that. Its good for people to see that some other groups of people are less fortunate and may need help.”

Just across the Gulf, hundreds of thousands of Iranians have been protesting for greater freedoms for the better part of a year. Ms al Hajri sees this as one of the few examples of dissent in the region.

“There is some here, but not much,” she said. “Maybe we were paralysed, maybe we need something, education, to be taught how to do this sort of thing.”

By the time it closes on 7 March, this exhibition may do just that.

“This show opens our eyes to the world around us and to what people think,” said 22-year-old Qatari Maryam al Humaid, a graphic design student at VCU-Q. “It inspires me to design more about what I think and feel, and maybe a bit more about politics.”


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originally appeared in The National, www.thenational.ae

Qatar's cultural ambitions: take one

Doha // Khalifa al Maraikhi shoulders a heavy burden.

“Every nation has a culture,” said the director of Aqaribabzah, the first Qatari feature film. “As an artist, filmmaker or musician, it’s important to reflect this culture into your art.”

As Doha steps into the spotlight as the Arab Capital of Culture for 2010 – an Arab League and UN designation – its budding reputation as a cultural centre is at stake.

Previous recipients of the honour, including Damascus, Jerusalem and Algiers, have found the designation both opportunity and test for their nascent arts scenes.

In Qatar, dozens of artists, artisans and government officials have already prepared more than a hundred events, including music recitals, heritage festivals, calligraphy contests and art exhibits.

Mr al Maraikhi's Aqaribabzah ("Clockwise" in Arabic) might be the bellwether. Financed, produced and directed by Qataris, it represents the filmmaking ambitions of a country of some 250,000 people. It also highlights one of Qatar’s few native art forms.

The film, set in the 1930s, is based on the Gulf legend of three men who make a Faustian bargain with a djinn in exchange for the ability to become master fijiri singers. Although there are several different genres, fijiri music generally comprises a lead singer accompanied by a clapping, drum-playing chorus. The form originated more than a century ago among pearl divers of Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, and remains popular in the region.

At the same time, Aqaribabzah underscores Qatar’s cultural shortcomings. Five years ago, Mr al Maraikhi and a friend wrote a script based on the folk tale and passed the story on to a few acquaintances.

But with no film production studios in Qatar, nothing came of it until last January, when the country received the cultural capital honour.

Within weeks, the ministry of culture, arts and heritage approved the film with a 10 million rial (Dh10.1m) budget. “In the US and Europe there are production companies that invest in films,” said Mr al Maraikhi, 50. “Here we don’t have those – we need the government to help us.”

The film’s composer is Howard Shore, an American who scored the Martin Scorsese film The Aviator. The cinematographer, assistant director and crew are Bollywood veterans flown in from India. The lead actress, Maisa Magribi, is from Morocco.

The rest of the cast and crew are Qatari, but with little experience.

On the last day of shooting a few weeks ago, the director sidled up to his thobe-wearing leads after an unsatisfactory take. Using words and gestures, he explained his vision for the scene, returned to his chair behind a stack of monitors and shouted, “Action!”.

The room froze – except for the actors, whose faces expressed great fear as they cautiously descended into a cave marked by grotesque wall paintings.

“I’m getting tired of telling actors what to do,” said Mr al Maraikhi, whose Qatari cast has only worked on stage or on TV serials. “Film acting is different, every movement, every expression is important; we’ve had to teach them that. They started out a bit nervous, now they’re doing all right.”

Initially scheduled to hit theatres in March, Aqaribabzah’s release was pushed back to May, following post-production in Bangkok. The delay is due, in part, to Qatar’s lack of facilities.

“Everybody is talking about a film industry, but this requires studios, screenwriters, experienced actors, filmmakers and a market,” said Mr al Maraikhi, who studied filmmaking in Los Angeles before returning to Qatar in the 1990s to make short films and music videos. “We just don’t have film production experience here. What we have is maybe the beginning of a film movement.”

That movement would include the Doha Tribeca Film Festival, held here last November. As well as attracting large crowds, it may also have uncovered some young filmmaking talent.

That same week, the Qatari media group Alnoor Holdings launched a US$200 million (Dh740m) film fund that plans to partner as yet unnamed Hollywood players to make a dozen feature films over five years, starting with a $100m film about the life of Prophet Mohammed.

Although not widely known, Qatar has a budding music, art and poetry scene too, which the government has been trying to promote.

In poetry, Ali al Muri, a Qatari, has in recent weeks proved to be one of the more entertaining and successful contestants on the current season of the reality TV show, Million’s Poet.

A recent religious and cultural festival organised by the Fanar Islamic Centre included well-attended poetry recitals, along with calligraphy and other exhibitions.

In terms of music, the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra regularly performs classical and operatic pieces, and presented a programme of eight Puccini arias this past week. During Qatar’s National Day celebrations last month, dozens of fijiri musicians and singers performed at malls and parks across Doha. And the Qatar Foundation is set to open the Qatar Music Academy in September. Open to all nationalities, it will focus on Arab music, highlighting links to American jazz and European composition.

Regular art shows attract nationals and expats to small, chic galleries in Souq Waqif, a popular downtown Doha quarter remade into a traditional souq. In March, Sotheby’s opened a Doha office – its first in the Gulf. And before moving on to cities including Abu Dhabi, Amman, New York, Paris and Berlin, the Art Wanson Gallery last month launched the world tour of its exhibition Passion for Art at Doha’s Grand Hyatt Hotel.

“Doha is fast becoming a hub of art and culture and we want to be a part of the process,” said Mercedes Duerinckx, who owns the gallery, based in Marbella, Spain.

But it is the much-praised Museum of Islamic Art, which offers one of the region’s most dynamic collections of art and artifacts, that made Qatar’s name in international arts. The museum opened in January 2009 and is planning a host of exhibits and screenings in conjunction with the cultural capital title.

Qatari leaders acknowledge that Doha’s art scene does not build on tradition. Rather they intend to build a new foundation for art in the Qatari capital. “We are not buying culture, we are investing in culture,” said Abdullah Najjar, the chief executive of the Qatar Museums Authority. “It is something that will be seen by future generations as an important investment.”

Aqaribabzah is among the most high-profile of those investments.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” said Salah Darwish, one of the film’s leading stars.

The 57-year-old Qatari studied drama in Cairo and earned acting awards in Damascus but stopped performing 26 years ago because of a dearth of good roles. “There were no interesting stories, no good parts,” he said. “But this film could change everything.”

Mr al Maraikhi hopes to take Aqaribabzah to international festivals, and to make more movies in the future. But first he is looking to the film’s premiere, as part of Doha’s year as the Arab Capital of Culture.

“It’s a big deal, because you’ll have many people, many countries seeing what Qatar is doing at the moment,” he said. “We don’t expect to make millions out of this film, but we hope that people enjoy it.”



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originally published 15 Jan, 2010, in The National:
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100115/FOREIGN/701149898/1135

Doha's real estate sector stumbles

DOHA // A surplus of homes and the aftershocks of the global economic crisis are hammering prices for rental and residential properties across Doha.

In a recent survey from Century 21 Qatar, apartment rental prices in some areas of the city fell by 10 per cent last month. Rental and housing prices have dropped 20-60 per cent in the past 18 months, say several Doha property agents, even as similar scenarios play out in other GCC metros.

“The market is not good at all,” said P N Baburajan, a property agent who as worked in the sector in Doha for 20 years. “There used to be so many new companies coming in, from Dubai and UAE and Saudi Arabia, even the US and Europe, and bringing all those employees. But now companies have stopped coming – and some have reduced staff strength as well.”

Still, developments continue to rise. Work continues on The Pearl-Qatar, a series of high-end retail outlets and leafy residential neighbourhoods built on a man-made island twisting out into the Gulf like a string of pearls. Crowned with two luxury hotels, “smart” housing for more than 40,000 and a dozen kilometres of pristine beaches, it is the grandest property development in the history of Qatar and is set for completion in 2013.

In addition to The Pearl, Doha developers are building Al Wa’ab City, a US$3.2 billion (Dh11.75bn) family-oriented community development from Nasser Bin Khaled Holding; Lusail, a $5.5bn luxury waterfront city from Qatari Diar, with housing for 200,000, not far from The Pearl; and Barwa Village, a $500 million housing project to be completed in the coming months.

All this new housing will enter an already crowded market. In a report released last September, the Qatar Oman Investment Company found some 15,000 unoccupied apartments across Doha. More recently, Bank of America Securities-Merrill Lynch warned that by 2012, when Qatar’s gas-driven expansion has been completed, there will be limited need for labour in the non-oil economy. Expatriates may then leave Qatar in large numbers, resulting in a “significant overhang” of property.

Troubles in the property sector are not unique to Doha. Kuwait’s City of Silk has been halted in the planning stages, and Aldar Properties, Abu Dhabi’s largest developer, has put its plans for the project on hold. In style and scale, The Pearl is reminiscent of Dubai developments such as the Palm islands and The World, both of which were built by Nakheel. Nakheel is under the umbrella of the government-owned Dubai World, which recently began talks to restructure its debt repayments – due in part to an unstable property market.

Yet United Development, the company behind The Pearl, is fortunate to be building in Qatar, where abundant gas revenues have allowed the government to support developers and financial services firms in the downturn, buying portfolios and backing up loans. The Qatari economy is expected to grow nearly 15 per cent this year, among the world’s fastest.

This may explain The Pearl’s target demographic. One-bedroom homes – which include remote-controlled lighting and cooling, high-speed wireless internet, maid service, security and reception, and a health club with gym, jacuzzi and juice bar – retail for 1.5m Qatari rials (Dh1.5m). The Pearl says it has sold nearly two-thirds of its available properties, including all 450 villas.

“We have some interest,” said Georges Bou Abdallah, the sales and leasing team leader in Doha for the brokerage firm Asteco, referring to flats at The Pearl. “But there’s more interest in the secondary market, in resale.” Resale properties at The Pearl were going for about 1mn rials, he said, 25-30 per cent off their initial price.

Rental prices for apartments at The Pearl have dropped further. Units initially budgeted at 20,000 rials have come down to 10,000-11,000 rials. “We are getting inquiries, but mainly people are viewing and not renting,” said Mr Baburajan, who remained optimistic. “The market is slowly coming up. By the middle of 2010, the situation will be changed.”

United Development has faced delays in delivering some units, but after cutting costs and curbing expansion plans, expects to meet its deadlines. “Everything is more or less on schedule,” a representative said.

In Porto Arabia, residents have begun moving in to The Pearl’s first completed apartment building, while some 40 luxury outlets – including Armani, Coach, Balenciaga and Hermes – have opened on the promenade. In late afternoons and evenings, couples, families and friends stroll the boardwalk, stopping to chat over coffee, watch sidewalk performers and window shop.

“It’s been pretty slow,” said Amin Derriche, assistant manager of the Giorgio Armani store, which opened last February. “But we expected it to be like this. Business here won’t be like our European stores for another two to three years.”


--- originally appeared in The National, www.thenational.ae

A new urban paradigm in Doha

Doha // Tim Makower recalls the moment he and the Qatari first lady, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned, came up with the central theme for a government-backed, US$5.9billion (Dh21.6bn) plan to remake Doha’s city centre into a pedestrian-friendly urban idyll.

“We were discussing this whole issue of how can we bring Qatari families back into the city centre,” said Mr Makower, a partner with the UK-based Allies & Morrison and among the project’s lead architects. “We told her Highness we think we should be creating town houses, we should be clustering them around communal, private gardens and she said, ‘Oh, that’s a fereej’.”

By mingling modern architectural ideas with Qatari traditions, such as crossing the contemporary town house with the Gulf fereej, or courtyard village, “the Heart of Doha” aims to create a rooted yet original sensibility. “That’s a fundamental part of this,” said Mr Makower. “Learning from the past, reflecting the past, but doing it in a new way.”

Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani and his wife Sheikha Mozah first conceived the idea to rebuild central Doha around 2004. Within months they selected a 35-hectare downtown site and hired international architecture and design firms including Arup, Aecom (formerly Edaw) and Allies & Morrison to devise a master plan.

For more than three years, professors from Harvard, Yale, MIT, and the Aga Khan Professoriate of Islamic Architecture reviewed, challenged and finally approved the plan. After months of razing buildings to prepare the site, Heart of Doha’s official groundbreaking arrives later this month. Construction is to take place in five phases and should be completed in 2016.

In a quarter set between the Emiri Diwan, or ruler’s palace, and the recently rebuilt Souq Waqif, Heart of Doha will coalesce around two main thoroughfares: Kahraba, or “electricity” Street, which was Doha’s first high street, and the old wadi.

Computer renderings of the completed project offer a glimpse into an ultra-modern Gulf future: solid, stone-clad façades give way to secluded courtyard gardens; pretty shopping arcades lead to pleasant green plazas; and sleek streetcars glide past smart-looking residents strolling though compact neighbourhoods.

The development, an endowment for Qatar Foundation, is being managed by Dohaland, a Qatar Foundation subsidiary. To many involved, the Heart of Doha is not a simple construction project but a blueprint for contemporary urban living in Doha and beyond.

“The Heart of Doha aspires to regenerate the historic core of the city and to act as a stimulus for future wider city renaissance,” said Issa Mohannadi, executive director of Dohaland. “The ultimate objective, however, is to propose a new paradigm of architecture and planning for the cities of the Arabian Gulf.”

In creating that paradigm, Mr Makower and his fellow architects laid out seven key steps to create a Qatari architectural language. The first is timelessness, or linking Qatar's past to its present and its future. The second step is coherence. Rather than dominate and divide, the buildings, streets and spaces should link and build communities, as well as integrate with a vast underground infrastructure of roads, parking areas, and utilities.

A team of engineers, planners and architects, including Allies and Morrison, Porphyrios Associates, the Jordanian firm Dar Al Omran and Adjaye Associates, has had to set personal goals aside. “There are some disharmonies,” said Mr Makower. “It’s like a choir. We all want to sing different parts and hopefully it will work well together at the end.”

Another step focuses on building a home. “The home is very important because we are building the Qatari family back into the city centre,” said Mr Makower. The completed project includes housing for up to 10,000, including fereej-style town houses allocated to Qataris. These include a majlis and courtyard, but also a gym and underground parking.

The fifth step is the street. Unlike many urban settings in the Gulf, the Heart of Doha will welcome pedestrians with retail and store fronts, streetcars, open plazas and shade. Much of the vehicular traffic will be kept underground. “You will be able to cross the street without being run over,” said Mr Makower.

Most homes will be within walking distance of schools, shops, mosques and public spaces. But since Doha is too hot for street activity for much of the year, step six focuses on adapting to climate.

Most major streets run north-south to take advantage of Qatar’s northerly breezes. Buildings, some of which are certified by the environmental building standard LEED, are designed to keep sunlight out and to catch and scoop wind down into spaces. Many roofs have solar-panelled canopies that provide shade, create terraces and provide energy.

Even the grand civic space at the heart of the Heart of Doha incorporates concerns for climate, with a shading structure than can be raised and lowered to allow more or less sun in.

Barahat Al-Naseem Square, designed by Michel Mossessian, is an urban version of the majlis, with a carpeted floor and sides faced inward.

Though far from fruition, the project has drawn raves. “The plan and the architecture appear intelligent, restrained and distinctive,” the architecture critic of the Financial Times wrote in November.

He compared Heart of Doha favourably to regional efforts like the Burj Dubai and Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island and Masdar City. “If there is one scheme in the region to keep an eye on,” he wrote, “this is it.”


-- this story originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae)

Qatari father vents anger sentence given to son's killer

DOHA // After the killing of his 16-year-old son Mohammed in England, Abdulla al Majed vowed, “justice has to be done”. Some 16 months later that justice has come, but it is not the sort the grieving father envisioned.

The judge Anthony Scott-Gall last week sentenced George Austin, 22, from South London, to four and a half years in jail for the killing of Mohammed. Austin has been in police custody since November 2008. With more than a year of time served, plus a possible early release for good behaviour, he could be a free man by early 2011.

“I’m not happy, I’m angry,” said Mr al Majed. “The judge was very good, very fair – the fault is with the British justice system. Their penal code encourages killing because it does not punish harshly. What guarantee do we have that when he’s released he will not kill again?”

In the summer of 2008, Mohammed al Majed left Doha to study English at an international school in Hastings, England. A few days before he was due to complete his studies and return home, Mohammed was with a couple classmates outside a kebab shop. Austin and two of his friends, all of whom had been drinking alcohol, began harassing the foreign students with racist taunts.

Austin struck Mohammed in the face as the teenager tried to run away. Mohammed’s head slammed into a kerb. He suffered a fractured skull and a brain haemorrhage and died in hospital three days later.

Austin was convicted of manslaughter last month and sentenced on November 25. His attorney, Susan Rodham, argued that the killing “was not premeditated”, and that the head wounds were “indirect” and “not foreseeable”. The British newspaper The Observer termed the sentence “lenient”.


“He should have gotten either a death sentence or 25 years in jail,” Mr al Majed said. “Sharia says, ‘An eye for an eye.’”

In Qatar, such a killing would probably receive a harsher penalty. “The sentence would depend on many factors – including the age of the defendant, did the victim die immediately, the anger of the victim’s family – but it would certainly be more than this,” said Hanan Malaeb, a law professor at Qatar University.


George Austin received a four and a half year jail sentence for killing Mohammed al Majed Nigel Bowles for The National

She estimated the punishment could vary from the death penalty plus a “blood money” payment of up to 150,000 Qatari rials (Dh151,322) to the victim’s family, to a much smaller fine and a dozen years in jail. “If this happened to my son, I don’t think a few years would be enough,” Prof Malaeb added. “This would not give me the satisfaction that he got his punishment.”

Mohammed’s family remains unsatisfied. His mother, father and four siblings live together in Doha, and recall the 16-year-old who liked football and was a member of the Kashafa, or scouts.

“Still no days pass without shedding tears,” said Mr al Majed. “It still makes me too sad to remember him – I don’t like to think about it. All of his family is missing him. But now we are not only upset about losing him, we are upset about this sentence.”

Each year, about 40,000 foreign students study English in Hastings, an East Sussex town of about 85,000. Police say confrontations with locals are not uncommon. Just hours before the incident, the owner of the kebab shop had warned police about the potential for violence from Austin and his friends.

“This was the duty of the British government, but they have failed,” Mr al Majed said.

On Tuesday the killer’s mother, Jacqueline Austin, pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice. She helped her son flee the country to evade capture a month after the killing.

In sentencing Austin, the judge said: “What a sad indictment you are for the youth of Britain.”

The victim’s father puts the killing in context.

“We have respect for the British people,” said Mr al Majed. “But some like this George, they defame the country. They are a danger to their own society.”

Mr al Majed believes the scars left by Austin will be deep and lasting. “The Quran says: ‘To kill one man is to kill all of humanity,’” he said. “He has not just killed one person he has killed against a family and a nation.”


--- originally ran 4 Dec 2009 in The National (www.thenational.ae).

Young learn principles of print

DOHA // Erika Widén is thinking big. With her new initiative, the director of business development at Qatar’s leading English-language daily newspaper aims to rescue the country’s print media and help build a skilled workforce in the Gulf.

“Not too many people are interested in reading the news around here anymore – they are checking their BlackBerry, maybe getting Al Jazeera on their mobile,” she said at the offices of The Peninsula.

“We want to get these kids interested in reading, interested in the news, and also help them write. There are not a lot of opportunities like this for young people in this region.”

Ms Widén and the Peninsula editor-in-chief, Khalid Abdul Rahim al Sayed, have just launched the Young Peninsula Journalists (YPS) programme, a free journalism training scheme for middle and secondary students. YPJ hopes to engage citizens in news, impart valuable work skills and steer local youth towards a successful career.

On the first day of classes last weekend, the Peninsula offices bustled. Dozens of the programme’s 300 seven to 12th grade students mingled in the halls. Teenage girls in headscarves talked about photography on couches in the lobby. Adolescent boys discussed journalistic integrity. “Some papers are trying their best to cover the real news,” said 13-year-old Vignesh during class. “But some are just publishing news that is not there at all.”


Ethics and accuracy are among the topics of discussion, along with writing, reporting and various media-related concerns. The students come up with their own story ideas – on sport, society, arts, business and more – but are advised to focus on what’s happening in Qatar.

Starting in early January, a YPJ newspaper – with student reporting, photography, graphics and cartoons – will be inserted every Sunday into The Peninsula. The best student work will receive awards.

Over the year-long programme, the students will receive 60 hours of training in the job skills that are much needed in Qatar and across the region. In the UAE, a government body tasked with finding jobs for young Emirati nationals has found the private sector is willing to hire, but often cannot because of a lack of skills.

The Arab Labor Organization estimates unemployment at nearly 15 per cent in Arab countries – the highest for any region.Without intervention, the problem is likely to fester.

“The GCC will remain an unusually young part of the world,” said a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit called The GCC in 2020, which was released last week.

“Much will depend on the extent to which the young population can be harnessed as an effective labour force.”

That goal dovetails with one of YPJ’s lead sponsors. Silatech, an organisation created by Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned in 2008, engages public, private and civil society sectors to create jobs and opportunities for Arab youth.

“This helps young people inside Qatar that give back to Qatari society and enhance its growth,” said Ahmed Younis, director of strategic partnerships and communications at Silatech. “It’s important for the development and growth of the Middle East and North Africa region to be sure young people have a robust set of skills in journalism, public policy, and writing, and this is what we’re hoping to achieve.”

More than half of the YPJ students are Arab, 15 per cent to 20 per cent of whom are Qatari nationals. About 40 per cent are from South Asia, along with a handful of westerners. The initiative will also train 20 students with special needs from The Shaffallah School.

“This is the way the world works today, with people from all different places working together,” said Ms Widén, who put advertisements for the initiative in local Arabic and English-language newspapers. “We want all these different students to be integrated.”

Still, students will learn writing and interviewing skills, the role of a reporter and the value of news. The first class began with the basics – “What is Journalism?” – and ended with an assignment: write the five Ws (who, what, when, where, why) about a recent event.

The Palestinian triplets Yosra, Mohammad and Latifa, all 14, left class together, notebooks in hand. “We want to know more about newspapers, how they work,” said Latifa. She is doing her assignment on natural disasters, while her sister Yosra will focus on crime.

Their brother could not decide what to write about, then he brightened. “I know,” said Mohammad. “I’m going to write about the Algeria-Egypt football match.”


-- originally appeared Friday, 27 Nov 2009, in the National (www.thenational.ae).

Q & A Show's Value Beyond Debate

By David Lepeska

DOHA // During the question and answer session of this week’s Doha Debates, a Qatari student named Donna stood and asked one of the guest analysts a tough question about political trust, then pressed him to give an honest response. The exchange begged the question: why don’t we have many TV shows like this in the United States?

The thought seems revolutionary. The common wisdom is that it is Arab countries that lag behind, with poor education, little freedom of expression and a dearth of quality entertainment. There is some truth to these beliefs.

But consider that on American television this week, Oprah’s karaoke contest came down to three finalists, Tyra Banks, supermodel turned talk show host, wondered if you’d like to try The Tapeworm Diet, and The Jerry Springer Show asked the eternal question, “My Cousin’s Baby is Yours?”

Yes, US television has some intelligent programming, such as the Emmy-winning The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Charlie Rose on PBS. The BBC, which manages and broadcasts The Doha Debates, is a world leader in news and entertainment programming.

But The Doha Debates is financed entirely by the Qatar Foundation and the majority of its speakers and audience are of Arab origin. It is an Arab production, one that regularly hosts illuminating and often heated discussions on some of the most pressing topics of the day, including extremism, women’s rights and the occupation of Iraq.

It is also closing in on its 50th episode, and with its appeal to the region’s youth, it may be creating a new image of Arab intellectualism.

“In some ways the show has exceeded our expectations,” said the show’s host and founder, Tim Sebastian, who hosted the BBC’s HARDtalk interview show for decades.
The Doha Debates is the BBC’s most popular weekend programme, according to producer Tanya Sakzewski, and the show’s website is among its most visited. This week The Doha Debates rolled out an Arabic-language website, where episodes can be viewed with Arabic subtitles.

At least 2,000 Arab and Qatari students have attended debating classes at QatarDebate, a national debating society established in September 2007 in response to the show’s success. The Qatar Foundation recently launched an Arabic-language student debate show, Lakom Al Karar (“The Decision is Yours”) and Doha will be host to the World Schools Debate Championship in February. Debating clubs have sprung up not just in Doha, but in Saudi Arabia and at a Palestinian university.

This in a region with a rich intellectual history and tradition of debate that many -- especially in the West -- assume has been lost in today's more conservative societies.

“In a sense, this is a giant leap backwards – and that’s a good thing,” added Sebastian. “These young people are questioning, probing, arming themselves with good questions and being dogged about getting answers.”

This week’s motion,“this house trusts Iran not to build a nuclear bomb”, could hardly be more timely. The international community has been pressing Iran on a UN-brokered plan to swap its low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel. Iran agreed to the deal last month in Vienna but has wavered, hinting that it does not trust western negotiators to keep up their end of the bargain.

The opinions expressed were wide-ranging, belying the “Arab Street” myth of ideological uniformity that lingers in much of the West. “One of the surprising things is Arab diversity, in terms of opinion,” said Sebastian. “We used to be able to tell by dress how people would vote. Now we rarely have any idea.”

Iran and its nuclear ambitions have long been a grave concern in the Gulf. Arguing for the motion, Mr Marandi placed Iran’s nuclear energy programme in the broader framework of breaking the western monopoly on advanced research and technologies.

“We should question the motives of those countries who have and use nuclear weapons,” said Seyyed Mohammad Marandi, head of North American studies at the University of Tehran. “While Iran is the world’s biggest victim of WMD’s, it is very revealing that it has never produced chemical weapons, because Iran deems them immoral.”

An Egyptian student named Rama braved catcalls to voice a potentially controversial query: “How can we trust that any Supreme Leader, present or future, will not issue a fatwa saying it is a Muslim duty to nuke or attack any nation?”

Alireza Nourizadeh, director of the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies in London, argued against the motion. “How can you trust a government who kills its own people?” he asked.

“Where is your evidence?” asked Sebastian.

“I’m not going to disclose my evidence here,” said Mr Nourizadeh.

“Well then it doesn’t sound very credible, does it?” said Sebastian, earning titters from a studio audience made up mostly of local high school and university students.

That audience seemed to side with Mr Nourizadeh, as 52 per cent voted against the motion. But a Qatari student who voted in favour was unfazed. “I like how this reveals two sides to every question,” said Ahmed al Malik, 18. “We can express both sides, and understand the issues better.”

Sebastian saw the ground shifting.

“You’d be hard-pressed to walk down Oxford Street in London,” he said, “and find students that would rather go debate than spend the day shopping.”

-- edited version appeared in The National, 13 Nov 2009.