Qataris return majlis to its roots

DOHA // The majlis has played a central role in Arab society since pre-Islamic times, when groups of tribal elders would sit and discuss important community concerns and make decisions. In Qatar, though, the majlis in recent decades has become more of a simple social gathering or informal business meeting than an earnest consultation.

Now a handful of young Qatari men and women are returning this tradition to its roots, taking up urgent social and political issues and adding a dash of activism and diplomacy.

“There is a need to have serious discussion about some topics here in Qatar,” said Hamad al Ibrahim, 30, who, along with his brother, hosts a majlis where topics of debate have included freedom of speech, democracy and Islamism. “What we are trying to do is get people to think about their current situation.”

An Arabic term meaning “a place of sitting”, the majlis is an integral Ramadan tradition, in part because the Prophet Mohammed consulted regularly with an inner circle of friends and advisers.

In the centuries that followed, majlises spread across the Muslim world. Today it is the name for parliaments in Iran, the Maldives, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and other countries.

On any given day a dozen or so majlises take place across Qatar. Few are as open and thoughtful as the al Ibrahims’, which meets every Saturday and holds a monthly discussion on a pressing issue.


Guest speakers have included David Kerr, the former head of Sidra Medical Centre and now a healthcare adviser to the British prime minister, David Cameron, and Tim Sebastian, host of the BBC’s Doha Debates.

On a recent Saturday in a warm, carpeted space on the edge of Doha, a dozen Qataris and a few guests sat on couches set against walls covered with striped wallpaper. A visitor spoke of the floods in Pakistan: the displaced, the lethargic government response, the looming starvation.

At the majlis a week earlier, the al Ibrahims asked members for donations for Pakistani flood relief, to be handed in at the next majlis. In the first day they received commitments totalling 40,000 Qatari riyals (Dh40,360).

“This is the worst disaster in Pakistani history,” said Abdul Ghaffar Aziz, an official with Al Khidmat Foundation, the charitable arm of Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan’s oldest Islamic political party.

Al Khidmat is building camps for the displaced and providing food, clothing and medical attention. By the end of Mr al Ghaffar’s talk the majlis had raised more than 265,000 riyals.

“People really contributed generously,” said Mr al Ibrahim, who works as an analyst at Rand-Qatar Policy Institute. “It’s one of the things that we are proud we could achieve.”

Majlis members feel the same way. “This is good for Qataris,” said Jaber al Mosallam, 23, referring to the al Ibrahim majlis.

At his own family majlis, which Mr al Mosallam attends almost nightly, the talk is of business, football, the latest news. Some issues remain taboo. “It’s not that you’re scared of it, but it’s very difficult to talk about certain issues,” Mr al Mosallam, who works at Qatar Petroleum, said. “Honesty has a price.”

Maryah al Dafa is trying to do something good as well. Returning to Doha last year after getting her master’s in the United Kingdom, she launched what most believe is the first women’s majlis in Qatar.

“We needed a place to vent and talk about anything, from girly issues to politics and other topics,” said Ms al Dafa, 24, the daughter of a Qatari diplomat. Members of her majlis include a handful of US citizens and other westerners. For Ms al Dafa, the majlis is as much about cultural exchange as it is about expressing opinions and discussing life in Qatar.

“It’s comfortable but also critical – of everything, even ourselves,” she added. “Even if you don’t say anything you leave having heard three to four views on society in Qatar or politics in the United States.”

Such discussions represent a shift, according to Hiba Khodr. A visiting fellow at the Doha branch of the Brookings Institution in Washington, she has studied majlises in the Gulf.

“In Kuwait they are more organised, more involved in political discussions and policy making,” Ms Kodhr said, adding that in Kuwait there are several women’s and even mixed-gender diwaniyat, as they are called. In Bahrain, majlises are similarly open.

“Here [in Qatar] people don’t talk about these issues,” Ms Khodr said. “They simply don’t speak politics, at least not yet.”

This reluctance to talk politics is what inspired Ms al Dafa to carve out a space for real discussion. “There’s only, what, 300,000 Qataris, and most of them are apathetic about all this,” Ms al Dafa said. “I’m not a revolutionary, but it’s about being critical and constructive and making positive change.”

Many Qataris believe the country’s current leadership has allowed for greater openness. They point to mixed-gender higher learning at Education City and thoughtful public discussion on the Doha Debates. “The more educated people get, the more willing they are to break boundaries and express themselves,” Hassan al Ibrahim said.

His brother Hamad is hopeful that a new generation will be perfectly comfortable talking politics, free speech, and the direction of Islamic society in the modern world. For now, he just wants to get the ball rolling.

“In order to change people’s mentality it takes some time,” he said. “I think if we can replicate this in more majlises, it would be great.”


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originally appeared in the 10 Sept 2010 The National, www.thenational.ae

Glittering Gulf states' dark labor secret

By David Lepeska
Christian Science Monitor

Doha, Qatar: The rise of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf is a now-familiar tale. Tiny societies of pearl divers, coastal merchants, and nomadic Bedouin were transformed in the last half of the 20th century by oil and natural-gas wealth. Sparkling office towers and hotels sprang into the muggy air, the monarchs that rule these tiny emirates became bywords for financial excess, and newspapers described the region's economic "miracle."

Now, countries like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are seeking to polish all that glitter, spending hundreds of millions on universities in association with the likes of Harvard and on museums with organizations like France's famed Louvre.

But as they do so, one fact about their astonishing economic success has remained largely unchanged: The vast majority of the workers who have built these states are foreigners who are often exploited, rarely protected by local laws, and frequently return home after years of work as poor as when they got here. Promises have been made in recent years to protect the migrants, but labor advocates say millions are still being abused.

"It's breathtaking hypocrisy," says Azfar Khan, with the International Labor Organization (ILO). "They flout the most basic laws protecting the rights of workers."

Tiny Qatar is just one of the examples. The leading exporter of liquid natural gas is smaller than Connecticut, but state-funded Al Jazeera News is a powerful regional voice, and Education City, built in association with Georgetown, Northwestern, and four other US universities, is seen as a beacon of progress for the Arab world.

But not far from the futuristic campus, Rajan Sapkota and many like him are working in conditions that activists liken to indentured servitude.

The young Nepali shares a room with nine of his countrymen. More than 140 Nepali laborers have died in Qatar this year, according to the Safety Awareness Center, which tracks deaths among Nepalis. And in a country where the average wage for citizens is $83,000 per year, the world's highest, according to the International Monetary Fund, he is paid about 60 cents an hour.

Mr. Sapkota can't quit or leave as his boss has taken his passport. "Work here is not so good," said Sapkota, his eyes heavy-lidded after a 12-hour workday in 116-degree F. heat. "Sometimes we get tired and thirsty; it is very hot here."

So hot that leading Sunni cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi called for construction in Gulf states to be halted for Ramadan, the holy month during which Muslims fast in the daytime.

Because it is illegal in these countries to consume food or water in public during daylight hours during Ramadan, construction workers are compelled to fast, to a certain extent.

The number of expatriate workers in the Gulf has nearly doubled, from close to 9 million in 1990 to 17 million today. In Qatar and the UAE, foreign workers are more than 90 percent of the workforce.

In recent years, workers in Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE have protested conditions, with many complaints stemming from the system of kafallah: Foreign workers are sponsored by an employer and barred from changing jobs, leaving the country, or renting a home without his approval. A 2009 State Department report said the law leads to "forced labor activities and slave-like conditions."

Qatar has created the National Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons and boosted labor camp inspections. The UAE moved to improve conditions and Kuwait announced a reform of labor laws. Yet Kuwait's new minimum wage for laborers of about $209 per month excludes 500,000-plus domestic workers.

"Reforms often encounter stiff resistance from employers fearing higher costs and fewer entitlements, labor brokers profiting off a poorly regulated system, and government officials who view migrants as a security threat," Human Rights Watch wrote in May.

"We must ensure that the laws are enforced strictly and fairly," says Hasan al-Mohannadi, head of Qatar's Permanent Population Committee. Yet Qatari sponsors still hold workers' passports, despite a prohibition, and laborers regularly work more than the legal limit of 10 hours a day.

"The UAE and Qatar have definitely regressed," says the ILO's Mr. Khan.

For Nepalis in Qatar, the situation is bleak. Most take high-interest loans to pay a recruiter $2,000 for a visa and a job. For Bharat Bika, a father of four, his $216 monthly salary is inadequate. "It is so difficult to pay my loan," said Bika, who still owes more than $1,400 after a year. "I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do it."

Thousands of workers in the UAE have gone unpaid for six months or more because indebted employers fled the country. In Kuwait, activists say worker suicides are common. In Qatar, activists say deaths among the migrant Nepali workforce are rising. "They do not have enough doctors and the health care is extremely poor," said Radha Krishna Deo, president of the Safety Awareness Center.

Qatar says it plans to build three clinics and two health centers for male laborers. "They have health problems that are difficult to address and they impose problems with their huge demand on hospitals here," said Jamal Khanji, of the Supreme Council of Health.

Yet Qatar's progressive reputation may suffer as abuses continue and the worker population grows. "The world community has to bring pressure on the governments to redress the situation," said Khan. "You can only fool people so many times."

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originally ran in Sept 3, 2010, Christian Science Monitor, with photo:
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010/0906/The-glittering-Gulf-states-dark-labor-secret

Cultural exchange program smashes stereotypes on both sides of divide

By David Lepeska
The National, Aug 2010

DOHA // “Arabs are dangerous" -- that's what high-school pupil Leah Ogawa heard as her Arabic-language class was preparing for a spring break trip to the Gulf.

“Some kids in our school were saying ‘Be careful!’ when we were going to Qatar,” recalled Ms Ogawa, 17, a senior at Boston Arts Academy. “Because of 9/11, many people have negative images of Arabs.”

In the end, she had no reason to be nervous about meeting her Qatari counterparts. “They are so nice,” she said. “I got close to most of them.”

As the controversial leader of a proposed Islamic centre near where the World Trade Center once stood in New York City visits Doha on a US-backed diplomatic tour, the success of a less touted cultural exchange program highlights the possibility for smashing stereotypes and building bridges between the the West and the Arab world.

“I was expecting that they weren’t going to be open to us, but that was one of the shocking things I discovered there,” said Jawahar al Mal, 16, a senior at Al Bayam Independent Secondary School for Girls, referring to a Qatar Foundation International (QFI)-backed trip a couple dozen Qatari students took to the US last month. “They were very open to our religion, treating us like close friends, not the way the movies portray.”

Founded in Washington in 2007, QFI is one of only a handful of Gulf nonprofits based in the West. Others include the Mohammed bin Issa Foundation in London and the Washington-based Oasis Foundation.

Though independent, it is part of an effort by the Qatar Foundation, its main backer, to foster understanding and facilitate international collaboration through education, health, technology and community-service initiatives.

QFI’s main initiative is its Arabic-language and culture program, which supports Arabic courses in US high schools – providing funding for qualified teachers, books and computer labs, and developing an Arabic-language teacher-training program.

The course incorporates traditions, holidays, cuisine and bits of religion. “We started this with a bit of trepidation. We were not sure how well it would be received,” the QFI’s executive director, Maggie Salem, said in a recent interview.

The ongoing storm over the proposed Islamic community centre has some American politicians and commentators denouncing Muslims just as the centre’s leader, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, passes through the Gulf on a mission funded by the US State Department. He is in Qatar this week.

But the timing of QFI’s Arabic programme could hardly be better. The number of US college students studying in Arabic-speaking countries jumped six-fold from 2002 to 2007, according to the Institute of International Education.

“We’re fighting wars there, there’s a lot of interaction with the region that kids can’t ignore,” said Ms Salem. “We would love to create a generation of fluent 18-year-olds, but what we’d like even better is if they appreciated something about the richness of the people and the culture.”

They seem headed in the right direction. Students at Boston Arts Academy and Washington Latin High School shower praises on QFI’s Arabic language pilot programme, launched last year.

“The Arabic programme in my school was phenomenal,” said Damon Mallory, a recent graduate of Boston Arts Academy. His class saw the film Amreeka, went to an Arabia exhibit at a Boston museum and attended a concert by the Palestinian rap group DAM. “The more I engaged myself into this new culture,” he said, “I fell in love with it.”

His schoolmate had a similar experience. “The programme was amazing,” said Ms Ogawa. “I just enjoyed everything that we did.”

A highlight was the April trip to Qatar to meet students at their sister schools. “Meeting the Qataris was by far the best thing I have done,” said Mr Mallory. “I have made life-long friends, and even best friends.”

During the US students’ visit a Qatari teacher suggested a US trip for his students. Within a couple weeks, the QFI chairman, Sheikh Jassim bin Abdulazia al Thani, had approved the idea. By July, the Qatari students were on their way to the US.

The 10-day tour included visits to the American capital and the Nasa Space Center and a beach clean-up in Florida. But the Qataris most enjoyed spending time with American students. “If they wanted to ask us about anything, we answered them; if we wanted to ask them, we did,” said Essa al Malki, 15, a sophomore at Doha Independent School for Boys. “There was no boundaries between us. It was very comfortable.”

Mr Mallory and his new friend Fahad al Nahdi, a senior at Doha Independent School, hope to build on the connection established this summer. They are developing their own QFI initiative, an online network and social forum for students that aims to improve relations between cultures, starting with the Arab and American communities.

“Damon and I fell in love with what QFI was doing and wanted to get involved,” said Mr al Nahdi. After receiving approval from QFI, they submitted their idea – called QFI Step-Up – to the Clinton Global Initiative for funding.

“We believe that it is important to display to the world how alike we are,” said Mr Mallory, “as opposed to how the media present us to each other.”



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edited version ran in the 27 Aug 2010 The National ( www.thenational.ae)

Dongria Dodge Vedanta Dig

Great news from India this week, where Environmental Minister Jairam Ramesh rejected the planned alumina mine of London-based mining giant Vedanta resources on the basis that it represented an existential threat to the local Dongria Kondh tribe.

Activists and journalists have been saying as much for years, including yours truly -- here's a story I wrote about the the Dongria's love for Niyamgiri just over a year ago.

Ramesh's decision suggests that Delhi may be starting to realize that all development is not good development, and that major extraction projects like the Niyamgiri mine often lead to more recruits for the Maoists that have been waging a rebellion across the Indian heartland for decades, but with greater intensity of late. No surprise, however, to find that Congress is already using the Dongria victory for political mileage.

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

"Ground Zero mosque" imam readies for Gulf mission

Doha// The furore over a planned Islamic centre just blocks from Ground Zero in New York City mounted as the imam behind the proposal readies for a US-backed diplomatic mission to the Gulf.

As Feisal Abdul Rauf prepares to visit Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE on a State Department-sponsored trip, debate is raging in the US about whether he is moderate enough to explain American views of Islam to the world.

“This radical is a terrible choice to be one of the faces of our country overseas,” two Republican Party members of Congress, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Peter King of New York, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Mr Rauf’s speaking tour was planned before the proposed Islamic centre controversy erupted. It was organised as part of the President Barack Obama’s effort to improve America’s relations with the Muslim world.

Officials at the US State Department have lauded the imam’s record of moderation, noting that he has participated in two previous diplomatic tours, including one during the administration of George W Bush. PJ Crowley, a State Department spokesman, said Mr Rauf would “discuss Muslim life in America and promote religious tolerance” during the visit. Exact dates and venues have not been announced.

The controversy erupted in May when the proposed $120 million (Dh440.7m) Islamic cultural centre, to be located three blocks from the site of the felled World Trade Center towers, received approval from a local community board. In addition to a domed prayer space, the facility is to include a 500-seat theatre, culinary school, swimming pool, library and art studios.

Opponents of the complex complain that it is a symbolic victory for the September 11 hijackers.

Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the US House of Representatives, has compared supporters of the facility to Nazis. The Anti-Defamation League, which says it fights “anti-Semitism and all former of bigotry”, worries the mosque “will cause some [9/11] victims more pain”.

Proponents point out that Mr Rauf, who holds a physics degree from Columbia University, is a follower of the moderate Sufi form of Islam and has a reputation for attempting to build interfaith ties with Christian and Jewish groups. He also set up the Cordoba Initiative in 2004 to improve western relations with the Islamic world.

Calling it a “weapon of mass construction”, talk show host Stephen Colbert lampooned the politically conservative perspective, saying, “Every permit granted to a mosque is one denied to an American house of worship – a mall.”

Mr Rauf, who has been barred by the State Department from using government-funded travel to solicit financial support for the project, has said he sees the planned mosque as a way “to amplify the moderate voices that reject terrorism and seek mutual understanding and respect with all faiths”.

Mr Obama voiced support for the mosque project during the annual White House Ramadan dinner on Aug 11. A week earlier, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg delivered a speech in support of Mr Rauf’s plan.

The president later clarified his comments, suggesting that while Muslims have the right to build a house of worship, it did not mean that building a mosque near Ground Zero was the right thing to do.

Abdulaziz Al Mohannadi, an engineering student at Texas A&M University-Qatar, thought Mr Rauf might be able to provide an answer to a nagging question for many Gulf natives: what do Americans think of Muslims and Islam?

“When we think of America we only get ideas from the media, from news and the movies,” he said. “To have a true Muslim-American come to us and explain how Americans see Muslims, how they interpret us in their country, that would be great.”


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originally ran in 19 August 2010 The National, www.thenational.ae

Qatar's extraordinary boom

DOHA // It's probably time to add Qatar to the list of great modern-day growth stories.

Its GDP and population have doubled since 2004, and as of June, there were 18,000 buildings under construction – more than one for every 100 people in the country.

Most of that construction is taking place in Doha, which has exploded from a population of 500,000 people in 2004 to 1.3 million today, blossoming from a small, quiet burg to a buzzing, polyglot city of business, research and progressive thinking.

“The rate of growth in Doha is nothing short of extraordinary,” said Robert Puentes, an urban growth analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington, adding that no major American city had ever grown at this pace.

Labourers, scientists, academics, designers and financiers have come knocking. According to the World Population Bureau, Qatar’s net migration rate of nearly 10 per cent is nearly double those of its nearest competitors – Bahrain, Singapore and the UAE.

As its natural-gas fuelled economy zips along – one of the world’s fastest growing at an estimated growth rate of 16 per cent this year – the good times are likely to continue for Qatar.


“Its incredible, but it’s expected in Qatar,” said Hatem Samman, the head of Booz & Company’s Ideation Centre, a thinktank based in Dubai.

“The trend for Qatar is headed in the right direction, given that there is economic and population growth to rival any country in the world,” he said.

Masraf al Rayan, a financial analyst, estimates Qatar’s population will reach 2 million by 2013, which means Doha will grow by an additional 20 per cent in the next three years.

This explains the capital’s construction boom, which includes a major airport, the US$20 billion (Dh73.45bn) Pearl Qatar residential and retail development, the $5.5bn Musheireb urban-renewal project downtown and the $14bn Lusail City residential and commercial waterfront development. The number of hotel rooms in Doha is set to double in the next two years even as new financial centres, exhibition facilities and housing complexes appear.

Landlords might argue the city has enough housing. The number of units has increased by nearly 150 per cent since 2004, outpacing the population boom. Doha has become a tenants’ market, with rents down 50 per cent or more in the past 18 months, including 11 per cent in the first quarter of this year, according to Asteco, the property advisory firm.

Ibrahim Ibrahim, an economic adviser to the Qatari government, expects economic expansion to slow by more than half in the next two years as major energy and infrastructure projects are completed and tens of thousands of labourers return home.

“Part of this new population will eventually leave, in the short term,” said Mr Samman. “But still many people are going to stay, maybe two thirds will stay and it should be fine.”

One government estimate has the country’s population growing as little as 500,000 by 2030.

Mr Puentes said, “Unless a comprehensive approach is taken to managing growth there is certainly a risk of overbuilding.” He spoke of the problems the vacation hotspot of Las Vegas and other American cities have faced because of a glut of housing in the economic downturn.

“There are more vacant homes for sale now than at any time in our nation’s history,” he said, referring to the US. “This is a problem because it can breed crime and disorder, and also accelerate a process of further disinvestment from certain neighbourhoods.”

He urged Qatari leaders to find a way to make vacant properties productive and also to be mindful of carbon reduction and the demands of climate change.

“The world economy is rapidly moving away from carbon-based fuels and towards new sources of energy,” he said.

For Qatar, this would mean altering construction and building methods, as in other countries, but also great economic diversification. This is not news to Qatari leaders.

Qatar’s domestic expansion is in line with its rising international profile. It is the world leader in exports of liquid natural gas, but it also wields the increasing reach and influence of al Jazeera TV and promotes peace, education and charity via diplomatic conferences and the Qatar Foundation.

Some might argue Doha has wrestled the title of world’s fastest growing city from Dubai. But Mr Puentes sees the regional centres as allies.

“A co-operative network would make sense,” he said. “They must remember that they operate in a global marketplace. Metros that are able to grow and attract globally-connected, high-value service firms can access, and benefit from, a worldwide array of customers, workers, and contracted services, ultimately boosting quality growth at home.”




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originally appeared in the 13 Aug 2010 The National.

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)

Building an art culture from the sand up

Doha// Call it the fourth power.

Along with diplomacy, media and sport, Qatar is promoting culture as another facet of its budding regional and international reach, and as part of a long-term plan to diversify its economy.

This small, wealthy emirate has in recent years organised successful negotiations on Darfur and Lebanon, built Al Jazeera into a leading global news source and, after hosting the Asian Games in 2006, is now bidding to host the 2022 World Cup.

Spearheading its cultural ambitions is the Qatar Museum Authority. The brainchild of Sheikha Mayassa, the US-educated, 26-year-old daughter of Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani and his second wife Sheikha Mozah bin Nasser al Missned, QMA was created in December 2005 to oversee the museums of Qatar, rediscover the country's national heritage and transform Doha into a regional arts hub.

“They see culture as a leading aspect of their vision for the growth and development of this country,” Roger Mandle, QMA executive director since July 2008, said in a recent interview.

Their flagship is the Museum of Islamic Art, a $1.6 billion, I.M. Pei-designed, cubist masterpiece set on its own island across from the skyscrapers of Doha's West Bay. The museum's 700-object collection is worth hundreds of millions and includes an amulet of Mughal ruler Shah Jahan and a 9th century white earthenware bowl from Iraq.

In the 18 months since it opened the museum has had more than half a million visitors, or nearly a third of the country's total population. Half of them have been Qatari. “We've established a very high level of quality and expectations,” said Mr Mandle. “Out of that is a challenge, in that every building we build has to be that good or better.”

Up next is the Qatar National Museum, set to begin construction later this year. Designed by another Pritzker-winning architect, Jean Nouvel, the building reflects a strong sense of place: its shape mimics that of a desert rose, small, naturally occurring formations of gypsum found in arid deserts.

When the museum opens in 2013, interactive displays will detail Qatar's history, geology, and cultural life, from Bedouin times to seafaring and pearl diving, and from contemporary Qatar to the near future. At 40,000 sq metres, it will be larger than the Museum of Islamic Art.

QMA is looking to build a dozen new museums and expand its cultural education efforts. There has been talk of photography and contemporary art museums, but plans have yet to be finalised.

With the future museum designs Mr Mandle hopes to move away from international names and nurture young local talent. “They're not limiting their search to exclude well-known architects,” said Mr Mandle. “But surely one of our responsibilities is to promote artists, architects and designers from this region.”

Qatar has some company on that score. Abu Dhabi is spending billions to create its own cultural mecca on Saadiyat Island, with four museums and a performing arts center. Local versions of the Louvre and the Guggenheim designed by Jean Nouvel and Frank Gehry, respectively, are set to open in 2013.

Wooing similar crowds, the two cities often appear headed in the same direction. Phillipe de Montebello, the former director of New York's Museum of Modern Art who is now a special adviser to New York University Abu Dhabi, has been in talks with Mr Mandle, an old friend, about contributing to QMA in some capacity.

And while Mr Mandle has often described his mission as “building a Smithsonian from the sand up,” the Smithsonian Institute, based in Washington, DC, is a key adviser to Abu Dhabi's Bedouin Heritage Museum.

Yet rather than competition, QMA sees opportunity. It has hosted two conferences for Gulf arts and cultural leaders. The most recent, held last month, was attended by cultural representatives from all GCC countries but Oman. “We've taken the initiative to invite our colleagues to discuss how we can work together, not how we're competing but how we can cooperate,” said Mr Mandle.

The group hopes to create a joint cultural calendar so events complement rather than collide and develop joint training and education programs.

“Anywhere in the world, you have the best result if people collaborate rather than compete,” said Antonia Carver, who has been working in the UAE art world for nearly a decade and will take over Art Dubai next month.

“There's a huge difference between Doha and Abu Dhabi,” she said. Doha has focused on heritage and Islamic art and uses the emir's family collections, says Ms Carver, while Abu Dhabi's museums reflect greater international influence.

She envisions Western tourists visiting museums in both Doha and Abu Dhabi on a single trip. “If they start to replicate then it's maybe self-defeating,” said Ms Carver.

One advantage Abu Dhabi might have over Doha is the proximity of major arts shows like Art Dubai and the Sharjah Bienniale. Still, despite the presence of highly regarded international universities like NYU and Carnegie Mellon, the two cities have few art schools, curators, writers and studios.

“Building a complex and beautiful building is nothing compared to connecting to the local population and building a vibrant arts community,” said Ms Carver. “That's infinitely more challenging.”


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originally ran in the July 2, National, www.thenational.ae

Education City gives Qataris second chance

Doha// Muneera Al Qahtani spent most of high school socializing and enjoying herself. She was a “screw-up,” she says, and her teachers told her she was unlikely to amount to much.

But she summoned the will to graduate, zipped through a preparatory program and now earns top marks in engineering at Texas A&M University-Qatar. When she has time, the 20-year-old visits Doha secondary schools, using her turn-around as inspiration.

“You may not be a great student in high school, but you can change and do well in university if you work for it,” she told the students of Al Bayan Independent School for Girls this week. “Basically if you plant a seed it will grow.”

Nearly a decade old, Education City recruitment efforts are starting to bear fruit – sparking greater local interest, drawing young women into engineering and shaping Qatari success stories.

Over-achievement may be in Ms Al Qahtani's blood. Her father, Saad Saeed Al-Qahtani, grew up in a Bedouin community outside Doha and worked as a shepherd for years. When learning the alphabet, he used charcoal for a pen and stones for paper.

At 25, he started attending night school at the sixth grade-level. He graduated at the top of his class, received a government scholarship and earned his law degree at age 38, in 1993. Today Mr Al Qahtani is chief prosecutor in the government Office of Public Prosecution and the father of 13 children.

One of Ms Al-Qahtani's older brothers is a judge, while two others have law degrees. Two sisters have engineering degrees and work for RasGas.

Yet Muneera appeared to be the black sheep. Throughout primary and secondary school she rarely opened a book. “I saw school as a place where I go and play and see my friends,” she said. “It was like a picnic all day long.”

The shift began toward the end of her junior year, when she chose science as her future major. Her teachers advised her against it because it might too difficult for her. “That is the moment that told me there is no one who can say what I can and cannot do,” she said.

Around that time came another push. “My father told me, 'Either you choose a pencil or a broom,' which is basically you go study or you become a maid,” she recalled. “He said if you want respect you should finish, and I wanted that respect.”

She graduated and went into Qatar Foundation's Academic Bridge Program, which prepares students to attend Education City universities. She asked questions in class, visited her professors during office hours and dedicated herself to learning English.

“I started rebuilding myself, letting go of my childish ways,” she said. She scored so well on her English as a Foreign Language exam that Texas A&M invited her to attend a special engineering course for top students.

Last month, she completed the second year of a four-year program in electrical and computer engineering, a major she chose because she likes math and physics and wants to build something that helps people communicate.

She has become so committed to her field of study that she watches Japanese anime to steep herself in the culture of the world leader in electronics.

“She's quite enthusiastic, very interested and everything is done on time,” said Dr Hussein Al Nuwiri. The head of the electrical and computer engineering program, he taught Ms Al-Qahtani's classes in digital system design and computer architecture. “She's like an ideal student.”

She's not alone. In the US, Canada and most western countries, about 18 percent of undergraduate engineering students are female. At Texas A&M-Qatar it's more than twice that, at 40 percent.

The result is an empowering environment for young women. Though she wears the niqab, Ms Al-Qahtani has the confidence to speak up for herself and lead group discussions. When she heard last November that an Education City outreach program planned to visit her old school, she asked to come along.

She spoke about her father, her struggles as a student and her future career. “I want them to know they can do whatever they want,” she said of the high school students. “And I added a little flavour about the money you make as an engineer – most people like to hear that stuff.”

At least one observer came away impressed. “When we're speaking they hear us, but not completely,” said Maha Al Thani, recruitment and outreach coordinator at Education City. “When Muneera is speaking everybody is quiet and listening and giving their full attention.”

Ms Al-Qahtani has since come along on several other school visits, including the one to Al Bayan on Thursday.

“I thought her presentation was really good,” said Loolwa, a Qatari and Al Bayan 11th grader. “I'm definitely interested in Education City, I think I'll go to Carnegie Mellon and study business.”

Mariam, an 11th grader from Egypt, earns top marks at Al Bayan and wants to study medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. “I would love to go there,” she said. “But I'm worried I won't get in because of the competition.”

Other girls asked about the co-educational system at Education City. They had never taken classes with boys and their parents were unsure it was a good idea. “Don't worry, the boys are not always flirting and throwing their numbers,” Ms Al-Qahtani said. “They are here to study, just like you.”

She plans to earn a master's degree in engineering, then return to work for Qatar Foundation, which is sponsoring her education. For Ms Al Qahtani, it's an organisation that understands that dress is not destiny and that everyone deserves a chance.

“Whatever you wear, it does not say who you are,” she said. “If you don't go after your future, you won't get any respect.”


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an edited version appeared in the 11 June 2010 National, www.thenational.ae

One organisation's efforts to bring orphans into the family

DOHA // Western-style adoption is prohibited within Islam, which allows only a guardianship that confers neither family name nor the legal status of a natural-born child. But Khaled Kamal wanted the orphans in his care to have the same rights and privileges that other children enjoy.

He made inquiries. He travelled the region. At a conference last month in Beirut, he secured a verbal fatwa from a leading Sunni scholar, Salman al Auda.

“He said it is no problem to give the child the family name, in Sharia it’s OK,” Mr Kamal, the general manager of the Qatar Orphan Foundation, said during an interview this week in his office. “You can’t imagine how important it is to be named according to the family.”

Since its creation three years ago by the Qatari First Lady Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, the Qatar Orphan Foundation, known as Dhreima after a violet flower that grows in harsh conditions, has steadily gathered steam.

Today its waiting list is growing, its average orphan stay is shrinking and its officials are working to broaden the concept of family and expand the fostering experience, traditionally seen as an important charitable act in the Muslim world.


“Yateem is a big thing in Islam,” said Mr Kamal, the Dhreima general manager, using the Arabic word for guardianship. “It helps you get to paradise.” The Prophet Mohammed said those who took care of orphaned children would be close to him in heaven, according to a well-known hadith.

But Sharia generally recognises only inheritance claims based on blood or marriage and does not allow full adoptions because they are considered relics of the pre-Islamic era of jiyaliyyah, or ignorance.

Thus Mr Kamal’s efforts to expand the concept of family. He said that the widely respected Doha-based scholar Youssef al Qaradawi had voiced a view similar to Sheikh al Auda’s. Dhreima is drafting documents for these scholars to sign into fatwa and hopes to institute the new policy by the end of the year.

If confirmed, this new stance would mark an uprecedented shift. “I do not see how such an opinion would be judged valid according to Islamic legal methodology as it would contradict the clear verses in the Qur’an concerning this very issue,” said Sheikh Musa Furber, a mufti who studied Islam for more than a dozen years in Damascus and Cairo and is now a researcher at the Tabah Foundation in Abu Dhabi. “Without seeing the actual text of these fatwa I cannot comment on their contents or evidence.”

Mr Kamal also hopes to help foster the passing down of family wealth via wasiya, or bequests, rather than meerat, or inheritance. But these proposals are in their early stages and still have to work their way through Islamic jurisprudence and various bureaucracies.

Meanwhile, Dhreima continues to assist Qatar’s most needy, focusing on four kinds of at-risk children: those with a mother but no father; those who have lost their father or both parents; the socially orphaned, which refers to financially incapable or broken homes; and finally babies whose parents are not known.

The first three, which represent the majority of children Dhreima works with, are supported with money, health care, rides to school and more. Only the last category can be fostered.

Dhreima’s facilities include three orphanages – one for newborns to seven years old, another for 7-18 year-old boys and a third for 7-18 year-old girls – and two guesthouses for those older than 18.

A key goal is integration. Dhreima’s in-house children attend normal government schools and regularly play with non-orphan children. If a local public school asks to bring their students for a visit, Mr Kamal refuses. “This is not a zoo where anybody can come to see them,” he said.

According to a Qatari law issued in 2007, police and other authorities are legally required to contact Dhreima whenever a newborn of unknown parentage is found or brought to them.

Origin is not an issue. “We don’t deal in colours, we don’t deal with income, language or religion,” said Mr Kamal. “We see orphans as human beings, and anyone within the borders of Qatar is accepted.”

Dhreima soon begins the search for a new home – such as that of Muna al Mutawa, who married in 1997 and learned over the ensuing years that she and her husband were unable to have children.

They heard about Dhreima in early 2008 and decided to apply to foster a child. Within a month they received a call that the orphanage had received a baby girl born two days prior – the same day Ms al Mutawa’s mother died.

She was one of five applicants for the newborn, but the others fell away in the rigorous screening process. The foster family must be Qatari nationals and include a mother and spouse (except in rare cases) between 25 and 45 years old. Dhreima visits the applicants’ homes and reviews family income and finances. Potential foster families also meet with a psychologist several times.

During Dhreima’s first year of operations, children stayed an average of four or five months before being placed, but now the average stay is a month or less. The last arrival was placed within 10 days. Now nearly a dozen families wait for the next orphan to arrive.

In May 2008, Ms al Mutawa took her baby girl, now named Reem, home for the first time. “Totally, completely, right away she was my baby,” she said, showing a photo of a smiling brown-eyed girl on her phone. “Now she is two years old, very naughty, very funny and very intelligent.”

Dhreima requires each foster couple to sign a contract committing to tell the child of its provenance. In the past, many families waited until high school or later to tell their children their family circumstance. “At that age, when they find out they are shocked and leave home,” said Mr Kamal, who advises foster parents to tell the child as soon as possible.

Ms al Mutawa plans to tell Reem soon. “It will happen in the coming months and years, Insh’allah,” she said. “But not until she gets a little older.”

Ms al Mutawa applauded Dhreima’s efforts to move towards full adoption. Her foster daughter is not a full Qatari citizen, like her and her husband, but rather a naturalised Qatari – a lesser standing that is reflected on passports and other official documents.

She hoped the passing on of the family name, if legally approved, would change that. “This would be great,” said Ms al Mutawa. “It was not possible when we adopted.”

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

Diplomacy works, so to speak

OHA // On a trip to Malaysia in 1989, Thabo Mbeki and his delegation from the African National Congress were forced to find new lodgings after the British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, refused to share her hotel with “terrorists”.

Yet South Africa’s apartheid leadership had already opened a dialogue with the ANC – the political party of resistance, which decades prior had a militant wing – one that would ultimately bring an end to more than four decades of racial segregation.

Mr Mbeki went on to become president of South Africa. “In the end,” he said, during his keynote speech at the Fifth Annual Al Jazeera Forum on Monday, “the regime understood that even if it continued to resist change, ultimately it saw the negotiations as the only way with which it could bargain for some share of power.”

That theme ran throughout the forum here this week: when a conflict bogs down, talks are often the best route to peace and a share of the spoils for all. The hard part is deciding when, how and with whom to parlay.

“We need to move away from the notion of whether to engage to what kind of engagement,” said Robert Malley, Middle East and North Africa programme director for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based conflict analyst. He urged the US to talk with supposedly unsavoury elements such as Hamas. “You can’t create peace by self-selecting those with whom you’ll engage.”


Discussion during the three-day event centered around some of the Muslim world’s most pressing problems, including Israel-Palestine and Afghanistan. A Monday session sought alternatives to the great tangle that is the peace process, but delivered mostly denunciations.

South African journalist and commentator Allister Sparks extended the parallels with his homeland, comparing Israel to the apartheid regime and the Palestinian territories to the camps where it kept South Africans from the black majority. “Like the bantustans, they are phoney homelands … used to deny them citizenship,” he said.

Steve Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank, attacked the other side. “It is staggering to see, despite the constraints around them, how badly the Palestinian leadership has done,” he said.

Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, was an equal-opportunity offender. He denounced Hamas for attacking civilians, said Israel’s international backers could be seen as supporting an occupation and called out the Arab world.

“Progress has been achieved neither by a charm offensive, such as the Arab Peace Initiative, or an offensive offensive,” he said.

A few possible solutions were presented. Mr Levy envisioned progressives from both sides uniting to create “a coalition, not even cooperation, but all rowing, perhaps, in the direction of 1967 de-occupation”.

Arguing that Palestinians have proven they will never give up their land, Basheer Nafi, a historian and Middle East analyst, said the one-state solution “offers the only genuine resolution to this conflict”.

Many felt that first the fighting had to cease. Ibrahim el Moussaoui, the head of Hizbollah’s media relations, said Hizbollah would not engage the US until it stopped supporting Israeli aggression.

Similarly, Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, a former Taliban foreign minister, saw the country’s upcoming peace jirga, concurrent with the launch of the US forces’ campaign in Kandahar, as problematic. “Just imagine I’m talking to you but at the same time your men are attacking my home,” he said in an interview on the sidelines of the forum. “This does not work – it has a negative psychological impact.”

Yet precedents abound. Oliver McTernan, the director of the conflict resolution consultancy Forward Thinking, said British officials were in direct contact with the Irish Republic Army throughout most of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Mark Perry, a US foreign affairs analyst, argued that negotiations with Sunnis intensified during the peak of violence in Iraq. “It wasn’t the surge that defeated the insurgents in Iraq, it was talking to them,” he said.

Sparks pointed again to South Africa. “If you wait until terrorists lay down their arms to begin negotiations, you’ll never get started.”

The United States refuses to negotiate directly with the Taliban, Hamas and Hizbollah, in part because it perceives them as terrorists, though others might call them freedom fighters.

Yet the Obama administration has voiced support for Afghan government negotiations with the Taliban. In February, the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, said: “We are talking to people.” That did not include direct contact with Taliban leaders because they had yet to renounce al Qa’eda, he said.

“The agenda of the Taliban is only a national agenda, not an international agenda,” Mr Muttawakil said during a panel discussing the issue of talking with the Taliban. The distinction distances the Taliban from other caliphate-seeking, pan-Islamist jihadi affiliates of al Qa’eda.

Last week, a Hamas official said the group wanted to establish “open and stable ties” with the United States. “The US and others, they give a distorted image of the resistance,” said Osama Hamdan, a spokesman for Hamas.

Several analysts urged the United States to alter its image of the Taliban and begin talks. The current US plan in Afghanistan is focused on peeling off and “reintegrating” moderate low- and mid-level soldiers in the hopes of weakening the Taliban’s negotiating position.

“Losers cannot be choosers,” said Hamid Gul, former head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency, referring to the US.

“This cannot be part of the solution,” Mr Muttawakil agreed. “There are no moderate or hardline Taliban, there is only one Taliban, under Mullah Omar, and they must talk to them.”

This may explain why gains have been minimal.

“Reintegration is not going particularly well,” said Robert Grenier, a consultant and former CIA station chief in Islamabad. “Momentum is building for some sort of political reconciliation that involves the leaders of the insurgency.”

Just last week, Taliban representatives and Afghan government delegates met in the Maldives. Mr Muttawakil dismissed these talks. “There’s a lot of money out there, and some are just using this as a business.”

To negotiate sincerely with Mullah Omar, Mr Muttawakil said, the US and Afghan governments must halt military operations, release Taliban detainees in Guantanamo and Bagram, remove the blacklist of Taliban to be captured or killed and allow the Taliban an office, an address where they can be reached.

“The Taliban don’t trust all these people,” he said. “They don’t believe all the talk.”
The Taliban might be willing to accept the Afghan constitution, which incorporates elements of Sharia. Key negotiating points would involve the system of governance and a timeline for the withdrawal of foreign troops.

“It is time to end this war,” said the former Taliban foreign minister.


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first ran in 28 May The National, www.thenational.ae

Gulf states getting jump on stem cell research

DOHA // “Countries today are not measured by their wealth,” said Dr Fathy Saoud, the president of Qatar Foundation, opening a stem cell forum hosted by Weill Cornell Medical College-Qatar on Monday. “They are measured by what they produce, including research and ideas.”

Among medical researchers, stem cells are hot. Leading scientists are closing in on breakthroughs and lauding the cells’ potential to treat, even cure, some of the world’s most serious medical problems, including cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

“Stem cells have opened new and broad horizons,” Mr Saoud said, promoting the foundation’s nascent research programmes. “This is a noble purpose and we all have to seek to achieve it.”

Stem cells are found in all multicellular organisms and are marked by an ability to differentiate into various cell types. Unlike adult stem cells, stem cells taken from an embryo are completely unspecialised and can develop into any kind of tissue – to treat a variety of ailments or even replace a failing liver or heart, in theory.

But the harvesting of such cells destroys the embryo, which some see as a human life. This is why the then-US president George W Bush banned funding for embryonic stem cell research in 2001. Research continued in the UK, Japan, China and France.


The following year, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa declaring the practice consistent with Shia Islam, kick-starting Iranian research. In 2003, Saudi scholars sanctioned the use of embryos for therapeutic and research purposes, further opening the gates for Muslim stem cell research.

Turkey, Egypt and Malaysia have since launched stem cell research initiatives.

But ethical questions linger. Last July, scientists at the UK’s Newcastle University were able to produce sperm from embryonic stem cells. Several scholars, including Hassan Mohammed al Marzouqi, a professor of Sharia at UAE University, denounced the practice as prohibited by Islamic law.

The 2003 fatwa by Saudi Arabia’s Fiqh Council of the Muslim World League allowed for the use and growth of stem cells for research if obtained from a permissible source, which includes the placenta or umbilical cord, embryos or foetuses that have been miscarried or aborted for medical reasons and leftover embryos from in vitro fertilisation.

Cloning and the use of any intentionally aborted embryos are haram, according to Ali Qaradaghi, a Sharia professor at Qatar University. “The Sharia verdict for stem cells is undoubtedly that preserving human life and human generations is the main aim,” he said during the forum. “Anything that achieves this objective in a way that does no harm is considered acceptable.”

Concerns about embryos may soon be irrelevant. Researchers in Japan, the UK and the US, where President Barack Obama overturned the Bush ban last year, have had some success genetically reprogramming adult stem cells to act like embryonic stem cells.

Such advancements are likely to boost the Gulf’s nascent programmes. The three-year old stem cell therapy programme at King Faisal Hospital in Riyadh has published several papers, filed a handful of patent applications and established a collaborative project with Harvard University.

Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid, the UAE Minister of Finance and Industry, has set up a Dh20 million (US$5.4m) institution in his name that focuses on genetics and stem cell research and presents major regional and international awards every other year.

In Doha, the Qatar Foundation is the nexus. The government-backed non-profit made its interest in stem cell research known in 2006, with a US$2.5m donation to support stem cell research at Rice University’s James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy in Texas.

The Qatar Foundation plans a stem cell laboratory within the $3billion Sidra Medical Centre, as well as a biomedical research institute that is slated for completion in 2014 and will include a genetics and stem cell unit. In addition, the foundation has held a series of workshops and partnered with Virgin Health Bank, which is set to open a stem cell storage facility in Doha by next spring.

“One of the main goals of the programme is to be oriented toward the Qatari population,” said Dr Jeremi Tabrizi, who leads stem cell research at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Leading medical challenges in Qatar and across the Gulf include diabetes, leukaemia and serious blood disorders – all potentially treatable with stem cell therapy. Weill Cornell Medical College has the core capabilities in place and has begun working on cancer stem cells, but is awaiting government policy and legislative decisions before working with embryonic stem cells.

“Stem cell research is one of the highest priorities of the emir and Qatar Foundation,” added Mr Tabrizi, speaking just after the forum. “All of us are expecting the science to grow here.”

Some analysts argue that Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar are mainly importing the talent and trademarks from abroad, not building indigenous capacity. But two doctors from Rice University’s James Baker Institute, which maintains its stem cell partnership with the Qatar Foundation, believe these programmes hold the potential to not just heal the sick, but also build diplomatic bridges.

“We conclude that the national governments of countries within the greater Middle East,” Jesse Flynn and Kristin Matthews write in the March 2010 Stem Cell Review, “have the unique opportunity to establish stem cell research policies which confer interoperability between nations to foster crucial international collaborations throughout the region.”


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originally ran in the National, www.thenational.ae

Detailed Gulf demographics coming soon

DOHA // A small army of enumerators took to the streets of Qatar and other Gulf countries a couple weeks ago, knocking on doors and asking each head of household a battery of questions about personal technology use, health, employment, residential status and more.

Armed with handheld computers, these foot soldiers in an unprecedented regionally synchronised census are helping compile a detailed and potentially invaluable portrait of Gulf demographics.

“For the longest time in the GCC, we have had this problem with planning; we always seem to be caught by surprise," said Hatem Samman, a Saudi national and director of the Ideation Centre, a Dubai-based think tank run by Booz and Co.

“Given that the GCC is heading towards economic union, they want to know the make-up of their populations,” he added. “It’s very important, very helpful to have data of all sorts, to know the characteristics of your people. You can respond to whatever factors that affect you.”

Of late, those factors have been considerable. The population of the GCC has increased nearly 45 per cent in the past decade and, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, is set to increase by an additional third within the next decade, tipping 53 million.

Qatar’s growth has been the most rapid. As of the end of March, the Qatar Statistics Authority estimated the country’s population at 1.68 million. If accurate, this would represent a 125 per cent increase from the most recent census – in 2004.

“Our country development moved very quickly,” said Hassan al Mohannadi, the director of the government’s permanent population committee. “We need frequently to readjust the levels of our development to cope with the surging needs.”

For the census, the QSA divided the country into more than 100 areas, each of which it then subdivided into a couple dozen blocks. In the past few months census takers gave every building in each of those blocks a number, then recorded the surnames and number of occupants in each unit and distributed pamphlets detailing the personal interviews to come.

Then they began knocking on doors and entering info into their specially programmed personal digital assistants. “If the enumerator tries to enter info that’s inconsistent, like a three-year-old female who is also a mother, it won’t allow him to do that,” said Mark Grice, a statistical expert from the United States who has been working with QSA for two years.

The survey includes questions about the number of wives and children, education and type of drinking water used.

“I have nothing to hide,” Rafik Boushlaka, a British national of Tunisian origin said after completing his census interview. He was standing outside the front door of his Doha home as his five-year-old daughter, Elaa, ducked under and out from his legs. “They will analyse the data and use it to make decisions. Any modern state needs information such as this.”

At the end of their shift, enumerators dump the data onto a desktop, which uploads it to a central server. As a result, preliminary data is available almost immediately. The entire census, from first phase to final results, is scheduled to take eight months.

Still there have been bumps in the road. One enumerator, Abdulaziz Abdulrahman, working in Doha’s Bin Mahmoud area, said residents are not home on the majority of his initial visits.

“I have to come back three, sometimes four, times,” he said, suggesting that the initial completion date of May 15 may not hold. “I don’t think even a month will be enough time to finish our work.”

Further, despite an official dictate mandating cooperation with the census, certain respondents have been less then forthcoming. “It’s been easy to get the information from foreigners,” said Naser Aideen Ahmed, a census inspector. “But the locals, sometimes they’re not telling us everything.”

Privacy of the family is a pillar of Qatari and Khaliji culture, so the withholding of some personal information may be understandable. Such hurdles are not unexpected.

“If anyone doing a census tells you there are no problems, they’re lying,” Mr Grice said. “But it’s nothing we can’t handle.”

Mr Grice said home absences had been built in to the census plan and that inquiries and complaints could be made online or to a census hotline.

Barring major delay, a wealth of detailed information on nearly the entire population of the Gulf should be available to the public by the end of the year. The joint 2010 census, with each Gulf country taking part and using the same questionnaire, is the realisation of a commitment made by Gulf leaders at a GCC summit in Muscat in 2001.

Saudi Arabia, Oman and Bahrain began surveying last week and Kuwait’s census is set to kick-off this month. The UAE scaled back its national census, which will now be done mostly at the federal level. But Abu Dhabi recently began recording the occupants of each residence, and will roll out the survey phase of its census in October.

Qatar plans to release its census data that same month, offering more than 130 tables and charts on its website. Ideally, businesses will use the data to move towards potential clients, developers will find and respond to the greatest housing needs and governments will provide better infrastructure and services, perhaps even before they are needed.

“This census will provide all of our various decision-makers with detailed information on demographic, economic, technological and social indicators, by block and by zone across the whole country,” Nasser al Mahdi, census director within the Qatar Statistics Authority, said in an interview. “This new data, inshallah, will inform and help them implement their plans in education, in health or any sector.”

Some of those plans are likely to embrace tradition. In the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait, nationals represent less than 30 per cent of the population. Depending on the data, results from the current census may exacerbate Gulf concerns about the eroding of national culture and identity.

This week, the Qatar government ordered all private schools to teach Qatari history, Islam and Arabic. The UAE has launched a major effort to increase the use of Arabic. Qatari officials have also nurtured the Musheireb project, a downtown development costing US$5.5 billion (Dh20bn) that incorporates traditional architectural and social elements, as well as the Museum of Islamic Art, which opened last year, and the coming National Museum of Qatar.

“There has been a lot of talk lately about the identity of nationals and the Arabic language and the effect on culture,” Mr Samman said. “What you have to do is stress certain aspects of your culture that you can promote, perhaps a linguistic policy, or local-oriented education and development.”



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originally appeared in the 7 May 2010, The National, www.thenational.ae

Where the streets may soon have names...

Doha // The directions for a recent party at the residence of Edward Noriega ran to nine sentences and included references to a furniture store, three roundabouts, two fast food restaurants, a Montessori school and a speed bump.

“It’s a nightmare telling people how to get to my apartment,” said Mr Noriega, an investment manager from New York who moved to Doha in December. “I’d much rather say 75 West 20th street.”

He may get his wish.

In Qatar, as in much of the Gulf, most streets have no name, postal services require PO boxes and residents identify their location via landmarks and other topographical points of reference.

But a decision by the Qatari cabinet last week empowers the Central Municipal Council to name all streets, avenues and public parks. The move should ultimately simplify party hosting, pizza delivery and parcel distribution and pave the way for a western-style addressing system throughout the country.

“Its all part of the desire to become a world-class city,” said Rami el Samahy, an architecture and urban design professor at Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar.

Prof el Samahy, who teaches a seminar on contemporary Middle Eastern cities, pointed out that the population of Doha is estimated to have doubled since 2004. The challenge now, he said, is "to make sense of it all.”

While the streets of Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman remain mostly nameless, Qatar’s initiative dovetails with addressing systems being considered or implemented in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Saudi Arabia.

The reasons for the trend are clear. Western expatriates see the lack of a street system – being made to draw a map on a delivery form, rather than write an address, is a popular reference – as a time-consuming throwback from the Middle Ages. Businesses suffer as a result of slow or failed parcel deliveries and daily trips to the post office to retrieve mail.

Taxi drivers suffer, too. “My dispatchers tell me backside, but it’s not backside – it’s beside,” said Daniel Ali Mukhtar, an Indonesian who has been driving a taxi in Doha for four years. “They give incorrect directions all the time.”

More seriously, firefighters and police often have to navigate unfamiliar areas to find their destination, inevitably putting lives at risk.

Yet addressing systems are time-consuming and expensive. The Abu Dhabi initiative is costing an estimated Dh200 million and completion is set for mid-2012. The Dubai programme, now on hold, is said to have been budgeted at Dh900m.

No estimate has been made for the Qatar initiative as it is still in its early stages. The ministry of municipal affairs and urban planning will soon create a street naming committee, comprised of representatives from the Supreme Education Council, the ministry of culture, arts, and heritage, the Public Works Authority and the private sector.

With help from the Central Municipal Council, that panel will build a list of thousands of possible street names appropriate for Qatari culture, history and geography. Finally, municipal constituencies will hold public hearings to review and approve the new names.

That’s just the first step. After naming more than 9,000 roadways, for instance, Abu Dhabi’s Department of Municipal Affairs, which is overseeing the address programme, must install uniform signage. It has hired the Australian Road Research Board Group to develop a street signs manual to determine where signs will be placed, their lettering, coloring and other specifics.

Qatar authorities have yet to decide how each building might be numbered and whether to adapt the postal system. “Are they going to deliver mail?” asked Prof el Samahy. “That could be a boon.”

In the end, the system may fail to take root. Prof el Samahy cited an address system in Caracas installed several years ago. Locals never learned the street names and the system fell out of use.

Juma Mubarak al Junaibi, the director general of Abu Dhabi Municipality, has acknowledged that the main challenge is getting the public to make use of the new system.

Indeed, navigation by landmark appears deeply ingrained into the Gulf psyche. More than two years into Saudi Arabia’s programme, which incorporates geographic co-ordinates and mail sorting systems that can read English and Arabic, businesses still use PO boxes and residents generally navigate by topographical references and large thoroughfares.

Most Abu Dhabi streets have had names or numbers for years, but locals generally prefer to use landmarks because the names are little-known. Doha, where some 10 per cent to 15 per cent of the streets have names, has a similar problem.

“If the customer gives us street names and numbers than it’s very, very difficult to find their place,” said Mohammad Shabab, the sales manager at the Garden Centre, a popular Doha flower shop. “But if he gives us landmarks and good directions than we are fine.”

Mr Mukhtar, the taxi driver, recalled incidents in which the use of a street name proved more difficult than topographical navigation. The transplanted New Yorker, meanwhile, felt confident.

“People are not used to addresses here, so there’s going to be a process of education,” said Mr Noriega. “In the end it’ll be a much safer, more efficient way to get from Point A to Point B.”



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an edited version ran in the 30 April 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)

Lone Qatari professor offers a woman's perspective

DOHA // After earning her doctorate in comparative literature from the University of London five years ago, Amal al Malki arrived at a career crossroads. She returned to Doha and came across an advertisement for professorial positions at Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar, which had just opened.

“I always planned to be a writer, a novelist, but I said I’m going to try for a year and see where I go from there,” she said. “It was only when I started teaching that I realised, ‘Oh, this is where I should be.’”

In late 2005, Prof al Malki accepted a full-time position at CMU-Q, becoming the first – and to this day, the only Qatari faculty member out of nearly 300 professors within the six American universities of Education City, the showpiece of Qatar’s higher educational system.

“It’s very prestigious and a privilege, but it’s a great responsibility,” she said. “I would like to model myself as a good example, someone who is educated, who is modern, who is tolerant and flexible.”

Born and raised in Doha, Prof al Malki earned her bachelor’s degree from Qatar University before heading to the UK for further studies. Upon accepting the job at CMU-Q, she received no local opposition, in part because Qatari women have a long history in research and education. That history is continued today by the Qatari first lady, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned, the chairwoman of the Qatar Foundation and the driving force behind Education City.


Prof al Malki's forthcoming book, The Veil in Arab Media, extends that legacy. For more than three years, she and several colleagues studied the portrayal of Arab women in English and Arabic language media.

Their findings suggest that Arabic language media portray Arab women as modern and active, while English-language media appears biased, extending stereotypes about the oppression of women in this part of the world.

“‘Any woman who is veiled is most probably oppressed by her religion or her culture,’” said Prof al Malki, parroting the western perspective. Her own view is that the hijab, which she wears, is rooted in religious custom, while the abaya is a cultural or tribal tradition.

“Their reduction of women into one single heterogeneous entity is wrong,” she explained. “There are other factors that determine who we are, it’s not just religion. Just being labelled a ‘Muslim woman’ reduces us, in a way.”

Prof al Malki, who recently married, believes Muslim women should be seen as equals to men in business, politics and society. She teaches a course on Islamic feminism, a movement that grounds its ideas about female equality in the Quran, which has predominantly been interpreted by male scholars.

“They are men, interpreting verses about women,” she said. “So each one would interpret reflecting his own prejudices and his era’s prejudices against women.”

This era is not free from those prejudices. Of 134 countries ranked in the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Gender Gap Report, which measures opportunity for women in health, politics, business and education, all 14 Arab countries included placed in the bottom 30.

Hissa Hilal, a Saudi mother and a poet, earned death threats for calling for greater freedoms for Arab women on the popular television show Million’s Poet. Many Arab women have a different perspective.

Last month, hundreds of Yemeni women marched in opposition to a proposed law banning child marriage. In Syria, an all-female Islamist group, Qubaysiyat, promotes piety and conservative Islam in its popular and well-funded schools, mosques and nurseries.

Prof al Malki sees progress in the Gulf – where Saudi Arabia is building a top-notch university for women and Kuwait recently elected its first female parliamentarian – but acknowledges that challenges remain. Even in Qatar, with Sheikha Mozah as a role model, young women have difficulty finding their way.

“Our female students are going through an identity crisis because they see western education in a very conservative, traditional setting and they don’t know how to negotiate between both,” Prof al Malki said. “There’s no need to be one or the other – there’s nothing wrong with being hybrid, being a fusion of different cultures.”

Prof al Malki hopes to draw more students, male and female, towards careers in higher education, and has spoken with the Qatar Foundation about creating a process to funnel more Qataris into teaching at Education City. But each American university there – Texas A&M, Georgetown, Carnegie-Mellon, Weill Cornell, Northwestern and Virginia Commonwealth – is responsible for hiring its own faculty, independent of the Qatar Foundation.

Robert Baxter, communications adviser for the Qatar Foundation, said: “We have chosen our university partners because they apply such high standards in all their activities. The young people currently passing through our universities are gaining an education upon which they can build an academic career, should they choose to do so.”

Prof al Malki is optimistic about Muslim youth, but she worries that too few young people in the Gulf appreciate their own culture and language. She hopes that, like her, they might learn from the West, take what they need and return home.

“It’s really nice to be modern and educated but you have to still have some grounding and know where you came from,” she said. “It would be really sad if we have a generation that has no history.”