DOHA // On a visit to Qatar this week, the US secretary of state Hillary Clinton met with the Qatari Emir, spoke at a conference on US engagement with the Muslim world and, during a discussion with students, said, “Iran is moving towards a military dictatorship”.
The next day, the Iranian frigate Bandar Abbas docked in Doha harbour and the head of the Qatari armed forces boarded the ship to chat with the captain about boosting military co-operation between the Gulf neighbours.
Considering that the US maintains two military bases here and that US-Iranian tensions have risen to a boil over the past fortnight, some might wonder if Qatar’s left hand knows what the right hand is doing. But for Qatari leaders, maintaining friendly relations with two sabre-rattling rivals is nothing new.
“This is their usual modus operandi,” said Mark Farha, professor of comparative and Middle East politics at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar.
“I don’t know if they have much of a choice; If they had snubbed Iran that would open them to a lot of difficulties, and the same with the US,” said Prof Farha, who analyses Qatari foreign policy in a research paper to be published this spring by the Center for International and Strategic Studies. “Qatar did not choose its delicate geopolitical location in the crosshairs of two behemoths.”
Along with considerable natural resource wealth, Qatar’s vital geostrategic locale has helped foster the defining characteristic of its international profile: an openness to dialogue and co-operation.
Prof Farha is well placed to study the phenomenon. He grew up in famously diplomatic Switzerland, his father is Lebanese-American and he earned a PhD in history, Middle East and religious studies at Harvard University. He speaks fluent English and Arabic, along with German and French.
In his forthcoming report, he links Qatar to small but influential states such as Switzerland and Singapore.
“These micro-states share numerous common traits,” writes Prof Farha, “including a limited size, high vulnerability to external shocks, diplomatic dexterity, a salient presence in conflict mediation, record numbers of imported migrant labor, export-led growth, as well as a drive to maintain an efficient infrastructure and a skilled human capital base in highly competitive economies.”
Moreover, all have matured into progressive and stable regional leaders and learnt to punch above their weight internationally.
The trio do have their differences. Switzerland is an established liberal democracy, while Singapore has a form of democracy. Although Qatar held municipal elections in 2007 and is scheduled to hold a legislative vote for Shura Council members in June, its government remains a monarchy.
In terms of economic development, too, Qatar lags behind. But because of a vast natural resource advantage – Qatar holds the world’s third-largest reserves of natural gas – the gap is closing. One example is Education City, managed by Qatari First Lady Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned’s Qatar Foundation and home to Gulf branches of six respected American universities.
“This type of opening up, it is really to the advantage of the host country,” said Prof Farha.
“Islamic civilisation itself, why did it flourish? It flourished because it was like a sponge, absorbing other cultures and integrating them into a new cultural model – and I think that’s what we have here: there’s a saying in Islam, ‘seek knowledge, even if you have to go as far as China’.”
Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has ventured far afield as well, making major purchases from London to Ho Chi Minh City. In recent weeks the Qatari government has announced US$2 billion (Dh7.3bn) in mostly infrastructural investments in India and $12bn in economic and cultural investments in Syria.
But as the tensions between Iran and the US increase, it is Qatar’s relationship with Syria’s closest ally, Iran, that bears watching.
The West looks increasingly likely to place sanctions on Iran. If those fail, the next step would perhaps be military action. Prof Farha advises the rivals to take a page from the Qatari playbook.
“The basic Qatari stance – no military escalation, no nuclear proliferation – is not bound to change,” said Prof Farha. “Of all actors, Qatar seems by far to be the most level-headed in this conflict. One can only hope that reason will prevail given that a war would be devastating for the vast majority of parties involved.”
Another analyst pointed out that the US Central Command centre and largest regional air force base are in Qatar.
“If there is any military showdown it won’t be long before these two bases are involved in the conflict,” said Riad Kahwaji, the founder and CEO of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, based in Dubai. “Qatar, like other Arab Gulf countries, would find themselves in the middle of any conflict, so it is in their interest to do all they can to get the situation resolved short of a military conflict.”
Prof Farha sees a historical parallel in Switzerland, which co-operated with both the allies and the axis powers during the Second World War. But Qatar has made its mark with engagement as well as peacemaking.
Over the past decade, Qatari leaders have burnished a reputation for diplomacy: from the 2008 Doha Agreement that ended Lebanon’s political crisis to the Doha Round of world trade talks; and from the Doha Debates to ongoing negotiations toward a political settlement in Darfur.
The Qatari identity has become intertwined with an openness to progress and dialogue, according to Prof Farha.
“It started with Sheikha Mozah and the emir and the prime minister, but they now have the support of their community,” said Prof Farha. “Each Gulf state wants to leave its mark, wants to distinguish itself from the other, and this is Qatar’s … If you’ve had one Sheikha Mozah now, you’ll have a whole string of them down the line.”
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originally appeared in 20 Feb The National, www.thenational.ae
2.20.2010
2.17.2010
Hillary busts out the "D" word on Iran
DOHA // The US secretary of state deployed the Obama administration’s harshest critique yet of Tehran yesterday, saying the country was growing into a military dictatorship.
“Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship – that is our view,” Hillary Clinton said during a town hall-style meeting with students at Education City here. She explained that any future sanctions against Iran would target “the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which we believe is in effect supplanting the government of Iran”.
As she visits the region to rally support for increasing pressure on Iran, Mrs Clinton’s rhetoric might mark the start of a tenser phase in the West’s nuclear stand-off with the Islamic Republic.
“It is very understandable that the US is expressing deep frustration,” said Hady Amr, director of Brookings Doha, the Qatar branch of a US think tank. “It’s no longer just about the nuclear programme; it’s also frustration with how the regime has responded to the aftermath of the elections.”
After Iran’s presidential elections in June, a mass uprising calling for votes to be recounted was forcibly silenced with beatings, arrests, detention and, in recent months, executions. The repression continued last week with the smothering of protests during anniversary celebrations of the Iranian Revolution.
That same day last week, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced that the country had successfully enriched uranium to a 20-per-cent level needed to fuel a medical research reactor. “The US is trying to signal,” Mr Amr added, “that it’s not really willing to wait a lot longer before it changes its policy.”
Yesterday, however, the director of Iran’s atomic energy organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi, said that the major world powers with which it is at loggerheads over the issue have made a new offer to Iran for a supply of nuclear fuel in return for its shipping out of most of its stocks of low-enriched uranium.
“After the decision by Iran to produce its own uranium enriched to 20 per cent, France, Russia and the United States presented a new proposal which we are in the process of considering,” Mr Salehi said, according to the ILNA news agency.
He gave no details of the new offer. France quickly denied yesterday that such an offer even existed.
Mrs Clinton is spearheading the Obama administration’s full-court press of the region this week, meeting with the leaders of Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Along with the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain, Qatar is one of four Gulf countries that accepted US missile-defence systems designed to shoot down short-range Iranian missiles.
“They worry about Iran’s intentions, they worry about whether Iran will be a good neighbour,” Mrs Clinton said. “The question is what can Iran do in order to allay the worries and the fears of its neighbours … and yet I don’t see much progress there.”
Beyond Iran, Mrs Clinton’s discussion topics with the students included US-Islam engagement and building a dialogue with Muslim youth. “We will not agree on everything. I don’t think any family agrees on everything,” Mrs Clinton said. “What I look for are ways that we can celebrate our differences but narrow our disagreements and find common cause.”
Some expressed doubts about the US ability to eradicate stereotypes and move beyond rancour. Mrs Clinton said it would be up to the next generation to bridge the divide. “The decisions that are made here at Education City and in my own country are really about what kind of future we will help provide for those of you who are students today. The education you are receiving here is absolutely critical. The important thing is not what you wear, but what’s in your head and your heart.”
Farah Pandith, the US state department’s first special representative to Muslim communities, who joined Mrs Clinton at Education City, highlighted the potential of today’s young Muslims.
“Every single day since 9/12, on the page of every magazine or newspaper around the world, you see Islam defined in a particular way,” Ms Pandith on Saturday at the US-Islamic World Forum, which concluded here yesterday. “This generation is having to navigate through that and understand what it means to be modern and Muslim – and also is really searching for a way to be connected.”
She urged businesses and foundations to invest in Muslim youth, to listen to their ideas and help them innovate and build partnerships. “New media are playing a gigantic role in what these young people are hearing,” said Ms Pandith, referring to them as the “social network generation”.
“There is really something going on right now with young people, and if we do not harness what is taking place with the youth demographic we will have missed this unbelievably important window.”
Amr Khaled, an Egyptian televangelist and one of the most influential Muslim voices, also worried about Muslim youth. He called on the United States to launch a “Project for Love”, and invest US$10 billion (Dh36.7bn) over five years on education, poverty and health in the Muslim world.
“America is fighting already wars against terror and injustice, why not a third?” Mr Khaled said. “Millions of Muslim youth will stretch out their hands to you.”
At a Sunday morning panel, the Malaysian opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, urged Barack Obama to engage smartly. “Yes, President Obama, engage with hope, but you must engage the aspirations of the whole people,” he said, pointing the inclusion of leaders, non-governmental organisations, intellectuals, Islamists and secularists. “Because if you miss some of them, you will have a continuation of this problem.”
-------
an edited version of this story appeared on page 1A of the 16 Feb edition of The National, www.thenational.ae
“Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship – that is our view,” Hillary Clinton said during a town hall-style meeting with students at Education City here. She explained that any future sanctions against Iran would target “the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which we believe is in effect supplanting the government of Iran”.
As she visits the region to rally support for increasing pressure on Iran, Mrs Clinton’s rhetoric might mark the start of a tenser phase in the West’s nuclear stand-off with the Islamic Republic.
“It is very understandable that the US is expressing deep frustration,” said Hady Amr, director of Brookings Doha, the Qatar branch of a US think tank. “It’s no longer just about the nuclear programme; it’s also frustration with how the regime has responded to the aftermath of the elections.”
After Iran’s presidential elections in June, a mass uprising calling for votes to be recounted was forcibly silenced with beatings, arrests, detention and, in recent months, executions. The repression continued last week with the smothering of protests during anniversary celebrations of the Iranian Revolution.
That same day last week, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced that the country had successfully enriched uranium to a 20-per-cent level needed to fuel a medical research reactor. “The US is trying to signal,” Mr Amr added, “that it’s not really willing to wait a lot longer before it changes its policy.”
Yesterday, however, the director of Iran’s atomic energy organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi, said that the major world powers with which it is at loggerheads over the issue have made a new offer to Iran for a supply of nuclear fuel in return for its shipping out of most of its stocks of low-enriched uranium.
“After the decision by Iran to produce its own uranium enriched to 20 per cent, France, Russia and the United States presented a new proposal which we are in the process of considering,” Mr Salehi said, according to the ILNA news agency.
He gave no details of the new offer. France quickly denied yesterday that such an offer even existed.
Mrs Clinton is spearheading the Obama administration’s full-court press of the region this week, meeting with the leaders of Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Along with the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain, Qatar is one of four Gulf countries that accepted US missile-defence systems designed to shoot down short-range Iranian missiles.
“They worry about Iran’s intentions, they worry about whether Iran will be a good neighbour,” Mrs Clinton said. “The question is what can Iran do in order to allay the worries and the fears of its neighbours … and yet I don’t see much progress there.”
Beyond Iran, Mrs Clinton’s discussion topics with the students included US-Islam engagement and building a dialogue with Muslim youth. “We will not agree on everything. I don’t think any family agrees on everything,” Mrs Clinton said. “What I look for are ways that we can celebrate our differences but narrow our disagreements and find common cause.”
Some expressed doubts about the US ability to eradicate stereotypes and move beyond rancour. Mrs Clinton said it would be up to the next generation to bridge the divide. “The decisions that are made here at Education City and in my own country are really about what kind of future we will help provide for those of you who are students today. The education you are receiving here is absolutely critical. The important thing is not what you wear, but what’s in your head and your heart.”
Farah Pandith, the US state department’s first special representative to Muslim communities, who joined Mrs Clinton at Education City, highlighted the potential of today’s young Muslims.
“Every single day since 9/12, on the page of every magazine or newspaper around the world, you see Islam defined in a particular way,” Ms Pandith on Saturday at the US-Islamic World Forum, which concluded here yesterday. “This generation is having to navigate through that and understand what it means to be modern and Muslim – and also is really searching for a way to be connected.”
She urged businesses and foundations to invest in Muslim youth, to listen to their ideas and help them innovate and build partnerships. “New media are playing a gigantic role in what these young people are hearing,” said Ms Pandith, referring to them as the “social network generation”.
“There is really something going on right now with young people, and if we do not harness what is taking place with the youth demographic we will have missed this unbelievably important window.”
Amr Khaled, an Egyptian televangelist and one of the most influential Muslim voices, also worried about Muslim youth. He called on the United States to launch a “Project for Love”, and invest US$10 billion (Dh36.7bn) over five years on education, poverty and health in the Muslim world.
“America is fighting already wars against terror and injustice, why not a third?” Mr Khaled said. “Millions of Muslim youth will stretch out their hands to you.”
At a Sunday morning panel, the Malaysian opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, urged Barack Obama to engage smartly. “Yes, President Obama, engage with hope, but you must engage the aspirations of the whole people,” he said, pointing the inclusion of leaders, non-governmental organisations, intellectuals, Islamists and secularists. “Because if you miss some of them, you will have a continuation of this problem.”
-------
an edited version of this story appeared on page 1A of the 16 Feb edition of The National, www.thenational.ae
2.13.2010
Doha drives home lesson in safety
Last summer, Nasser al Thani edited together a series of grisly crash images: cars split in two; front ends flattened; vehicles entwined, like pretzels. He added an operatic soundtrack and posted the video on YouTube in an effort, the Qatari said, “to raise awareness of road safety.”
More than six months later, the message may be getting through.
From Kuwait City to Muscat, the hazards of the road are real and growing. But they are particularly acute here in Qatar, which has seen traffic and serious road accidents mushroom in the past decade as Doha’s population has doubled.
For every 10,000 vehicles on Qatari roads today, seven people are killed in crashes each year – a rate nearly five times higher than most western nations (in Britain, 1.5 people are killed annually per 10,000 vehicles).
“If you look at traffic, this is a serious and fundamental problem that impacts safety, environment, and productivity,” said Dr Adnan Abu-Dayya, the executive director of the Qatar University Wireless Innovation Center (Quwic).
Qatari officials and business leaders have in recent months moved to stem the tide – importing outside analysts, launching major infrastructure projects, devising technological solutions and hosting instructional workshops.
A ride on the roadways of the Qatari capital is seen by many locals as equal parts frustration and trepidation. Many of Doha’s primary arteries are clogged for much of the day, and the Qatar International Safety Centre (QISC) said more than 100,000 accidents occur in Qatar each year, and that a person is seriously injured on Qatari roads every two hours.
To improve public safety, Qatari officials asked the advice of the US transportation department, which manages a system of more than 250,000km of roadways. Earlier this week, US Federal Highway Administration officials submitted a preliminary report on the state of Doha’s roadways. “Our mission here is not only preventing injuries on the country’s roads from vehicular accidents,” said Craig Alfred, a transportation safety specialist. “We are also focusing on how to save lives.”
The analysis included general comments on traffic and safety and recommendations on street parking, constructing motorway barriers and isolating industrial and other areas of heavy commercial traffic.
The report, a final version of which will come next week, also called for pedestrian protections, such as wider walkways and more footbridges.
“This was the biggest review we’ve had in regards to what we need to take care of,” said Jamal al Kaabi, the chairman of infrastructure affairs at the Public Works Authority (PWA). “We are definitely considering a lot of the issues they brought up, because safety is one of our top priority issues, especially in new roads and highways.”
To that end, the PWA is building fencing along all major highways to keep people from attempting to cross, and adding separated bike lanes to major new roads.
Two major infrastructure projects aim to further improve safety by decreasing congestion. Last week, the government announced plans last week for a six-lane tunnel that will run under Gulf waters from Doha’s new airport, opening in 2011, to the city’s densely populated West Bay. “We are still waiting for the final concept design,” said Mr al Kaabi, adding that the cost and start date remain unknown.
Last November, Qatari Diar announced a 300km, US$25 billion (Dh92bn) metro and light rail system, built in partnership with the German transportation company Deutsche Bahn, to begin construction across Doha next year.
A variety of smaller initiatives approach Qatar’s traffic and road safety problems from different angles. Quwic’s traffic monitoring system delivers real-time data to help drivers avoid the busiest routes. The University of Texas A&M at Qatar recently gave 40 engineers from the PWA a short course on traffic safety, highlighting the importance of road design and traffic light placement. Also on the Education City campus, designers at Virginia Commonwealth University-Qatar are studying the effectiveness of Qatar’s road signs and their ability to communicate their messages to drivers.
Despite all this attention, the precise level of danger drivers face on Qatari roads is unknown. “It’s very difficult to get good information,” said Mario Virgili, the director of road safety at QISC. “We can’t guarantee our figures are correct, given that the traffic police don’t provide the information we need.”
While the Qatari interior ministry reported 230 vehicular deaths in 2008, for example, the QISC estimates 346.
What is clear is that the majority of accidents result from a lack of awareness. A study by Qatar’s Emergency Medical Services found that the top reasons for road accident deaths were speeding and failure to wear seat belts, while the QISC said the majority of drivers involved in accidents are under 30 years of age.
More than six months later, the message may be getting through.
From Kuwait City to Muscat, the hazards of the road are real and growing. But they are particularly acute here in Qatar, which has seen traffic and serious road accidents mushroom in the past decade as Doha’s population has doubled.
For every 10,000 vehicles on Qatari roads today, seven people are killed in crashes each year – a rate nearly five times higher than most western nations (in Britain, 1.5 people are killed annually per 10,000 vehicles).
“If you look at traffic, this is a serious and fundamental problem that impacts safety, environment, and productivity,” said Dr Adnan Abu-Dayya, the executive director of the Qatar University Wireless Innovation Center (Quwic).
Qatari officials and business leaders have in recent months moved to stem the tide – importing outside analysts, launching major infrastructure projects, devising technological solutions and hosting instructional workshops.
A ride on the roadways of the Qatari capital is seen by many locals as equal parts frustration and trepidation. Many of Doha’s primary arteries are clogged for much of the day, and the Qatar International Safety Centre (QISC) said more than 100,000 accidents occur in Qatar each year, and that a person is seriously injured on Qatari roads every two hours.
To improve public safety, Qatari officials asked the advice of the US transportation department, which manages a system of more than 250,000km of roadways. Earlier this week, US Federal Highway Administration officials submitted a preliminary report on the state of Doha’s roadways. “Our mission here is not only preventing injuries on the country’s roads from vehicular accidents,” said Craig Alfred, a transportation safety specialist. “We are also focusing on how to save lives.”
The analysis included general comments on traffic and safety and recommendations on street parking, constructing motorway barriers and isolating industrial and other areas of heavy commercial traffic.
The report, a final version of which will come next week, also called for pedestrian protections, such as wider walkways and more footbridges.
“This was the biggest review we’ve had in regards to what we need to take care of,” said Jamal al Kaabi, the chairman of infrastructure affairs at the Public Works Authority (PWA). “We are definitely considering a lot of the issues they brought up, because safety is one of our top priority issues, especially in new roads and highways.”
To that end, the PWA is building fencing along all major highways to keep people from attempting to cross, and adding separated bike lanes to major new roads.
Two major infrastructure projects aim to further improve safety by decreasing congestion. Last week, the government announced plans last week for a six-lane tunnel that will run under Gulf waters from Doha’s new airport, opening in 2011, to the city’s densely populated West Bay. “We are still waiting for the final concept design,” said Mr al Kaabi, adding that the cost and start date remain unknown.
Last November, Qatari Diar announced a 300km, US$25 billion (Dh92bn) metro and light rail system, built in partnership with the German transportation company Deutsche Bahn, to begin construction across Doha next year.
A variety of smaller initiatives approach Qatar’s traffic and road safety problems from different angles. Quwic’s traffic monitoring system delivers real-time data to help drivers avoid the busiest routes. The University of Texas A&M at Qatar recently gave 40 engineers from the PWA a short course on traffic safety, highlighting the importance of road design and traffic light placement. Also on the Education City campus, designers at Virginia Commonwealth University-Qatar are studying the effectiveness of Qatar’s road signs and their ability to communicate their messages to drivers.
Despite all this attention, the precise level of danger drivers face on Qatari roads is unknown. “It’s very difficult to get good information,” said Mario Virgili, the director of road safety at QISC. “We can’t guarantee our figures are correct, given that the traffic police don’t provide the information we need.”
While the Qatari interior ministry reported 230 vehicular deaths in 2008, for example, the QISC estimates 346.
What is clear is that the majority of accidents result from a lack of awareness. A study by Qatar’s Emergency Medical Services found that the top reasons for road accident deaths were speeding and failure to wear seat belts, while the QISC said the majority of drivers involved in accidents are under 30 years of age.
Doha's young poets step into the ring
In the Arabian Peninsula of the sixth century, the emergence of a talented poet was an event, ensuring a tribe’s renown as well as its future posterity. Seven of the more revered poems from the era – collectively called the Mu’allaqat, or Suspended Odes – are said to have been written on tapestries and hung from the Kaaba, Mecca’s sacred cube, before the arrival of Islam.
As the setting for a youth poetry recitation contest, then, Aaqol Atrium – a broad, high-ceilinged space in the community centre of Doha’s Education City – seemed appropriate. The event, officially titled the Aspiring Youth Poetry Slam, had been organised by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing (BQFP), a non-profit subsidiary of the Qatar Foundation with a publishing arm managed by London-based Bloomsbury Publishing.
At the event’s 5pm start time, the room was all but empty, and the proffered coffee, juices, cakes and sandwiches sat untouched. But as the sinking sun’s rays filtered through the entrance, so too did a trickle of anxious poets and their guests. “I’m not staying here, go back,” a headscarved girl whispered to a friend, who then pushed the whisperer towards the front. “Come on, let’s not be shy,” said another girl, urging her friends to sit.
Outside, darkness fell. After a few introductory remarks by a BQFP staffer, the readings began. Gothic and purple verses flew.
“His image viciously tears the ideas in my mind,” intoned Walaa Quisay, a dimpled Egyptian student from the International School of Choueifat. “His eyes penetrate my corpse and contaminate the blood of my heart.”
Salima, a Northwestern University-Qatar freshman in skinny jeans, canvas trainers and a sky blue headscarf, furrowed her brow and tightly gripped the page from which she read – “So you’re tired of dreaming / And breathing / And looking for reasons to smile at the spotless sun” – then beamed at the audience’s burst of applause.
She was followed by Sundus Sardar, a Weill Cornell freshman and, to judge by her writing, a fan of Edgar Allen Poe. “Darkness rolling... churning... eyes blinking no more,” she began, punctuating each phrase with a pause, as if her poem, The Unheard Screams of Death, were stalking its listeners. “Existence burning... screaming... flesh feeling no more.”
At the end of the evening’s English-language portion, the poets stood in a line before the audience, which indicated its favourites with applause, then chose a finalist with a show of hands. Two high school girls tied for the top honour and were given some writing paraphernalia; all received praise and thanks.
“We chose poetry because it has a strong Arab foundation,” Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar, BQFP’s director of reading and writing development, said during a break in the readings. “It also offers a natural platform for youth involvement.” A couple of weeks ago, the organisation held a poetry contest over Twitter. Next month they’ll hold a competition for the best text message poems.
“We want to show people there is a lot of creativity in Doha, across nationalities, across age groups,” said Rajakumar, who hopes to improve the image of Arabs in the western world. “We also want to keep that connection to the language, that love of Arabic.”
After the break, the evening’s Arabic recitation commenced. “Qatar, the home of glory,” read Abdullah Saeed al Muraikhi, a 16-year-old student at Omar Iban al Khatab Prepatory School. “Qatar, the home of close friends. The country of glory that passed from father to son: Abu Meshaal, the symbol of our pride.”
Perhaps the evening’s most lively performance was delivered by Mohamed Saeed al Marri, a classmate of al Muraikhi’s, who arrived at the last minute, hurried onto the stage and launched into a passionate reading of his poem Shedding Tears.
“Your love is deep in my heart, not affected by blowing wind. The only thing that could wound me deeply was your abandoning me. I hoped to step in your way and shout, Damn your exaggerated pride, of position and reputation.”
The 16-year-old, who wore a bright white thobe and ghutra with his oral (the black ring that keeps the headscarf in place) at a jaunty angle, punctuated his phrases by peering heavenwards or gesturing with his left hand, which was wrapped with prayer beads. “For lovers, desertion is the ultimate. I will struggle to live without you, though it is so difficult. I have tried to control my tears but they help me by coming out.”
Later, as the half-filled room emptied, Mohamed spoke of his love for Gulf poetry, his support network of writers and readers, and his new-found confidence.
“You see how I come in late, things are a little crazy, but still it works out and I am able to read my poems and get things done,” he said in English. “Maybe this habit has given me a good strong persona. I feel like I can do anything I want – nothing is impossible.”
As the setting for a youth poetry recitation contest, then, Aaqol Atrium – a broad, high-ceilinged space in the community centre of Doha’s Education City – seemed appropriate. The event, officially titled the Aspiring Youth Poetry Slam, had been organised by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing (BQFP), a non-profit subsidiary of the Qatar Foundation with a publishing arm managed by London-based Bloomsbury Publishing.
At the event’s 5pm start time, the room was all but empty, and the proffered coffee, juices, cakes and sandwiches sat untouched. But as the sinking sun’s rays filtered through the entrance, so too did a trickle of anxious poets and their guests. “I’m not staying here, go back,” a headscarved girl whispered to a friend, who then pushed the whisperer towards the front. “Come on, let’s not be shy,” said another girl, urging her friends to sit.
Outside, darkness fell. After a few introductory remarks by a BQFP staffer, the readings began. Gothic and purple verses flew.
“His image viciously tears the ideas in my mind,” intoned Walaa Quisay, a dimpled Egyptian student from the International School of Choueifat. “His eyes penetrate my corpse and contaminate the blood of my heart.”
Salima, a Northwestern University-Qatar freshman in skinny jeans, canvas trainers and a sky blue headscarf, furrowed her brow and tightly gripped the page from which she read – “So you’re tired of dreaming / And breathing / And looking for reasons to smile at the spotless sun” – then beamed at the audience’s burst of applause.
She was followed by Sundus Sardar, a Weill Cornell freshman and, to judge by her writing, a fan of Edgar Allen Poe. “Darkness rolling... churning... eyes blinking no more,” she began, punctuating each phrase with a pause, as if her poem, The Unheard Screams of Death, were stalking its listeners. “Existence burning... screaming... flesh feeling no more.”
At the end of the evening’s English-language portion, the poets stood in a line before the audience, which indicated its favourites with applause, then chose a finalist with a show of hands. Two high school girls tied for the top honour and were given some writing paraphernalia; all received praise and thanks.
“We chose poetry because it has a strong Arab foundation,” Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar, BQFP’s director of reading and writing development, said during a break in the readings. “It also offers a natural platform for youth involvement.” A couple of weeks ago, the organisation held a poetry contest over Twitter. Next month they’ll hold a competition for the best text message poems.
“We want to show people there is a lot of creativity in Doha, across nationalities, across age groups,” said Rajakumar, who hopes to improve the image of Arabs in the western world. “We also want to keep that connection to the language, that love of Arabic.”
After the break, the evening’s Arabic recitation commenced. “Qatar, the home of glory,” read Abdullah Saeed al Muraikhi, a 16-year-old student at Omar Iban al Khatab Prepatory School. “Qatar, the home of close friends. The country of glory that passed from father to son: Abu Meshaal, the symbol of our pride.”
Perhaps the evening’s most lively performance was delivered by Mohamed Saeed al Marri, a classmate of al Muraikhi’s, who arrived at the last minute, hurried onto the stage and launched into a passionate reading of his poem Shedding Tears.
“Your love is deep in my heart, not affected by blowing wind. The only thing that could wound me deeply was your abandoning me. I hoped to step in your way and shout, Damn your exaggerated pride, of position and reputation.”
The 16-year-old, who wore a bright white thobe and ghutra with his oral (the black ring that keeps the headscarf in place) at a jaunty angle, punctuated his phrases by peering heavenwards or gesturing with his left hand, which was wrapped with prayer beads. “For lovers, desertion is the ultimate. I will struggle to live without you, though it is so difficult. I have tried to control my tears but they help me by coming out.”
Later, as the half-filled room emptied, Mohamed spoke of his love for Gulf poetry, his support network of writers and readers, and his new-found confidence.
“You see how I come in late, things are a little crazy, but still it works out and I am able to read my poems and get things done,” he said in English. “Maybe this habit has given me a good strong persona. I feel like I can do anything I want – nothing is impossible.”
2.06.2010
Doha design show with graphic point
DOHA // Mirko Ilic has worked with the graphic design legend Milton Glaser for years, served as the art director for Time magazine and the New York Times’ editorial pages and managed his own firm.
With more than three decades in design, he has come to appreciate the power of images, their ability to seduce and persuade, unsettle and motivate.
“We love to use graphic design to sell you products or corporate ideology,” the New York-based graphic designer said. “Sometimes designers decide they are still citizens of this world, and try to make this world a better place.”
A few dozen posters protesting against a variety of issues from around the world went on display on Wednesday as part of Virginia Commonwealth University-Qatar’s Design of Dissent exhibition -- the first showing of the exhibition outside of the US. Curated by Mr Ilic and Mr Glaser, the show presents a small but sharp visual sampler of international public discourse.
At the opening reception, Mr Ilic spoke of his respect for the medium and screened a film on the life and work of his friend and mentor.
The 80-year-old Mr Glaser was born and raised in the Bronx. He studied art at New York’s Cooper Union and in Bologna, Italy, before embarking on an unmatched career: making countless posters, book jackets, album covers and restaurant interiors that helped define modern branding; co-launching New York magazine; and creating the image I <3 N Y.
In recent years Mr Glaser has embraced the political, designing covers for The Nation, a leading liberal magazine, and making buttons that read, Facts not Fear, or W stands for Wrong. “In the 1960s, we were full of naive enthusiasm that love could conquer all,” he says in the film. “Here we are in a moment of time where all of that has been blown away, by a dark vision ... our part is to be on the side of the light.”
In 2005, Mr Glaser and Mr Ilic put together a book of protest posters entitled Design of Dissent: Socially and Politically Driven Graphics.
The book addressed communism, Palestine/Israel, the Iraq war, peace, media, religion and more. In conjunction with the book the duo held an exhibition of the material at New York University’s School of Visual Arts, where both remain faculty members.
By 2008 Design of Dissent had been translated into several languages and the related show had run in several American cities, including Boston, where visitors included Muneera Spence, the chair of VCU-Q’s graphic design department. Impressed to see “graphic design in a new light,” as she put it, Ms Spence brought Design of Dissent to Doha.
Mr Ilic noted the host country’s diversity, particularly in Education City. “All these people from around the world, that exchange of ideas can only be a plus for young people,” he said.
On opening night, scores of students, professors and locals strolled through the gallery, sipping tea, nibbling biscuits and pausing to discuss the work on display.
One poster, called Blood Bath 2002, shows a tub filled with a deep red liquid beneath the words “Israel Palestine.” Another presents french fries shaped into a handgun, highlighting the health risks of fast food. In a third, George W Bush’s mouth is smeared with a dripping black liquid, above the question “Got oil?”
“We all understand a picture, an image, so this type of design can be very powerful,” said Reem al Hajri.
The 23-year-old Bahraini is studying fashion design and graphic design at VCU-Q. “In the West, this sort of work is accepted because it’s been done for a while.”
For Mr Ilic, Qatar’s position of strength carries with it responsibility. “Qatar is a wealthy and successful country, and the world can only survive if wealthy countries pay attention to those less fortunate,” he said. “This kind of show raises awareness about that. Its good for people to see that some other groups of people are less fortunate and may need help.”
Just across the Gulf, hundreds of thousands of Iranians have been protesting for greater freedoms for the better part of a year. Ms al Hajri sees this as one of the few examples of dissent in the region.
“There is some here, but not much,” she said. “Maybe we were paralysed, maybe we need something, education, to be taught how to do this sort of thing.”
By the time it closes on 7 March, this exhibition may do just that.
“This show opens our eyes to the world around us and to what people think,” said 22-year-old Qatari Maryam al Humaid, a graphic design student at VCU-Q. “It inspires me to design more about what I think and feel, and maybe a bit more about politics.”
----
originally appeared in The National, www.thenational.ae
With more than three decades in design, he has come to appreciate the power of images, their ability to seduce and persuade, unsettle and motivate.
“We love to use graphic design to sell you products or corporate ideology,” the New York-based graphic designer said. “Sometimes designers decide they are still citizens of this world, and try to make this world a better place.”
A few dozen posters protesting against a variety of issues from around the world went on display on Wednesday as part of Virginia Commonwealth University-Qatar’s Design of Dissent exhibition -- the first showing of the exhibition outside of the US. Curated by Mr Ilic and Mr Glaser, the show presents a small but sharp visual sampler of international public discourse.
At the opening reception, Mr Ilic spoke of his respect for the medium and screened a film on the life and work of his friend and mentor.
The 80-year-old Mr Glaser was born and raised in the Bronx. He studied art at New York’s Cooper Union and in Bologna, Italy, before embarking on an unmatched career: making countless posters, book jackets, album covers and restaurant interiors that helped define modern branding; co-launching New York magazine; and creating the image I <3 N Y.
In recent years Mr Glaser has embraced the political, designing covers for The Nation, a leading liberal magazine, and making buttons that read, Facts not Fear, or W stands for Wrong. “In the 1960s, we were full of naive enthusiasm that love could conquer all,” he says in the film. “Here we are in a moment of time where all of that has been blown away, by a dark vision ... our part is to be on the side of the light.”
In 2005, Mr Glaser and Mr Ilic put together a book of protest posters entitled Design of Dissent: Socially and Politically Driven Graphics.
The book addressed communism, Palestine/Israel, the Iraq war, peace, media, religion and more. In conjunction with the book the duo held an exhibition of the material at New York University’s School of Visual Arts, where both remain faculty members.
By 2008 Design of Dissent had been translated into several languages and the related show had run in several American cities, including Boston, where visitors included Muneera Spence, the chair of VCU-Q’s graphic design department. Impressed to see “graphic design in a new light,” as she put it, Ms Spence brought Design of Dissent to Doha.
Mr Ilic noted the host country’s diversity, particularly in Education City. “All these people from around the world, that exchange of ideas can only be a plus for young people,” he said.
On opening night, scores of students, professors and locals strolled through the gallery, sipping tea, nibbling biscuits and pausing to discuss the work on display.
One poster, called Blood Bath 2002, shows a tub filled with a deep red liquid beneath the words “Israel Palestine.” Another presents french fries shaped into a handgun, highlighting the health risks of fast food. In a third, George W Bush’s mouth is smeared with a dripping black liquid, above the question “Got oil?”
“We all understand a picture, an image, so this type of design can be very powerful,” said Reem al Hajri.
The 23-year-old Bahraini is studying fashion design and graphic design at VCU-Q. “In the West, this sort of work is accepted because it’s been done for a while.”
For Mr Ilic, Qatar’s position of strength carries with it responsibility. “Qatar is a wealthy and successful country, and the world can only survive if wealthy countries pay attention to those less fortunate,” he said. “This kind of show raises awareness about that. Its good for people to see that some other groups of people are less fortunate and may need help.”
Just across the Gulf, hundreds of thousands of Iranians have been protesting for greater freedoms for the better part of a year. Ms al Hajri sees this as one of the few examples of dissent in the region.
“There is some here, but not much,” she said. “Maybe we were paralysed, maybe we need something, education, to be taught how to do this sort of thing.”
By the time it closes on 7 March, this exhibition may do just that.
“This show opens our eyes to the world around us and to what people think,” said 22-year-old Qatari Maryam al Humaid, a graphic design student at VCU-Q. “It inspires me to design more about what I think and feel, and maybe a bit more about politics.”
----
originally appeared in The National, www.thenational.ae
2.02.2010
Doha meet aims to save endangered marine life
DOHA // It is not just depleted marine species like the bluefin tuna and hammerhead shark that will be in the spotlight at next month’s Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) here. Qatar and the Gulf are also set to receive well-deserved attention.
Until the late 1990s, the region saw heavy traffic in caviar, leathers and various birds of prey, according to Susan Lieberman, the director of international policy for the Pew Environment Group, the environmental arm of the US-based Pew Charitable Trusts. But a crackdown in recent years, particularly by the UAE, has transformed local enforcement.
“I’ve been working on Cites issues for 23 years,” said Ms Lieberman, “and it’s a pleasure to see how much the GCC countries have improved to the point of really being able to stand up and host a meeting and show themselves to the conservation world.”
The Doha meet is the 15th Cites gathering since the convention was first approved by 175 member states in 1975, but the first in the Middle East and North Africa region. The two-week conference to discuss the United Nations-backed treaty regulating international plant and animal trade begins on March 13.
Some 2,000 delegates from 170 countries will vote on 42 proposals on various plant and animal trade issues, involving polar bears, elephants, red coral, and a pet newt species the government of Iran is looking to regulate. A two-thirds majority is needed to pass the proposals, which must then be adopted by all member states.
One hot-button topic is the proposed ban on bluefin tuna, the source of the highest-grade sushi and sashimi. Cites is known mainly for protecting African gorillas and Asian tigers. Marine protections are a recent phenomenon, and if approved, the bluefin ban would be the first attempt to tackle a major commercial industry.
Last year the World Wildlife Fund said the bluefin, which can weigh up to 500kg and is fished mainly in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, could be extinct as early as 2012. Bluefin populations have declined more than 80 per cent since 1970, according to Pew.
As a result, the fish’s value has skyrocketed. In January, a single bluefin tuna sold for Dh650,000 in Tokyo. Japan consumes more than 40,000 tonnes of bluefin every year, and the price will continue to rise as long as the tuna population plummets.
An agreement signed last November prods governments to regulate their bluefin catch, but the Cites proposal, initiated by Monaco, aims to temporarily ban all trade. Scientists estimate five to 10 years for bluefin populations to recover, allowing trade to resume.
“We really have to put the brakes on it and let this fish recover,” said Ms Lieberman. “It will be an uphill battle; the chances are good, but there’s going to be opposition.”
The European Union has come close to supporting the ban, but the fishing nations Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Greece and Malta voiced opposition last autumn. In the past week, France and Italy have reversed their positions and come out in support of the ban. France’s total bluefin take is often the world’s highest. Along with backing from the UK and the US, European support may lead to the proposal’s adoption.
Several other proposals aim to regulate the shark trade. Some 73 million sharks are killed each year worldwide, primarily for shark fin soup, a Chinese delicacy served at weddings and banquets.
Hammerhead sharks, which are native to the Gulf and were added to the World Conservation Union’s endangered species list in 2008, are particularly desirable because their large fins create a thick, rich soup. A kilogram of their fins can sell for as much as Dh35,000 in China.
Their numbers have declined 99 per cent in the Mediterranean in the past two centuries, and significantly in the Gulf, in part because shark fishing is not regulated in international waters. “If you bought a ship and you want to go out fishing sharks on the high seas,” said Ms Lieberman, “there is no limit to how many you can kill.”
If adopted, the regulations would not set an absolute limit on shark catches, but force governments to scientifically certify the sustainability of their quota.
The environmental costs of bluefin or hammerhead extinction are not entirely clear, mainly because of scientists’ limited knowledge of deep-sea species. Catch quotas are often “guesswork,” according to Richard L Haedrich, an ocean biogeography professor at Memorial University in Canada.
What is clear is that the loss would be significant. “Every time the top predator is eliminated it throws off the entire balance of the ecosystem,” said Ms Lieberman, explaining that the absence of the apex predator often leads to a depletion of many species further down the food chain.
“People here are still very dependent on the sea for food,” she added. “Sharks are worth a lot more alive than in soup.”
---
originally published in The National, www.thenational.ae
Until the late 1990s, the region saw heavy traffic in caviar, leathers and various birds of prey, according to Susan Lieberman, the director of international policy for the Pew Environment Group, the environmental arm of the US-based Pew Charitable Trusts. But a crackdown in recent years, particularly by the UAE, has transformed local enforcement.
“I’ve been working on Cites issues for 23 years,” said Ms Lieberman, “and it’s a pleasure to see how much the GCC countries have improved to the point of really being able to stand up and host a meeting and show themselves to the conservation world.”
The Doha meet is the 15th Cites gathering since the convention was first approved by 175 member states in 1975, but the first in the Middle East and North Africa region. The two-week conference to discuss the United Nations-backed treaty regulating international plant and animal trade begins on March 13.
Some 2,000 delegates from 170 countries will vote on 42 proposals on various plant and animal trade issues, involving polar bears, elephants, red coral, and a pet newt species the government of Iran is looking to regulate. A two-thirds majority is needed to pass the proposals, which must then be adopted by all member states.
One hot-button topic is the proposed ban on bluefin tuna, the source of the highest-grade sushi and sashimi. Cites is known mainly for protecting African gorillas and Asian tigers. Marine protections are a recent phenomenon, and if approved, the bluefin ban would be the first attempt to tackle a major commercial industry.
Last year the World Wildlife Fund said the bluefin, which can weigh up to 500kg and is fished mainly in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, could be extinct as early as 2012. Bluefin populations have declined more than 80 per cent since 1970, according to Pew.
As a result, the fish’s value has skyrocketed. In January, a single bluefin tuna sold for Dh650,000 in Tokyo. Japan consumes more than 40,000 tonnes of bluefin every year, and the price will continue to rise as long as the tuna population plummets.
An agreement signed last November prods governments to regulate their bluefin catch, but the Cites proposal, initiated by Monaco, aims to temporarily ban all trade. Scientists estimate five to 10 years for bluefin populations to recover, allowing trade to resume.
“We really have to put the brakes on it and let this fish recover,” said Ms Lieberman. “It will be an uphill battle; the chances are good, but there’s going to be opposition.”
The European Union has come close to supporting the ban, but the fishing nations Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Greece and Malta voiced opposition last autumn. In the past week, France and Italy have reversed their positions and come out in support of the ban. France’s total bluefin take is often the world’s highest. Along with backing from the UK and the US, European support may lead to the proposal’s adoption.
Several other proposals aim to regulate the shark trade. Some 73 million sharks are killed each year worldwide, primarily for shark fin soup, a Chinese delicacy served at weddings and banquets.
Hammerhead sharks, which are native to the Gulf and were added to the World Conservation Union’s endangered species list in 2008, are particularly desirable because their large fins create a thick, rich soup. A kilogram of their fins can sell for as much as Dh35,000 in China.
Their numbers have declined 99 per cent in the Mediterranean in the past two centuries, and significantly in the Gulf, in part because shark fishing is not regulated in international waters. “If you bought a ship and you want to go out fishing sharks on the high seas,” said Ms Lieberman, “there is no limit to how many you can kill.”
If adopted, the regulations would not set an absolute limit on shark catches, but force governments to scientifically certify the sustainability of their quota.
The environmental costs of bluefin or hammerhead extinction are not entirely clear, mainly because of scientists’ limited knowledge of deep-sea species. Catch quotas are often “guesswork,” according to Richard L Haedrich, an ocean biogeography professor at Memorial University in Canada.
What is clear is that the loss would be significant. “Every time the top predator is eliminated it throws off the entire balance of the ecosystem,” said Ms Lieberman, explaining that the absence of the apex predator often leads to a depletion of many species further down the food chain.
“People here are still very dependent on the sea for food,” she added. “Sharks are worth a lot more alive than in soup.”
---
originally published in The National, www.thenational.ae
1.31.2010
Welcome to Mecca's playground
It's Friday prayer in Manama's Adliya neighborhood, and the voice of an angry imam blasts from the loudspeakers of nearby mosque. Looking to watch the Australian Open on TV, I hop into a cab and head north to a bar in Hoora. I pass on my destination to the driver, a Bahraini in traditional Gulf Arab dress of thobe and dishdasha, and we're off.
“Would you like to watch TV?” he asks. Well, sure, but whe....Now I see. There are screens on the back of the headrests in front of me, and another in the driver's center console, where the radio should be. He pushes a button and the bass blasts in stereo sound. Akon appears onscreen with Snoop and a gaggle of writhing hotties. “I wanna F**K you!” says Akon.
Does he get sports in this thing? I start fiddling with the buttons below the monitor, trying to change the channel. “It's a DVD!” he says, turning to smile at me.
I see. So this supposedly conservative Muslim cab driver is playing a DVD of raunchy hip hop and rap videos for his mainly Western clientele. Brilliant. Except that he's been sucked in: minutes later, while Shakira's hips are telling grave truths, his eyes dart back and forth between screens -- windshield, video, windshield, video. Somehow, we make it to our destination.
As I pay him, a question comes to mind: the videos might improve his tips, but considering Manama's unpredictable drivers, how long will the salad days last?
Later that afternoon I get into another cab and the driver offers some of Manama's earthly pleasures. “Would you like a woman?” he asks. “Very nice, you get everything – massage, shower.”
One thing's for sure: these are not Osama's Muslims.
“Would you like to watch TV?” he asks. Well, sure, but whe....Now I see. There are screens on the back of the headrests in front of me, and another in the driver's center console, where the radio should be. He pushes a button and the bass blasts in stereo sound. Akon appears onscreen with Snoop and a gaggle of writhing hotties. “I wanna F**K you!” says Akon.
Does he get sports in this thing? I start fiddling with the buttons below the monitor, trying to change the channel. “It's a DVD!” he says, turning to smile at me.
I see. So this supposedly conservative Muslim cab driver is playing a DVD of raunchy hip hop and rap videos for his mainly Western clientele. Brilliant. Except that he's been sucked in: minutes later, while Shakira's hips are telling grave truths, his eyes dart back and forth between screens -- windshield, video, windshield, video. Somehow, we make it to our destination.
As I pay him, a question comes to mind: the videos might improve his tips, but considering Manama's unpredictable drivers, how long will the salad days last?
Later that afternoon I get into another cab and the driver offers some of Manama's earthly pleasures. “Would you like a woman?” he asks. “Very nice, you get everything – massage, shower.”
One thing's for sure: these are not Osama's Muslims.
Qatar woos business travelers
DOHA // Planning a holiday? Qatar may not leap to mind.
“For leisure tourists, let’s be honest, we’re not quite ready,” said Sadeem al Mahmied, the head of marketing for Qatar Tourism Authority.
Instead, Qatari officials are aiming for organisers of conferences and exhibitions. “We have the facilities to host business events,” Ms al Mahmied said. “So we are trying to attract that segment, high-level travellers, business travellers.”
Because of its sizeable natural resources – Qatar has the world’s third largest reserves of natural gas – the country has been slower than such neighbours as Bahrain and the UAE in developing a tourism sector as part of its economic diversification.
Now it may be making up for lost time. Qatar is organising more than 180 major events this year, after hosting 80 last year.
Tourism revenue has grown at six per cent annually for the past few years, according to the tourism authority. Its focus is not mass tourism, but Mice tourism: a slice of the billion-dollar international meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions sector.
Hotel occupancy averaged about 70 per cent in 2008. But with the financial downturn and the swine flu scare, the number of visitors dipped last year. As tourism infrastructure improves, Qatari officials expect that trend to reverse.
Doha’s new US$5bn (Dh18bn) international airport opens next year. In 2012 the Doha Convention Centre and Towers will begin to host VIP gatherings in West Bay. And in the five years to follow a new port, a $25bn metro and light rail and a pedestrian-friendly downtown are all set to come online.
It is the National Convention Centre, to be opened next year, that has the Mice circuit drooling. The 177,000sq m facility has nine exhibition halls and 40,000sq m of exhibition space, a 4,000-seat theatre, a 2,300-seat auditorium and 57 meeting rooms. The roof will feature enough solar panels to provide one-eighth of the building’s power needs and the entire space is wired for internet connectivity and remote radio tracking of participants.
Designed by Arata Isozaki with an entry that looks like a sidra tree, the symbol of its backer, the Qatar Foundation, the centre will host the World Petroleum Congress in December next year.
To attract more such events, tourism officials leave for a European roadshow next month, stopping at conventions in Madrid, Milan, Paris and London. Next year they target Asia, and the following year the US market. Their campaign promotes Qatar’s strong infrastructure and leads with the slogan, “Experience 48 hours in Qatar: Your business is our pleasure.”
In 2009, Doha’s tourist infrastructure was bolstered by the addition of 2,000 hotel rooms last year. The city will add a further 2,500 rooms this year, from luxury brands including Kapinsky, Hilton and Shangri-La, bringing the total available rooms to 10,000. The tourism authority expects that number to nearly triple by 2012.
One project that will not be coming online anytime soon is Barwa al Khor’s Urjuan development. After beginning construction on the $10bn project, designed to hold nearly 25,000 homes and a luxury beachfront resort 40km north of Doha, work was indefinitely suspended in December.
Despite the focus on business travellers, Qatar holds some appeal for holidaymakers. Souq Waqif, a downtown Doha souk rebuilt to echo its ancient origins, presents narrow twisting alleys and dozens of shops offering ouds and North African drums, leather saddles, carpet bags and hunting falcons, each worth 100,000 rials.
Nearby, the stunning Museum of Islamic Art holds one of the most wide-ranging collections of Islamic art and artefacts in the world, including Syrian glassware, Quranic calligraphy and the white jade pendant that the Moghul emperor Shah Jahan wore after the death of his beloved, Mumtaz, for whom he built the Taj Mahal. The museum’s Pearls exhibition opened Friday, highlighted by the Pearl Carpet of Baroda, a 19th-century bauble of the maharaja of Baroda that the museum bought at auction for $5m last year.
Qatar’s top natural attraction may be Khor al Adaid, or Inland Sea, a 15km-long tidal lake near the southern coast.
Considering the site for World Heritage status, Unesco says: “The area presents a remarkable landscape and offers world-class scenic beauty.”
Moreover, celebrating Doha’s year as the Arab Capital of Culture began last week with the launch of the Qatar Marine Festival. This week the Doha Food Fest kicks off.
Last year, Doha eased visa restrictions for day visitors, thus opening itself as a port of call for cruise lines and making such events more accessible. The city saw 10 to 12 stops last year, according to the tourism authority, and is expecting up to 25 this year. That number will expand considerably when the new port opens in 2014.
Still, only 10 per cent of foreign visitors are holidaymakers.
“We have a number of projects going on, and once those are finished we will aim more for the leisure traveller,” Ms al Mahmied said. She said an indoor-outdoor water park on the edge of the city and a Cultural Village of theatres, shops, galleries and cafes along the coast north of West Bay will open next year.
That may explain why the Qatar Tourism Authority hosted a tourism marketing training workshop this week. Veteran tourism marketers guided visiting tourism officials, hotel representatives and tour operators through the various steps of selling a place and a vision.
“They’re teaching us how to build a marketing plan the right way – to be clear in setting goals and following up,” Ms al Mahmied said. “We need to introduce Qatar as a destination to people who are not aware.”
-----
originally ran in The National, www.thenational.ae
“For leisure tourists, let’s be honest, we’re not quite ready,” said Sadeem al Mahmied, the head of marketing for Qatar Tourism Authority.
Instead, Qatari officials are aiming for organisers of conferences and exhibitions. “We have the facilities to host business events,” Ms al Mahmied said. “So we are trying to attract that segment, high-level travellers, business travellers.”
Because of its sizeable natural resources – Qatar has the world’s third largest reserves of natural gas – the country has been slower than such neighbours as Bahrain and the UAE in developing a tourism sector as part of its economic diversification.
Now it may be making up for lost time. Qatar is organising more than 180 major events this year, after hosting 80 last year.
Tourism revenue has grown at six per cent annually for the past few years, according to the tourism authority. Its focus is not mass tourism, but Mice tourism: a slice of the billion-dollar international meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions sector.
Hotel occupancy averaged about 70 per cent in 2008. But with the financial downturn and the swine flu scare, the number of visitors dipped last year. As tourism infrastructure improves, Qatari officials expect that trend to reverse.
Doha’s new US$5bn (Dh18bn) international airport opens next year. In 2012 the Doha Convention Centre and Towers will begin to host VIP gatherings in West Bay. And in the five years to follow a new port, a $25bn metro and light rail and a pedestrian-friendly downtown are all set to come online.
It is the National Convention Centre, to be opened next year, that has the Mice circuit drooling. The 177,000sq m facility has nine exhibition halls and 40,000sq m of exhibition space, a 4,000-seat theatre, a 2,300-seat auditorium and 57 meeting rooms. The roof will feature enough solar panels to provide one-eighth of the building’s power needs and the entire space is wired for internet connectivity and remote radio tracking of participants.
Designed by Arata Isozaki with an entry that looks like a sidra tree, the symbol of its backer, the Qatar Foundation, the centre will host the World Petroleum Congress in December next year.
To attract more such events, tourism officials leave for a European roadshow next month, stopping at conventions in Madrid, Milan, Paris and London. Next year they target Asia, and the following year the US market. Their campaign promotes Qatar’s strong infrastructure and leads with the slogan, “Experience 48 hours in Qatar: Your business is our pleasure.”
In 2009, Doha’s tourist infrastructure was bolstered by the addition of 2,000 hotel rooms last year. The city will add a further 2,500 rooms this year, from luxury brands including Kapinsky, Hilton and Shangri-La, bringing the total available rooms to 10,000. The tourism authority expects that number to nearly triple by 2012.
One project that will not be coming online anytime soon is Barwa al Khor’s Urjuan development. After beginning construction on the $10bn project, designed to hold nearly 25,000 homes and a luxury beachfront resort 40km north of Doha, work was indefinitely suspended in December.
Despite the focus on business travellers, Qatar holds some appeal for holidaymakers. Souq Waqif, a downtown Doha souk rebuilt to echo its ancient origins, presents narrow twisting alleys and dozens of shops offering ouds and North African drums, leather saddles, carpet bags and hunting falcons, each worth 100,000 rials.
Nearby, the stunning Museum of Islamic Art holds one of the most wide-ranging collections of Islamic art and artefacts in the world, including Syrian glassware, Quranic calligraphy and the white jade pendant that the Moghul emperor Shah Jahan wore after the death of his beloved, Mumtaz, for whom he built the Taj Mahal. The museum’s Pearls exhibition opened Friday, highlighted by the Pearl Carpet of Baroda, a 19th-century bauble of the maharaja of Baroda that the museum bought at auction for $5m last year.
Qatar’s top natural attraction may be Khor al Adaid, or Inland Sea, a 15km-long tidal lake near the southern coast.
Considering the site for World Heritage status, Unesco says: “The area presents a remarkable landscape and offers world-class scenic beauty.”
Moreover, celebrating Doha’s year as the Arab Capital of Culture began last week with the launch of the Qatar Marine Festival. This week the Doha Food Fest kicks off.
Last year, Doha eased visa restrictions for day visitors, thus opening itself as a port of call for cruise lines and making such events more accessible. The city saw 10 to 12 stops last year, according to the tourism authority, and is expecting up to 25 this year. That number will expand considerably when the new port opens in 2014.
Still, only 10 per cent of foreign visitors are holidaymakers.
“We have a number of projects going on, and once those are finished we will aim more for the leisure traveller,” Ms al Mahmied said. She said an indoor-outdoor water park on the edge of the city and a Cultural Village of theatres, shops, galleries and cafes along the coast north of West Bay will open next year.
That may explain why the Qatar Tourism Authority hosted a tourism marketing training workshop this week. Veteran tourism marketers guided visiting tourism officials, hotel representatives and tour operators through the various steps of selling a place and a vision.
“They’re teaching us how to build a marketing plan the right way – to be clear in setting goals and following up,” Ms al Mahmied said. “We need to introduce Qatar as a destination to people who are not aware.”
-----
originally ran in The National, www.thenational.ae
1.22.2010
Teenage girl poised to become youngest Arab doctor
DOHA // At two and a half years old, Iqbal al Assaad taught herself to count from one to 10 in Arabic and English. At five, she was in the second grade alongside seven-year-olds. At the age of nine she passed standardised ninth grade tests for 14-year-olds with flying colours.
“My father said every year we’re going to do this, you’re going to skip one grade and go to the upper one, and it worked out,” said Iqbal, as if it were as easy as skipping rope.
Today she is a 16-year-old medical student at one of the most prestigious medical schools in the region, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar. “Maybe other students don’t have this motivation, but I like to study,” she said. “Since I was very young I would go up to my father and ask him to teach me something new.”
That curiosity and a preternatural focus have Iqbal poised to become one of the youngest Arab doctors in modern times.
“It is extremely impressive to have her in class, a student so young and at the same time so mature and capable in handling a very challenging curriculum,” said Prof Marco Ameduri, a Weill Cornell physics professor who taught Iqbal in two premed courses in 2008.
Iqbal grew up in Bakaa, Lebanon, the youngest of four children. Her father ran a covenience shop and her mother ran the house, where studying became a point of pride. Her eldest sister, 25, is married, but hopes to return to university. Her eldest brother, 23, is completing his studies as a mechanical engineer, while the other is writing his master’s thesis in physics, at 20 years old.
The real prodigy is Iqbal – but she has not done it on her own. To help her pass that ninth-grade standardised test, Lebanon’s education minister wrote a letter authorising her to take the test. Soon after, Iqbal fell ill and her parents took her to a local physician.
“He didn’t give me enough time, he didn’t give enough attention to what I wanted to tell him about my sickness,” Iqbal recalled. “It didn’t have such a big impact with me but maybe in other cases, like in cancer patients, where the psychological plays a big role, if the doctor doesn’t treat that patient very well, there’s going to be an impact on the patient – that’s what drove me to become a doctor.”
Hearing of her dream, the Lebanese education minister helped Iqbal again, requesting assistance from the Qatari first lady, Sheikha Mozah bin Nasser al Missned, who oversees the Qatar Foundation, which runs Education City. Sheikha Mozah granted Iqbal a full scholarship to an undergrad program at Weill Cornell, then helped her move to Qatar with her mother in January 2006. Only 12 years old, Iqbal was not intimidated by an unfamiliar country, the vast campus or her much older classmates. She has never known classmates her own age, yet they have never rejected or troubled her.
“I don’t feel that I’m younger than my fellow students – since I was five years old I’ve been with students that are older than me, so I’ve got used to it,” she said. “My classmates have always had the ability to accept me as one of them, and that’s what has happened here at Weill Cornell.” During a recent interview at her Education City campus, she responded to a reporter’s questions eloquently and without haste or apparent anxiety.
“Just observing her interactions with other students, you would not know that she was younger,” said Prof Ameduri, who is also the assistant dean for student affairs. “In fact, I saw her as a student leader, bringing students together, forming study groups and things like that.”
Yet she is up to a decade younger than most of her class, which is set to graduate in the spring of 2013. Iqbal, however, plans to take a gap year, or perform research for a year, before returning to Weill Cornell to graduate and become a doctor in 2014.
Thus she is no threat to become the world’s youngest doctor, widely believed to be Balamurali Ambati, an Indian who in 1995 graduated from Mount Sinai School of Medicine two months shy of his 18th birthday. Still, after three years of undergraduate and premed studies, Iqbal began medical school last fall. She completed her first term last week, which she said was “very good”.
She looked forward to anatomy and human structure classes, and, down the line, conducting physical exams and working with real patients. She plans to be a surgeon, maybe a neurosurgeon.
“I can predict and expect a very brilliant career for her,” Prof Ameduri said. “She will be very successful in clinical care of her patients and in research, and someday I hope to see her back here.”
He will probably get his wish. “I feel responsible towards this country, Qatar, and I want to come back after I finish [medical school] to pay this country back,” Iqbal said, thanking Sheikha Mozah, the university and the Qatar Foundation.
Before leaving for term break, she reflected on her accomplishments. “I’m an example: I’m a woman, but still I made it,” she said. “If you have the motivation and you have the abilities, no one’s going to stop you, whether you’re a woman or a man.”
----- originally appeared in Jan 22 2010, The National, www.thenational.ae
“My father said every year we’re going to do this, you’re going to skip one grade and go to the upper one, and it worked out,” said Iqbal, as if it were as easy as skipping rope.
Today she is a 16-year-old medical student at one of the most prestigious medical schools in the region, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar. “Maybe other students don’t have this motivation, but I like to study,” she said. “Since I was very young I would go up to my father and ask him to teach me something new.”
That curiosity and a preternatural focus have Iqbal poised to become one of the youngest Arab doctors in modern times.
“It is extremely impressive to have her in class, a student so young and at the same time so mature and capable in handling a very challenging curriculum,” said Prof Marco Ameduri, a Weill Cornell physics professor who taught Iqbal in two premed courses in 2008.
Iqbal grew up in Bakaa, Lebanon, the youngest of four children. Her father ran a covenience shop and her mother ran the house, where studying became a point of pride. Her eldest sister, 25, is married, but hopes to return to university. Her eldest brother, 23, is completing his studies as a mechanical engineer, while the other is writing his master’s thesis in physics, at 20 years old.
The real prodigy is Iqbal – but she has not done it on her own. To help her pass that ninth-grade standardised test, Lebanon’s education minister wrote a letter authorising her to take the test. Soon after, Iqbal fell ill and her parents took her to a local physician.
“He didn’t give me enough time, he didn’t give enough attention to what I wanted to tell him about my sickness,” Iqbal recalled. “It didn’t have such a big impact with me but maybe in other cases, like in cancer patients, where the psychological plays a big role, if the doctor doesn’t treat that patient very well, there’s going to be an impact on the patient – that’s what drove me to become a doctor.”
Hearing of her dream, the Lebanese education minister helped Iqbal again, requesting assistance from the Qatari first lady, Sheikha Mozah bin Nasser al Missned, who oversees the Qatar Foundation, which runs Education City. Sheikha Mozah granted Iqbal a full scholarship to an undergrad program at Weill Cornell, then helped her move to Qatar with her mother in January 2006. Only 12 years old, Iqbal was not intimidated by an unfamiliar country, the vast campus or her much older classmates. She has never known classmates her own age, yet they have never rejected or troubled her.
“I don’t feel that I’m younger than my fellow students – since I was five years old I’ve been with students that are older than me, so I’ve got used to it,” she said. “My classmates have always had the ability to accept me as one of them, and that’s what has happened here at Weill Cornell.” During a recent interview at her Education City campus, she responded to a reporter’s questions eloquently and without haste or apparent anxiety.
“Just observing her interactions with other students, you would not know that she was younger,” said Prof Ameduri, who is also the assistant dean for student affairs. “In fact, I saw her as a student leader, bringing students together, forming study groups and things like that.”
Yet she is up to a decade younger than most of her class, which is set to graduate in the spring of 2013. Iqbal, however, plans to take a gap year, or perform research for a year, before returning to Weill Cornell to graduate and become a doctor in 2014.
Thus she is no threat to become the world’s youngest doctor, widely believed to be Balamurali Ambati, an Indian who in 1995 graduated from Mount Sinai School of Medicine two months shy of his 18th birthday. Still, after three years of undergraduate and premed studies, Iqbal began medical school last fall. She completed her first term last week, which she said was “very good”.
She looked forward to anatomy and human structure classes, and, down the line, conducting physical exams and working with real patients. She plans to be a surgeon, maybe a neurosurgeon.
“I can predict and expect a very brilliant career for her,” Prof Ameduri said. “She will be very successful in clinical care of her patients and in research, and someday I hope to see her back here.”
He will probably get his wish. “I feel responsible towards this country, Qatar, and I want to come back after I finish [medical school] to pay this country back,” Iqbal said, thanking Sheikha Mozah, the university and the Qatar Foundation.
Before leaving for term break, she reflected on her accomplishments. “I’m an example: I’m a woman, but still I made it,” she said. “If you have the motivation and you have the abilities, no one’s going to stop you, whether you’re a woman or a man.”
----- originally appeared in Jan 22 2010, The National, www.thenational.ae
1.18.2010
Yemen's long road to stability
DOHA // A groundswell of international pressure has prodded the Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to action. Negotiations with the Houthi rebels, with whom his government has been warring for nearly a year, are said to be nearing a breakthrough. And after “open war” was declared on al Qa’eda last week, air strikes on militant strongholds in the north-east mountains reportedly killed Qasim Raymi, a top al Qa’eda commander.
It's only the beginning.
“This is a long-term, multifaceted security challenge for the international community but also for the Gulf region,” said Steven Wright, an assistant professor of international affairs at Qatar University. He is working on a research paper about Yemeni instability, the Gulf and the response of the international community.
Since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was accused of trying to set off a bomb while his Christmas Day flight from Amsterdam neared Detroit, grave concerns about the security situation in Yemen, where the plot was allegedly hatched, have been expressed by international media outlets, security analysts and world leaders.
“You are seeing an increased recognition, from the international community and the GCC, that Yemen is potentially the biggest security challenge in the region,” Mr Wright said.
Most assessments suggest that Yemen – facing two insurgencies, deeply rooted extremism, dwindling supplies of water and oil and a dreadful economy, among other difficulties – is on the brink of collapse.
For Gulf countries, the first danger comes from Yemen’s porous borders, as extremists operating within Yemen could move into Oman and Saudi Arabia and cause problems. The second, greater danger concerns energy security – piracy and terrorist attacks on tankers and shipping lanes in the Gulf.
“This is a risk to Gulf countries’ main economic lifelines,” Mr Wright said. Last week a statement from al Qa’eda in Yemen urged “the citizens of the Arabian Peninsula to face the Crusader’s campaign and their agents … by attacking military bases, embassies and intelligence, and the existing fleets in the waters of the Arabian peninsula and the surrounding territory”.
Still, Mr Wright said, the danger to embassies, major corporations and other foreign interests within Gulf countries is minimal. “The GCC countries have very effective internal security mechanisms.”
Another Gulf analyst disagreed. “Of course, the threat is always there,” said Riad Kahwaji, director of the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis. “Al Qa’eda has made that clear – its threat to Gulf countries and western assets here is long-standing.”
Less clear is how the region and the international community should handle the problem of Yemen. To prevent internal attacks, Mr Khawaji advised Gulf nations to improve their intelligence gathering and co-operation and enhance border control and security systems.
Even more vital is attacking the problem at its roots. “Gulf countries need to be using all their political strength to pressure the Yemeni government to be more engaging politically, with political reforms and national dialogue with all the parties in order to certify national unity,” Mr Kahwaji said.
GCC countries have in recent years provided tens of millions of dollars in aid to Yemen.
After the failed attack in Detroit, the United States doubled its counterterrorism aid, to $140m per year. Yet it has been providing counter-terror assistance to Yemen since the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, to little effect. In 2006, international donors pledged nearly $5bn to turn Yemen around, but a lack of coordination has undermined those efforts.
Mr Wright said he was optimistic about an upcoming aid conference on Yemen scheduled for the end of this month in London. “That’s where the solutions are going to be discussed and fleshed out.”
-----
originally appeared in The National, www.thenational.ae
It's only the beginning.
“This is a long-term, multifaceted security challenge for the international community but also for the Gulf region,” said Steven Wright, an assistant professor of international affairs at Qatar University. He is working on a research paper about Yemeni instability, the Gulf and the response of the international community.
Since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was accused of trying to set off a bomb while his Christmas Day flight from Amsterdam neared Detroit, grave concerns about the security situation in Yemen, where the plot was allegedly hatched, have been expressed by international media outlets, security analysts and world leaders.
“You are seeing an increased recognition, from the international community and the GCC, that Yemen is potentially the biggest security challenge in the region,” Mr Wright said.
Most assessments suggest that Yemen – facing two insurgencies, deeply rooted extremism, dwindling supplies of water and oil and a dreadful economy, among other difficulties – is on the brink of collapse.
For Gulf countries, the first danger comes from Yemen’s porous borders, as extremists operating within Yemen could move into Oman and Saudi Arabia and cause problems. The second, greater danger concerns energy security – piracy and terrorist attacks on tankers and shipping lanes in the Gulf.
“This is a risk to Gulf countries’ main economic lifelines,” Mr Wright said. Last week a statement from al Qa’eda in Yemen urged “the citizens of the Arabian Peninsula to face the Crusader’s campaign and their agents … by attacking military bases, embassies and intelligence, and the existing fleets in the waters of the Arabian peninsula and the surrounding territory”.
Still, Mr Wright said, the danger to embassies, major corporations and other foreign interests within Gulf countries is minimal. “The GCC countries have very effective internal security mechanisms.”
Another Gulf analyst disagreed. “Of course, the threat is always there,” said Riad Kahwaji, director of the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis. “Al Qa’eda has made that clear – its threat to Gulf countries and western assets here is long-standing.”
Less clear is how the region and the international community should handle the problem of Yemen. To prevent internal attacks, Mr Khawaji advised Gulf nations to improve their intelligence gathering and co-operation and enhance border control and security systems.
Even more vital is attacking the problem at its roots. “Gulf countries need to be using all their political strength to pressure the Yemeni government to be more engaging politically, with political reforms and national dialogue with all the parties in order to certify national unity,” Mr Kahwaji said.
GCC countries have in recent years provided tens of millions of dollars in aid to Yemen.
After the failed attack in Detroit, the United States doubled its counterterrorism aid, to $140m per year. Yet it has been providing counter-terror assistance to Yemen since the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, to little effect. In 2006, international donors pledged nearly $5bn to turn Yemen around, but a lack of coordination has undermined those efforts.
Mr Wright said he was optimistic about an upcoming aid conference on Yemen scheduled for the end of this month in London. “That’s where the solutions are going to be discussed and fleshed out.”
-----
originally appeared in The National, www.thenational.ae
1.17.2010
Qatar's cultural ambitions: take one
Doha // Khalifa al Maraikhi shoulders a heavy burden.
“Every nation has a culture,” said the director of Aqaribabzah, the first Qatari feature film. “As an artist, filmmaker or musician, it’s important to reflect this culture into your art.”
As Doha steps into the spotlight as the Arab Capital of Culture for 2010 – an Arab League and UN designation – its budding reputation as a cultural centre is at stake.
Previous recipients of the honour, including Damascus, Jerusalem and Algiers, have found the designation both opportunity and test for their nascent arts scenes.
In Qatar, dozens of artists, artisans and government officials have already prepared more than a hundred events, including music recitals, heritage festivals, calligraphy contests and art exhibits.
Mr al Maraikhi's Aqaribabzah ("Clockwise" in Arabic) might be the bellwether. Financed, produced and directed by Qataris, it represents the filmmaking ambitions of a country of some 250,000 people. It also highlights one of Qatar’s few native art forms.
The film, set in the 1930s, is based on the Gulf legend of three men who make a Faustian bargain with a djinn in exchange for the ability to become master fijiri singers. Although there are several different genres, fijiri music generally comprises a lead singer accompanied by a clapping, drum-playing chorus. The form originated more than a century ago among pearl divers of Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, and remains popular in the region.
At the same time, Aqaribabzah underscores Qatar’s cultural shortcomings. Five years ago, Mr al Maraikhi and a friend wrote a script based on the folk tale and passed the story on to a few acquaintances.
But with no film production studios in Qatar, nothing came of it until last January, when the country received the cultural capital honour.
Within weeks, the ministry of culture, arts and heritage approved the film with a 10 million rial (Dh10.1m) budget. “In the US and Europe there are production companies that invest in films,” said Mr al Maraikhi, 50. “Here we don’t have those – we need the government to help us.”
The film’s composer is Howard Shore, an American who scored the Martin Scorsese film The Aviator. The cinematographer, assistant director and crew are Bollywood veterans flown in from India. The lead actress, Maisa Magribi, is from Morocco.
The rest of the cast and crew are Qatari, but with little experience.
On the last day of shooting a few weeks ago, the director sidled up to his thobe-wearing leads after an unsatisfactory take. Using words and gestures, he explained his vision for the scene, returned to his chair behind a stack of monitors and shouted, “Action!”.
The room froze – except for the actors, whose faces expressed great fear as they cautiously descended into a cave marked by grotesque wall paintings.
“I’m getting tired of telling actors what to do,” said Mr al Maraikhi, whose Qatari cast has only worked on stage or on TV serials. “Film acting is different, every movement, every expression is important; we’ve had to teach them that. They started out a bit nervous, now they’re doing all right.”
Initially scheduled to hit theatres in March, Aqaribabzah’s release was pushed back to May, following post-production in Bangkok. The delay is due, in part, to Qatar’s lack of facilities.
“Everybody is talking about a film industry, but this requires studios, screenwriters, experienced actors, filmmakers and a market,” said Mr al Maraikhi, who studied filmmaking in Los Angeles before returning to Qatar in the 1990s to make short films and music videos. “We just don’t have film production experience here. What we have is maybe the beginning of a film movement.”
That movement would include the Doha Tribeca Film Festival, held here last November. As well as attracting large crowds, it may also have uncovered some young filmmaking talent.
That same week, the Qatari media group Alnoor Holdings launched a US$200 million (Dh740m) film fund that plans to partner as yet unnamed Hollywood players to make a dozen feature films over five years, starting with a $100m film about the life of Prophet Mohammed.
Although not widely known, Qatar has a budding music, art and poetry scene too, which the government has been trying to promote.
In poetry, Ali al Muri, a Qatari, has in recent weeks proved to be one of the more entertaining and successful contestants on the current season of the reality TV show, Million’s Poet.
A recent religious and cultural festival organised by the Fanar Islamic Centre included well-attended poetry recitals, along with calligraphy and other exhibitions.
In terms of music, the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra regularly performs classical and operatic pieces, and presented a programme of eight Puccini arias this past week. During Qatar’s National Day celebrations last month, dozens of fijiri musicians and singers performed at malls and parks across Doha. And the Qatar Foundation is set to open the Qatar Music Academy in September. Open to all nationalities, it will focus on Arab music, highlighting links to American jazz and European composition.
Regular art shows attract nationals and expats to small, chic galleries in Souq Waqif, a popular downtown Doha quarter remade into a traditional souq. In March, Sotheby’s opened a Doha office – its first in the Gulf. And before moving on to cities including Abu Dhabi, Amman, New York, Paris and Berlin, the Art Wanson Gallery last month launched the world tour of its exhibition Passion for Art at Doha’s Grand Hyatt Hotel.
“Doha is fast becoming a hub of art and culture and we want to be a part of the process,” said Mercedes Duerinckx, who owns the gallery, based in Marbella, Spain.
But it is the much-praised Museum of Islamic Art, which offers one of the region’s most dynamic collections of art and artifacts, that made Qatar’s name in international arts. The museum opened in January 2009 and is planning a host of exhibits and screenings in conjunction with the cultural capital title.
Qatari leaders acknowledge that Doha’s art scene does not build on tradition. Rather they intend to build a new foundation for art in the Qatari capital. “We are not buying culture, we are investing in culture,” said Abdullah Najjar, the chief executive of the Qatar Museums Authority. “It is something that will be seen by future generations as an important investment.”
Aqaribabzah is among the most high-profile of those investments.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” said Salah Darwish, one of the film’s leading stars.
The 57-year-old Qatari studied drama in Cairo and earned acting awards in Damascus but stopped performing 26 years ago because of a dearth of good roles. “There were no interesting stories, no good parts,” he said. “But this film could change everything.”
Mr al Maraikhi hopes to take Aqaribabzah to international festivals, and to make more movies in the future. But first he is looking to the film’s premiere, as part of Doha’s year as the Arab Capital of Culture.
“It’s a big deal, because you’ll have many people, many countries seeing what Qatar is doing at the moment,” he said. “We don’t expect to make millions out of this film, but we hope that people enjoy it.”
--------
originally published 15 Jan, 2010, in The National:
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100115/FOREIGN/701149898/1135
“Every nation has a culture,” said the director of Aqaribabzah, the first Qatari feature film. “As an artist, filmmaker or musician, it’s important to reflect this culture into your art.”
As Doha steps into the spotlight as the Arab Capital of Culture for 2010 – an Arab League and UN designation – its budding reputation as a cultural centre is at stake.
Previous recipients of the honour, including Damascus, Jerusalem and Algiers, have found the designation both opportunity and test for their nascent arts scenes.
In Qatar, dozens of artists, artisans and government officials have already prepared more than a hundred events, including music recitals, heritage festivals, calligraphy contests and art exhibits.
Mr al Maraikhi's Aqaribabzah ("Clockwise" in Arabic) might be the bellwether. Financed, produced and directed by Qataris, it represents the filmmaking ambitions of a country of some 250,000 people. It also highlights one of Qatar’s few native art forms.
The film, set in the 1930s, is based on the Gulf legend of three men who make a Faustian bargain with a djinn in exchange for the ability to become master fijiri singers. Although there are several different genres, fijiri music generally comprises a lead singer accompanied by a clapping, drum-playing chorus. The form originated more than a century ago among pearl divers of Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, and remains popular in the region.
At the same time, Aqaribabzah underscores Qatar’s cultural shortcomings. Five years ago, Mr al Maraikhi and a friend wrote a script based on the folk tale and passed the story on to a few acquaintances.
But with no film production studios in Qatar, nothing came of it until last January, when the country received the cultural capital honour.
Within weeks, the ministry of culture, arts and heritage approved the film with a 10 million rial (Dh10.1m) budget. “In the US and Europe there are production companies that invest in films,” said Mr al Maraikhi, 50. “Here we don’t have those – we need the government to help us.”
The film’s composer is Howard Shore, an American who scored the Martin Scorsese film The Aviator. The cinematographer, assistant director and crew are Bollywood veterans flown in from India. The lead actress, Maisa Magribi, is from Morocco.
The rest of the cast and crew are Qatari, but with little experience.
On the last day of shooting a few weeks ago, the director sidled up to his thobe-wearing leads after an unsatisfactory take. Using words and gestures, he explained his vision for the scene, returned to his chair behind a stack of monitors and shouted, “Action!”.
The room froze – except for the actors, whose faces expressed great fear as they cautiously descended into a cave marked by grotesque wall paintings.
“I’m getting tired of telling actors what to do,” said Mr al Maraikhi, whose Qatari cast has only worked on stage or on TV serials. “Film acting is different, every movement, every expression is important; we’ve had to teach them that. They started out a bit nervous, now they’re doing all right.”
Initially scheduled to hit theatres in March, Aqaribabzah’s release was pushed back to May, following post-production in Bangkok. The delay is due, in part, to Qatar’s lack of facilities.
“Everybody is talking about a film industry, but this requires studios, screenwriters, experienced actors, filmmakers and a market,” said Mr al Maraikhi, who studied filmmaking in Los Angeles before returning to Qatar in the 1990s to make short films and music videos. “We just don’t have film production experience here. What we have is maybe the beginning of a film movement.”
That movement would include the Doha Tribeca Film Festival, held here last November. As well as attracting large crowds, it may also have uncovered some young filmmaking talent.
That same week, the Qatari media group Alnoor Holdings launched a US$200 million (Dh740m) film fund that plans to partner as yet unnamed Hollywood players to make a dozen feature films over five years, starting with a $100m film about the life of Prophet Mohammed.
Although not widely known, Qatar has a budding music, art and poetry scene too, which the government has been trying to promote.
In poetry, Ali al Muri, a Qatari, has in recent weeks proved to be one of the more entertaining and successful contestants on the current season of the reality TV show, Million’s Poet.
A recent religious and cultural festival organised by the Fanar Islamic Centre included well-attended poetry recitals, along with calligraphy and other exhibitions.
In terms of music, the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra regularly performs classical and operatic pieces, and presented a programme of eight Puccini arias this past week. During Qatar’s National Day celebrations last month, dozens of fijiri musicians and singers performed at malls and parks across Doha. And the Qatar Foundation is set to open the Qatar Music Academy in September. Open to all nationalities, it will focus on Arab music, highlighting links to American jazz and European composition.
Regular art shows attract nationals and expats to small, chic galleries in Souq Waqif, a popular downtown Doha quarter remade into a traditional souq. In March, Sotheby’s opened a Doha office – its first in the Gulf. And before moving on to cities including Abu Dhabi, Amman, New York, Paris and Berlin, the Art Wanson Gallery last month launched the world tour of its exhibition Passion for Art at Doha’s Grand Hyatt Hotel.
“Doha is fast becoming a hub of art and culture and we want to be a part of the process,” said Mercedes Duerinckx, who owns the gallery, based in Marbella, Spain.
But it is the much-praised Museum of Islamic Art, which offers one of the region’s most dynamic collections of art and artifacts, that made Qatar’s name in international arts. The museum opened in January 2009 and is planning a host of exhibits and screenings in conjunction with the cultural capital title.
Qatari leaders acknowledge that Doha’s art scene does not build on tradition. Rather they intend to build a new foundation for art in the Qatari capital. “We are not buying culture, we are investing in culture,” said Abdullah Najjar, the chief executive of the Qatar Museums Authority. “It is something that will be seen by future generations as an important investment.”
Aqaribabzah is among the most high-profile of those investments.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” said Salah Darwish, one of the film’s leading stars.
The 57-year-old Qatari studied drama in Cairo and earned acting awards in Damascus but stopped performing 26 years ago because of a dearth of good roles. “There were no interesting stories, no good parts,” he said. “But this film could change everything.”
Mr al Maraikhi hopes to take Aqaribabzah to international festivals, and to make more movies in the future. But first he is looking to the film’s premiere, as part of Doha’s year as the Arab Capital of Culture.
“It’s a big deal, because you’ll have many people, many countries seeing what Qatar is doing at the moment,” he said. “We don’t expect to make millions out of this film, but we hope that people enjoy it.”
--------
originally published 15 Jan, 2010, in The National:
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100115/FOREIGN/701149898/1135
Is the Karzai government worth Western blood and treasure?
Doha// “The Bush administration is guilty of a dereliction of duty,” said Lawrence Korb, assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan Administration, referring to the ongoing war in Afghanistan.
“It was criminal, what the United States did,” Korb explained. “A lot of the problems we're seeing today are a result of the fact that we went in there, created a vacuum and then walked away...President Bush promised a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan, and then never followed up.”
A full house packed the Education City studio of the BBC's Doha Debates this week as an accomplished panel took up the motion: “This House does not believe that this Afghan government is worth fighting for.” More than eight years after the US-led invasion, international forces are bogged down in guerrilla warfare with a resurgent Taliban while the President Hamid Karzai-led government is charged with election fraud, corruption and ineffectiveness.
Assisted by their host, BBC presenter Tim Sebastian, the panelists engaged in verbal battle on the legitimacy of the Karzai government, the need for international forces and the components of democracy, before a slim majority of the audience – 51 percent to 49 percent – voted to carry the motion.
“Afghanistan never wanted to be host for long to foreign troops – this is the history of Afghanistan, this is our nature,” said Shukria Barakzai, Mr Korb's co-panelist and a member of the Afghan parliament.
She was responding to a question from the audience about why the Afghan people do not protest against the continued presence of US-led forces. “But right now, we are a little baby,” she said, “and until we can stand on our own feet, we need it.”
Mr Korb pointed to the example of Iraq, where US forces had begun pulling out and would be out completely by the end of next year. “I'm very happy that President Obama, in announcing a troop increase in Afghanistan, also talked about a deadline,” he said. “The message is that this government has to clean up its act.”
Mirwais Yasini, deputy speaker of the Lower House of the Afghan parliament who briefly ran for Afghan president last year, did not see that happening anytime soon. “There is no security, there is corruption, there's no reconciliation, there are no services for Afghan citizens,” he said. “Democracy is just a slogan...we are establishing a very dirty precedent.”
Yasini's co-panelist, former US Ambassador Peter Galbraith, was fired last year from his post as a United Nations envoy to Afghanistan for accusing his boss of concealing election fraud. He said the government could not provide the security, rule of law and services necessary to support the US-led war.
“A government that is ineffective and in office by fraud cannot win the support of the population,” said Mr Galbraith. “It cannot do what it needs to make a counter-insurgency strategy work.”
Standing up from his seat in the audience, the Afghan Ambassador to Qatar, Wali Monawar, asked what sort of alternatives Mr Galbraith might offer to the current government. Mr Galbraith suggested a new election or a power-sharing political system.
Mr Sebastian pressed the point. “There is no other government,” he said. “This is the Afghan government, however ineffective or corrupt, however it fails to meet your expectations.”
Mr Galbraith pointed to the one million phoney votes estimated by European Union monitors. “Tim,” he said, “you cannot say that a govt that is in office by massive fraud is a legitimate government.”
“What do you expect?” responded Mr Sebastian. “It's hard enough to get a fair election in the United States.”
Ms Barakzai pointed out that President Karzai had received the support of the Afghan people three times – in a 2002 loya jirga, or meeting of elders, in the first presidential election, in 2004, and again last year. “Democracy is not a product,” she said. “It's always a process and this process takes decades and generations.”
“But why must it take decades and generations?” asked Mr Sebastian.
Ms Barakzia responded, “How long did it take your country to establish democracy?”
A BBC/ABC poll released this week found 68 per cent of Afghans saw the government as heading in the right direction. And Mr Korb viewed the Afghan Parliament's recent rejection of 17 of Mr Karzai's 24 proposed cabinet members as a “great step forward” for democracy. “We tend to confuse elections with democracy,” he said. “It's civil society that you have to build, that's the key thing.”
Meanwhile, Amnesty International, a rights group, said the Karzai government shows “blatant impunity” for human rights, and has released at least five major drug leaders. Further, Mr Galbraith said last year's election fraud “disenfranchised every Afghan who cast an honest vote.”
Yet more than 500 international troops died in Afghanistan in 2009.
“They're dying for the chance to give Afghans a chance to choose their own destiny,” he said. “We're interested in helping the Afghan people make their own choices, and they have a limited amount of time..after a few years we will have done all that we can.”
“It was criminal, what the United States did,” Korb explained. “A lot of the problems we're seeing today are a result of the fact that we went in there, created a vacuum and then walked away...President Bush promised a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan, and then never followed up.”
A full house packed the Education City studio of the BBC's Doha Debates this week as an accomplished panel took up the motion: “This House does not believe that this Afghan government is worth fighting for.” More than eight years after the US-led invasion, international forces are bogged down in guerrilla warfare with a resurgent Taliban while the President Hamid Karzai-led government is charged with election fraud, corruption and ineffectiveness.
Assisted by their host, BBC presenter Tim Sebastian, the panelists engaged in verbal battle on the legitimacy of the Karzai government, the need for international forces and the components of democracy, before a slim majority of the audience – 51 percent to 49 percent – voted to carry the motion.
“Afghanistan never wanted to be host for long to foreign troops – this is the history of Afghanistan, this is our nature,” said Shukria Barakzai, Mr Korb's co-panelist and a member of the Afghan parliament.
She was responding to a question from the audience about why the Afghan people do not protest against the continued presence of US-led forces. “But right now, we are a little baby,” she said, “and until we can stand on our own feet, we need it.”
Mr Korb pointed to the example of Iraq, where US forces had begun pulling out and would be out completely by the end of next year. “I'm very happy that President Obama, in announcing a troop increase in Afghanistan, also talked about a deadline,” he said. “The message is that this government has to clean up its act.”
Mirwais Yasini, deputy speaker of the Lower House of the Afghan parliament who briefly ran for Afghan president last year, did not see that happening anytime soon. “There is no security, there is corruption, there's no reconciliation, there are no services for Afghan citizens,” he said. “Democracy is just a slogan...we are establishing a very dirty precedent.”
Yasini's co-panelist, former US Ambassador Peter Galbraith, was fired last year from his post as a United Nations envoy to Afghanistan for accusing his boss of concealing election fraud. He said the government could not provide the security, rule of law and services necessary to support the US-led war.
“A government that is ineffective and in office by fraud cannot win the support of the population,” said Mr Galbraith. “It cannot do what it needs to make a counter-insurgency strategy work.”
Standing up from his seat in the audience, the Afghan Ambassador to Qatar, Wali Monawar, asked what sort of alternatives Mr Galbraith might offer to the current government. Mr Galbraith suggested a new election or a power-sharing political system.
Mr Sebastian pressed the point. “There is no other government,” he said. “This is the Afghan government, however ineffective or corrupt, however it fails to meet your expectations.”
Mr Galbraith pointed to the one million phoney votes estimated by European Union monitors. “Tim,” he said, “you cannot say that a govt that is in office by massive fraud is a legitimate government.”
“What do you expect?” responded Mr Sebastian. “It's hard enough to get a fair election in the United States.”
Ms Barakzai pointed out that President Karzai had received the support of the Afghan people three times – in a 2002 loya jirga, or meeting of elders, in the first presidential election, in 2004, and again last year. “Democracy is not a product,” she said. “It's always a process and this process takes decades and generations.”
“But why must it take decades and generations?” asked Mr Sebastian.
Ms Barakzia responded, “How long did it take your country to establish democracy?”
A BBC/ABC poll released this week found 68 per cent of Afghans saw the government as heading in the right direction. And Mr Korb viewed the Afghan Parliament's recent rejection of 17 of Mr Karzai's 24 proposed cabinet members as a “great step forward” for democracy. “We tend to confuse elections with democracy,” he said. “It's civil society that you have to build, that's the key thing.”
Meanwhile, Amnesty International, a rights group, said the Karzai government shows “blatant impunity” for human rights, and has released at least five major drug leaders. Further, Mr Galbraith said last year's election fraud “disenfranchised every Afghan who cast an honest vote.”
Yet more than 500 international troops died in Afghanistan in 2009.
“They're dying for the chance to give Afghans a chance to choose their own destiny,” he said. “We're interested in helping the Afghan people make their own choices, and they have a limited amount of time..after a few years we will have done all that we can.”
1.13.2010
Doha's real estate sector stumbles
DOHA // A surplus of homes and the aftershocks of the global economic crisis are hammering prices for rental and residential properties across Doha.
In a recent survey from Century 21 Qatar, apartment rental prices in some areas of the city fell by 10 per cent last month. Rental and housing prices have dropped 20-60 per cent in the past 18 months, say several Doha property agents, even as similar scenarios play out in other GCC metros.
“The market is not good at all,” said P N Baburajan, a property agent who as worked in the sector in Doha for 20 years. “There used to be so many new companies coming in, from Dubai and UAE and Saudi Arabia, even the US and Europe, and bringing all those employees. But now companies have stopped coming – and some have reduced staff strength as well.”
Still, developments continue to rise. Work continues on The Pearl-Qatar, a series of high-end retail outlets and leafy residential neighbourhoods built on a man-made island twisting out into the Gulf like a string of pearls. Crowned with two luxury hotels, “smart” housing for more than 40,000 and a dozen kilometres of pristine beaches, it is the grandest property development in the history of Qatar and is set for completion in 2013.
In addition to The Pearl, Doha developers are building Al Wa’ab City, a US$3.2 billion (Dh11.75bn) family-oriented community development from Nasser Bin Khaled Holding; Lusail, a $5.5bn luxury waterfront city from Qatari Diar, with housing for 200,000, not far from The Pearl; and Barwa Village, a $500 million housing project to be completed in the coming months.
All this new housing will enter an already crowded market. In a report released last September, the Qatar Oman Investment Company found some 15,000 unoccupied apartments across Doha. More recently, Bank of America Securities-Merrill Lynch warned that by 2012, when Qatar’s gas-driven expansion has been completed, there will be limited need for labour in the non-oil economy. Expatriates may then leave Qatar in large numbers, resulting in a “significant overhang” of property.
Troubles in the property sector are not unique to Doha. Kuwait’s City of Silk has been halted in the planning stages, and Aldar Properties, Abu Dhabi’s largest developer, has put its plans for the project on hold. In style and scale, The Pearl is reminiscent of Dubai developments such as the Palm islands and The World, both of which were built by Nakheel. Nakheel is under the umbrella of the government-owned Dubai World, which recently began talks to restructure its debt repayments – due in part to an unstable property market.
Yet United Development, the company behind The Pearl, is fortunate to be building in Qatar, where abundant gas revenues have allowed the government to support developers and financial services firms in the downturn, buying portfolios and backing up loans. The Qatari economy is expected to grow nearly 15 per cent this year, among the world’s fastest.
This may explain The Pearl’s target demographic. One-bedroom homes – which include remote-controlled lighting and cooling, high-speed wireless internet, maid service, security and reception, and a health club with gym, jacuzzi and juice bar – retail for 1.5m Qatari rials (Dh1.5m). The Pearl says it has sold nearly two-thirds of its available properties, including all 450 villas.
“We have some interest,” said Georges Bou Abdallah, the sales and leasing team leader in Doha for the brokerage firm Asteco, referring to flats at The Pearl. “But there’s more interest in the secondary market, in resale.” Resale properties at The Pearl were going for about 1mn rials, he said, 25-30 per cent off their initial price.
Rental prices for apartments at The Pearl have dropped further. Units initially budgeted at 20,000 rials have come down to 10,000-11,000 rials. “We are getting inquiries, but mainly people are viewing and not renting,” said Mr Baburajan, who remained optimistic. “The market is slowly coming up. By the middle of 2010, the situation will be changed.”
United Development has faced delays in delivering some units, but after cutting costs and curbing expansion plans, expects to meet its deadlines. “Everything is more or less on schedule,” a representative said.
In Porto Arabia, residents have begun moving in to The Pearl’s first completed apartment building, while some 40 luxury outlets – including Armani, Coach, Balenciaga and Hermes – have opened on the promenade. In late afternoons and evenings, couples, families and friends stroll the boardwalk, stopping to chat over coffee, watch sidewalk performers and window shop.
“It’s been pretty slow,” said Amin Derriche, assistant manager of the Giorgio Armani store, which opened last February. “But we expected it to be like this. Business here won’t be like our European stores for another two to three years.”
--- originally appeared in The National, www.thenational.ae
In a recent survey from Century 21 Qatar, apartment rental prices in some areas of the city fell by 10 per cent last month. Rental and housing prices have dropped 20-60 per cent in the past 18 months, say several Doha property agents, even as similar scenarios play out in other GCC metros.
“The market is not good at all,” said P N Baburajan, a property agent who as worked in the sector in Doha for 20 years. “There used to be so many new companies coming in, from Dubai and UAE and Saudi Arabia, even the US and Europe, and bringing all those employees. But now companies have stopped coming – and some have reduced staff strength as well.”
Still, developments continue to rise. Work continues on The Pearl-Qatar, a series of high-end retail outlets and leafy residential neighbourhoods built on a man-made island twisting out into the Gulf like a string of pearls. Crowned with two luxury hotels, “smart” housing for more than 40,000 and a dozen kilometres of pristine beaches, it is the grandest property development in the history of Qatar and is set for completion in 2013.
In addition to The Pearl, Doha developers are building Al Wa’ab City, a US$3.2 billion (Dh11.75bn) family-oriented community development from Nasser Bin Khaled Holding; Lusail, a $5.5bn luxury waterfront city from Qatari Diar, with housing for 200,000, not far from The Pearl; and Barwa Village, a $500 million housing project to be completed in the coming months.
All this new housing will enter an already crowded market. In a report released last September, the Qatar Oman Investment Company found some 15,000 unoccupied apartments across Doha. More recently, Bank of America Securities-Merrill Lynch warned that by 2012, when Qatar’s gas-driven expansion has been completed, there will be limited need for labour in the non-oil economy. Expatriates may then leave Qatar in large numbers, resulting in a “significant overhang” of property.
Troubles in the property sector are not unique to Doha. Kuwait’s City of Silk has been halted in the planning stages, and Aldar Properties, Abu Dhabi’s largest developer, has put its plans for the project on hold. In style and scale, The Pearl is reminiscent of Dubai developments such as the Palm islands and The World, both of which were built by Nakheel. Nakheel is under the umbrella of the government-owned Dubai World, which recently began talks to restructure its debt repayments – due in part to an unstable property market.
Yet United Development, the company behind The Pearl, is fortunate to be building in Qatar, where abundant gas revenues have allowed the government to support developers and financial services firms in the downturn, buying portfolios and backing up loans. The Qatari economy is expected to grow nearly 15 per cent this year, among the world’s fastest.
This may explain The Pearl’s target demographic. One-bedroom homes – which include remote-controlled lighting and cooling, high-speed wireless internet, maid service, security and reception, and a health club with gym, jacuzzi and juice bar – retail for 1.5m Qatari rials (Dh1.5m). The Pearl says it has sold nearly two-thirds of its available properties, including all 450 villas.
“We have some interest,” said Georges Bou Abdallah, the sales and leasing team leader in Doha for the brokerage firm Asteco, referring to flats at The Pearl. “But there’s more interest in the secondary market, in resale.” Resale properties at The Pearl were going for about 1mn rials, he said, 25-30 per cent off their initial price.
Rental prices for apartments at The Pearl have dropped further. Units initially budgeted at 20,000 rials have come down to 10,000-11,000 rials. “We are getting inquiries, but mainly people are viewing and not renting,” said Mr Baburajan, who remained optimistic. “The market is slowly coming up. By the middle of 2010, the situation will be changed.”
United Development has faced delays in delivering some units, but after cutting costs and curbing expansion plans, expects to meet its deadlines. “Everything is more or less on schedule,” a representative said.
In Porto Arabia, residents have begun moving in to The Pearl’s first completed apartment building, while some 40 luxury outlets – including Armani, Coach, Balenciaga and Hermes – have opened on the promenade. In late afternoons and evenings, couples, families and friends stroll the boardwalk, stopping to chat over coffee, watch sidewalk performers and window shop.
“It’s been pretty slow,” said Amin Derriche, assistant manager of the Giorgio Armani store, which opened last February. “But we expected it to be like this. Business here won’t be like our European stores for another two to three years.”
--- originally appeared in The National, www.thenational.ae
1.08.2010
How TV for Arab kids grew up
DOHA // Since hitting the airwaves in September 2005, Al Jazeera Children’s Channel has broadcast thousands of hours of animated, talk and game shows in classical Arabic. It has also earned a fistful of awards and started to put a modern and distinctly Arab face on children’s programming in the region.
“We have planted the seed of change,” said Mahmoud Bouneb, the network’s executive general manager. “We have planted the seed of hope for a better tomorrow, but also for a better Arab citizen.”
Mr Bouneb recalls first hearing of the Qatari First Lady Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned’s idea for an educational, entertaining and locally produced Arabic language children’s channel, in 2002.
“I thought it was, not a joke, but let’s say a fantasy, in the Arab world,” he remembers thinking at the time. “I always thought that children’s television was a very serious business and we in the Arab world have no experience with it.”
Seven years ago, locally produced programming for children was practically non-existent. Arabic-language children’s television meant dubbed versions of Bugs Bunny and Yu-Gi-Oh!
Though he had never been involved in children’s television, in early 2003 Mr Bouneb left his job working for the chairman of the board at Al Jazeera News to become the new network’s executive general manager. For more than two years he worked with producers, programmers and consultants from the Paris-based LaGardere Group to develop an identity for Al Jazeera Children’s Channel.
“I remember the first thing we discussed was, ‘Are we going to let children debate freely on this channel?’” he said. “My answer from Day One was yes, because in Arabic culture we don’t have a tradition of listening to the children ... I said ‘Let’s listen to the children, we would be amazed by what we hear.’
Today, children’s voices dominate JCC programming, in shows such as Nadra Ala, a weekly debate show, and Ad Darb, a popular, fast-moving game show.
At the station’s Education City headquarters, on the edge of Doha, the walls and furniture are painted in bright, child-friendly colours, such as orange and sky blue. Cheerful staffers watch over a steady stream of visiting youngsters and a wide variety of in-house productions keep three top-of-the-line studios in near-constant use.
JCC, which also has offices in Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Paris and Kuala Lumpur, produces about 60 per cent of its programming. That content reaches 45 to 50 million households across the Arab world and Europe.
A year ago, the station split into two channels – Baraem TV, aimed at three to six-year-olds, and the original Al Jazeera Children’s Channel, for seven to 15-year-olds.
Baraem’s animated series Nan and Lili has been honoured repeatedly, including earning a certificate of merit at last year’s International Communications, Video and Interactive Media Competition and, last month, the CINE Golden Eagle Award from a US consortium for innovative TV and cinema. Competitors such as Nickelodeon Arabic and MBC-3 have in recent years begun to produce in-house game shows and other edutainment programming much like that seen on JCC.
JCC has produced or co-produced more than 50 films. Still Alive in Gaza, a feature documentary about Palestinian youth that JCC co-produced, will screen at the Berlin International Film Festival next month.
JCC also offers special programming for Ramadan and a show on the Quran, but does not allow religious ideals to dominate. “Islam is part of our daily life, it’s our religion, and it should be integrated into our content,” said Mr Bouneb. “But we are not a dogmatic channel.”
Nor is JCC a commercial venture. Its US$100 million (Dh367m) annual budget is provided mostly by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development.
Even with minimal marketing, the network has made an impact. “Everything that contributes to the compounding of knowledge in the region is a positive," said Hatem Samman, a director of Booz and Company’s Ideation Center, a Dubai-based think tank.
Yet he questioned the breadth of the station’s influence. “How do you compete with sources from the West and the US in particular?” asked Mr Samman, pointing out that his own children mostly watched English-language stations such as the Disney channel. “You need to have a comparative advantage. One way to do that is if you cannot beat them, you join them, with joint ventures and the like.”
Thus, JCC’s two main objectives are more in-house content and greater reach. It has signed partnership agreements with production firms in the UK, Canada and Japan, among others. An animated show about the Arabic hero Salahaddin and Richard the Lionheart, co-produced with a Malaysian firm, will begin airing this summer.
Within two years, Mr Bouneb hopes to create an English-language version of Baraem and move into the North American market.
Later this month, JCC will launch a video-on-demand platform on its website, where visitors will be able to access detailed programming information and watch their favourite shows at any time.
Mr Bouneb wants “to increase the local flavour, the local identity”, in JCC’s programming. “We are just a television channel which is trying to bring beauty into the lives of the Arabic children,” he said, “to make a difference in their lives and to give them a better future.”
---
originally appeared in 8 Jan, 2010, The National, www.thenational.ae
“We have planted the seed of change,” said Mahmoud Bouneb, the network’s executive general manager. “We have planted the seed of hope for a better tomorrow, but also for a better Arab citizen.”
Mr Bouneb recalls first hearing of the Qatari First Lady Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned’s idea for an educational, entertaining and locally produced Arabic language children’s channel, in 2002.
“I thought it was, not a joke, but let’s say a fantasy, in the Arab world,” he remembers thinking at the time. “I always thought that children’s television was a very serious business and we in the Arab world have no experience with it.”
Seven years ago, locally produced programming for children was practically non-existent. Arabic-language children’s television meant dubbed versions of Bugs Bunny and Yu-Gi-Oh!
Though he had never been involved in children’s television, in early 2003 Mr Bouneb left his job working for the chairman of the board at Al Jazeera News to become the new network’s executive general manager. For more than two years he worked with producers, programmers and consultants from the Paris-based LaGardere Group to develop an identity for Al Jazeera Children’s Channel.
“I remember the first thing we discussed was, ‘Are we going to let children debate freely on this channel?’” he said. “My answer from Day One was yes, because in Arabic culture we don’t have a tradition of listening to the children ... I said ‘Let’s listen to the children, we would be amazed by what we hear.’
Today, children’s voices dominate JCC programming, in shows such as Nadra Ala, a weekly debate show, and Ad Darb, a popular, fast-moving game show.
At the station’s Education City headquarters, on the edge of Doha, the walls and furniture are painted in bright, child-friendly colours, such as orange and sky blue. Cheerful staffers watch over a steady stream of visiting youngsters and a wide variety of in-house productions keep three top-of-the-line studios in near-constant use.
JCC, which also has offices in Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Paris and Kuala Lumpur, produces about 60 per cent of its programming. That content reaches 45 to 50 million households across the Arab world and Europe.
A year ago, the station split into two channels – Baraem TV, aimed at three to six-year-olds, and the original Al Jazeera Children’s Channel, for seven to 15-year-olds.
Baraem’s animated series Nan and Lili has been honoured repeatedly, including earning a certificate of merit at last year’s International Communications, Video and Interactive Media Competition and, last month, the CINE Golden Eagle Award from a US consortium for innovative TV and cinema. Competitors such as Nickelodeon Arabic and MBC-3 have in recent years begun to produce in-house game shows and other edutainment programming much like that seen on JCC.
JCC has produced or co-produced more than 50 films. Still Alive in Gaza, a feature documentary about Palestinian youth that JCC co-produced, will screen at the Berlin International Film Festival next month.
JCC also offers special programming for Ramadan and a show on the Quran, but does not allow religious ideals to dominate. “Islam is part of our daily life, it’s our religion, and it should be integrated into our content,” said Mr Bouneb. “But we are not a dogmatic channel.”
Nor is JCC a commercial venture. Its US$100 million (Dh367m) annual budget is provided mostly by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development.
Even with minimal marketing, the network has made an impact. “Everything that contributes to the compounding of knowledge in the region is a positive," said Hatem Samman, a director of Booz and Company’s Ideation Center, a Dubai-based think tank.
Yet he questioned the breadth of the station’s influence. “How do you compete with sources from the West and the US in particular?” asked Mr Samman, pointing out that his own children mostly watched English-language stations such as the Disney channel. “You need to have a comparative advantage. One way to do that is if you cannot beat them, you join them, with joint ventures and the like.”
Thus, JCC’s two main objectives are more in-house content and greater reach. It has signed partnership agreements with production firms in the UK, Canada and Japan, among others. An animated show about the Arabic hero Salahaddin and Richard the Lionheart, co-produced with a Malaysian firm, will begin airing this summer.
Within two years, Mr Bouneb hopes to create an English-language version of Baraem and move into the North American market.
Later this month, JCC will launch a video-on-demand platform on its website, where visitors will be able to access detailed programming information and watch their favourite shows at any time.
Mr Bouneb wants “to increase the local flavour, the local identity”, in JCC’s programming. “We are just a television channel which is trying to bring beauty into the lives of the Arabic children,” he said, “to make a difference in their lives and to give them a better future.”
---
originally appeared in 8 Jan, 2010, The National, www.thenational.ae
1.01.2010
A new urban paradigm in Doha
Doha // Tim Makower recalls the moment he and the Qatari first lady, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned, came up with the central theme for a government-backed, US$5.9billion (Dh21.6bn) plan to remake Doha’s city centre into a pedestrian-friendly urban idyll.
“We were discussing this whole issue of how can we bring Qatari families back into the city centre,” said Mr Makower, a partner with the UK-based Allies & Morrison and among the project’s lead architects. “We told her Highness we think we should be creating town houses, we should be clustering them around communal, private gardens and she said, ‘Oh, that’s a fereej’.”
By mingling modern architectural ideas with Qatari traditions, such as crossing the contemporary town house with the Gulf fereej, or courtyard village, “the Heart of Doha” aims to create a rooted yet original sensibility. “That’s a fundamental part of this,” said Mr Makower. “Learning from the past, reflecting the past, but doing it in a new way.”
Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani and his wife Sheikha Mozah first conceived the idea to rebuild central Doha around 2004. Within months they selected a 35-hectare downtown site and hired international architecture and design firms including Arup, Aecom (formerly Edaw) and Allies & Morrison to devise a master plan.
For more than three years, professors from Harvard, Yale, MIT, and the Aga Khan Professoriate of Islamic Architecture reviewed, challenged and finally approved the plan. After months of razing buildings to prepare the site, Heart of Doha’s official groundbreaking arrives later this month. Construction is to take place in five phases and should be completed in 2016.
In a quarter set between the Emiri Diwan, or ruler’s palace, and the recently rebuilt Souq Waqif, Heart of Doha will coalesce around two main thoroughfares: Kahraba, or “electricity” Street, which was Doha’s first high street, and the old wadi.
Computer renderings of the completed project offer a glimpse into an ultra-modern Gulf future: solid, stone-clad façades give way to secluded courtyard gardens; pretty shopping arcades lead to pleasant green plazas; and sleek streetcars glide past smart-looking residents strolling though compact neighbourhoods.
The development, an endowment for Qatar Foundation, is being managed by Dohaland, a Qatar Foundation subsidiary. To many involved, the Heart of Doha is not a simple construction project but a blueprint for contemporary urban living in Doha and beyond.
“The Heart of Doha aspires to regenerate the historic core of the city and to act as a stimulus for future wider city renaissance,” said Issa Mohannadi, executive director of Dohaland. “The ultimate objective, however, is to propose a new paradigm of architecture and planning for the cities of the Arabian Gulf.”
In creating that paradigm, Mr Makower and his fellow architects laid out seven key steps to create a Qatari architectural language. The first is timelessness, or linking Qatar's past to its present and its future. The second step is coherence. Rather than dominate and divide, the buildings, streets and spaces should link and build communities, as well as integrate with a vast underground infrastructure of roads, parking areas, and utilities.
A team of engineers, planners and architects, including Allies and Morrison, Porphyrios Associates, the Jordanian firm Dar Al Omran and Adjaye Associates, has had to set personal goals aside. “There are some disharmonies,” said Mr Makower. “It’s like a choir. We all want to sing different parts and hopefully it will work well together at the end.”
Another step focuses on building a home. “The home is very important because we are building the Qatari family back into the city centre,” said Mr Makower. The completed project includes housing for up to 10,000, including fereej-style town houses allocated to Qataris. These include a majlis and courtyard, but also a gym and underground parking.
The fifth step is the street. Unlike many urban settings in the Gulf, the Heart of Doha will welcome pedestrians with retail and store fronts, streetcars, open plazas and shade. Much of the vehicular traffic will be kept underground. “You will be able to cross the street without being run over,” said Mr Makower.
Most homes will be within walking distance of schools, shops, mosques and public spaces. But since Doha is too hot for street activity for much of the year, step six focuses on adapting to climate.
Most major streets run north-south to take advantage of Qatar’s northerly breezes. Buildings, some of which are certified by the environmental building standard LEED, are designed to keep sunlight out and to catch and scoop wind down into spaces. Many roofs have solar-panelled canopies that provide shade, create terraces and provide energy.
Even the grand civic space at the heart of the Heart of Doha incorporates concerns for climate, with a shading structure than can be raised and lowered to allow more or less sun in.
Barahat Al-Naseem Square, designed by Michel Mossessian, is an urban version of the majlis, with a carpeted floor and sides faced inward.
Though far from fruition, the project has drawn raves. “The plan and the architecture appear intelligent, restrained and distinctive,” the architecture critic of the Financial Times wrote in November.
He compared Heart of Doha favourably to regional efforts like the Burj Dubai and Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island and Masdar City. “If there is one scheme in the region to keep an eye on,” he wrote, “this is it.”
-- this story originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae)
“We were discussing this whole issue of how can we bring Qatari families back into the city centre,” said Mr Makower, a partner with the UK-based Allies & Morrison and among the project’s lead architects. “We told her Highness we think we should be creating town houses, we should be clustering them around communal, private gardens and she said, ‘Oh, that’s a fereej’.”
By mingling modern architectural ideas with Qatari traditions, such as crossing the contemporary town house with the Gulf fereej, or courtyard village, “the Heart of Doha” aims to create a rooted yet original sensibility. “That’s a fundamental part of this,” said Mr Makower. “Learning from the past, reflecting the past, but doing it in a new way.”
Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani and his wife Sheikha Mozah first conceived the idea to rebuild central Doha around 2004. Within months they selected a 35-hectare downtown site and hired international architecture and design firms including Arup, Aecom (formerly Edaw) and Allies & Morrison to devise a master plan.
For more than three years, professors from Harvard, Yale, MIT, and the Aga Khan Professoriate of Islamic Architecture reviewed, challenged and finally approved the plan. After months of razing buildings to prepare the site, Heart of Doha’s official groundbreaking arrives later this month. Construction is to take place in five phases and should be completed in 2016.
In a quarter set between the Emiri Diwan, or ruler’s palace, and the recently rebuilt Souq Waqif, Heart of Doha will coalesce around two main thoroughfares: Kahraba, or “electricity” Street, which was Doha’s first high street, and the old wadi.
Computer renderings of the completed project offer a glimpse into an ultra-modern Gulf future: solid, stone-clad façades give way to secluded courtyard gardens; pretty shopping arcades lead to pleasant green plazas; and sleek streetcars glide past smart-looking residents strolling though compact neighbourhoods.
The development, an endowment for Qatar Foundation, is being managed by Dohaland, a Qatar Foundation subsidiary. To many involved, the Heart of Doha is not a simple construction project but a blueprint for contemporary urban living in Doha and beyond.
“The Heart of Doha aspires to regenerate the historic core of the city and to act as a stimulus for future wider city renaissance,” said Issa Mohannadi, executive director of Dohaland. “The ultimate objective, however, is to propose a new paradigm of architecture and planning for the cities of the Arabian Gulf.”
In creating that paradigm, Mr Makower and his fellow architects laid out seven key steps to create a Qatari architectural language. The first is timelessness, or linking Qatar's past to its present and its future. The second step is coherence. Rather than dominate and divide, the buildings, streets and spaces should link and build communities, as well as integrate with a vast underground infrastructure of roads, parking areas, and utilities.
A team of engineers, planners and architects, including Allies and Morrison, Porphyrios Associates, the Jordanian firm Dar Al Omran and Adjaye Associates, has had to set personal goals aside. “There are some disharmonies,” said Mr Makower. “It’s like a choir. We all want to sing different parts and hopefully it will work well together at the end.”
Another step focuses on building a home. “The home is very important because we are building the Qatari family back into the city centre,” said Mr Makower. The completed project includes housing for up to 10,000, including fereej-style town houses allocated to Qataris. These include a majlis and courtyard, but also a gym and underground parking.
The fifth step is the street. Unlike many urban settings in the Gulf, the Heart of Doha will welcome pedestrians with retail and store fronts, streetcars, open plazas and shade. Much of the vehicular traffic will be kept underground. “You will be able to cross the street without being run over,” said Mr Makower.
Most homes will be within walking distance of schools, shops, mosques and public spaces. But since Doha is too hot for street activity for much of the year, step six focuses on adapting to climate.
Most major streets run north-south to take advantage of Qatar’s northerly breezes. Buildings, some of which are certified by the environmental building standard LEED, are designed to keep sunlight out and to catch and scoop wind down into spaces. Many roofs have solar-panelled canopies that provide shade, create terraces and provide energy.
Even the grand civic space at the heart of the Heart of Doha incorporates concerns for climate, with a shading structure than can be raised and lowered to allow more or less sun in.
Barahat Al-Naseem Square, designed by Michel Mossessian, is an urban version of the majlis, with a carpeted floor and sides faced inward.
Though far from fruition, the project has drawn raves. “The plan and the architecture appear intelligent, restrained and distinctive,” the architecture critic of the Financial Times wrote in November.
He compared Heart of Doha favourably to regional efforts like the Burj Dubai and Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island and Masdar City. “If there is one scheme in the region to keep an eye on,” he wrote, “this is it.”
-- this story originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae)
12.18.2009
Qatar zeroes in on cousin marriage
DOHA // Six years after the law passed, Qatar launched mandatory premarital screenings this week, mainly to alert couples who may be related of any potential health risks for their future offspring.
About half of all marriages across Gulf nations are between cousins, and their frequency is increasing, according to a recent study in the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention. At 54 per cent, the rate of cousin marriage appears highest in Qatar, and has increased nearly 30 per cent from the previous generation.
On its own, marriage between cousins, or consanguinity, is not necessarily problematic. But many debilitating genetic disorders – including sickle cell anaemia, cystic fibrosis, spinal muscular atrophy, mental retardation, epilepsy and Down syndrome – can be up to 20 times more frequent among populations in which cousin marriages are common.
“It is certainly a problem,” said Dr Ahmad Teeb. A genetics and paediatrics professor at the Weill Cornell Medical College of Qatar, he has been researching Arab genetic disorders for more than 25 years and contributed to the recent study.
“The issue here is not the cousin marriage, the issue here is to avoid the disease,” Dr Teebi sai. “However, virtually none of us is free from carrying some bad genes, and when you are cousins the likelihood of you are carrying the same bad gene is higher.”
Marriage between second cousins or more distant relations has very little impact on the passing down of genetic disorders. Yet the children of first cousins, who share 12.5 per cent of their genes, are nearly twice as likely as the general population to contract a disorder. And within populations that intermarry regularly over generations, the coincidence of disorders can increase exponentially.
“If certain disorders are more common in a population,” said Dr Teebi, “the likelihood of its occurrence can be many times increased.” In the Gulf, most cousin marriages are between first cousins.
A report by the Dubai-based Centre for Arab Genomic Studies (CAGS) in September found that a handful of genetic diseases – the blood disorder thalassaemia, diabetes and Down syndrome among them – have reached epidemic levels (more than 100 cases per 100,000) in several Gulf countries. The report also found that Arabs have one of the world’s highest rates of genetic disorders, nearly two-thirds of which are linked to consanguinity.
Qatari leaders have been working to improve national health and medical awareness. This week, the Doha Exhibition Centre hosted Qatar Health 2009, an international forum for the latest advancements in health care research and technology. Sidra Medical and Research Center, a Qatar Foundation initiative that is backed by a US$7.9 billion (Dh29bn) grant and set to open in 2012, aims to become a regional centre of biomedical research and medical education.
Yet Qatar is the last Gulf nation to institute premarital screenings and many nationals remain unaware of the risks of marrying a close relation. A study to be published in Cambridge University’s Journal of Biosocial Science next month found that most Qataris surveyed did not know that consanguinity had been linked to serious genetic diseases or that distant cousin marriages were genetically less risky than unions between first cousins.
“These results indicate that more effort needs to be made in developing public health strategies to improve the population’s understanding of the cost-benefit analysis involved in contracting consanguineous marriages given the goal of healthy offspring,” the report’s authors wrote.
Although cousin marriage is legal in 26 US states and across Europe, the rate of consanguinity in industrialised nations is generally less than one per cent. In Muslim countries, meanwhile, cousin marriage represents about 35 per cent 40 per cent of all unions. Research from CAGS and others suggests consanguinity is declining in Lebanon, Egypt and among Palestinians, but increasing in Morocco, Mauritania and Sudan.
It is also increasing across the Gulf. Dr Teebi links the trend to tribal tradition and the region’s expanding economies. “Rich families tend to marry rich families, and from their own – and the rich like to protect their wealth,” he said. “So it’s partly economic, and it’s also partly cultural.”
Qatar’s Supreme Council of Health aims to change that culture, with an outreach campaign that includes workshops, online information, university lectures and the distribution of educational CDs and brochures. Earlier this week, the Qatari minister of public health, Abdullah bin Khalid al Qahtani said, “a healthy family is the basic cell of society”.
The screenings are meant to strengthen that cell. Couples are tested for both communicable and genetic diseases. Doctors warn of any disorders likely to be passed to each other or to the couple’s potential offspring, but cannot withhold a marriage licence due to any health risks.
The final decision rests with the betrothed. “The couple will think twice or maybe three or four times,” said Dr Teebi. He said that similar screenings in the UAE and Bahrain appear to have lowered the frequency of sickle cell anaemia.
“Some people might say, ‘All right, we will take the risk,’ and some will change their mind,” he said. “It’s the nature of humans that they will think about it.”
About half of all marriages across Gulf nations are between cousins, and their frequency is increasing, according to a recent study in the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention. At 54 per cent, the rate of cousin marriage appears highest in Qatar, and has increased nearly 30 per cent from the previous generation.
On its own, marriage between cousins, or consanguinity, is not necessarily problematic. But many debilitating genetic disorders – including sickle cell anaemia, cystic fibrosis, spinal muscular atrophy, mental retardation, epilepsy and Down syndrome – can be up to 20 times more frequent among populations in which cousin marriages are common.
“It is certainly a problem,” said Dr Ahmad Teeb. A genetics and paediatrics professor at the Weill Cornell Medical College of Qatar, he has been researching Arab genetic disorders for more than 25 years and contributed to the recent study.
“The issue here is not the cousin marriage, the issue here is to avoid the disease,” Dr Teebi sai. “However, virtually none of us is free from carrying some bad genes, and when you are cousins the likelihood of you are carrying the same bad gene is higher.”
Marriage between second cousins or more distant relations has very little impact on the passing down of genetic disorders. Yet the children of first cousins, who share 12.5 per cent of their genes, are nearly twice as likely as the general population to contract a disorder. And within populations that intermarry regularly over generations, the coincidence of disorders can increase exponentially.
“If certain disorders are more common in a population,” said Dr Teebi, “the likelihood of its occurrence can be many times increased.” In the Gulf, most cousin marriages are between first cousins.
A report by the Dubai-based Centre for Arab Genomic Studies (CAGS) in September found that a handful of genetic diseases – the blood disorder thalassaemia, diabetes and Down syndrome among them – have reached epidemic levels (more than 100 cases per 100,000) in several Gulf countries. The report also found that Arabs have one of the world’s highest rates of genetic disorders, nearly two-thirds of which are linked to consanguinity.
Qatari leaders have been working to improve national health and medical awareness. This week, the Doha Exhibition Centre hosted Qatar Health 2009, an international forum for the latest advancements in health care research and technology. Sidra Medical and Research Center, a Qatar Foundation initiative that is backed by a US$7.9 billion (Dh29bn) grant and set to open in 2012, aims to become a regional centre of biomedical research and medical education.
Yet Qatar is the last Gulf nation to institute premarital screenings and many nationals remain unaware of the risks of marrying a close relation. A study to be published in Cambridge University’s Journal of Biosocial Science next month found that most Qataris surveyed did not know that consanguinity had been linked to serious genetic diseases or that distant cousin marriages were genetically less risky than unions between first cousins.
“These results indicate that more effort needs to be made in developing public health strategies to improve the population’s understanding of the cost-benefit analysis involved in contracting consanguineous marriages given the goal of healthy offspring,” the report’s authors wrote.
Although cousin marriage is legal in 26 US states and across Europe, the rate of consanguinity in industrialised nations is generally less than one per cent. In Muslim countries, meanwhile, cousin marriage represents about 35 per cent 40 per cent of all unions. Research from CAGS and others suggests consanguinity is declining in Lebanon, Egypt and among Palestinians, but increasing in Morocco, Mauritania and Sudan.
It is also increasing across the Gulf. Dr Teebi links the trend to tribal tradition and the region’s expanding economies. “Rich families tend to marry rich families, and from their own – and the rich like to protect their wealth,” he said. “So it’s partly economic, and it’s also partly cultural.”
Qatar’s Supreme Council of Health aims to change that culture, with an outreach campaign that includes workshops, online information, university lectures and the distribution of educational CDs and brochures. Earlier this week, the Qatari minister of public health, Abdullah bin Khalid al Qahtani said, “a healthy family is the basic cell of society”.
The screenings are meant to strengthen that cell. Couples are tested for both communicable and genetic diseases. Doctors warn of any disorders likely to be passed to each other or to the couple’s potential offspring, but cannot withhold a marriage licence due to any health risks.
The final decision rests with the betrothed. “The couple will think twice or maybe three or four times,” said Dr Teebi. He said that similar screenings in the UAE and Bahrain appear to have lowered the frequency of sickle cell anaemia.
“Some people might say, ‘All right, we will take the risk,’ and some will change their mind,” he said. “It’s the nature of humans that they will think about it.”
12.16.2009
Arabs encouraged to blog and be heard
DOHA // For Raouf Shabayek, blogging is easy.
“Everyone can blog,” the editor-in-chief of the Dubai-based consultancy Real Marketing Solutions said during a blogging conference on Saturday. “It doesn’t have to be 1,000 or 2,000 words, it can be one sentence, one picture – we can all add something to the conversation.”
Five years ago, Mr Shabayek started a blog about Arabic entrepreneurship (blog.shebayek.com). Waves of positive feedback soon inspired him to organise his writing into a book, which he published himself. He has since published three more, and now sees blogging as a potential Gutenberg Bible for the region. "We in the Arab world can now have our own Renaissance," he said.
About 300 speakers, bloggers and guests turned up at “Mudawanat: All About Blogging,” a one-day forum held at Doha’s Sharq Village resort, to help realise that vision. IctQatar, a government-run technology support group, organised the event to nurture interest in blogging in Qatar and across the region.
Arabic is the world’s fifth most widely spoken language, yet Arabic speakers represent less than three per cent of all web users, according to Internet World Stats. Nearly three-quarters of the world’s blogs are written from Europe and the United States. A June study by Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society found there are an estimated 35,000 active blogs in the Arabic language. But compare that to 70,000 blogs in Farsi.
Yet the potential is considerable. A report from Internet World Stats found that internet users in the Middle East and North Africa increased nearly twenty-fold between 2000 and 2009, faster than in any other language or region. Google searches for the word “mudawanat” (“blogging” in Arabic) have increased 20 per cent to 50 per cent in the past few years, most prominently in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Morocco.
The conference’s keynote speaker, Jeremiah Owyang, a partner at Altimeter Group, a social media research and advisory firm in California, called for clarity among those interested in starting a blog. “What is your topic, and who is your audience?” Mr Owyang asked. “Find your area of interest and focus on it.”
He advocated several steps: treat your blog like a brand; make an editorial calendar; hire a designer to improve the site; and incorporate social networking tools from Facebook and Twitter to better respond to your readers.
An attendee asked Mr Owyang if social networks were pulling web surfers away from blogs. “They’re not taking away from each other; they’re all becoming one,” he said. “You’re building a house and you have many tools – a hammer, saw, nails – you should use them all.”
Ahmad Hamzawi, Google’s head of engineering for the Middle East and North Africa, highlighted some of those tools. He showed how to use Google’s keyword tools to find frequently used search terms, explaining that increasing the use of such terms on a blog increases that blog’s search rank.
For those uncomfortable with English, Mr Hamzawi explained Google Translate, an add-on that offers immediate translations of blog posts in up to 50 languages. Finally, he emphasised the growing popularity of the form: more than 120,000 new blogs are launched every day. Technorati, which indexes blogs, reported in October 2008 that there were 133 million blogs worldwide.
There are about 1,100 blogs in Qatar, according to Ammar Mohammed Khaled, who blogs at ammar- talk.com and founded Al Jazeera Talk, where Arab youth discuss a wide range of issues online. He urged more Qataris to blog, pointing out that blogs can incorporate words, images and video and blogs offer freedom when so much news is controlled.
At least one audience member appreciated this last point. Hassan Al Jefairi said that over the past two decades he had been forced out of columnist positions from three of Qatar’s Arabic-language newspapers because his work ruffled government feathers.
“Everybody knows I’ve got a hot mouth and a hot pen, and I write about hot issues,” said al Jefairi, who writes mostly on environmental and economic issues.
Recently he took to the internet. Al Jefairi’s new blog – he calls it an “electronic magazine” – attracted more than 3,000 visitors in its first month and inspired him to distribute his writing in book form. “There’s more freedom of speech today,” he said.
“The topics I am raising today, 15 years ago I couldn’t discuss them.”
Shabina Khatri discusses a wide variety of issues on her personal and professional blogs, as well as in contributions to Global Voices Online. Her initial inspiration? A slow work day, several years ago. “I was bored at work and decided to start a blog,” said Ms Khatri, whose site quickly gained attention. “You don’t have to be famous. Anybody in this room can just start blogging.”
Blogs can also be a way to make money, according to Mr Hamzawi. He showed attendees how to use Google’s AdSense and FeedBurner applications to place advertisements on their blog and generate income.
Mr Owyang offered a warning to the profit-seekers. “Start a blog with passion first, and then if it turns into a business, great,” he said. “But if you’re starting a blog just to make money, it will probably fail.”
Originally published in The National --
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091216/FOREIGN/712159952
“Everyone can blog,” the editor-in-chief of the Dubai-based consultancy Real Marketing Solutions said during a blogging conference on Saturday. “It doesn’t have to be 1,000 or 2,000 words, it can be one sentence, one picture – we can all add something to the conversation.”
Five years ago, Mr Shabayek started a blog about Arabic entrepreneurship (blog.shebayek.com). Waves of positive feedback soon inspired him to organise his writing into a book, which he published himself. He has since published three more, and now sees blogging as a potential Gutenberg Bible for the region. "We in the Arab world can now have our own Renaissance," he said.
About 300 speakers, bloggers and guests turned up at “Mudawanat: All About Blogging,” a one-day forum held at Doha’s Sharq Village resort, to help realise that vision. IctQatar, a government-run technology support group, organised the event to nurture interest in blogging in Qatar and across the region.
Arabic is the world’s fifth most widely spoken language, yet Arabic speakers represent less than three per cent of all web users, according to Internet World Stats. Nearly three-quarters of the world’s blogs are written from Europe and the United States. A June study by Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society found there are an estimated 35,000 active blogs in the Arabic language. But compare that to 70,000 blogs in Farsi.
Yet the potential is considerable. A report from Internet World Stats found that internet users in the Middle East and North Africa increased nearly twenty-fold between 2000 and 2009, faster than in any other language or region. Google searches for the word “mudawanat” (“blogging” in Arabic) have increased 20 per cent to 50 per cent in the past few years, most prominently in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Morocco.
The conference’s keynote speaker, Jeremiah Owyang, a partner at Altimeter Group, a social media research and advisory firm in California, called for clarity among those interested in starting a blog. “What is your topic, and who is your audience?” Mr Owyang asked. “Find your area of interest and focus on it.”
He advocated several steps: treat your blog like a brand; make an editorial calendar; hire a designer to improve the site; and incorporate social networking tools from Facebook and Twitter to better respond to your readers.
An attendee asked Mr Owyang if social networks were pulling web surfers away from blogs. “They’re not taking away from each other; they’re all becoming one,” he said. “You’re building a house and you have many tools – a hammer, saw, nails – you should use them all.”
Ahmad Hamzawi, Google’s head of engineering for the Middle East and North Africa, highlighted some of those tools. He showed how to use Google’s keyword tools to find frequently used search terms, explaining that increasing the use of such terms on a blog increases that blog’s search rank.
For those uncomfortable with English, Mr Hamzawi explained Google Translate, an add-on that offers immediate translations of blog posts in up to 50 languages. Finally, he emphasised the growing popularity of the form: more than 120,000 new blogs are launched every day. Technorati, which indexes blogs, reported in October 2008 that there were 133 million blogs worldwide.
There are about 1,100 blogs in Qatar, according to Ammar Mohammed Khaled, who blogs at ammar- talk.com and founded Al Jazeera Talk, where Arab youth discuss a wide range of issues online. He urged more Qataris to blog, pointing out that blogs can incorporate words, images and video and blogs offer freedom when so much news is controlled.
At least one audience member appreciated this last point. Hassan Al Jefairi said that over the past two decades he had been forced out of columnist positions from three of Qatar’s Arabic-language newspapers because his work ruffled government feathers.
“Everybody knows I’ve got a hot mouth and a hot pen, and I write about hot issues,” said al Jefairi, who writes mostly on environmental and economic issues.
Recently he took to the internet. Al Jefairi’s new blog – he calls it an “electronic magazine” – attracted more than 3,000 visitors in its first month and inspired him to distribute his writing in book form. “There’s more freedom of speech today,” he said.
“The topics I am raising today, 15 years ago I couldn’t discuss them.”
Shabina Khatri discusses a wide variety of issues on her personal and professional blogs, as well as in contributions to Global Voices Online. Her initial inspiration? A slow work day, several years ago. “I was bored at work and decided to start a blog,” said Ms Khatri, whose site quickly gained attention. “You don’t have to be famous. Anybody in this room can just start blogging.”
Blogs can also be a way to make money, according to Mr Hamzawi. He showed attendees how to use Google’s AdSense and FeedBurner applications to place advertisements on their blog and generate income.
Mr Owyang offered a warning to the profit-seekers. “Start a blog with passion first, and then if it turns into a business, great,” he said. “But if you’re starting a blog just to make money, it will probably fail.”
Originally published in The National --
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091216/FOREIGN/712159952
12.04.2009
Qatari father vents anger sentence given to son's killer
DOHA // After the killing of his 16-year-old son Mohammed in England, Abdulla al Majed vowed, “justice has to be done”. Some 16 months later that justice has come, but it is not the sort the grieving father envisioned.
The judge Anthony Scott-Gall last week sentenced George Austin, 22, from South London, to four and a half years in jail for the killing of Mohammed. Austin has been in police custody since November 2008. With more than a year of time served, plus a possible early release for good behaviour, he could be a free man by early 2011.
“I’m not happy, I’m angry,” said Mr al Majed. “The judge was very good, very fair – the fault is with the British justice system. Their penal code encourages killing because it does not punish harshly. What guarantee do we have that when he’s released he will not kill again?”
In the summer of 2008, Mohammed al Majed left Doha to study English at an international school in Hastings, England. A few days before he was due to complete his studies and return home, Mohammed was with a couple classmates outside a kebab shop. Austin and two of his friends, all of whom had been drinking alcohol, began harassing the foreign students with racist taunts.
Austin struck Mohammed in the face as the teenager tried to run away. Mohammed’s head slammed into a kerb. He suffered a fractured skull and a brain haemorrhage and died in hospital three days later.
Austin was convicted of manslaughter last month and sentenced on November 25. His attorney, Susan Rodham, argued that the killing “was not premeditated”, and that the head wounds were “indirect” and “not foreseeable”. The British newspaper The Observer termed the sentence “lenient”.
“He should have gotten either a death sentence or 25 years in jail,” Mr al Majed said. “Sharia says, ‘An eye for an eye.’”
In Qatar, such a killing would probably receive a harsher penalty. “The sentence would depend on many factors – including the age of the defendant, did the victim die immediately, the anger of the victim’s family – but it would certainly be more than this,” said Hanan Malaeb, a law professor at Qatar University.
George Austin received a four and a half year jail sentence for killing Mohammed al Majed Nigel Bowles for The National
She estimated the punishment could vary from the death penalty plus a “blood money” payment of up to 150,000 Qatari rials (Dh151,322) to the victim’s family, to a much smaller fine and a dozen years in jail. “If this happened to my son, I don’t think a few years would be enough,” Prof Malaeb added. “This would not give me the satisfaction that he got his punishment.”
Mohammed’s family remains unsatisfied. His mother, father and four siblings live together in Doha, and recall the 16-year-old who liked football and was a member of the Kashafa, or scouts.
“Still no days pass without shedding tears,” said Mr al Majed. “It still makes me too sad to remember him – I don’t like to think about it. All of his family is missing him. But now we are not only upset about losing him, we are upset about this sentence.”
Each year, about 40,000 foreign students study English in Hastings, an East Sussex town of about 85,000. Police say confrontations with locals are not uncommon. Just hours before the incident, the owner of the kebab shop had warned police about the potential for violence from Austin and his friends.
“This was the duty of the British government, but they have failed,” Mr al Majed said.
On Tuesday the killer’s mother, Jacqueline Austin, pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice. She helped her son flee the country to evade capture a month after the killing.
In sentencing Austin, the judge said: “What a sad indictment you are for the youth of Britain.”
The victim’s father puts the killing in context.
“We have respect for the British people,” said Mr al Majed. “But some like this George, they defame the country. They are a danger to their own society.”
Mr al Majed believes the scars left by Austin will be deep and lasting. “The Quran says: ‘To kill one man is to kill all of humanity,’” he said. “He has not just killed one person he has killed against a family and a nation.”
--- originally ran 4 Dec 2009 in The National (www.thenational.ae).
The judge Anthony Scott-Gall last week sentenced George Austin, 22, from South London, to four and a half years in jail for the killing of Mohammed. Austin has been in police custody since November 2008. With more than a year of time served, plus a possible early release for good behaviour, he could be a free man by early 2011.
“I’m not happy, I’m angry,” said Mr al Majed. “The judge was very good, very fair – the fault is with the British justice system. Their penal code encourages killing because it does not punish harshly. What guarantee do we have that when he’s released he will not kill again?”
In the summer of 2008, Mohammed al Majed left Doha to study English at an international school in Hastings, England. A few days before he was due to complete his studies and return home, Mohammed was with a couple classmates outside a kebab shop. Austin and two of his friends, all of whom had been drinking alcohol, began harassing the foreign students with racist taunts.
Austin struck Mohammed in the face as the teenager tried to run away. Mohammed’s head slammed into a kerb. He suffered a fractured skull and a brain haemorrhage and died in hospital three days later.
Austin was convicted of manslaughter last month and sentenced on November 25. His attorney, Susan Rodham, argued that the killing “was not premeditated”, and that the head wounds were “indirect” and “not foreseeable”. The British newspaper The Observer termed the sentence “lenient”.
“He should have gotten either a death sentence or 25 years in jail,” Mr al Majed said. “Sharia says, ‘An eye for an eye.’”
In Qatar, such a killing would probably receive a harsher penalty. “The sentence would depend on many factors – including the age of the defendant, did the victim die immediately, the anger of the victim’s family – but it would certainly be more than this,” said Hanan Malaeb, a law professor at Qatar University.
George Austin received a four and a half year jail sentence for killing Mohammed al Majed Nigel Bowles for The National
She estimated the punishment could vary from the death penalty plus a “blood money” payment of up to 150,000 Qatari rials (Dh151,322) to the victim’s family, to a much smaller fine and a dozen years in jail. “If this happened to my son, I don’t think a few years would be enough,” Prof Malaeb added. “This would not give me the satisfaction that he got his punishment.”
Mohammed’s family remains unsatisfied. His mother, father and four siblings live together in Doha, and recall the 16-year-old who liked football and was a member of the Kashafa, or scouts.
“Still no days pass without shedding tears,” said Mr al Majed. “It still makes me too sad to remember him – I don’t like to think about it. All of his family is missing him. But now we are not only upset about losing him, we are upset about this sentence.”
Each year, about 40,000 foreign students study English in Hastings, an East Sussex town of about 85,000. Police say confrontations with locals are not uncommon. Just hours before the incident, the owner of the kebab shop had warned police about the potential for violence from Austin and his friends.
“This was the duty of the British government, but they have failed,” Mr al Majed said.
On Tuesday the killer’s mother, Jacqueline Austin, pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice. She helped her son flee the country to evade capture a month after the killing.
In sentencing Austin, the judge said: “What a sad indictment you are for the youth of Britain.”
The victim’s father puts the killing in context.
“We have respect for the British people,” said Mr al Majed. “But some like this George, they defame the country. They are a danger to their own society.”
Mr al Majed believes the scars left by Austin will be deep and lasting. “The Quran says: ‘To kill one man is to kill all of humanity,’” he said. “He has not just killed one person he has killed against a family and a nation.”
--- originally ran 4 Dec 2009 in The National (www.thenational.ae).
Young learn principles of print
DOHA // Erika Widén is thinking big. With her new initiative, the director of business development at Qatar’s leading English-language daily newspaper aims to rescue the country’s print media and help build a skilled workforce in the Gulf.
“Not too many people are interested in reading the news around here anymore – they are checking their BlackBerry, maybe getting Al Jazeera on their mobile,” she said at the offices of The Peninsula.
“We want to get these kids interested in reading, interested in the news, and also help them write. There are not a lot of opportunities like this for young people in this region.”
Ms Widén and the Peninsula editor-in-chief, Khalid Abdul Rahim al Sayed, have just launched the Young Peninsula Journalists (YPS) programme, a free journalism training scheme for middle and secondary students. YPJ hopes to engage citizens in news, impart valuable work skills and steer local youth towards a successful career.
On the first day of classes last weekend, the Peninsula offices bustled. Dozens of the programme’s 300 seven to 12th grade students mingled in the halls. Teenage girls in headscarves talked about photography on couches in the lobby. Adolescent boys discussed journalistic integrity. “Some papers are trying their best to cover the real news,” said 13-year-old Vignesh during class. “But some are just publishing news that is not there at all.”
Ethics and accuracy are among the topics of discussion, along with writing, reporting and various media-related concerns. The students come up with their own story ideas – on sport, society, arts, business and more – but are advised to focus on what’s happening in Qatar.
Starting in early January, a YPJ newspaper – with student reporting, photography, graphics and cartoons – will be inserted every Sunday into The Peninsula. The best student work will receive awards.
Over the year-long programme, the students will receive 60 hours of training in the job skills that are much needed in Qatar and across the region. In the UAE, a government body tasked with finding jobs for young Emirati nationals has found the private sector is willing to hire, but often cannot because of a lack of skills.
The Arab Labor Organization estimates unemployment at nearly 15 per cent in Arab countries – the highest for any region.Without intervention, the problem is likely to fester.
“The GCC will remain an unusually young part of the world,” said a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit called The GCC in 2020, which was released last week.
“Much will depend on the extent to which the young population can be harnessed as an effective labour force.”
That goal dovetails with one of YPJ’s lead sponsors. Silatech, an organisation created by Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned in 2008, engages public, private and civil society sectors to create jobs and opportunities for Arab youth.
“This helps young people inside Qatar that give back to Qatari society and enhance its growth,” said Ahmed Younis, director of strategic partnerships and communications at Silatech. “It’s important for the development and growth of the Middle East and North Africa region to be sure young people have a robust set of skills in journalism, public policy, and writing, and this is what we’re hoping to achieve.”
More than half of the YPJ students are Arab, 15 per cent to 20 per cent of whom are Qatari nationals. About 40 per cent are from South Asia, along with a handful of westerners. The initiative will also train 20 students with special needs from The Shaffallah School.
“This is the way the world works today, with people from all different places working together,” said Ms Widén, who put advertisements for the initiative in local Arabic and English-language newspapers. “We want all these different students to be integrated.”
Still, students will learn writing and interviewing skills, the role of a reporter and the value of news. The first class began with the basics – “What is Journalism?” – and ended with an assignment: write the five Ws (who, what, when, where, why) about a recent event.
The Palestinian triplets Yosra, Mohammad and Latifa, all 14, left class together, notebooks in hand. “We want to know more about newspapers, how they work,” said Latifa. She is doing her assignment on natural disasters, while her sister Yosra will focus on crime.
Their brother could not decide what to write about, then he brightened. “I know,” said Mohammad. “I’m going to write about the Algeria-Egypt football match.”
-- originally appeared Friday, 27 Nov 2009, in the National (www.thenational.ae).
“Not too many people are interested in reading the news around here anymore – they are checking their BlackBerry, maybe getting Al Jazeera on their mobile,” she said at the offices of The Peninsula.
“We want to get these kids interested in reading, interested in the news, and also help them write. There are not a lot of opportunities like this for young people in this region.”
Ms Widén and the Peninsula editor-in-chief, Khalid Abdul Rahim al Sayed, have just launched the Young Peninsula Journalists (YPS) programme, a free journalism training scheme for middle and secondary students. YPJ hopes to engage citizens in news, impart valuable work skills and steer local youth towards a successful career.
On the first day of classes last weekend, the Peninsula offices bustled. Dozens of the programme’s 300 seven to 12th grade students mingled in the halls. Teenage girls in headscarves talked about photography on couches in the lobby. Adolescent boys discussed journalistic integrity. “Some papers are trying their best to cover the real news,” said 13-year-old Vignesh during class. “But some are just publishing news that is not there at all.”
Ethics and accuracy are among the topics of discussion, along with writing, reporting and various media-related concerns. The students come up with their own story ideas – on sport, society, arts, business and more – but are advised to focus on what’s happening in Qatar.
Starting in early January, a YPJ newspaper – with student reporting, photography, graphics and cartoons – will be inserted every Sunday into The Peninsula. The best student work will receive awards.
Over the year-long programme, the students will receive 60 hours of training in the job skills that are much needed in Qatar and across the region. In the UAE, a government body tasked with finding jobs for young Emirati nationals has found the private sector is willing to hire, but often cannot because of a lack of skills.
The Arab Labor Organization estimates unemployment at nearly 15 per cent in Arab countries – the highest for any region.Without intervention, the problem is likely to fester.
“The GCC will remain an unusually young part of the world,” said a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit called The GCC in 2020, which was released last week.
“Much will depend on the extent to which the young population can be harnessed as an effective labour force.”
That goal dovetails with one of YPJ’s lead sponsors. Silatech, an organisation created by Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned in 2008, engages public, private and civil society sectors to create jobs and opportunities for Arab youth.
“This helps young people inside Qatar that give back to Qatari society and enhance its growth,” said Ahmed Younis, director of strategic partnerships and communications at Silatech. “It’s important for the development and growth of the Middle East and North Africa region to be sure young people have a robust set of skills in journalism, public policy, and writing, and this is what we’re hoping to achieve.”
More than half of the YPJ students are Arab, 15 per cent to 20 per cent of whom are Qatari nationals. About 40 per cent are from South Asia, along with a handful of westerners. The initiative will also train 20 students with special needs from The Shaffallah School.
“This is the way the world works today, with people from all different places working together,” said Ms Widén, who put advertisements for the initiative in local Arabic and English-language newspapers. “We want all these different students to be integrated.”
Still, students will learn writing and interviewing skills, the role of a reporter and the value of news. The first class began with the basics – “What is Journalism?” – and ended with an assignment: write the five Ws (who, what, when, where, why) about a recent event.
The Palestinian triplets Yosra, Mohammad and Latifa, all 14, left class together, notebooks in hand. “We want to know more about newspapers, how they work,” said Latifa. She is doing her assignment on natural disasters, while her sister Yosra will focus on crime.
Their brother could not decide what to write about, then he brightened. “I know,” said Mohammad. “I’m going to write about the Algeria-Egypt football match.”
-- originally appeared Friday, 27 Nov 2009, in the National (www.thenational.ae).
12.01.2009
Dubai is Good
The Burj Dubai sticks out from the city's skyline like a raised middle finger. Head, shoulders, torso and waist above all comers, the tower tells off legions of Dubai doubters. Indeed the building, which opens in January, is so tall as to be ludicrous. I first saw it from the plane as we prepared to land, and more than anything it looked like a creation beyond human capability, it rose so high, so sharply, piercing the sky like something out of a sci-fi movie. That the tower is stunning, a feat of both imagination and engineering, awe-inspiring and a wonder to behold is without question. But now that Dubai World has defaulted on its debt, the narrative of this Gulf city's glorious rise to global prominence -- as a financial center, a playground for the rich and adventurous, a laboratory for new ideas on architecture and urban planning -- and the meaning of the Burj have taken a darker turn.
A writer friend of mine, responding to mostly unfounded rumors that the foundation of the Burj had long since cracked, called the tower "the height of hypocrisy -- a most apt symbol for the city." Of course the Burj is a metaphor, but of what is as yet unclear. It's unlikely to become the Titanic, for one. Westerners seeking high salaries, ideal weather and the good life will continue to wash up on these shores.
Abu Dhabi will most likely bolster its economy and Dubai the dream will move on - and thank god for that. For Dubai is both a positive force in an unsettled Muslim world and a much-needed poverty reduction machine. Its economy is about as liberal and market-friendly as they get. Its government, although monarchic, is more laissez faire than any from Pakistan to Morocco -- and Muslims are all too aware of this. Ask any non-radical across the Muslim World where he'd like to go on holiday, or for the duration, and you'll likely hear "Dubai" within the first few options. Perhaps more importantly, there are few better places for developing world poor to go looking for work and success. The majority of Dubai's population is not Emirati, nor is it predominantly Western-expats splashing out for pads in Jumeirah beach. This city is comprised of mostly Indians and Bangladeshis, Nepalis, Pakistanis and Fillipinos -- people from poor countries who've come looking for a better life, and mostly found it.
Still, with its reputation tarnished, its leadership chastened in the wake of the debt default, Dubai must now move out of its adolescence. Most likely, the opening of the Burj Dubai will represent the end of an era, and an awakening -- the moment Dubai accepted its mortality, stepped back from the brink and steadied itself.
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