Marjorie in Qatar

Props to Nigel for pointing out a glorious example of Qatari self-censorship in action. Here, side by side, are a Reuters article and its redactions in the Gulf Times and Peninsula, with significant differences in red:

REUTERS	GULF TIMES	PENINSULA
A long-planned $3 billion bridge linking Bahrain and Qatar has been put on hold and the project team scaled back, sources close to the project said, amid escalating costs and increased political tension.	A long-planned $3bn bridge linking Bahrain and Qatar has been put on hold and the project team scaled back, sources close to the project said.	A long-planned $3bn bridge linking Bahrain and Qatar has been put on hold and the project team scaled back amid escalating costs, sources close to the project have said.
The 40-kilometre causeway linking gas exporter Qatar to the island kingdom of Bahrain was set to play a key role in improving infrastructure connections between members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), but has been beset by problems.	The 40-km causeway linking Qatar to the island kingdom of Bahrain was set to play a key role in improving infrastructure connections between members of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), but has been beset by problems.	The 40-kilometre causeway linking Qatar to Bahrain was set to play a key role in improving infrastructure connections between members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
The project, first announced in 2001, had already been delayed in 2008 to change the project scope to include trains, and late last year the countries said work would start in the first quarter and be completed by 2015.	The project, first announced in 2001, had already been delayed in 2008 to change the project scope to include trains, and late last year the countries said work would start in the first quarter and be completed by 2015.	The project, first announced in 2001, had already been delayed in 2008 to change the project scope to include trains, and late last year the countries said work would start in the first quarter and would be completed by 2015.
That fresh date came and went, however, and the project prospects were further dampened in May, when Bahrain said Qatar's coast guard shot and wounded a Bahraini fisherman who had entered Qatari waters.
The project has seen many, many problems (and there were) also the political tensions,' a source close to the project told Reuters, adding 'the team has been significantly decreased.'	“The project has seen many, many problems..,” a source close to the project told Reuters, adding “the team has been significantly decreased.”
The exact reason for the suspension of the project was not immediately clear, although Jassim Ali, a member of the economic committee of Bahrain's parliament, said 'the project has been on hold for some time, but it is not cancelled,' adding cost increases and financing issues had played a role.	The exact reason for the suspension of the project was not immediately clear, although Jassim Ali, a member of the economic committee of Bahrain’s parliament, said “the project has been on hold for some time, but it is not cancelled”, adding cost increases and financing issues had played a role.	Jassim Ali, a member of the economic committee of Bahrain's parliament, said “the project has been on hold for some time, but it is not cancelled,” adding cost increases and financing issues had played a role.
Contractors for the project, the latest official cost estimate for which stands at $3 billion, include France's Vinci and Germany's Hochtief , Qatari Diar Real Estate and Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC).	Contractors for the project, the latest official cost estimate for which stands at $3bn, include France’s Vinci and Germany’s Hochtief AG, Qatari Diar Real Estate and Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC).	Contractors for the project France’s Vinci and Germany’s Hochtief AG, Qatari Diar Real Estate and Consolidated Contractors Company.
A spokesman for Hochtief confirmed the construction phase had never been reached.	A spokesman for Hochtief confirmed the construction phase had never been reached.	A spokesman for Hochtief confirmed the construction phase had never been reached.
'We got a contract to do some planning (for the bridge), which we did, but a contract for the actual construction was never commissioned,' he said.	“We got a contract to do some planning (for the bridge), which we did, but a contract for the actual construction was never commissioned,” he said.
Member countries of the GCC, a loose political and economic bloc, are trying to integrate their economies, with four of them eyeing a joint currency, but have built up little cross-border infrastructure.
The rail tracks on the causeway were to have been part of a planned train network that would connect the members of the GCC, which also include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and the UAE.

Today's Gulf Times has a rather telling juxtaposition of stories in its courtroom news roundup.

A woman was sentenced to five years in jail after beating, burning and then fatally stabbing her housemaid because she "was unhappy with the Indonesian’s work."

Meanwhile, a man was sentenced to seven years in jail for "uttering blasphemous words under the influence of liquor."

Serious drama has been happening for the last two weeks over at IslamOnline, one of the most visited Muslim websites on the web, which is based here in Doha. I frequently visit IslamOnline when looking up different points of view on a topic in Islam, since it's a fairly pluralistic website that will show you a range of fatwas on a given topic.

IslamOnline was started by Sheikh Qaradawi, an eminent Muslim scholar who lives in Doha, and who, while occasionally coming out with wacky and disturbingly anti-Jewish pronouncements, is generally about as mild and open-minded a mufti as you could hope to find.

Anyway, apparently in the last few weeks serious conflict has broken out between IslamOnline's board of directors, who are all of course Qatari, and its employees, who are based in Cairo. Some of this seems to be a normal labor dispute; some is a result of the new board of directors' desire to exercise editorial control over website content. According to one employee, for example, "We were receiving complaints (from management) about our discussions on women's health, homosexuality, and films."

The workers on Cairo went on strike; management in Qatar blocked their access to the site; Qaradawi tried to calm things down; and now it's being reported that the Qatari Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs has ousted Qaradawi and set up a temporary board of directors for the website.

That's not actually what I wanted to tell you, though.

What's striking to me is that this dispute has been going on for two weeks and I JUST LEARNED ABOUT IT AN HOUR AGO from a passing Twitter comment from a former colleague. Since this story involves Qatar's most visible religious leader, one of the biggest Muslim websites in the world, and government intervention into the workings of a private nonprofit organization, you'd think it'd be considered... you know... NEWSWORTHY. And you'd think that since I read local news every day, I'd know about newsworthy things happening in Doha. But that is sadly very far from the truth.

It must be really wretched to be a local reporter in Doha. They must know about all kinds of newsworthy things like this that are happening in Qatar, but instead of writing about them, they have to publish press releases about Applebee's new burger menu.

There are a million things I will miss about Qatar when we leave here in a few months, but one thing I do fervently look forward to is living in a country where the media are EXPECTED to talk about controversial issues, instead of quesadilla burgers.

The Qatar Animal Welfare Socity, where Justin and I used to volunteer as dog-walkers, burned down to the ground yesterday. Most of the cats and a couple dogs died, but around 50 dogs, 15 cats, and the farm animals survived.

The surviving dogs and cats are being housed at Qatar Veterinary Centre, the Veterinary Surgery, and Pampered Pets, but they need blankets and bedding, dog and cat food, cat litter, collars and leads, toys, crates and litter trays (cheap at Daiso). At least as importantly, they need dog-walkers and foster homes.

QAWS itself needs cat food, bales of hay and massive quantities of water for the farm animals.

Cash donations can't be accepted because QAWS, despite years of efforts, is not a registered charity. Good work, arcane Qatari charity laws.

Pictures, news and updated info can be found on Qatar Living.

I apologize in advance for the tasteless nature of this post, but the larger issue interested me.

I happened to check BBC News this afternoon three minutes after they posted the story about David Carradine's death. The second paragraph read:

"Thai police told the BBC the 72-year-old was found by a hotel maid sitting in a wardrobe with a rope around his neck and genitals on Thursday morning."

Within half an hour, that had changed to:

"Thai police told the BBC the 72-year-old was found by a hotel maid sitting in a wardrobe with a rope around his neck and body on Thursday morning."

As I write this, it now reads:

"Thai police told the BBC the 72-year-old was found naked by a hotel maid in a wardrobe with a cord around his neck and other parts of his body."

I'm not sure if BBC is getting conflicting/updated reports or if they're just not sure how to handle the delicacies of the situation -- but it's a little alarming that the news can change without there even really being any record that it used to be different. Winston Smith lives!

Last week I laughed out loud to read that a group of Emiratis lodged an official complaint because they were laid off by their employer. One of the sacked Emiratis said: "Emiratis should be protected through legislation during such hard times. We should have these rights as UAE citizens. I find it strange that we should lose jobs in our own country."

Can you imagine making that argument in the US? "Hey, you can't lay me off! I'm an American citizen!"

Well, I'm not laughing anymore: the UAE just made it illegal for a private company to lay off an Emirati if there's a non-Emirati doing the same job. So, say your company's widget-maker, Sanjeev, is overworked so you hire an Emirati, Abdullah, to make widgets too. Then widget sales decrease and you have to lay one off. Surprise! It's now illegal to keep Sanjeev.

Additionally, according to the Financial Times, "private companies will only be able to dismiss UAE nationals for serious misconduct, including, among other reasons, absenteeism, theft or drunkenness." Despite the fact that Dubai's economy is pretty much in free-fall, "The economic downturn will not be reason enough to make Emirati staff redundant."

What about Emiratis who don't engage in "serious misconduct" but who simply aren't doing their jobs? They can't be fired either, "but must be given more training or transferred to work more suited to their skills," reports The National. I'm desperately curious to see how that would pan out: "Sorry, Abdullah, but we've determined your skills are more suited to a different role. The mop's in the hall closet."

For all their desperation to make sure their citizens are gainfully employed in the private sector, the Gulf governments seem to do a spectacular job creating disincentives to hire locals. Emiratis were already pretty much unfireable, and now they're un-layoff-able, too: if I were hiring Sanjeev's assistant, why on earth would I hire an Emirati? As always, the government's approach is to make hiring a local extremely burdensome and then require companies to do it anyway, instead of to offer incentives that would make hiring a national inherently appealing.

Amazingly, though, the UAE government thinks the new law will actually incentivize hiring Emiratis! According to that The Nation article,

Feddah Lootah, the acting director general of the National Human Resource Development and Employment Authority (Tanmia), said Emiratis would feel more secure in their jobs knowing they cannot be laid off. As a result, they will "increase their productivity, performance and loyalty". Companies will become aware of that trend and will recruit more Emiratis, she said.

Um, yeah. Nothing increases a worker's performance and loyalty more than knowing they have a job for life no matter how much they screw up!

Quoth the Peninsula, an Arab couple was arrested for kissing on the Corniche. In their defense, they proved that they were married. However, the man is a Christian and the woman is a Muslim, so even though they are married (in their unspecified homeland), Qatar has refused to recognize their marriage certificate.

McCain supporter: "I can't trust Obama. I have read about him, and he's not, he's not, he's, uh, um, he's an Arab."
McCain: "No ma'am, no ma'am, he's a decent family man citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on, on fundamental issues, and that's what this campaign is all about."

We've all read about this exchange since it happened a couple weeks ago, but a conversation in the ARC yesterday made me reflect that I should post about it from the vantage point of Qatar.

I'm glad McCain confronted this ignorant woman and tried to set a respectful tone, even if his other actions (both before and since) give the lie to this supposed respect. But think about that exchange from the point of an Arab American, or an Arab here in the Middle East:

"He's an Arab."
"No ma'am, no ma'am, he's a decent family man citizen."

On what planet is "decent family man citizen" (let's pretend that really is a noun) an antonym for "Arab"? What does it tell us about McCain that he thinks that the statement "he's a decent man" is a cogent counterargument to the statement "he's an Arab"?

I am saddened by the picture of the U.S. that emerges from this election. I'm sad that our students hear the ignorance of Americans claiming Obama's an Arab and/or a Muslim, but even more sad that they hear the fear those claims engender. I'm sad they hear the candidates denying the veracity of those claims without addressing the underlying fear. I'm embarrassed that my African coworker has to learn what the Bradley effect is, and has to read quotes from Pennsylvania voters calling Obama a nigger.

As Colin Powell just said, "Those kinds of images going out on al Jazeera are killing us around the world." It's not a metaphor. Since 9/11 the U.S. seems to be doing everything it possibly can to convince people around the world that we hate and fear those with different skin color and religious beliefs. It makes me ashamed of America. And it makes us not just less respected in the world, but less safe as well.

I'll close on a more positive note, with more of Colin Powell's words as he endorsed Obama:

I’m also troubled by what members of the party say, and is permitted to be said, such things as, 'Well you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.' Well, the correct answer is, 'He is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian, he’s always been a Christian.'

But the really right answer is, 'What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?'

The answer’s 'No, that’s not America.'"

From the Pensinsula. Of course.

Illiteracy in Qatar down by 7.5pc
Web posted at: 9/4/2008 2:25:8
Source ::: The Peninsula

DOHA • Illiteracy in Qatar has come down by 7.5 percent, said Mohamed Yusuf Al Mahmoud, Director of Adult Literacy and Illiteracy Department at the Ministry of Education and High Education.

"The rate of illiteracy in Qatar was 22.3 percent in 1986, and 17.6 percent in 1993, but it reached 13.6 percent in 1997. According to the 2004 statistics, illiteracy rate was 9 percent but this figure is currently less than 7.5 percent," he said.

According to today's Pensinsula headline -- Housewives quiver as blue-collar workforce pitches tents in al Wakra -- local women are reporting they are unable to leave the house because there are poor people out there. Oh noes!

In all seriousness, the burgeoning migrant labor population is a big issue. Yesterday's Peninsula rather astonishingly reported that Qatar had 18% population growth in the first half of this year, which would represent an influx of nearly a quarter million workers in the course of six months. How do you accommodate a quarter million new people? Either you cram even more of them into already-crowded labor camps, or you expand worker accomodations into other areas, like the unlucky one in Al Wakra. Or both.

Then, of course, there's the question of what to do with your million-plus migrant laborers during their day off. It turns out that after you ban them from the normal gathering places, other, less reputable gathering places spring up.

Relatedly, CMU is holding a small conference on issues of migrant labor, so I'll be spending part of my week at that. On Tuesday, our undergraduate research project will be presenting some preliminary findings from our survey of low-paid laborers. Exciting times!