Leisure

There seems to be a preponderance of passive over active recreation, particularly with regard to games, and this is carried over with children into their teens and beyond. Children have become accustomed to being driven by drivers or not to make a journey at all. Sport is encouraged at School but child obesity – a function of poor diet and lack of exercise – is now noticeable and the weather is not always conducive to exercise. There are a number of clubs for Qataris that are patronised particularly by teenagers. In the past these had a strong social role as a meeting ground and, because of this, have been associated with political unrest as well as social problems. Football and basketball are particularly liked and followed by all, each club having teams.

Teenagers have the same games and pursuits they always had though they are heavily dependent on owning or using a car for a lot of their activities. A car is acquired as soon as possible and driven, sometimes under age. Traffic laws are not scrupulously upheld, and there is a feeling that the modern car is, perhaps, the counterpart of the horse or camel in that it is the natural requirement that marks the man. It is interesting to see the two modes of transport side by side as here where a driver is adjusting his tyres for the soft sand. Nowadays, it seems, most teenagers are more oriented towards sport though many continue to use the desert for leisure activities.

This follows through to the adult where cars are a very potent symbol of power and mobility. Import papers stuck to windows are kept as long as possible to demonstrate that a car is newly acquired. Many sports can be followed in Qatar, but only a handful of adults pursue them, and these would be mainly football, tennis, sailing or body-building. There are a small number of Qataris who are active in sport after marriage, but they are few and far between and tend to be those at the upper end of the socio-economic scale.

The process of opening up Qatar to the outside world has seen significant developments in the provision of sports. But these are sports played at an international level: tennis, motorcycling, motorboat racing and the like which are televised to a national and international audience. They bring identification with Qatar, but they mainly encourage passive viewing.

The desert and the sea are the two areas that still draw the adult Qatari in his free time. In general it is true that the badu families are drawn to the desert and the littoral families to the sea, but this is not always the case with many of the latter developing farms inland and the former developing houses on the sea side within the constraints of their limited availability and Government regulation. This example shows the idyllic setting that many enjoy: tents beside the sea with the grazing brought by the winter rains. The tents may stay there for the whole of the season with members of the family commuting if they have work in town. It is the equivalent of the West’s second home syndrome, but without the permanent footprint. Elsewhere I have talked about the main Qatari families and their geographic relationship with the peninsula. I should add here that there is still this feeling of ownership and many families will feel themselves limited to the areas their tribe had a notional right to.

Some are able to capitalise on land they have, or believe they have, a right to and have been able to establish a more permanent structure than a tent. Both the tents above and this shack have exactly the same spirit behind them though the tent has, perhaps, the more romantic look both in terms of its appearance compared with a permanent structure as well as in its capability to respond to the particular environmental conditions of the littoral. However, here somebody has developed a structure which has the advantages of electricity – witness the television dishes – water tanks and, a most important element, two trees, one I think an acacia the other a palm. It is an idealised place to rest from the increasingly busy pace of life in the city and one increasingly sought by Qataris.

Nevertheless the desert attracts many who wish to be able to experience the smells of the clean air and the taste of the well water. Although the Qatar desert is not large and the State is confined to a narrow peninsula, there is a very strong feeling that the peninsula is an extension of the Rub Al Khali or Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia and is accessible psychologically as well as, in a few cases, literally. Bear in mind that the badu annually ran their animals in and out of the peninsula, and the border is patrolled on both sides by guards drawn, in the main, from the same families who made these annual migrations.

But the desert is also enjoyed in a different way nowadays. Access to it brought about by a combination of increased wealth, the availability of four-wheel drive vehicles, and more leisure time has enabled many to enjoy themselves in a different way. Khor al-Udeid in the south of the peninsula has been effectively designated a touristic area, as they term it. The sand dunes are regarded as a recreational facility and advantage is taken of them to provide a break for those working and living in Qatar. It is certainly different from the traditional pursuit of leisure in the desert.

Because of the availability of four-wheeled vehicles and the cultural tradition of roaming in the desert, many take advantage of the desert to travel off-road. Although the desert is relatively flat – with the exception of the sand dunes in the south of the peninsula – it is littered with limestone rocks of various sizes, and an irregular surface which can catch out the unwary. A number of people have been injured or killed driving in the desert; and I have seen vehicles driven at speed with the driver holding a hawk on his wrist while looking for his quarry. Having said that, my experience is that Qataris tend to be excellent at driving in the desert with a very good eye for the irregularities of the surface conditions. This driver, appears not to have been one of them.

In a sense the car is the replacement for the camel or horse and has taken a very important place in the psyche of its owner. Considerable efforts are made to present the car as an extension of the owner. This is really no different from the manner in which many in the West relate to their cars, nor is the way in which they are used. Cars are prized for being new, and attempts made to retain the idea of their being newly bought. They are also decorated, particularly on special occasions as in this top photograph, taken on National Day. The distances for travel and the heat make some form of vehicle a necessity for everybody, but cars also have a recreational aspect to them. Two paragraphs above there is a photo of the way in which the sand dunes are used, but there is also significant activity on some roads at night where young men compete in driving their cars in a variety of eccentric styles including driving on two wheels. This practice has spread rapidly through the Gulf and is the subject of many film clips on the Internet. Here, in the middle photograph, taken on the Corniche, you can see some minor marks left by drivers spinning their cars. Generally this sport is carried out on quieter roads but, as can be seen in the lower photograph, the opportunity can often be taken to show driving skills in broad daylight.

Earlier I mentioned that there were two great resources for both young and old Qataris to enjoy in their leisure and recreation: the desert and sea. In many ways they enjoy similarities in that they form the setting for so much of the traditional way of life, they are areas of potential danger for those without the necessary skills and experience yet, in particular, they are places where the pressures of urban life and its stresses can be dissipated. It is no wonder that they are so well enjoyed. This photograph illustrates a little of that feeling. Four Qataris lounge comfortably on their shuw’i as it moves out to sea. Complete with a large, enclosed cabin with air-conditioning and modern navigating equipment, it is a comfortable platform from which to enjoy the sea and its passive and active opportunities.

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Falconry

Here in this first photograph is a traditional image of camping in the desert. It just needs camels hobbled in the background to complete the idyllic and romantic picture of desert life.

Traditional pursuits such as falconry, qanas, are still followed, but only in season and most notably outside the country as there is little left to hunt in Qatar. Some Qataris still take a lot of interest in hunting with falcons and salqan, and all are aware of this element of their heritage. The saqr falcon, falco cherruq, or hurr is preferred to the peregrine falcon, falco peregrinus or shaheen, as it is considered to be more intelligent, more aggressive and tolerant to stress. It is the traditional falcon that has been used in the desert for centuries, and it is the female of both types that is preferred for hunting. Incidentally, I shall use the term shaheen for hawks generally as that seems to be the name I have heard used for hawks collectively. The lower hawk photograph, is of a Harris hawk, and is placed here to give an indication of the character and strength of the eyes and beak of a hawk.

Training is carried out with pigeons and, in the hunting season beginning in November, it is common to see birds being flown in the desert as it is necessary to exercise them every day if they are to keep fit and effective.

The bustard, hubara – seen here attempting to hide under a thorn bush – is the traditional quarry of the falcons, as well as the desert hare, arnab, but few of either are found in Qatar and smaller wild birds have to be relied on in addition to the pigeons. The hubara is a large bird and, while slower than a falcon, is manoeuverable in flight and goes to ground readily, making it difficult for the falcon to follow.

Here a Qatari sits in the desert with his hawk eating, its wings spread to protect its food – a very typical position. The photo also shows something of the strong bond there is between a hawk and its owner.

The birds are either taken as young from their nests or trapped abroad as mature birds. Normally the falconer spends all his time with his birds in the same manner as has been practised for centuries because it is only when trust and understanding has developed between the falconer and his bird that the sport of hunting can really take place. The birds are well treated, living and travelling with their handlers in some degree of comfort, and owners spend much of their time in season handling the birds and talking about them with friends.

This first photograph is of a typical desert scene with a number of falcons being taken out for exercise. Two birds each sit on a wakr while a third is being handled in the background. The wakr is a turned wood perch, padded at the top to enable hawks to get a good grip, and with a metal spike at the bottom to drive into the desert surface. When birds are brought inside houses it is common to see each wakr set in a building block, the holes filled with sand. The lower photograph, similar to that above, shows the owner going to the hawk, a trail of feathers of the quarry showing on the sand. Usually the hawk is not allowed to take the whole of the kill as the bird will then not want to fly and stoop on another pigeon or hubara, the common quarries of hawks on the peninsula.

Falconers use a variety of special items in the snaring, housing, training and flying of their hawks. Many of these items are well known to even the casual viewer, and in a country with such strong links to the desert and its ways of life, these items are found in the houses of many Qataris, even those not training or flying hawks. The first photograph shows two of the items found in many houses. The heavy gauntlet is used to protect the falconer’s hand and wrist from the strong claws of his falcons. The small device, which looks like a miniature cross-bow, is a mechanical trap used for catching small birds. The second photograph shows the trap in more detail, the mechanism having been primed for use. You can see that it is constructed from wood and horn, the horn element operated by a tightly wound twine, tensioned by the bow element of the trap.

Falconry is an expensive sport to pursue with the birds costing anything from about three hundred dollars to well over a hundred thousand dollars for a special falcon. Having said that it is not just a sport for the rich though, for this outlay, it must always be anticipated that birds will be lost, either through illness or injury or through their not returning. It is not uncommon to see falcons flying free with their sbuq trailing below them.

It is common to find birds sitting inside people’s houses, perhaps with a saluqi or two lying nearby, or to spot them in the back of cars being driven for viewing and potential sale. It used to be relatively common to see a row of birds on poles across the back of cars being taken between potential clients. It was fascinating to catch a glimpse of a row of small heads in the back of an expensive car as they were taken around in comfort.

The saluqi is a beautiful dog and appears to be ideally suited to hunting and, like the camel, to life in the desert. Sulqan have been used for thousands or year and are valued for their breeding in a similar way to that of shaheen and Arabian horses. Their training begins at about three months when they are exercised and trained to accept a fairly hard diet because, in traditional desert life, they are expected to eat anything that comes along due to the lack of availability of a regular diet. They are not made pets of as are dogs in the West, though there is considerable affection for them, particularly by children. But the real love of sulqan are running and hunting, traditionally for ghazaal but nowadays mostly for the arnab or desert hare. Here a saluqi begins to slow down having just caught an arnab.

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Fishing

A feature of the Qatar coastline has, for centuries, been its fishing craft either sitting on the foreshore pulled up for repair and maintenance, or sitting out in deeper water as these boats are. These are mainly shuw’i and look to me as if they are all fishing boats except for the boat on the far left which is used for recreation as can be seen by the construction of her superstructure which incorporates a platform covering the rear half of her, and which is where family and friends can sit out and enjoy the views and activities while also providing shade for those on deck.

Fishing has been one of the main occupations of Qataris for centuries. Children fished with lines from the shore, while their fathers went to sea in boats, using nets and fish traps like these sitting on the stern of a shuw’i at sunset. They are a common sight adjacent to the jetties with fishermen mending or making them. In the lower photograph a line of coloured nylon nets have been draped over railings on the Corniche to dry before being inspected and holes mended. Again it used to be a common sight to see fishermen sitting on the pavement mending their nets or, as is the case with the lowest of these three photos, making and repairing the wire fish traps that are a constant feature on the sterns of shwa’i. The making and mending of nets and traps are a constant occupation.

Fishing is still an important occupation, but is much enjoyed as relaxation by a number of Qataris, mainly by those not of badu origin. Generally lines are thrown from the boats when on leisure cruises and, with the large amount of fish in the Gulf, the lines seem to be a successful way of catching fish. A small number of Qataris also like spear fishing with snorkel and flippers.

It is also a notable feature of the Corniche that fishing with rod and line seems to attract a number of fishermen and, as I have seen, women fishing. I don’t know which fish are suited to this land-based sport, but it appears to be popular, though not to Qataris to whom there might be a social stigma attached unless they are of fisherman stock.

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Hunting

Hunting with guns is very popular with those who can afford it. Many own guns and I have seen beautiful collections of matched weapons. Here a badawi dances at a razeef holding a rifle whose metal parts have been covered in gold. The main use for guns now is for taking into the desert, perhaps as a reflection of their being carried in the past – as an item of dress, a reflection of manhood and, of course, potentially necessary protection.

Bearing guns is an ancient badu tradition though the ancient flintlocks have now been superseded by more modern rifles and semi-automatic weapons. Essentially hunting in the Qatar desert is no more than target shooting, but there are occasional formal shotgun events with Arabs doing extremely well in international events. Hunting is now carried out in countries such as Pakistan, Iran and north Africa on organised trips. The groups that go can be quite large and it is an expensive sport.

The immediate foregoing are obviously active pursuits, but it is worth repeating what I have written about elsewhere. One very strong tradition of desert life is the majlis in its various forms. Here is, in effect, a very informal version of the majlis with a small group of men relaxing and discussing matters of the day. These discussions take place for men both in their own majaalis as well as in cafés, in offices, on the beach and in the desert. This is the mechanism that passes on news, discusses issues, forms attitudes and is the single most important device in the social networking that draws Qataris together.

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Horses

There is a lot to be written about horses but I will just make a brief note here and perhaps come back to it later. Horses are one of the loves of Arabs and are the subject of much writing and poetry. In the West we are very much aware of Gulf Arabs and their horse breeding and racing interests. Elsewhere I have written of the bond between man and horse, particularly with regard to generosity.

It was a really enjoyable day when I took this photograph of a group of young Qataris. They had taken their horses into the desert both to exercise them but also to feel, for a part of the day, the bond that exists when moving together through their desert. There is a strong collective memory relating to their history within the peninsula as well as a deep attachment to the horse. It requires only a saluqi or two running beside them and, perhaps a hawk on a wrist, to make the scene complete.

Arabian horses have been famous for thousands of years. They have moved out of the Middle East all over the world following the paths of trade and conquest in the first instance and, latterly, being bought and sold in order to improve blood lines. Although we tend to think of the badawi as being associated with camels, the latter, along with the donkey, were used for porterage as well as, in the case of the camel, also providing much of the requirements of day to day living. But it was the horse that the badawi used for mobility and warfare. Fast and manoeuvrable with endurance and intelligence they have always been popular and it is these qualities which have been sought by others and expanded their presence in the world.

Qataris love horses, though not a lot are able to own them, probably because of the cost of keeping them stabled. Nevertheless, a number of private stables have been established in the country and both Qataris and expatriates exercise the horses regularly. Qataris commonly take their horses out into the desert, particularly when there is a social event at which to be seen. The presence of horsemen always adds to the event, creating a more traditional feeling. In addition to the casual and regular use of horses, a number of Gulf owners have brought their horses to a much wider public through the medium of racing.

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The camel

Both horses and camels are well thought of and respected by Arabs. While the Arab horse has a strong historical tradition and is associated with war and swift movement, it is now very much associated with breeding and racing in the many courses around the world. The camel, however, has had a more prosaic history as a beast of burden and provider of food and drink to its owners. In the West it tends to be thought of as an unattractive animal, if not a bit of a joke. But it is neither. The camel is beautifully adapted to its environment and, to those who know and work with them, an attractive and valuable animal. In some parts of the Arabian peninsula there are extremely valuable herds of camels, often white, that are cosseted and prized by their owners. Even the less valuable herds are well looked after, with many of them owned just for the sake of their heritage and relationship with the past.

As you might expect, but seems to be generally not understood in the West, there are many types of camels. They are bred for a variety of tasks ranging from porterage to racing as well as for the character of meats and milk they produce. Even today they are an extremely valuable resource to those who own and use them, a traditional way of measuring wealth as well as valuing the worth of a bride.

This ownership of camels has always been associated with the different tribes and their movement in and out of the peninsula, as well as within it. They are a necessity for the mobile tribes or families even though motor vehicles are used nowadays for porterage as well as visits for provisions and business in urban areas. With national boundaries a political reality, it might be thought these movements would have stopped, but the histories of the families with their complex relationships serve to maintain a certain porosity of borders as the strength of families is a political reality. In this sense, the camel is a powerful factor in the continuity of traditions.

While this may not be the main reason for the continuing use of camels, this animal forms a strong bond with the psyche of modern Arabs particularly, of course, those of a badu stock. Camels belonging to the different tribes are a feature of the peninsula and it is not uncommon to see them on the move as in the photograph above. This photo is a close-up of the right hind leg of a camel showing the brand of the tribe to which it belongs. I used to know which it was, but I’m sorry to say that I’ve forgotten…

Traditionally, the camel has been used in warfare, particularly with its ability to travel easily over long distances, however Arabs generally preferred the horse for attacks and skirmishes due to its speed and better ability to change direction rapidly, reserving the camel for strategic movement and porterage. There are stories of its being used as a platform for warriors using spears but its lack of maneuvrability counted against it. I have also read of the use of camels for making long distance raids, the riders changing to horses for the final leg of the battle. This photograph illustrates a relatively normal use of camels to move around the peninsula, this time the riders moving beside the North Road. While camels occasionally are seen in towns, regrettably they don’t mix well with modern traffic.

Essentially, the camel has always been a beast of burden. Its great strength combined with its ability to walk long distances have made it an ideal transporter of people and goods. The camel walks at a relatively slow but steady pace – about four kilometres an hour – and can carry up to around two hundred kilograms over long distances, twice that over short distances. Although harnesses enabling it to draw wheeled trailers have been used outside the Middle East, this never materialised in the region which limited it to carrying goods and people directly on its back and, in some areas, to being used to plough the land. The first of these two photographs illustrates the normal saddling the local badu tend to use for their day-to-day riding. The second shows a group of racing camels resting and just covered with light cloths and their racing saddles. A little more of them can be seen on the previous page.

But the ability to carry loads was bolstered by the camel’s capability, compared with other beasts of burden, in moving over a variety of terrains, particularly sand. One of the advantages this had was that camels might move where there were no roads; conversely, it also meant that there was no need to build roads, a potential drawback to development. Roads constructed by the Romans and Phoenicians were, in fact, widely abandoned in the Middle East due to the camel being less expensive to operate than ox-carts, their nearest rival. These characteristics were buttressed by its ability to graze on relatively sparse desert plants, and to go without water for a number of days. Nowadays, as can be seen from this photograph, things can be a little different.

This photograph illustrates a far less common type of saddling for camels. This is the only example I have seen outside a museum, and is of a hawdaj, a very traditional way for women to travel. The device is constructed from bent canes, in this case painted bright red, bound together and creating a framework which is draped with rugs in order to create shade and privacy for the woman riding inside.

Both the previous photograph and this were taken at meetings in the desert organised to celebrate a variety of national events. In many ways these events form a useful if not vital function of bringing together badu. In a political sense, it is a way of demonstrating allegiances. Here a group of riders sit and talk, illustrating what was, until relatively recently, a common sight for those moving around and living in the peninsula.

While the camel has the ability to subsist on a meagre diet of desert plants and low water intake, this diet has an effect on the milk fat and protein content, as well as the milk’s taste, though shortage of water does not unduly affect the production of milk, increasing its usefulness compared with other animals. The digestive system of the camel enables it to store energy in the fat of its hump, allowing it to go without food and water for long periods. This capability relies on its having a low turnover of water within its system compared with other animals. It also is relatively tolerant of high temperatures and its eyes have developed a double system of lashes to reduce sand irritating them, and its nose – which is extremely sensitive – has the ability to close for the same reason.

There is much to be found on the subject of camels if you search around. The older descriptions of early writers are particularly interesting with regard to the relationships between camels and owners, as well as on the size of herds and the changes brought about by increasing wealth and urbanisation. There is a dichotomy created by a general wish of governments to settle the badu, and their history which emphasises mobility and independence, the latter relating to both personal and tribal loyalties. This is looked at elsewhere.

In these notes there is a little more written about camels, mainly in the areas of sport and racing, on the previous page. The camel saddle may also be of interest due to its social and traditional design aspects. There are some notes regarding it on one of the Gulf architecture pages.

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Friendship

I have called out this particular element of social contact to make only a couple of points, but ones that have struck me while living in Qatar. They are noted here as there are significant issues that may not be considered by those with a Western upbringing. The point is what you might expect – it is important to be able to understand what you see, particularly if you come from a different society.

Qataris are brought up within extended families and, through this system, together with their traditional location within a qabila and, by extension for many of them, a tribe, automatically have a wide range of friends from which to choose degrees of relationship. These will be Qatari friends. There may be non-Qataris living near them and with whom they might come into contact as children, perhaps through their parents and their relationships with the non-Qataris. Formal schooling brings with it the opportunity to make more friends, introducing a number of non-Qataris who would not necessarily live near them. Later, work will extend this as will education abroad, and the overwhelming numbers of foreigners temporarily living in Qatar will complicate issues more.

Having said that my observation is that most Qataris tend to make, and retain, Qatari friends and that non-Qataris rarely have the same relationship as that enjoyed between Qataris. The impression I have is that Qataris have a society that bonds them closely and that they don’t have the same interests to share with non-Qataris. Of course, there are shared interests in football, television and the like, but the business of being a Qatari is one that automatically requires diligent and continual work in order to retain status and a place in society. Friendships and acquaintanceships with non-Qataris occur and are maintained spontaneously, but they can not replace the necessity of inter-Qatari relationships.

In this photograph, for instance, two men sit comfortably and talk informally in the suq adjacent to the mosque where scribes used to sit and where miswaak, seen on the ground, were sold and shoe cleaning and mending were carried out. In a sense, this is the majlis system operating at its smallest unit, the interaction of two people. It was and, to some extent, still is the custom for men to make the rounds of shops and offices every day where they will sit, drink tea and exchange news of the day with friends. It is a leisurely process and one that has operated for centuries. It depends on trust and familiarity and is an essential element of the socio-cultural character of the region.

Qatari society is relatively small and there is a strong oral tradition which sustains a constant reinforcement of social relationships and shared attitudes. The setting for all such discussion is the traditional majlis, normally a room within a house dedicated to the meeting of men. A family room fulfils the same function for women, if there is space within the house. Every evening Qataris will visit each other, often in descending order of seniority to discuss mutual interests and affairs. To these majaalis will come Arab non-Qataris as well, though this is not the norm. Often such visits will be courtesy visits and will not last that long. Westerners will also visit, particularly if invited as guests, but it is unusual for them to follow the practise of Qataris and use the majlis system every day. Where non-Qataris participate in majaalis, the majaalis will not discuss a number of subjects that a Qatari-only majlis will discuss. Or so I’m told by Qatari friends. I have to say that it seems logical.

Those who enter the majlis are usually offered Arabic coffee. This is a cardamon flavoured drink and is served in small cups or finajil which are offered and held in the right hand and sipped, the person offering the coffee standing and waiting to refill the finjaan. It is considered impolite to have more than three cups of Arabic coffee. To indicate that no more is wanted, the cup is given back to the person serving the coffee, and shaken slightly. The next person will then be served.

Commonly the Arabic coffee is followed by a small glass cup of sweet tea without milk – shy ahmar, or red tea as it is termed in Arabic. Here is a typical glass with the plain red tea in it. The tea might have na’na in it as a pleasant change in summer. In winter the tea may be presented with zanjabil or ginger in it as well as sugar and milk, usually condensed milk. They are all very refreshing drinks.

With the development of the country and increased commercial activity, it is interesting to see that bottled water is becoming a standard drink presented in the majlis and elsewhere as a matter of course. It is also worth noting here that this bottled water, always served cold and in its plastic bottle, is a fraction of the price it is in the West.

Nowadays the traditional della is not always used in the more informal majaalis. Instead coffee and, particularly, tea are held and served from insulated flasks.

As the evening progresses there will be movement to other and less formal majaalis and discussion may give way to cards, video or other pursuits. But the importance and function of the majlis as a social setting has not altered.

It has, however, wavered. New houses tend to have sitting or living rooms in the western manner rather than traditional majaalis and this requires the visitor to enter the house rather than be received in an external majlis. This evolution in the development of buildings has allowed the newly married wives to have a stronger impact on the socialising of their husbands, requiring him to spend more time in the house and to enjoy within the house a more typically Western type of family relationship. On the other hand it has enabled men to go out every evening to other majaalis, arguing that they must continue their traditional ways, particularly as they can’t reciprocate at home. Naturally the trend is to construct an external majlis within the curtilage of their new property, but both planning regulations and lack of funds cause difficulties in this logical step.

Some non-Arabs enjoy relatively close friendships with Qataris and are often a feature of the Qatari’s social life, but this is unusual and often a matter of convenience for the benefits that may be obtained from both sides. Part of the difficulties associated with this type of relationship with non-Arabs are the twin problems of understanding and communication. More so than in Western relationships there is a great difference in social and religious backgrounds overlain by the constraints of language. In the sense that language is a code by which we communicate imperfectly with one another, a common, small vocabulary tends to restrict free discussion, leads to greater misunderstandings with those of different background, and must be one of the many reasons that Westerners have made so many mistakes in assisting Qataris in their general and specific development.

Outside the country Qataris meet in less formal relationships and are able to behave more freely. Those that can afford it will spend a considerable part of the year abroad, with or without their family. They will search out and find friends and acquaintances in order to pursue their love of news, and the telephone is used extensively for this. However, outside Qatar they are also prey to the various industries that exist to satisfy the foreigner abroad and to which they are not always unwilling participants. It is generally realised by Qataris that this ambivalent behaviour is and will be considered wrong, and it is evident that they can develop curious attitudes to concealing it or explaining it away. It is more difficult for Qataris to live properly abroad than it is within their country, and it is not necessarily their fault.

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Work

In terms of a job, work is an ambition of most Qataris, though this conflicts with traditional attitudes of the badu. An aversion to work has been commented on by authorities in Oman, Bahrein and Kuwait and is considered to be a serious obstacle to the integration of nationals into a modern State. There are two reasons normally given by those who wish to work. Firstly, and in this order,

• they believe they are assisting the State in its development and repaying the Ruler for his help in improving their lot and,
• secondly, they must obtain the means to provide for their family.

Usually, this meant obtaining a job with the Government as there was little commercial activity in Qatar, and insufficient opportunity for an ordinary Qatari – unless he or his family were independently wealthy – to obtain the necessary funding with which to obtain on the open market a plot of land upon which to build a house. Although there is significant commercial activity now, there is still a problem buying land as it has dramatically increased in price.

In the West it is a commonplace attitude that the Arabs of the Gulf are rich. Both Westerners and northern Arabs believe this and it has been at the heart of much of the dislike felt by both groups towards Gulf Arabs. The reasons are essentially historical but many commentators have noted the continuing trends and mechanisms that perpetuate this unhelpful attitude. The invasion of Kuwait by Iraq was argued to be partly a consequence of the refusal of Kuwait to support its Arab shaqiqa to the extent to which the latter would like to be come accustomed.

Gulf Arabs have always been aware of the jealousies within these areas, and the extent to which they are disliked because of their wealth. In a political sense, budgets are found to assist poorer Muslim and other States but, in a personal sense there is a keen but hidden antipathy towards the more aggressive Arab States and the dangers they represent. In their awareness of this, some members of the Kuwaiti ruling family stated that they would institute a more egalitarian or democratic State when they returned to their country. This they are moving towards, as is Qatar following a series of novel initiatives made by the Ruler, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa and his wife, Sheikha Mosa.

This issue is also associated with the arguments for a more visible female profile in the society, and it is possible that these attitudes are now moving out from Qatar to encompass and encourage other nationals of the Gulf States. In this it might be thought that political and ameliorative policies are amalgamating at the expense of those Islamic ideologies discussed elsewhere. It is difficult to guess how progress will be made, and its extent. Women did not win any seats in the Kuwaiti elections of mid-2006, though the elections did see reformists making strong gains.

In the nineteen eighties and nineties there were, in Qatar, a number of financial problems associated with the inherent stability of the United States Dollar and its value in relation to other currencies, and the price of oil. The effect of this was that Government attempted to restrict the spending of funds. In turn, this created a situation in where there was little productive work. This applied to both the public and private sectors, particularly the latter which is heavily dependent upon Government for its funding.

Because of the lack of productive work there was a tendency for staff to have a casual attitude to the responsibilities for which they were paid, and this was reinforced by the lack of training towards work as a function of society. It was not thought to be necessary to work full time in order to carry out one’s job.

An important and complicating factor has been the understandable policy of expatriates to try to ensure they remain in work, and that their compatriots also do. To this end it is possible to identify a number of policies enacted by expatriates to relieve Qataris of the burden of their work. All is carried out in the spirit of genuine assistance and may – and often does – result in the expatriate working harder; but the result is the same: the Qatari will have less to do, the work will be carried out and everybody is relatively happy.

Times have now changed as there is certainly considerable work around. Many Qataris have left public service in order to take their position in family firms or to start business themselves. Some still work in the public sector but operate businesses through managers. This requires them to operate both public service and private work coevally, a balancing act which, when observed, seems to work quite naturally, but tends to frustrate expatriate businessmen who are unable to understand and work within the system.

Some nationals, as a matter of course, will often tell you how hard they are working, but this more usually supports the argument that they are not, and that they are aware of it. Having said that, it is possible to observe them working hard but not in a manner familiar to Western professionals. Those nationals who have studied abroad are particularly aware of this, but it is possible that the system in education where students have everything provided for them – which would not be the case in the West – also is harming younger Qataris. There appears to be a serious problem with young men not being able to develop responsibilities in the professionally related activities that can be argued to begin at the level of their tertiary education.

Arguments have been made to encourage young Qataris to obtain not just university degrees but professional associations in the West. To some extent this has worked in the medical profession, but not really elsewhere. It was suggested, for instance, that all nationals obtaining a professional degree should then work in a related office or offices abroad with a view to both learning the practicalities of office work as well as obtaining a foreign professional qualification. It was seen that there would have been a bonus in forging relationships with those professional offices.

The reason for this not working is that nationals can’t really afford to spend time out of their country, away from their families and the fast pace of development within Qatar. To a large extent this reflects the way the majlis works, the mainly informal system by which intelligence is passed within the community. The work model, then, is very different from that obtaining generally in the West, though it not perceived as such either by nationals or expatriates.

Westerners are generally unable to perceive evidence of a work ethic with which they are familiar; where productive effort is seen to be good in its own right or necessary for self development – the traditional Christian work ethic. They are not used to loose time keeping, meetings being dropped, people bursting in on meetings, more than one meeting being held at the same time, being introduced to strangers and having no idea of their status and relationships, promises being made and apparently being reneged on and, nowadays, the continual use of one, two or three mobiles interrupting the flow of conversation and business. There are many other complaints I have heard, but this latter is interesting as it reflects so well the manner in which the earlier mentioned majlis system operates.

In the early days of the State’s development telephones were an important element in facilitating the exchange of information so necessary to running private and public affairs. Meetings were interrupted by calls coming in and being made and most nationals had a large number of telephones ranged across their desks that were constantly in use. There was quite an important hierarchy for this arrangement which I have mentioned elsewhere. But now the mobile has taken over from telephones, not just as it has in the West, but to a far greater extent. The accompanying photograph, taken from a local newspaper in August 2008, notes penetration of the mobile market of 150%.

The foregoing may seem to be a detail but the note is there to illustrate one of the mechanisms illustrating how both work and personal affairs have developed. Mobiles may appear to disrupt meetings more than was the case with fixed telephones or the apparent lack of privacy, but it is just a development of the traditional manner in which society operates. Its significance is that it is now possible to speak to people all the time, wherever you are, and this opportunity is taken to an extent more than in the West.

Whatever the mechanisms for work, and the degree to which it is effective in Western terms, there is a very strong attitude among nationals that one should repay the State and attempt to assist its development. There is a level of loyalty to the State that has disappeared from many Western countries and that many Westerners find unusual if not uncomfortable. It is similar to the loyalty that is felt towards family and qabila and, in that sense, is an extension of that loyalty. Because of it, many nationals genuinely wish to benefit the State and are happy to work for the public service, but the mechanism they use to progress their service is to combine it with private business as there, too, they have a loyalty impelling them to support their family in both the specific and wider sense.

But management is still learning its skills within the State and many who work either do not have the goals properly defined for them, are unable to define goals themselves, or are rendered ineffective by the lack of integrated back-up. Management studies have been organised at the top of middle management level for Qataris only, but it appears to be having little practical effect. One of the reasons for this could be due to the fact that managers still require loyalty to themselves above loyalty to the organisation, and this is often the manner in which staff are selected and placed in their jobs within Government as well as within private commercial organisations. Loyalty to an individual conflicts with the need for an organisation to operate as a professional system, and this stems from the traditional way in which business has been carried out in the region.

The lower levels of management are almost exclusively the preserve of non-Qataris who maintain the records and correspondence and carry out all the necessary traditional support tasks. Although some new systems are being introduced, there are three essential difficulties:

• generally the skills being used are those learned under systems developed from, or directed by, colonial administrations and which, in many cases, continue unchanged,
• where new systems are introduced there is minimal skills development with existing staff, and
• as has been mentioned above, many of the expatriates have a direct interest in ensuring their continuing role within the country regardless of the efficiency of their own operations.

Taking this natural resistance into account, new management skills and techniques are proving difficult to introduce into Government departments. There is little in the way of change management operating to alleviate this resistance to the development of efficient organisations, and new systems, while appearing to improve management, are neither developing well nor integrating with those of other organisations. In fact, this is also applicable to the organisations themselves.

A complicating factor is that very few graduates seem to want to work within their field of expertise but seek other areas which, when they are rebuffed, tend to make them unhappy in their directed field. For the better students who are able to gain academic places abroad this is perhaps due to their being required by the Ministry of Education to stay within the initially selected field of study despite an increasing awareness of the wider fields available to students in the West. For the students who graduate from Qatar University it is perhaps due to the limited variety of disciplines available to them and the lower standard of the course compared with, particularly, the American courses from which the majority of Qataris permitted to study abroad graduated.

As the University is relatively new, being founded in the early nineteen eighties, it is perhaps not surprising that there is a disbalance between the output of the secondary schools and the requirements of government where the majority of Qataris will be found a place.

It seems to be evident that the work force is generally not crafted to suit the tasks it has to perform, and that the tasks themselves are ill-defined and unbalanced with poorly expressed and imprecise objectives and goals.

This problem is not restricted to Qatar but has been commented on in other Gulf States as well as in Saudi Arabia. In the latter country, blame has been attached to a combination of the failings of the educational system and an over-dependence on a foreign workforce. Although there is change, it is slow and it comes at the expense of growing impatience in the young.

Achievement is not measured in terms of accomplished objectives or goals. It is ambiguous and appears to be related to lack of perspective within all organisations as well as to the failure of the educational process to deal with the concepts of work, job satisfaction and progress. It is sad to note the numbers of Qataris who do not understand, or carry out satisfactorily, their jobs and who are unhappy at work. Achievement is more accurately related to the individual’s placement in society, and this depends in many respects on the operation of the socio-political workings embodied in the qabila system.

Women in the workplace

But, increasingly, change is being introduced to the workforce market. Qatari women are now working in the private sector as well as for government, and not just in offices where they might not be seen, but in front line positions. Traditionally women were to be found in the Ministries of Labour and Social Affairs, Education, the Interior and Health, but they are now to be seen more openly, working in areas such as Immigration and other departments where there is a need to meet the public. For instance, government departments now have booths within shopping malls where female employees are available to meet householders who are unable to visit government departments during normal hours. While making a small beginning to resolve the problem of the disbalance between nationals and expatriates, the increasing exposure of women has introduced or exacerbated a number of other problems.

The issues relating to the education of women are some of the most significant in the Muslim world. These are religious and socio-political in nature, and their potential as agents for change is recognised as such both by those not wishing to see women move out of their traditional roles as well as those who want to see change. Much of the reason for this seems to originate from Islamic initiatives within the Western world where a degree of emancipation is thought to be a prerogative for developing a modern society. But there has also been a tradition in, generally, northern Arab states for women to take a similar role to men. But there has been, and continues to be, resistance.

In addition to religious rationale, colonialism is thought to be one of the reasons that women were not educated as were men due to the colonising powers having no interest in moving women out of illiteracy, this replicating, but to a greater extent, attitudes in their own countries. The nineteenth century witnessed education of women in some of the northern Arab states, but not in the Gulf until the latter part of the twentieth century.

A look at the programmes of the University, the guest lecturers, the conferences, the exhibitions and the stated goals is interesting. It is in education and the importation of teaching staff and their programmes, particularly in tertiary education, that the initiatives relating to changing society can best be identified. These appear to mirror programmes in the Western world while making little allowance for cultural change.

The education of women to tertiary standards is a policy that is being directed from the highest levels. H.H. Sheikha Moza, has stated the goal to be:

…educating the whole nation. It’s upgrading…the education system, social system and political system. It is bringing a different environment, a different culture, to this nation.

It is not difficult to appreciate how ambitious this is, and how it might seem to other Gulf states. In fact she goes on to say that

Geographical lines and borders, they have no power at all. Not any more at least. They just reflect the sovereignty of the states. But I don’t think that there is sovereignty over people’s minds. What’s happening here in Qatar could affect the rest of the region. This is a possibility we shouldn’t deny.

Referring to Qatari women she goes on to state:

I hope that these changes will affect them in very positive way. [They] have potential. In the proper environment, they can reach their full potential. And this is what we are trying to do here. We are trying to create the right environment, because we don’t believe [Qatari women] are any less than anyone else in the world.

In many ways Qatar is in the vanguard of the Gulf, an issue which is receiving mixed comments as it promises to disturb many of the socio-political moraes of the region. The university system has expanded dramatically and caters for a large proportion of the women in the country. This has created a socio-cultural phenomenon which did not exist a generation ago; the university has become a social entity, a form of separate ecosystem. I shall make notes about this elsewhere but its relevance here is in establishing expectations.

Curiously to casual observers, the proportion of women entering tertiary education is greater than men in Qatar – 57%, in fact, and this proportion is similar in Bahrein and Kuwait. The reason appears to be twofold. Firstly, it is easier for men to move abroad to study, both practically and with the provision of a government grant. Secondly, and conversely, there are practical socio-cultural difficulties for women moving abroad to study as well as family pressures attempting to have them remain in Qatar and marry.

The point of this, and with relevance to the workforce, the university system is producing a cadre of well-educated, confident young women who are competent, believe in themselves and, in many cases, wish to take their place in the workplace. The difficulty is that there are not the opportunities that many of them would like due to a combination of the traditional practice of separation of the sexes, and the matching of education to employment opportunities. In addition there continues to be resistance within some families to women working or, perhaps more accurately, for them working in certain areas or positions. Just as important are the conflicts arising in the hierarchical placement with regard to men.

In addition, the focus on tertiary education – for both men and women – has meant that vocational and technical education initiatives have not progressed. This exacerbates the problems of opportunities for women in the workplace.

Traditionally, women have seen their most likely employment in areas within the field of medicine, particularly gynaecology, pharmacology and dentistry, along with education where there is an obvious need for female teachers, the law and the arts though acting has been traditionally frowned upon. The media generally are likely to attract women to them, and the fact that Qatar is the home of Al Jazeera, makes this field more attractive to them. Areas such as science and engineering are still very much the preserve of men as they are in the West.

Increasing emancipation sees more women in public wearing, for the most part, the hijab. The various uniforms worn by women in the workplace use a form of this for head covering, usually matched in colour with the rest of the dress.

The increased incidence of women in the workplace has meant the employing of additional transport. Qatari women tend to be taken to and from work by a chauffeur, very few of them using the small buses operated by some organisations. This has brought about additional traffic loading of the road system, contributing to the problems that are experienced every day by nationals and expatriates alike. However, with the advent of mobile ’phones, the irritation of long journeys can, to some extent, be ameliorated.

more to be written…

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Expatriates

The majority of people living in Qatar are expatriates and have been arriving in increasing numbers for work since the nineteen thirties. We tend to think of them now as non-Arab speaking foreigners but, due to the character of the region, many of them came from the Arabian hinterland and some became nationalised. This is still an issue, discussed a little further here. However, it is true to say that many, if not the majority, are not natural Arab speakers and are in Qatar out of economic necessity. Within Qatar they have formed communities and alliances and, as far as they are able, they continue the habits and practices of their natural communities. They are employed in all areas of the economy, particularly those of management, the professions and labour.

Many come to the Gulf to work, but it is not always the easy life they might have assumed before coming. Perhaps that is an exaggeration as not all believe it to be an easy way of making a living. For many the Gulf represents one of the few places where a job can be readily found, but where they find the work can be extremely onerous. For them, it is either that or nothing, and this attraction is what draws a lot of people, particularly from the Indian sub-continent.

If the main reason to come to the Gulf is to make money – perhaps in different proportions, to repatriate the funds in order to feed families at home, provide for a pension and to enjoy a better life style – then many are disappointed. It is not always easy to live comfortably as there can be more elements affecting life for expatriates than there are likely to be in their home countries, and which they are unable to control or have a say in. But where they have prior knowledge and have been able to make an informed decision, it is still a method of benefitting their family at home.

Inflation is a problem all over the world, but it affects expatriates disproportionately as they are usually tied to relatively short fixed term contracts and have little or no negotiating power. This is certainly true for labourers but is also true for other groups. This headline might obtain at any time but in August 2008, the rising cost of living in Qatar saw the newspaper article illustrated here. The article stated that the average monthly expenditure of an expatriate family has gone up by over 46% to Qrs.13,329 between 2001 and 2007. The proportion of this relating to housing had risen over that period from 21% of that sum to 30.8%. I have to admit that averaging figures for expatriates is an extremely tenuous exercise as they do not form a similar profile to the nationals in terms of age and sex distribution, but it is interesting figure nevertheless.

Pressures

There are many pressures on expatriates. Some are obvious and would be known before they move to the Gulf, some found only after arrival, and others of which they might never be aware. The majority of people who go to the Gulf do so with the intent of working. There is, at present, a relatively small number of tourists but they have little to do with other expatriates other than if they are brought out by relations, or those they come into contact with as part of the tourism system. It is unlikely that they feel any of the pressures of the expatriates living and working in the Gulf.

The first issue to note is the extent to which expatriate communities have their own socio-cultural systems to help and protect themselves in a variety of ways. These range from the briefing, exchange of information and assistance to the more psychological needs of those living outside their comfort zones.

One of the greatest problems perceived by expatriates is their unequal status compared with nationals. This is an issue all over the world, often considered to operate against nationals’ interests but, in the Gulf, definitely thought by expatriates to operate against them on a number of different levels. For instance, the announcement of fines for wasting water has raised a number of comments, essentially complaining that it would affect only expatriates as the Kahramaa inspectors, who are expatriates, will not risk their jobs by attempting to impose fines on nationals. Whether that is true or not, that is the perception: and perception tends to be more dominant in the mind than fact.

weather, exit visas, religion, cultural, moral, isolated communities, relationship between expatriates and tourists, national policies for tourism, etc.

more to be written…

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Servants

There is an important distinction to be made here for Western readers in understanding what are meant by servants. Further down the page I use the term more in its accepted Western sense, but elsewhere on this and other pages I have written about the way in which families live together and share household duties, some of those members of the family perhaps having more of a service role to an outside observer. The family is also understood to include others who may not be related, who may share this role, but are considered an integral part of the family.

This may be true also of those brought up with the children of the household, but who are brought into the household either as children of people who are servants of the house, or as widows with their dependents, in effect forming a service relationship but, within the wider context of the family, an intrinsic part of it. Where these children are male, they will enjoy most if not all of the benefits of being a part of the family and, in the higher areas of the society, they will be treated in much the same way as if they were the children and, later, the adults they live with.

There are a number of memories I have that typify servants and the relationships to be found within families, particularly the larger ones. This photograph is typical of one of the common sights I can recall: three men sit comfortably outside the entrance gate to a compound, passing the time of day. One of them is a Qatari, the other two perhaps gardeners, cooks, gate-keepers or guards. It doesn’t matter really what they are, but what they represent, and that is a group who have a relationship with the compound and the people who live in it, and those who visit as guests. In a sense you are looking at a majlis, albeit in an informal and small form, but that is how information was traditionally passed and, of course, still is. Interestingly, behind them can be glimpsed the end of a dikka complete with rug covering, which might be considered to represent the next step up in the majlis chain.

What I have written above is a relatively simplistic view of the family and its servants. I shall attempt to write more on the complexity of these relationships later.

more to be written…

Many Qatari families have, and have had servants to help in the running of their households. The reason is that servants are affordable due to the number of men and women seeking work in the Gulf from the Indian sub-continent and other regions to the east of the Gulf. From time to time there is a change in fashion as another country is discovered to have people who are willing to work in the Gulf and possess qualities that commend them. One of the latest has been the import of Nepalese. Honesty, diligence and a modicum of skill are the basic requirements, but the ability to speak Arabic or English is also necessary depending upon what the intended work is.

The selection of expatriates to work in the private sector tends to be based on whether they are to help within the house or only outside. Those working inside nowadays tend to be from India and the Philippines, those outside from Pakistan and Afghanistan where they work as gardeners, gate keepers and drivers. Those inside are mostly women, those outside are always men. However, staff may also work in private offices as well as in the home. In these cases the selection seems to have much to do with the character, capabilities and versatility of the individual.

Families have always worked together at the various tasks necessary for their smooth running. The extended family has been, in this respect, a natural working unit, all members helping in its business. But, in the past, slaves were brought into the Gulf from Africa where there was nobody capable within the family to carry out that work, or to carry out work that was either difficult or where there would be increased return from a larger workforce.

The increase in servants, while obviously assisting in the running of households, appears to have created a number of problems for Qataris. These difficulties arise not only from the training, education, habits and attitudes of the servants to their work, but also from the attitude of Qataris to having the staff live with them.

There is rising concern within the Gulf that foreign labour should be reduced although, paradoxically, there appears to be a progressive requirement for servants to perform an ever-increasing variety of tasks in and about the house. In Oman, for instance, where the expatriate work force comprises only forty per cent of the total in 1989, the Sultan exhorted his people not to be ashamed to take on menial work in the service of their country as it denies them their role and opportunity, as well as perpetuating the need for foreign labour. I can’t see how this trend is to be reduced in the area of domestic service. In fact there seem to be a number of good reasons why foreigners are preferred, and why this is often extended to a preference for non-Muslims and English speakers.

Non-Qataris can be paid low salaries that are, nevertheless, higher than those that can be obtained in their home countries and, consequently, attractive. Where domestic employees are non-Muslims they are not a threat to the household’s practice of Islam. They are unlikely to gossip or, if they do, it is likely to be only to their own nationalities, and unlikely to become current within Qatari society. Where they speak English, or another popular language other than Arabic, they will be able to impart that language naturally to the children in their charge, and English is the lingua franca of the Indian sub-continent and nearby regions. An unfortunate consequence of this policy is that the English picked up by Qatari children usually has basic errors in terms of both accent and grammar, and that can’t be eradicated by later, formal teaching.

Many of the servants coming to Qatar are qualified in areas other than those for which they find work in Qatar, but economic circumstance requires that they move to fund their families living in their home countries. This in itself can cause difficulties with attitude to work and can be exacerbated by social contact with friends, relations or other nationals working in the country. Certainly the service population look for opportunities to meet their compatriots and this can cause difficulties between employee and employer. The comparatively low salaries together with poor living conditions combine to induce at first resentment and then an aggrieved attitude towards both employer and country. Additional methods of earning money are sought and this can lead to police action either due to the nature of the alternative method of earning, or to the employee breaking the terms of his or her work permit.

Attitudes to work vary but it is interesting to observe and note the manner in which servants perceive and carry out their work. Employees appear to demonstrate an overwhelming desire to ensure that they are irreplaceable. This tends to be demonstrated particularly in spoiling children, specifically the boys of the household who are treated as being more important than the girls, regardless of age. Constant cosseting, a lot of physical contact, the use of sweets and soft drinks as reward and comfort, make the job of the mother far more difficult, and the child more spoilt. Conversely it makes the servants’ job no safer as they are often treated badly by the children with no recourse to the parents for intercession.

This relationship between servants and children is interesting to observe as it rarely seems natural for the reasons described earlier, though I admit this might be due in part to my own preconceptions. The relationship follows the pattern of traditional family life when members of the family who had been divorced, or were poor or in other ways needed assistance, became an accepted part of the family. This would also include, in the past, the use of slaves where they, too, become in many ways an otherwise indistinguishable part of the family.

The servants who take on the responsibility of looking after the children have different relationships with them depending on age. It is nearly always female servants who look after children of both sexes, and this relationship continues with boys until the age of about seven or eight and with girls a little later though it is extremely difficult to put a rule to the practice as it differs from family to family, maturity of the children and their relationship with their parents. With boys I have suggested an age when there is an increasing relationship between a boy and his father, with his being gradually introduced into men’s society and with his understanding of his role as a man becoming more palpable in his relationships with the members of his family, particularly his sisters.

In the past, when houses contained just rooms with no notional function servants, like the family, slept wherever circumstance required. Nowadays servants tend to have a room of their own but will often sleep in the bedrooms of the children in their care, or even in the corridor outside. Whether this is an economic necessity, a practice arising from the servants’ need to feel safe in their job, or a concern for the children in her charge it is difficult to say; I suspect a bit of each.

This practice is even more marked when the family is travelling. Here, perhaps, it might be thought to be more of an economic imperative, but with disposable income not always being a factor, it is perhaps more of a true guardian’s role in safeguarding young children in a transient environment.

Many of the foreign domestic staff in Qatar are despondent, demonstrating their unhappiness in a number of ways, but the State will continue to attract foreign staff, particularly from south-east Asia and the Indian sub-continent, in order to cater for the various requirements of its nationals. Foreign governments, from time to time, attempt to embargo the use of their nationals as servants abroad, but this rarely lasts more than a few months as the need to maintain political and economic links with the better-off Gulf States continues to propel domestic servants into the Gulf. There is, however, an increasing level of intervention on behalf of nationals who have been mistreated.

The attitudes of servants to rubbish and dirt are interesting. Perhaps due to the manner in which they were brought up they do not perceive these in the same way they are regarded in the West, and it is perhaps a paradox to see how clean the individual is in his daily laundered clothes operating in a less than clean environment. Cleanliness is not equated with hygiene. Thorough cleaning is required by houseowners but rarely effected, and is never volunteered by employees. Dirt is moved out of the way but not taken up and moved off site. Dust is flicked off surfaces where it is visible and falls nearby. Commercial polishes are only used rarely and often are wrong for the job for which they are used. Hard surfaces are washed daily if possible and a lot of water is wasted in this manner.

I have written more on this below, under Serviced population.

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Slavery

This has always been a delicate subject to discuss, whether in the Gulf or elsewhere. In Britain the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed by Parliament in 1807 and this was followed in 1833 by the Slavery Abolition Act which outlawed slavery in the British colonies. This created the impetus for the British to deal with slavery in the Gulf.

The nineteenth century saw the British nominally as guardians of the Gulf – though this was not a view universally held, even by the British who found that their attempts to stop the illegal trade were continually thwarted by more manoeuverable Arab dhows and a combination of subterfuge and armed resistance. The trade had come about due to the need to feed the growing date and pearl markets in Europe and the United States, the slaves being brought from the east coast of Africa. But this had been declared illegal in treaties made with Gulf rulers in the mid-nineteenth century and the British were constrained to stop the practice. This proved to be virtually impossible due to two factors:

• firstly, the great demand and the consequent efforts made by slave traders to fulfill the requirements of the nascent industries and,
• secondly, the turbulent state of the British parliament combined with the different agencies involved in running this part of the British Empire – the Admiralty, Colonial and Indian Offices.

It’s perhaps also worth mentioning in the first case that the Gulf was not the only place where indecision and the lack of an informed British public allowed this practice to be perpetuated. Albeit a hundred years earlier, Moroccan pirates captured and enslaved thousands of Europeans and North Americans with the relevant governments doing little to stop the practice or free and return the slaves to their home countries.

In the Gulf slavery continued into the twentieth century, though not to the extent commonly believed in the West. Writing in the nineteenth century, Colonel Pelly had noted that there were only two industries in the Gulf, slaving and pearling and, in 1924, the British Resident in Bahrein wrote that there were still slaves being introduced to Qatar with a tax of eighty Rupees per head. In line with their policies, the British continued to resist the practice and manumitted slaves wherever possible. The difficulty with this was that there were few places where manumission could be effected, the nearest to Qatar being Bahrein. In certain cases slaves were manumitted by their owners but, chiefly, slaves had to escape in order to be able to obtain their freedom.

In Qatar the practice continued after the Second World War mainly as there was little done to suppress it. It has to be said that slavery was not particularly onerous in the Gulf by the twentieth century, there being a number of cases where slaves were manumitted but continued to live and work with their previous owner. Slaves were seen as part of the family and intermarriage was not uncommon. Certainly this was the case when seen by outsiders and, to a large extent, slaves shared the benefits and disbenefits of their families quite naturally. The last years of informal slavery can be seen to have been benign.

Talking with Qataris about this element of society can be difficult, but it is often what was not said that was interesting and informative. What is noticeable is that freed slaves can be seen in certain areas of society such as the security forces, music and dance, these latter two areas being discussed elsewhere.

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Diving and pearls

Once the slave trade was forbidden and piracy stamped out, pearls became the chief industry of the peninsula, and the main source of its wealth or, rather, the wealth of its pearl merchants and their business partners. The richest pearl banks were off Ras Rakan, the north tip of the peninsula, so it is likely that Qatari merchants were able to obtain significant value from this industry. This photograph, one of a number of official government photographs published in the early 1970s, shows a pearl diver entering the sea to search for pearl oysters. The photograph is also an indication of the numbers of crew for this operation.

On returning from the pearl beds the pearls were handed over to the merchants who would then go through the collection with the nakhuda in order to make the first assessment of the collection. Using a set of brass sieves, the pearls would be sorted for size and then for colour and shape, the most perfectly spherical being the most valuable, but the baroque – those with irregular shape – also having value, particularly in the local markets.

Natural pearls are some of the most beautiful objects to be found. They have both a tactile as well as a visual quality to them. It is no surprise that those who won them know every one, together with the detailed story behind each. As such they were appreciated not just for their value, but for their individual character and beauty as well as their history. In a sense the history of a part of the country can be described in pearl collections such as these.

You can see in these pearls something of the range of colour and shape that characterise pearls. Sadly for those associated with the trade, the Japanese cultured pearl industry took the market away from the Gulf. You will see that a number of these pearls are irregularly shaped. Known as baroque pearls, they still have considerable beauty with many preferring them to regular, matched pearls. I have seen Qatari dresses covered in baroque pearls sewn to them.

Divers lived a hard life, spending the pearling season out at sea in order to maximise the number of pearls won from the pearling banks. The season began in May and lasted the whole of summer with the boats remaining out on the banks, and the divers diving from dawn to dusk, sometimes to considerable depths. The only possible breaks in their time at sea would be if raiders approached their villages when a watchman would raise an alarm and the fleet would return to protect their animals and homes. Those in the villages would retreat to protective towers whose entrances were elevated some distance from the ground.

The terms of the divers’ service were severe and these might require them to spend years tied to their work in order to pay off debts accrued. This photograph shows a number of divers in the water, their nose clips fixed, resting before making another dive to place the oysters in small nets hung round their necks, and showing their guide ropes attached to the boat. The divers also wore ear plugs to assist with the problems of the pressure of the water at depth.

Once the oysters had been brought up from the sea bed and collected, the crew of the boat would set about opening them on deck, removing the pearls and giving them to the nakhuda, the master in command of the pearling craft. He was responsible to the owner for the pearling operation of his craft and was selected on the basis of his experience, knowledge of the pearling beds and his maritime skills.

As master of the pearling boat the nakhuda was also responsible not only for the winning of pearls, but also for ensuring that the crew were able to operate for the period of time they would be at sea. This required that the crew had sufficient provisions for their time at sea, and he would make loans to the crew as advances against the eventual sale of the pearls.

This was not an easy way to make money, but it was one of the oldest ways to earn funds from the sale of the pearls within the Indian sub-continent. It was the foundation for the wealth of a number of the merchants in the Qatar peninsula.

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Regulation of labour

So the introduction of servants and the cessation of slavery happened gradually, coinciding to a large extent with the increasing wealth of the country. There were still a number of slaves in the country in the early 1950s but the beginnings of the oil industry and its concomitant construction and operation required workers. This dramatically changed the labour system in the country. The pearl divers, fishermen, farmers and badu herders discovered that there was better paid work elsewhere. Men commonly earning ten riyals a month could earn between one and four riyals a day working in the petroleum industry. This had two effects:

• firstly, it precipitated the move from the traditional industries of pearling and farming, and
• secondly, encouraged the introduction and development of labour regulations.

There were no labour controls in the 1940s and 1950s. Wages, hours, overtime, holidays, treatment and working conditions varied considerably but the new industry required the establishment of coordinated labour regulations. The first workers in the industry were, by and large, Qataris, with pearl divers moving to assist in the off-shore work while drivers, cooks and roustabouts were employed from the urban and badu Qataris. Qataris and other Gulf Arabs also comprised the unskilled labour force though there was the beginning of migration from the Indian sub-continent to provide, in the first instance, clerks and middle managers under mainly British management.

However, the beginnings of the new labour system was not without its problems, there being a number of strikes as labour attempted to improve its conditions. Some were informal but a well-organised one in 1956 focussed not only on the British management but also on the Qatari regime, resulting in clauses being inserted into labour contracts banning political activity.

Without a doubt, the conditions under which foreign labour are contracted, brought to the Gulf, housed, fed and work are greatly improved from those early days. For instance, all labour used to be moved on the back of lorries for many years until the late seventies when buses were introduced. You can also see from this photograph that many workers all now have protective clothing provided. Accommodation has been a problem, perhaps more so in other States where there is sometimes a considerable distance between housing and the workplace meaning little time for rest for the labour force. This has been a particular problem in Dubai, for instance, but problems in the Gulf associated with labour conditions are still apparent.

This has led to strikes in Dubai due to both the amount of rest the labour is able to take as well as other issues, particularly payment. This appears to be spilling over into Doha as recent news items have noted. Here, a rather sad request has been posted in an expatriate labour housing compound, asking for monies believed due to be paid to them. Whatever the law says, and however it is applied, expatriate labour always feels psychologically abused by the system under which they operate even though, in general terms, there is significant benefit with the remittance of funds to their home countries. Strikes are their last resort but they risk losing pay while they are on strike. It is not an easy position to be in.

Qatar, in common with most of the Gulf states, is very much dependent upon its foreign labour force to carry forward its ambitious development plans. Here an expatriate labour compound houses at a relatively high density, a contractor’s labour force in blocks such as this. It is neither the best nor the worst I have seen, and many will tell you that it is a significant improvement on housing provided in their home country if, of course, they are able to find work there. And the truth is that many are unable to do so but come to the Gulf in order to be able to make a living and support their families at home. But this and other, similar sites, are a reminder of the costs that some pay for development.

Work is hard in the construction and maintenance industry. Not only is it hot for half the year, but the equipment, training and protection of the workforce sometimes leaves something to be desired. In the upper photograph you see workers on a multi-storey structure taking a break from their work in the hot summer with no safety barriers to prevent their falling. Labour laws require workers to break when the temperature reaches a certain level, but that temperature is very hot and produces fatigue which, in turn, increases danger on site.

This effect is magnified considerably when the holy month of Ramadhan falls within the hot months of the year. During this month nobody is permitted to eat or drink between, roughly, sunrise and sunset. Workers will lose a considerable amount of body fluid even if they are working within a building. Just as difficult for the body is the associated loss of essential salts through respiration and perspiration. Here a group of cleaners are taking advantage of the relatively cool terrazzo floor to sleep. It’s not ideal, but at least it gives them a degree of relief and helps prevent or reduce some of the more extreme characteristics of water and salts loss.

The workforce in Qatar has a wide variety of tasks to perform. Due to the character of rapid development in the peninsula, there is a considerable amount of skilled work to be carried out on the more complicated constructions, particularly those in the New District of Doha. But there are also less demanding tasks to be carried out in the construction of the large number of smaller projects as well as works associated with maintenance. Here a group of foreign workers work on repairing the paving in suq waqf, in the centre of Doha. The work is not demanding technically, and some of the workforce coming to the Gulf may have a different skill set, but many come for the financial rewards to pass on to their families in their home countries. There is work available at a variety of levels of skill for those who want to work.

All expatriate workers in the country have to be sponsored to enter. There is a note on the requirements under the Sponsorship law on the page dealing with the different pressures on the country.

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Institutional development

The control of labour continued to develop in response to the perceived problems relating mainly to the oil industry. A labour department was established followed by a law in 1962 establishing preference for employing Qataris, other Arabs, and foreigners – in that order. The latter were required to be sponsored by a Qatari and to work at a specific job. At the same time the government attempted to encourage Qataris to work in the now well-established industrial sector, but the growing industries were requiring a greater workforce than could be assembled from either a Qatari or a combined Qatari and Arab population.

Not only was there a problem with workforce but the growing population – both national and foreign – required servicing and most of this had to come from abroad. Clerks, cooks, drivers, watchmen, gatekeepers, domestic servants, nursemaids, nannies, teachers, nurses and the like were brought in from abroad and this pattern continues to this day contributing largely to the situation where Qataris are a minority in their own country.

At the same time as the industry was evolving, the social structures in the country were being developed, mostly notably in education, in a sense exacerbating the labour problem. The educational system encourages Qataris to move into tertiary education, and it also treats boys and girls equally. The effect of this has been to move Qataris into the areas of management and to starve the system of Qatari technocrats. It is significant that Qatar University was established with considerable funding while only a relatively small technical facility continued its operation undeveloped.

For those not aware of it I should mention here that Qatar is one of the most liberal countries in the Gulf with significant impetus being given to the education of women and to the freedom of the press. Witness the establishment of al Jazeera, the news agency that has created such a stir round the world.

I should also add that Qatar, along with the other Gulf States and Saudi Arabia, has opened its borders not just to Palestinians without a home but to a number of other shaqiqa – Arab states with which Qatar has links, particularly religio-political links – and where there was perceived to be a need to allow relatively poor countries to benefit financially by their sharing their knowledge and technical bases through immigration to Qatar. Many of these Arabs moved into the teaching, managerial and service areas of both government and the private sector.

The increasing income from the oil and gas reserves has created significant wealth in the Qatar economy. Much of this is being spent on physical development, essentially servicing those who come to the country to service the economy.

Serviced population

Anybody reading the local press in Qatar will be aware of some of the strains that this rate and scale of development has brought to the country in terms of its domestic staffing. The most significant relate to the abuse of employees by employers, sponsors and manpower agencies. The mistreatment is of two forms:

• physical, this relating in the main to cruelty and assaults on maids and domestic servants, and
• contractual, the latter encompassing a range of complaints ranging from the withholding of exit visas, excessive hours, poor living conditions, withholding of pay, repatriation expenses and a number of related issues.

I don’t mean to suggest that the mistreatment and abuse is always against the servants or employees. This is not always so as a number of cases of theft, assault and the cheating of employers have been reported. It is not possible to comment on the scale this represents but there are a significant number of complaints within the Gulf to make them credible enough to be remarked on and registered by international agencies.

One specific element of the problem is worth highlighting as it affects all foreigners employed in the Gulf countries. Any expatriate working in Qatar is required to have a sponsor in order to enter and work. That sponsor takes a fee and has certain responsibilities. The sponsor keeps the passport of the employee and the latter is not allowed to leave unless he or she has the permission from the sponsor and his or her passport returned. For a number of reasons this is not always an easy process and creates significant psychological pressures on those who might feel they are trapped within the country. It’s also a process that is open to abuse, either deliberately of by neglect, and there are constant complaints about the system.

It appears to be particularly unfortunate when an individual has come to the country with the promise and anticipation of taking a job such as a secretary or salesperson, but has been offered work as a maid.

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Conditions of employment

In theory the employment of servants within the country is benign. It benefits both those from countries with low employment opportunities as well as those needing domestic servants. But it places a great strain on employees so far away from their home countries and cultures, even though there is some opportunity to contact and obtain support from fellow nationals and their embassy within Qatar.

The chief difficulty that servants appear to suffer from is that of expectations – but this applies both to employer and employee.

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Recruitment

The process of obtaining work in Qatar for domestic servants and others starts in their home country where a number of agencies are available to procure their services. This process starts the payments by the applicants as they undergo, in theory, at least medical, skills and aptitude testing for their suitability to travel and carry out the work for which they are applying. In many cases applicants are over-qualified but need the work so are prepared to take domestic work or lesser work than that for which they are qualified in order to be able to send money home to their families. Others are carrying on a family or village tradition and, to some extent, know what they are letting themselves in for.

In some cases Qataris will travel abroad to interview applicants or to identify new areas for employment. This is likely to be more successful for the employer and, hopefully, for the employee. In some cases a married couple might be employed, a practice that gives better stability to the foreigners and, consequently, better service to the employee.

There are recruitment agencies in Qatar as well and they usually have working relationships with foreign agencies and tend to be the agencies that have to deal with the local sponsors. According to Qatari newspapers there seem to be significant difficulties between domestic workers, sponsors and recruitment agencies, the latter believed to be the main financial beneficiaries, and most of these difficulties being associated with the management of expectations.

However, it is not until the employees are in place and beginning to learn what is required of them that the various problems bearing on their relationship will be revealed.

One problem area I should mention is the issue of qualifications. It is not uncommon in the West for applicants seeking work to suggest their qualifications are better than they might be. In countries where documentation of qualifications is well established, checking an applicant’s qualifications is not difficult, if a little tedious. However, there is a significant problem with many applying to work in the Gulf having spurious documentation. To a large extent this arises by the need for many to find work outside their areas of expertise but in a field for which there may be better employment opportunities. It is hoped that the agencies will sort this out, though it is commonly thought that they don’t.

A related issue is the conflict between government policy of their nationals developing the skills needed to consolidate government structures, and the self-interest of foreign staff wishing to continue to work in the country. It is not uncommon for foreign staff to insist on carrying out the work of national staff with the result that the national staff do not develop their own skills. This can coincide with nationals not wishing to carry out simpler tasks and it is difficult to distinguish the degree to which this problem is damaging government structures, continuing the dependence on foreign expertise.

In the past efforts have been made to encourage nationals to develop more basic skills, but this has not worked for a number of political reasons which I shall write about elsewhere.

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Domestic staff

Generally non-Muslims seem to be preferred as male servants but Muslims as female. Where this is the case there appears to be little problem with male servants moving around the family side of the house. Their role can be wide-ranging as they will carry out work around the house as well as outside it, perhaps acting as a driver, watchman or gatekeeper though the latter two positions are relatively menial. The heavier work will be given them but this is not always the case. What is unusual to the casual Western viewer is the fact that men are allowed into the family area at all. As I noted above, it seems that this seems to be because they are non-Muslims and I believe that Arabs are also not hired for any work within the family side of the house. Certainly Qataris are not employed for this though there might well be a member of the extended family taking on a supportive role, though I’d hesitate to characterise them as being servants.

The women who are employed as domestic servants generally fufill a number of roles. Theirs is a supportive role in terms of keeping the house clean and organised, assisting or carrying out the cooking under the supervision of the women of the household whose responsibility this is and whose reputation is dependent upon the outcome of their cuisine. In addition they will have to fetch and carry throughout the day, a day that can be quite long due to the different hours kept by the older and younger, male and female members of the household.

The other important role they are often employed for is that of nanny. I don’t know if this is an official role or one that is an adjunct to their general domestic work but, for those that take on this onerous work, a good knowledge of English is considered necessary. My experience is that this is not always the case and one of the difficulties with this system resides in poor grammar, vocabulary and intonation being passed on to impressionable children.

A secondary problem has to do with the relationship between domestic servants and the children of the household. Many believe that Qatari children tend to be spoiled. I think this is a consequence of the dramatically increased wealth of families, peer pressure and, particularly, the natural characteristic Qataris have of generosity. But I’ve noticed that many domestic servants make themselves available for every whim of the children in their care and make no attempt either to maintain discipline or encourage good behaviour. I’ve not been able to understand if this is due to direction from the employee, a cultural issue or, as I suspect, an attempt to keep their jobs.

Nor do I know how the relationship between a nanny and child impinges on the familial relationships. It is commonly considered in the West that the use of a nanny weakens the relationship between a mother and her children, perhaps also with the father, though in the latter case I think this would be dependent more on whether the child was male or female. At the least this is one more factor in the complex issues that are affecting those within the country, particularly those that are due to the influence of the West on its Islamic society.

I have mentioned the issue of abuse further up the page, but one of the other difficulties noted in the local press is that relating to holidays and free time for domestic staff. Those who come from abroad have contracts describing their conditions of engagement, pay, holiday and so on but these are not always honoured. One reason for this is the complexity of contractual issues there can be between agents in the home country and those in Qatar, the clients and the domestic staff. Generally speaking, when the clients are reasonable people there are little or no problems, but when they are not the difficulties for domestic staff can seem insuperable. This is the case not just in Qatar but all over the world.

Employers generally permit domestic staff to take time off during the week, often on a Sunday to enable Christians to meet for prayers. Just as importantly, and on whichever day is taken, this allows foreign nationals to meet each other and maintain friendships, the system acting as an important support function. Nowadays domestic staff are also able to maintain links with friends using mobile telephones, a technology which has only lately come to benefit them but which is important as a method of keeping staff settled. By the same token it has also allowed expatriates to learn more of their rights and compare conditions and employers.

Staff who have suffered abuse have been able to call on others for assistance and, in other parts of the Gulf, this has led to accommodation being made available for those who have left their employers while the legal issues are settled. At present this appears to be an ad hoc affair but, as government systems are refined, it is likely to lead to a more effective and governmental process rather than remaining a private initiative. Newspaper reports are unclear on the extent to which these initiatives are effective, nor the extent to which foreign embassies are effectual in dealing with this problem.

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Workers’ leisure and recreation

The expatriates who work in Qatar, as holds true elsewhere in the Gulf, do not have that much time available to them for leisure and recreation. There are government regulations covering employment and establishing rules for the benefit of foreign workers in the country, but a number of factors militate against their universal adoption or policing which has given rise to a number of complaints about the treatment of foreign workers. Even al-Jazeera, based in Qatar, has made programmes about this problem which they claim exists throughout Gulf. This impacts the time they have available for leisure and what they do in that time.

What is relevant with regard to the treatment of workers is that, in the view of those from the Indian sub-continent, there are two kinds of expatriate workers in the Gulf: those from the Indian sub-continent and those from Britain and the United States. This, of course, is a simplification but appears to be making a distinction between manual and white collar workers. There is no doubt that all over the world workers can be treated badly with regard to conditions of work and pay, and this is a personal issue. There are good and bad employers, and there are agents, contractors and sub-contractors who deal with the supply and treatment of workers, and who stand to profit in different ways. Where a system can be abused, it sometimes is. But the factor which seems to exacerbate the conditions of workers in Qatar is the climate. It is hot for much of the year, a condition which saps mental and physical energy, particularly of those from countries where this is not the natural condition, such as Nepal. However, it is not my intention to deal here with the treatment of workers, rather in how workers find leisure and recreation in the limited hours available to them.

The majority of the workforce who come to Qatar and the Gulf, do so for money. It is a hard life but first there is work which may not be available in their home country and, secondly, there is money which can be repatriated to families back home.

Both men and women come to the Gulf. For the most part there are separate markets for the different sexes; at its crudest men tend to work on construction sites and women in houses or in retail outlets. Sometimes couples are employed but this obtains, in the main, for employment in domestic premises.

For those who work in domestic employment there is the possibility that they will have to work long hours to match the living pattern of the family employing them. The long hours are a difficulty but the fact that the work is carried out in a domestic residence may ameliorate this. But it is still sometimes difficult for them to get out of the house. Better employers give their staff the ability to go out and meet friends. Commonly the different nationalities will find time to be together and, with time, friendships are made or continued from relationships made in their home countries, this often being a reason for friends coming to the Gulf in the first place.

For men it can be rather different. The only times that the workforce can generally meet is in the evening or on Fridays, though this is not always the case. As the main reason for working abroad is the drive to make money, there is little disposable income available for expenditures. Generally, this means that leisure tends to be passive though I have seen both softball and cricket matches organised by workers.

Passive recreation tends to mean that workers will meet somewhere away from their living quarters, and talk as they watch what happens around them. In a sense it’s similar to a majlis system although workers tend not to sit but move around. In the evening, for instance, Wadi Musheirib always has a lot of people milling around and, on Fridays after the mid-morning prayers have been attended, there will again be informal meetings followed up by something similar in the evenings when the weather is a little cooler. When it rains workers tend to stay in their living quarters.

It is also significant that there tend to be informal rules about where people can meet each other. In the photograph at the head of this section, for instance, you will see only men as there will be parts of the suq where they may not go but where families can, this in order to protect the women of families who may feel uncomfortable with many men roaming around. This follows, of course, Islamic custom but also reflects the nervousness many feel with a large proportion of the overall population being men and unable to form natural relationships with women. Because of this an effort is being made to ensure propriety in the suq in order to protect the initiatives that have made it a successful tourist attraction.

While it should not be thought to be an element of leisure or recreation, prayer for Muslims is a significant marker of passage through the day. During the day, and in working hours, those who work in shops and offices bond through the act of prayer. By this I really mean Islamic prayer as prayer times are dictated by the lunar calendar and are both a requirement of Islam as well as, to a small extent, a free choice. Wherever you go, whether it is in offices or shops or, as in this case, out in the open, you are likely to see men praying together at the appropriate times. Here a group of men from adjoining shops and showrooms with, perhaps, passers-by, are kneeling to enjoy communal prayer. Often in these circumstances, one man will take the lead, kneeling slightly ahead of the others. In this case it appears not to be the case, but it does illustrate how well individuals come together at prayer times and suggest how prayer breaks up the passing of the day.

more to be written…

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Shopping

Traditionally shopping used to be carried out by men, servants or the older women of the family. There were local shops within the individual communities and these were supplemented by travelling salesmen who brought massive bundles on their shoulders to the door where the women of the family would make their purchases. In addition there was, of course, the main centre in the heart of Doha where, complementing the larger range of basic products there were also the speciality shops, particularly the fish market.

I’ve mentioned previously that men meet and discuss events at a number of formal and informal activities, one of the most important being while shopping. My experience is that men would go to buy certain products every day and would sit with shopkeepers who were friends as well as take a tea at one of the many tea stalls. Here they would meet and discuss events as part of the informal majlis system.

Fish, incidentally, are still bought at the quay-side though there are both a centralised fish market as well as areas to buy chilled or frozen fish in the many supermarkets in the country. In this photo an elderly Qatari woman bargains for fresh fish at the quay-side in Doha. Thirty years ago, at the fish market and quays, there would be young foreign children who both acted as porters for the fish purchases as well as gutting fish and shelling prawns extraordinarily quickly.

The reasons for the traditional pattern of shopping were three-fold:

• firstly, shopping was a utilitarian activity, providing the food and items required by the family,
• secondly, it was not a social or leisure activity to the extent it now is, there being no consumer and advertising pressures to speak of, and
• thirdly, for reasons mentioned previously, the women of the family were inhibited from meeting outside the house in order to preserve the good name of the family, shopping being chiefly a male pursuit.

Nowadays there is a massive retail operation within the country, commonly thought to be greater than the country can sustain. I don’t want to go into the economic side of this here, but the outcome of the construction of so much retail space means that there is significant choice, though this does not necessarily mean that goods are relatively inexpensive.

The classic hierarchy of retail spaces still exist and are easily recognisable. The lowest element of the old system has long since gone – the itinerant merchant carrying his or her wares round literally from door to door – stopped in the 1970s with the competition of the local stores. The women, dalalat, would walk from door to door, their wares wrapped in a large bedsheet, mostly selling clothes and household necessities to the women of the household. But men also carried out this function and, additionally, kandiri travelled around with donkey-drawn carts carrying water or kerosene to sell to the household.

I should also mention that there was a very active market in junk and scrap in the country. Known as the suq al Halaj, or ‘second hand suq’ to expatriates, it originally was situated at the edge of Doha’s suq and sold everything that might be of use, and much that might not. Today we would consider it as being a recycling centre as it was obvious that many of the items had a second life. That suq moved to the south of Doha when the centre of Doha was redeveloped, and grew dramatically in size, the metalwork industry being situated along with it, sensibly, as much of the items there were used by it.

But the first element of the retail hierarchy, the local shop, still exists all over the country. Commonly it is found, as here, in residential areas where it is often created by the development of a garage from which items are sold that have been brought in by the houseowner either as an element or an adjunct of his business. An employee, perhaps somebody who is also gatekeeper or watchman will look after it for him, and it will be open all day from early in the morning until late at night. In the evenings it will not be uncommon for the owner to be around when he will meet friends and see to any business that’s necessary. It may not have a great return, but it will be providing a service for the immediate community both economically and socially.

One of the chief characteristics of this scale of shopping is the way in which it integrates with activities in and around the house – particularly the majlis – together with the local masjid. This is true at mid-day but particularly so at night when there seems to be a seamless movement in and around the area with individuals coming and going. This seems to me to be the epitome of the formal and informal majlis system working at its best, joining the whole of the family with the neighbourhood.

Although there are local shops within easy reach of every community, there is one item that is needed for all meals but which is not manufactured locally. khubz is used with every meal, or at least presented if not eaten. Traditionally, khubz is made with unleavened flour by placing a flat circle of dough firmly against a hot, clay wall which cooks the khubz in a few seconds, producing a disk with a large air space in its centre. The bread is eaten by tearing it and using it to grip food as well as to wipe up gravy both from dishes as well as fingers. But due to the hollow in its centre it can also be used to produce pockets for suitable foods and is popular for that function as well. It is a very useful commodity. The khubz produced by bread shops varies from one to another, some customers travelling a considerable distance to obtain their favourite khubz. They are particularly busy around meal times when people drop by to pick up what they need, preferably hot from the oven. But there is also considerable waste; it is common to see it discarded round town, an issue that has taxed the municipalities for some time.

The next stage in the hierarchy are the retail units that form a local centre. Often this will be along a secondary road and will include a range of units ranging from juice stalls and cafés to stores and retail units selling a wide range of items ranging from those needed for major and minor construction to edible goods and entertainment. Some stores at this scale are run by their Qatari owners and, again, act as majaalis through the day in a similar manner to the small units which tend to have their owners around at lunch time and evening after prayers. I have no reason to state this as a fact, but I have the feeling that these centres are not as well visited by women as either local or district centres.

While local centres cater for everyday needs, district centres commonly have a wider range of goods for sale. The pattern in Qatar has been, over the last few years, for those with sufficient funds to develop major centres in different districts of the city, usually known by the named after them. They are air-conditioned, spacious, finished in expensive materials and contain a wide range of retail outlets populated by good-looking sales staff selling, in the main, well-known up-market products. While the centres seem busy, particularly at night, my experience is that there is not a great deal of purchasing taking place. The other important function they have, that of the majlis, appears to relate more to the young than the older Qatari as the meeting areas – places that people can sit down naturally and converse – tend to be well-known fast food outlets and coffee shops which favour the young.

In the past the suq was the place people went to buy their household goods. This first photograph shows the kind of pots and trays that are so necesssary to Qatari cuisine but which are not generally found in the West. Both pots and trays need to be large in order to be used in the cooking and presentation of whole animals, usually sheep. The other item that is a necessity in all kitchens as well as in the desert is the kettle. They seem to come in one of two finishes, either enamelled or aluminium, as shown in the lower photo.

As larger shops opened along the main artery out of the suq, the wadi sail and roads joining it, they were able to bring to market a larger variety of items, widening the choice for consumers. Items such as the necessary insulated della appeared in a range of sizes and qualities to suit the market. Now this choice has moved to the new centres where there is an even wider selection. Much of the older della came from China. I don’t know where these particular ones come from but suspect the same source.

As I have written about elsewhere, these centres tend to be part of a recreational and retail experience that is now a part of life not just in Qatar but elsewhere in the world. They are places where families can meet informally, young people watch each other in relative safety, and the foreign workforce experience some form of relief from their daily occupations. The way in which this benefits the retailer will be dealt with elsewhere.

I should have mentioned that the old suq in Doha was divided into areas each selling specific goods. This system for the location of retail and manufacturing operations has been in use, not just in Qatar, but all over the Arab world and elsewhere for centuries. In fact, traditionally there were many laws relating to their specific and relative locations which can be seen in the layout of many of the older Arab towns. The practices relating to noise, smell, transport, disposition of refuse and the like were gradually defined, refined and incorporated into civic ordonances in order to benefit both those operating those facilities as well as the general public.

In contrast, outside the main masjid were those items relating to the activities in the masjid where you could buy a quran or misbah, have your feet shod and sandals mended, buy miswaak, teeth cleaners, and have documents read to you or written for you by a kaatib who sat outside under an umbrella, a typewriter on a low platform. This photograph, taken in 1985, shows a typical corner of the street including simple baskets woven by fishermen from fluorescent plastic cord.

Adjacent to this, in a more modern construction, was the tailoring suq where Qataris would go to have a thub or bisht made for them. Tailors also made dresses for women and this practice continues with male tailors sewing and fitting dresses, the latter measuring by eye rather than touching their clients. The shops in this area also sold some of the accoutrements for hawking. Part of this area was also used for the manufacture of cotton-filled mattresses, the production of which created a mist of cotton dust which wafted down the alleyway.

Opposite this part of the suq was the main part of the suq that sold more mass produced clothing and general purpose goods including light tools, chains, ropes and the like. Through them were the heavier materials, picks, shovels and boxes for travelling and, through them and nearer the sea, spices and materials and equipment for cooking.

Also in this part of the suq was the gold suq, the windows displaying gold to attract Qatari women who would buy the precious metal both as ornament and security. This photograph shows the kind of arrangement which many shops in the gold suq have in their windows as gold bangles are one of the most common purchases by women. Seen in bulk, bangles tend to look cheap; compare this photo with that above. These bangles are relatively simple in design with either twisted or engraved decoration. They don’t have the bulk of the silver bracelets common among the badu in Saudi and Qatar, presumably a reflection of the value of the two metals. There is a little more written about them on the next page.

Gold is sold by purity, weight and the amount of decoration, the gold never being below 18 carat purity. There is no assay system, but it would be a commercial disaster were a merchant to be found to have adulterated his gold. This solid gold necklace is of a type rarely seen in the West but are popular in the region. As I have written about elsewhere, women believe it is important to have something to fall back on in the event that they are divorced and it is imperative that they obtain value for money. I have been told that it is traditional to wear bracelets in multiples of five, representing the five tenets of Islam, but I also been informed more recently that, traditionally, women wear bangles in pairs, that is two or four or six on each wrist, the number depending upon social status and the prevailing fashion, but not usually exceeding a dozen on each wrist.

Also in this area were shops selling perfumes in the traditional manner. This has been a long tradition in the Arab world with specialists mixing the oils to order. Rows of bottles containing oils were used to mix and fill small glass or corked aluminium containers for customers. This area had a distinctive smell as did all areas of the suq. I should also mention that it used to be possible to buy copies of popular commercial perfumes. I don’t know if this is still the case.

Returning to planning theory, at the top of the hierarchy is, usually, the city centre. Doha has a city centre but the development of the West Bay with its concomitant retail centres, together with a large number of competing district centres, have starved it of the opportunity for major retail centres of its own, the type that would be found in the centre of any Western city. To some extent this is a function of ownership patterns, but it was possible to deal with this elsewhere and should have been in the centre.

But as I wrote about on the Islamic urban design page, Doha’s centre has been completely redeveloped. A major road, Grand Hamad Avenue, was driven by the planners through the middle of the suq leaving some of the old two-storey shops to be redeveloped in an architectural form thought to be accurate of its past. I understand this to be a deliberate policy reflecting a need to encourage tourism. It is interesting to note that already Western visitors to the city are photographing it and believing it to be authentic…

Inside the new development many of the old retail uses – tailoring, clothes and shoes, dress materials, hunting goods, spices and tools, together with scribes, shoe cleaners and so on – remain but the suq is a shadow of its former self. In the daytime it appears to be relatively empty compared with its former self, though Qataris do visit and traders continue to sell to them and others. There are now many aswaaq located around town, and competing with it. Its great advantage is that it is central and continues to sell a wide range of a small group of goods such as spices and kitchenware, inexpensive tools and clothes.

Old goods are also sold. The lowest photograph is of a pile of dellat that have had their day. Once the tinning on the inside goes they either have to be thrown away or re-tinned. These can be seen to have come from a number of sources, and are not all of the traditional brass sort.

One of the features there has always been is the need to have porters to move heavy or awkward loads for those buying in the suq. Here a group of men sit on their modern wheelbarrows, lined with sacking to protect the goods carried. Before metal wheelbarrows took over the role, the barrows were constructed as flat wooden platforms and the porters used ropes slung over their shoulders to manage the heavier loads. A generation ago these porters would be seen carrying loads to the residential areas surrounding the suq. Nowadays it is more likely they carry only to the car parks surrounding the area.

But the centre of gravity of the commercial operations has moved south and west along the wadi sail to the larger shopping facilities that have managed to sustain their competitive edge due to a combination of their size and the fact that their development costs were amortised a long time ago. Many of these shops still have Qataris in them but in the main the area is heavily given over to expatriates both running and using the shops.

One of the reasons for this is the large number of expatriates living nearby in the old inner housing areas. In these two photographs you can see a little of the character of the area at night with expatriates moving around, and including a small group of women. It is a functional area with reasonable prices, lively at night and catering for those who do not large amounts of disposable income.

Not far from this is the newly redeveloped suq whose concept and architecture I have commented upon in a number of different parts of these notes. This is still a functional area of the centre but has been designed to demonstrate to visitors a vision of what the centre might once have been. It is a part of the modern, international trend to produce settings in which people can enjoy themselves, albeit in a different manner from its original construction as a functional suq – a place to purchase the requirements for life in Doha. It reflects the transient society of expatriates rather than established Qatari society. It is to be visited as an experience rather than a requirement of daily life. You can see a hint of this in the upper photo which has a large wooden camel for sale bottom left and, particularly, in the lower photo which looks as if it has been designed with Western café culture in mind.

Nevertheless the centre still serves as a place for nationals and expatriates to shop, and there continues to be the need for large items to be moved from the dukaakeen to the car park that is situated on the old maqbara at the south-west side of the suq. Because of this there appears to be a continuing need for porters to carry heavy goods and they now operate in and around the suq with wheelbarrows as their mode of transportation. Here a number of porters rest, waiting for customers to collect them and take them to the dukaan from which they need their goods removing.

As mentioned above, part of the move to create attractions to the peninsula has seen the centre of Doha completely rebuilt. The development of suq Waqf will be looked at on the Gulf Architecture pages from a design point of view, but here I would like to mention the development of the suq in its socio-cultural and economic sense. These two photographs illustrate one of the aspects of the new suq. With the construction designed to appear authentic, similar pains have been taken to install in it other elements that are, or appear to be, traditional and are intended to encourage visitors and the revenue they bring.

This first photograph shows a squad of police drilling in the centre of the suq, wearing the uniform that could still be seen in the suq in the nineteen seventies, where a policeman stood on a small raised platform directing traffic near to the Central Police Station. Generally the police wore, and still wear, dark blue uniforms, but this traditional dress appears to be directed at the tourist and visitors’ market. As such it might be thought that the wearers of these uniforms are somehow diminished by their appearing to be actors on a staged set; they certainly are photographed by visitors, and this has to be a response to the way they dress. Yet they are real police officers carrying out the normal work of the police in the suq.

This photograph illustrates a relatively recent introduction to suq Waqf. Two mounted policemen in traditional dress patrol through the suq wearing bandoliers, and with highly decorative tack on their Arab horses. Again, this must be for the benefit of the visitors and tourists as there is little additional function to be gained by being mounted, a form of policing usually associated with ceremony or crowd control. However, it is a pleasant and attractive introduction to the business of the suq. As an aside, I should mention that, a generation or so ago, the suq was policed at night by private, armed watchmen paid by the merchants, even with the central police station being situated at the north end of the suq.

This third photograph, however, introduces a different effect. The uniforms above are traditional and are understood to be traditional by those visiting the suq. This, however, is slightly different as the uniform worn here by what I believe are three soldiers, is obviously different, the material of the tunics being unusually highly decorated, as appear to be the qutra. In many respects, these uniforms seem to fall into a similar category as do the uniforms of the musicians shown further up the page. Both represent a view of reality that is at odds with tradition and move those wearing the uniforms into a different socio-cultural area, one that is more definitely a part of the entertainment industry. This may be thought reasonable with respect to groups such as musicians and dancers, but when it comes to the police and army, it may appear that they have been subordinated to an acting role, when this is clearly not the case: they carry out real work with considerable responsibility. It is true that military groups all over the world have dress uniforms as well as battledress, and that the uniforms here may have a traditional basis, but they still appear within an entertainment context and have a theatrical aspect to them.

The purpose of using these illustrations is to show how institutions are being used to respond to touristic development, as it is termed. As such they are weakening the links they have to the traditional way of life of the peninsula. This in turn loosens the traditional socio-cultural fabric of Qatar.

Some of the retail units in the old suq are still run by their Qatari owners. This is particularly true for the tailoring and hunting units and these, together with the tea shops still remaining there, draw many of the older Qataris to meet their friends and remind themselves of the old days. I should also add that the old suq, as well as some of the more local shops, are popular with Qataris as they like to obtain fresh food every day. It is not just bread, but vegetables, meat and fish are bought fresh where possible.

So, the importance of shopping for Qatari men and women continues with modern developments, but in a different way. The old suq is no longer the draw to men that it was, though it brings some men and women to it in search of fresh spices and the like, but it does seem to represent a dying focus for Qataris. The majlis system continues there for a few men but, in the main it is the district and local centres where the informal majaalis operate, particularly at the local level. Above you see some young Qatari men meeting at a Western style coffee shop in one of the major commercial centres.

Nevertheless, young and old still meet in the majaalis of their peers as well as in the more formal majaalis of others. There, Arabic coffee, tea and soft drinks are still drunk. These two photographs show a simply decorated Arabic coffee cup, or finjaan, the top photo showing a small quantity of the cardamon seeds which are added to the coffee to give the characteristic flavour to this traditional drink.

In the second photo, and shown held in the right hand, is a finjaan from which the qahwa is sipped hot. Elsewhere I have mentioned that it is polite to have no more than three cups of coffee and, to show that no more is required from the person pouring it for the guest, the cup is shaken slightly as it is handed back to person holding the della.

Women are chauffered more than they used to be and continue to buy as they did in the main suq while also visiting the local and district aswaaq where fresh material is brought in. They also are keen visitors to the larger, modern centres both with girlfriends as well as with their husbands and children. This is very different from the habits of the last generation. Although, as I have suggested, young men meet in these centres in an informal approximation of the majlis, it is also notable that women, in also going to the modern centres in groups, can be understood to enjoy a similar system outside their houses and the privacy they enjoy there.

It is arguable that the absence of tea shops in these new centres, the lack of Qatari owners sitting in their shops, the different shopping and spending habits, the times of schooling and the diminished amount of time available from a higher work regime have dramatically influenced the pattern not only of shopping, but of social engagement.

By that I am really referring to social engagement within the household. But, from the preceding paragraph, you will understand that the opportunity for social engagement both in an active and passive sense can be found in the public arenas to which men and women – particularly the latter – now have access. This group of young women ordering a meal at one of the many new fast food retail outlets can do so as they act as their own chaperones, and there is now a general social acceptability for their having no men from their families with them. This flies in the face of traditional religious practice in Qatar and its hinterland but gives an added piquancy to the women in their opportunities for education and the novel requirements for programming their lives throughout the day. This freedom is not yet fully accepted as many families continue to constrain their women’s activities, but it obviously represents a trend in the region which is being looked at by many interested parties.

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Cuisine

In the past, Qatari women used to bear an unusually high proportion of the workload as they had to provide food for the family in times when there was often little that was palatable. Dates, bread and fish were the basic diet and this had to be sourced, bought and prepared by the women. There could be little variation and, in times of hardship, even date stones were crushed for food.

Water sources had to be filtered either through the use of a water jug or, more immediately, by drinking water directly through a qutra, a man’s traditional headscarf. Washing was carried out at the sea shore, usually by groups of women.

But times have changed. The towns are much larger, every Qatari family has a house together with the equipment needed to prepare a range of meals for families and their guests. But, despite this, some labour-intensive traditional meals are still prepared and enjoyed. The upper of these two photos shows a tray of machboos, in this case, meat on a layer of rice. Actually machboos refers to the method of cooking rather than the meal itself. I have written a little more on this on the Gulf architecture page. The lower photograph is of a typical spread set out when breaking the fast at ’eid, and illustrates a range of dishes giving a wide choice of food for the guests at this important meal. Note that some of the dishes appear to have been produced in the house kitchen and some bought in, an increasing option I have discussed elsewhere.

Cuisine has changed a great deal, this being the result of half a dozen factors such as:

• increased disposable income,
• the availability of relatively inexpensive help in the home,
• an extremely wide range of food products,
• a large variety of convenience food outlets,
• changing inter-personal family patterns caused by work and education opportunities, and
• travel.

I have made notes on these issues elsewhere but, in essence, it is very little different from what has happened elsewhere in the Western world where an increasingly prosperous society has travelled and experienced more, a wide variety of commercial opportunities have been exploited to increase the range and quality of food and related products available to the consumer, and where work opportunities or requirements have been available to an increasingly well educated society whose working hours are different from those in operation only a generation ago.

Although traditional family patterns are still very important, decisions made by certain elements of government, such as education – as well as competing activities such as personal work and work for government – have made it more difficult for families to eat together in the way they used to. It is now not uncommon for a member of the household, usually the father, to bring back convenience outlet meals for the the family, and for different members of the family – usually the younger male students – to eat out with their friends either at those retail outlets or at the majaalis of friends.

Traditional meals have been buttressed by a wider selection of similar products such as fruit, fruit juices, milk, yoghurt, cheese, bread and the like, but staples such as mutton, chicken, fish and camel are still the basis of traditional meals.

Presentation still tends to be made on a sufra though dining tables are also used in equal measure. There appears to be a preference for very sweet puddings as well as extremely colourful ones for which there has been a long tradition brought in from the Indian sub-continent.

Some forms of presentation are very different from Western ones, but more effective. For instance, the idea of floating fruit in cold, iced, water after it has been washed continues the practice of eating fruit, helps widen the selection for children and makes the fruit literally more palatable.

This issue is important because it is now recognised that young Qataris are increasingly suffering from dietary problems which, combined with lack of exercise, affects a wide group of Qataris. It is my experience that it is not just young Qataris who have developed a national sweet tooth.

khubz remains the favourite complement to virtually any meal. Flat bread, as it is commonly termed by expatriates, is bought from nearby bakers by both expatriates and nationals alike, hot from the traditional ovens. It can act as a plate, a container, an implement and even something to wipe fingers on. Western style bread is rarely eaten though soft bread buns have been introduced to many households through their use as the covers for beefburgers and the like. The upper of these two photographs shows the traditional oven with three pieces of dough baking on its internal surface, placed there quickly with a deft slap to avoid being burned. The lower photograph illustrates a typical presentation of bread on a traditional woven flat basket.

This changed cuisine has been married to another issue I have written about elsewhere, that of the manner in which houses are laid out. Most professional Qataris will have a dining room in their house where their friends will eat if they don’t eat in the majlis. However, there is also likely to be a dining room in the family side of the house which is usually fitted out in a similar manner to a Western dining room with a central table, surrounding chairs, a sideboard or credenza and appropriate lighting and decoration. I have only eated a few times in dining rooms such as these and I believe it is the exception rather than the rule.

More to be written…