The image above is not exactly what comes to mind when one thinks of the lands rimming the Persian Gulf, but this skyline and others like it throughout the region have become the face of the “New Middle East”. Yes, I know they are protesting in Bahrain, Oman, Yemen and points south and west, and yes, I know that autocrats, kings, despots, and even some benign dictators populate the circles of power in many neighboring countries. We are on our way to Doha, Qatar and from there will proceed to Kuwait and finally to Dubai of the United Arab Emirates before we make our way back to Doha again for our flight back to Houston.
I was watching the in-flight monitor as neared Qatar just at the moment we were crossing above Iraq and then noted that our flight path would take us directly over Bahrain as well. One war winding down and one country verging on new violence in an area of the world where violence is not uncommon.
Qatar, on the other hand, seems at peace with the world and more than ready to assume a new, enhanced position in the community of nations. Most of us know only that Qatar has served as a jumping off point for US forces in our middle east military adventures. I drove past the US Air Base today which is just a few miles outside of Doha, and it seems to stretch across the whole horizon. It’s also impossible not to notice the constant stream of US military jests to-ing and fro-ing.
You should also know that a few otherwise unremarkable sheikhs with their roots in their bedu tribes have gotten fabulously wealthy extracting oil and gas from the desert and selling it to satisfy the unending needs of western countries (and now China) for hydrocarbon based energy.
The history of Qatar is relatively unremarkable as well. While there are some signs of human activity dating back to the 8th millenium BC, nothing much was known, at least from a 21st century perspective, until old Herodotus gave it a mention in his historical writings in the 5th century AD. I guess the most notable thing about Qatar in the early era, and continuing today, is that the history of Qatar is also the history of the bedu tribes who scratched out a living and a culture long before the first drop of oil appeared. I’m going to skip over the conquest of the Qatari by the forces of Islam and move on the the modern era which has been dominated more by the al Thani family than by Islam.
I don’t know how you get to be a Sheikh, but if I’d lived around here, I would have given it my dead level best, because these dudes live really, really well. The Al-Thanis, the current ruling family, took control in the 1700’s and have pretty much ruled the roost ever since. At the outset, these were pretty tough hombres. They are a part of the Tamim tribe which has it’s root stock in Saudi Arabia and pretty quickly figured out they liked pearl diving better than herding goats and built a big business out of grains of sand growing in oysters which proliferated the area. That began to change when the oil prospectors showed up, ultimately leading to commencement of oil production which started not long after WWII ended. And there you have it. Hang around, survive and discover oil. Oh, that and run a tight ship… which the Al-Thanis have shown themselves to be good at. We’ve heard a lot about generational change lately, but the Al-Thanis set a new standard. In the post-oil discovery era, several Al-Thanis had ruled in a more or less lackluster way. The old man Sheikh Abdullah, his son Ali, and his grandson Ahmed pretty much left running the shop to Abdullah’s nephew Kalipha who ultimately threw the old guy out in a bloodless coup in 1972. Then, he himself was given the deep six by his own son who didn’t think his pops was moving fast enough to keep Qatar in the fast lane. An interesting footnote to this last change of power is that Kalipha, who was generally recognized as a good, but lackadaisical ruler had an itch for the finer things in life. He loved eating bon bons and living large on the shores of Lake Geneva which is where he was when his eldest son, Hammad, gave him the heave-ho.
Hammad, by all accounts, thinks big and pays attention to detail. He is progressive (relative to the general run of Arab rulers), even implementing women’s suffrage, of a sort, giving them the right to vote, drive a car (wow) and work outside the home. He evidently believes that the oil spigot will run dry sooner or latter (that date has been pegged at 37 years hence by those who know this kind of stuff), and has a plan that will allow Qatar to continue to be a big cheese without oil. This plan focuses on Sports, Education and Medicine. Not bad at the 40,000 foot level, and he’s putting his money where his mouth is. He has already hosted the Asian Games, has been selected for the 2022 World Cup and is preparing for the next Olympic bidding cycle. He has conceived and built Education City wherein are housed cooperative ventures with major western educational institutions including Carnegie Mellon and even Texas A&M. He is now building the largest acute care and teaching medical facility in the Middle East. New real estate developments are like johnson grass. They are everywhere and spreading at an alarming rate. Huge shopping malls with every high end retailer known to mankind. Huge mixed use developments with all manner of high end retailers. I suspect, but don’t know, that occupancy rates are low and retail rates are subsidized in the hope that the market will catch up with them sooner or later. They are impressive nevertheless.
We had dinner last night with Bart V. a Belgian who has lived here for 12 years and got the expat lowdown on what’s going on. His boss is one of the Sheikhs of the five families, and he deals with others of that tribe at the highest levels of the country. Notwithstanding that he has made a personal long term commitment to the country, he was at the same time bullish on the economic future and cynical about the idiosyncratic “democracy” that coexists with what is, at it’s heart, a culture that’s still rooted in the tribal allegiances and behavior that is not far removed, in space or time, from inviting the goats into your tent.
We’re off this morning for Kuwait which is another step back in modernity. We’ll see what we think after we leave there. Qatar may look pretty good comparatively speaking.
