Promoting Doha: Some free space for the Arab world?

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Wed, 05/10/2006 12:07 PM  |  Life

Tiny states must be aggressive to survive and many try harder than bigger and more complacent countries.

Among the Gulf countries Qatar, judging from the ongoing construction of gleaming structures in its seaside capital, looks rich enough for its population of 800,000, a fraction of Jakarta's ""Big Durian"" -- but it's not sitting smug, even though its energy department reports that the nation has some 14.7 percent of the world's natural gas reserves.

Reaching 80 kilometers in width from coast to coast, a little more than the distance from Jakarta to Bogor, Qatar depends heavily on foreign investment and foreign workers to develop all its available resources. Last month a report said 1,000 Indonesian drivers were being deployed to the country, joining the few thousand other Indonesian mining workers and maids.

Located halfway along the west coast of the Arabian Gulf, between immediate neighbors Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, Qatar also diligently promotes why it is attractive, not only to tourists lured to desert and ocean adventure, but to the world intellectual community and their jargon of democracy and human rights.

Vast hotels like the Sheraton Doha, cater to not only business people and tourists but also the thousands of guests of the emirate, invited to its dozens of international talks.

The government has successfully made Doha familiar to the world now as a permanent part of the World Trade Organization rounds and its preceding conferences.

At the April talks the host, the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, showed the government had noble aims. He said ""... It requires internal political measures which enable the citizen to participate in the affairs of his country and shoulder his responsibilities."" Sustainable development, he added, is only possible if ""the citizen is allowed to participate in decision-making and to protect his economic interests.""

When it comes to countries like those in the Middle East, the perceived gap between rhetoric and reality is about rulers ""allowing some autonomous space,"" says George Joffe of London's King's College and Center for International Studies.

As in Latin America and Eastern European nations, the professor said, the rulers ""will find it too costly to want to control everything"" although Joffe pointed out it wasn't necessary to duplicate western models, which have their own flaws.

And as in the experience of Indonesia, presidents nowadays have advisors who remind their bosses of the fears of investors every time they are seen to mull harsh authoritative measures.

Qatar, says former Lebanon's finance minister Georges Cormm, is among the few Gulf countries with a ""clear strategy and vision"" of what it wants. Even so, a Qatari businessman, Hassan Al Jaffiri, questioned at the conference why locals weren't being educated in line with the needs of the job market.

The officialdom was ""self serving,"" he said, as quoted by The Peninsula English daily, while senior officials were getting ""the lion's share of initial public offerings."" More jobs were needed, he said, adding that those employed in the private sector were mostly foreigners.

At least for these badly needed foreigners, Qatar seems to be on the right track. A few foreign women were lounging on the terrace of a cafe one April sunny morning outside the newly renovated old market in town, while local men in their white robes chatted and smoked.

City planners have obviously realized that visitors look for the arabesque atmosphere from the traditional markets or souk, not just posh malls and dreary department stores. A couple of British women, identifying themselves only as the family of an expatriate working for an oil company, were enjoying apple-flavored shia shia, the traditional hookah, a ""must try"" in these parts.

Behind the cafe, women with their faces covered in black were weaving bright colored bags in their market kiosks. The black abaya is the tradition here for women (though not so a few decades ago, judging from a photo exhibit of old Qatar here), often leaving to the public view beautifully made up eyes, and in the case of young volunteers at the conference, a bit of their jeans or bright red trousers.

But foreign women were at the pool in bikinis and on the streets in shorts and sleeveless shirts and, of course, unveiled.

Qatar, says Lyn, one of the above foreigners, is very pleasant -- ""no one ever bothers us."" Unlike some rowdy occasions in Indonesian cities, where police are conspicuously absent in raids by zealots.

(Ati Nurbaiti)

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