Jenifer Fenton sent in this dispatch from Doha, looking at the results of a recent survey and asking wider questions about the future of migration and expat communities in the Gulf.

Qataris have little trust in Western expatriates, was the headline many in Qatar took away from newly published research.

On a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 representing no trust and 10 complete trust, Qataris gave Western expatriates a 3.6, the lowest trust rating of any group excluding migrant laborers. Qataris trust other nationals (rating of 8); and Arab expatriates to a lesser degree (6.1), according to the report From Fareej To Metropolis.

“What Qataris have expressed is not different from what other people have expressed in other countries... We tend to trust and like people who are like us regardless of who we are,” said Darwish Al Emadi, Director of the Social and Economic Survey Research Institute (SESRI) at Qatar University which published the report. “British trust British people more than they trust non-British.”

However, white-collar respondents displayed high trust in Qataris (7.4). Migrant workers did as well.

Al Emadi’s research also found that "The more you interact with people, the more you trust them."

Segregated Ghetto

But in Qatar there is the limited interaction between the country’s population groups, which includes nationals, white-collar workers mainly from the Arab and Western worlds, and laborers from South and Southeast Asia. The three groups live in parallel worlds divided by invisible barriers.

“Although we all live in the same community we are living in ghettos, social ghettos,” Al Emadi said. “The interaction between Qataris and all types of expats, even the Arab expats, is really just related to the work place. We hardly ever interact at the house level.”

The lack of interactions between nationals and white-collar workers seems more acute in Doha than in Dubai or Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates because the segregation of housing is perhaps more pronounced. Neighborhoods in Qatar “largely define and structure social interaction,” according to the report.

The wealthier tier of expatriates lives in employer-provided or employer-supported housing likely to be villas and apartments. “Qataris tend to live in neighborhoods with detached high-fenced housing in predominately Qatari neighborhoods where extended family members tend to live.” This is their desire. About 97 percent of Qataris preferred having other Qataris as neighbors; less than one percent indicated a preference for low-paid migrant workers in their neighborhoods. Laborers live in migrant camps mainly located outside of the city center. Late last year Qatar banned labor accommodations in residential areas.

UAE Zayed University anthropologist Jane Bristol-Rhys agreed that Qatar’s neighborhoods are more segregated than many in the Emirates, but she objected to assumptions that these invisible boundaries are put there purposefully in either country.

“These places are melting pots. There are over 200 nationalities in the Emirates in addition to Emiratis. Are people going to tend to socialize in groups where they work? Yes. But Interaction is not necessarily limited to nationality groups,” according to Bristol-Rhys, who has spent almost a decade interviewing foreign workers and Emiratis about the issue.

Limited Social Arenas

There are limited, although growing, areas for social interaction outside of work. Majlis, a social meeting usually sex-segregated, is the main leisure activity of Qataris, according to the SESRI report. Unsurprisingly expatriates do not report majlis in the list of preferred social activities. Rather they are involved in schools, charities, clubs and sports.

The segregation between the sexes restricts inter-mingling. During a meal at a Qataris home, the men and women would normally dine separately. This is “something you are not used to and probably something that you don’t want to do,” said Al Emadi. “We don’t want to do it your way either. At the end of the day both parties don’t like to give in on what they think is the right way of interaction. So they end up having their own separate things.”

Qatari women are also restricted in their relationships with men. It would “not be comfortable, not be acceptable,” to “hang-out” with men outside of a work or a school environment, said Muna Mohammed, a young professional Qatari woman. Her two friends agreed. The three said, however, that they have more foreign friends and acquaintances than their parents or older generations do.

Social interaction between low-paid migrant workers and other groups are near non-existent. On meager salaries, they cannot afford leisure coffees, movies or even taxi rides into town. Even if they could muster-up the money, most work very long hours with few days off a month. Bachelors are also banned from Qatar’s malls on certain days because of “family-only days” policies.

However Bristol-Rhys said it is not clear that a great number of these migrant workers, who often come from small villages, even want to socialize with other groups.

Qataris and migrant workers, who are from different countries but whose circumstances are relatively similar, are fairly homogenous group; while the third social group of “professional” workers contains many subgroups from different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds.

Often there is limited interaction between these subgroups, between Arab and Western expatriates, according to Al Emadi. "We...tend to interact with people who are like us. Who speak our language, who behave like us, have more of our values and so on."

Bristol-Rhys is not sure she agreed that we like people who are like us and said there are other contributing factors that may increase isolation. “Some people are not good cultural travelers. Even though they may have a job working here (UAE), it may not suit their personality to want to get to know another language or culture or even to interact.”

A Minority In Their Country

Because of rapid growth and development Qatar and the other Gulf countries have a large migrant population. Some 1.8 million people live in Qatar, but only a few hundred thousand are citizens. The country has the highest global ration of migrants to citizens, according to the World Bank. The UAE ranks third. All of the Gulf countries are in the [top 30] (http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPROSPECTS/Resources/334934-1199807908806/Top10.pdf).

Twenty-five percent of respondents answered yes to “Are there too many expats in the UAE?” in a recent (unscientific) poll on The National's website (screenshot).

Debates about “too many foreigners,” “price of modernizing” and “preservation of national culture” are of course nothing new. Khalid Al Ameri, an Emirati commentator, wrote:

You can only imagine how strange it must be for people who have a hard time integrating into their own society. It would be frustrating for anyone, in his or her home country, to see the presence of indigenous culture dwindle.

It is also true that Qatar and the UAE need foreign workers to develop their countries. There are simply not enough nationals to do it. “We don’t have the knowledge, we don’t have the numbers,” Qatar University's Al Emadi said. It would be difficult to operate a single sector in the country without migrant workers. “If we wanted to run the hospital by ourselves, just Qataris, we probably could not do it. We don’t have enough nurses. We don’t have enough doctors.”

Lowly-paid migrant workers are not exclusive to the developing Gulf countries. “It seems like every country in the world has a population they don’t want to talk about that does the dirty work,” Bristol-Rhys said. There were successive waves of migrant groups to the United States who did the “crap” jobs no one else wanted to do - the Irish, the Jews and of course not forgetting enslaved blacks. “This is not uniquely a Gulf problem it just seems so just because of the sheer magnitude of it - because these (migrant) populations seriously outnumber the citizens.”

There is the argument that migrants to the U.S. and Europe can eventually become citizens of the nations in which they work, and this is something unlikely to happen in the Gulf anytime soon - if ever.

Path to citizenship?

If Qatar were to open up a greater path to citizenship, which is severely restricted and almost 100 percent hereditary, Qatari nationals feel they would become a minority with minority rights in their own country, Al Emadi said. Now Qataris are clearly the minority, but they are the ones with the greatest rights.

But migration to Gulf countries is done for different reasons than to the U.S. or Europe. “Are we beginning with the premise that all expatriates want to have Qatari or Emirati passport?,” Bristol-Rhys asked. Most people move to these countries to improve their lives at home, to put their children through schools, to buy a home or to fatten their pension funds. “Everyone who comes here knows this is not a place for immigration. This is not a place you would migrate to become a citizen."

This piece was contributed by Bilal Ahmed, a student and activist completing his senior year at Rutgers University who has spent time in Yemen. This piece was primarily written during his stay in Tahrir Square, Egypt. As always with guest contributors, their opinions are their own.

There are flags hanging in many buildings in the southern Yemeni city of Aden. These flags, in addition to the standard Yemeni red, white, and black, contain a light blue triangle with a red star within it. They are seen everywhere, from tea shops, to private homes, to the crowds of protestors that have been marching on Aden’s streets for the past year.

These are the flags of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, colloquially known as “South Yemen.” The PDRY was an avowedly Stalinist-Marxist single-party state, though its classification as such is a matter of debate. More significant than Marxism in the history of South Yemen was the state’s mobilization of dormant nationalism among South Yemenis.

“North Yemen” extends from the Saudi Arabian border to the de facto border between North and South signed by the Ottoman and British Empires in 1905. South Yemeni nationalism is rooted in the different histories that birthed the two former states, with North Yemen initially ruled by Imamates and finally an autocratic Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) “President” in Ali Abdullah Saleh.

South Yemen has an entirely different past that must be understood in the wake of its growing geopolitical focus.

The two histories diverge in the 19th century, when British East India Company forces seized control of Aden in 1832 and established it as a coaling station for British ships traveling to and from colonial India. British holdings in South Yemen expanded beyond the city over the following decades, spurred on by a desire to reduce pirate attacks and gain a stronger strategic base for reinforcing the Suez Canal.

The British, mainly extending their administrative control through local monarchs in an approach similar to that undertaken in the Persian Gulf, finally reorganized South Yemen in 1937 as an independent crown colony.

South Yemen’s encounter with foreign imperialists is markedly different from that of North Yemen, which was mainly in conflict with its own monarchs after its 1917 independence and Egyptian-Saudi Arabian proxy war.

Although violence in North Yemen had a significant effect on events within South Yemen, an insistence of South Yemeni “modernity” would prevail over the following decades. The attitude began as a minor characteristic that would accentuate significantly during later years. However, the bleeding of serious anti-royalist action into South Yemen points to both nations being united in their hatred of the old ‘Order’ in spite of this. Escalating tensions between royalists and anti-monarchists challenged the narrative of North Yemen as broadly “traditionalist”.

South Yemenis felt emotionally connected to a North issuing many allegedly “Southern” demands, which established links of solidarity among the two colonial states. This phenomenon of prejudices being challenged by revolutionary facts would continue to define the North/South dynamic.

South Yemenis, already mobilizing against British rule due to political strife and economic stagnation, were now seen as a major threat. Fearing another serious revolt against a colonial European power, the British Empire reorganized South Yemen into a series of protectorate states known as the Federation of South Arabia on 4 April 1962. The British scheduled South Yemen’s independence for 1968, hoping that a government of allied royalists would protect its remaining interests in the region.

The plan was marked by ambivalence towards the wishes of South Yemenis, valuing notions of “stability” in the face of the broad existential chaos of “instability.” Instability was defined by parties opposed to colonial interests and allies in the Arabian Peninsula just as terrorism is rhetorically exploited in present day. South Yemenis reacted to the plan with disdain, as many correctly recognized it as an attempt to continue exploitation of the colony through independence.

Their distress was quickly mobilized into organized insurrection, culminating in the 1963 formation of anti-British military factions such as the National Liberation Front (NLF) and the Frontier for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen. The speed and effectiveness of this organization was highly affected by violence in North Yemen, once again reinforcing ties between the two states. British forces responded by declaring the Aden Emergency, a period of intense violence between South Yemeni paramilitary forces and the British colonial presence with allied support within South Yemen.

The success of these initiatives were pronounced in the early withdrawal of British forces and the People’s Republic of South Yemen’s independence on 30 November 1967. The national consciousness began to revolve around using violent mechanisms to forcibly remove the exploitation of the old Order. This removal was pronounced in an assertion of South Yemeni interests through opposition to the control of sultans, emirs, and other royalist entities.

Royalists and monarchs were seen as an exploitative influence that needed to be combatted, as they prevented wider political and economic participation by South Yemenis. Marxism became a mechanism for instigating this removal just as Islamism in later decades, though in reality the eventual state was Stalinist. Marxist (Stalinist) wings of the NLF gained control of the country and renamed it the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) on 1 December 1970.

Dormant anti-royalist sentiment became attached to PDRY nationalism, with a strong sense of distinction from the renamed Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) reemerging after the 1978 election of the North Yemeni strongman Saleh. As the PDRY exported a Marxist-inspired ideology of anti-monarchism to the rest of the Arabian Peninsula, cosmopolitan pedagogies became attached to Southern nationalism.

While the PDRY’s status as “Marxist” is a matter of debate, there is certainly a direct line between its revolutionary anti-monarchical stances and the current popularity of federalized democracy in South Yemen. South Yemenis, particularly in Aden, express a strong desire for their interests to be represented in the greater Yemeni state through federalized democratic structures. The influence of leftist democratic ideas during the PDRY’s lifespan certainly contributed to this phenomenon.

Interestingly, these ideologies required South Yemenis to be defined in opposition to an external force. The PDRY began to echo colonial behaviors, as its progressive behaviors needed to be seen in opposition to counterrevolutionary patterns elsewhere. Although Saudi Arabia and the predominantly monarchist GCC often filled this role, the increasingly autocratic YAR began to increasingly dominate this dynamic. The ‘civilized’ South Yemen began to be seen in opposition to the ‘uncivilized’ North Yemen, and slurs such as ‘savages’ entered the South Yemeni lexicon.

As a result, the YAR and PDRY entered their 1990 unification with significant caution on the part of South Yemenis. Although dialogue between the two states was consistent despite periods of strain, many South Yemenis were wary of a YAR that seemed oppressive and autocratic. The mood in 1990 was one of nervousness as many felt as though their interests would not be represented in the greater Yemeni state. However, the 1989 fall of the Soviet Union prevented South Yemen from being a viable entity, leaving South Yemenis no choice. The Republic of Yemen was formed on 22 May 1990.

South Yemenis immediately noted an exploitative relationship between North and South emerging in the new state. Saleh implemented counterrevolutionary policies throughout the South, particularly in agriculture. Previously nationalized land was seized and distributed to exploitative landlords and sultans. Tribalism and fundamentalism exploded as a response to this retreat of the state from public life. These groups and ideologies filled a void created by the decline of a planned economy in the South. This is mainly because Saleh, after his 1978 ascendancy to power, had precariously balanced himself on a loosely cohesive tribal state with neither central power nor infrastructure. Saleh attempted to integrate South Yemen into this dynamic, which greatly alienated the new provinces.

Fearing permanent marginalization in the new Yemeni state, South Yemenis reorganized their political structures. The 1993 Yemeni national elections reflect this divide, with South Yemen predominantly voting for Yemen Socialist Party candidates.

Tensions culminated in the the 1994 Yemeni Civil War that was marked by brutal violence as Saleh preserved his authority over the Southern states.

The war is remembered with intense bitterness in South Yemen today, as it was seen as the last chance for the Southern states to protect their sovereignty and pride in exercising core interests. South Yemenis will today argue that in the fallout of the war, Saleh intensified his ‘oppression’ of the South as a form of collective punishment. There is certainly record of many South Yemeni leaders being driven from their positions in favor of North Yemenis, and the profits of dwindling oil reserves being centralized in Saleh’s inner-circle. Animosity became rampant against the construct of North Yemenis as tribal, anachronistic, and vicious.

The independence movement was forced underground, but the aspects of distress in unmet political and economic requirements still dominated the national consciousness. Demands for renewed independence quickly became the main politicization of this distress. Increased numbers of South Yemenis supporting the initiative as the structures of Saleh’s Yemen proved inaccessible into the 2000’s.

The current Southern liberation movement began in 2007, when small protests were spearheaded by disenfranchised military officers forced into retirement. The Society of Retired Military Officers demanded reinstatement and guaranteed pensions, quickly gaining the support of lawyers, journalists, academics, and other sections of South Yemeni society. Most South Yemeni activists, in a prelude to the 2011 Yemeni Uprising, distanced themselves from violent methods and continued to advocate for peaceful social change.

South Yemeni tribes found themselves in an especially intriguing position. While many tribes traditionally strayed away from government affairs in the interest of self-autonomy, others expected to gain government services and access to its infrastructure. Saleh’s strategy of balancing himself precariously among a cocktail of allied, ambivalent, and hostile tribes failed to sufficiently address these needs. Yemeni tribes began to embrace a new strategy in the late 1990’s of using human collateral in order to goad these needs from Sana’a. Kidnappings of foreign tourists became more common, with tribes surrendering their hostages after receiving access to government services.

South Yemeni tribes were given a unique opportunity to hold collateral after policing efforts in Saudi Arabia pushed Al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia into the South. Al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia merged with Al-Qaida in Yemen to form the now infamous group Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). International pressure on Sana’a and domestic concerns regarding the group caused a drive to alleviate AQAP’s influence as quickly as possible.

Tribes began to associate themselves with AQAP in order to place themselves in a better bargaining position with the central government. As AQAP began to launch higher profile attacks into 2010, most notably with “underwear bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmatallab, the label became even more effective a bargaining chip. A desperate Sana’a would increasingly acquiesce to the demands of individual tribes in order to regain their allegiances. The strategy appeared to be working, especially since a stagnated Southern liberation movement was making little success against an ‘anti-modern’ North. However, it has backfired since then as AQAP gains have been used to make Saleh’s power structure appear indispensable to international interests during the 2011 Yemeni Uprising.

The 2011 Yemeni Uprising has been crucially impacted by events in South Yemen. Saleh recognized that linking the uprising to chaos was essential in securing international support for his political base. He therefore withdrew military and policing forces from the South in order to reassign them to crackdowns in North Yemeni cities such as Sana’a, Ta’iz, and Ib. The result was that Islamist militants, rhetorically linked to AQAP, seized control of large portions of the Southern provinces.

Remaining army units, who defied orders to withdraw due to their allegiances to the South during the 1994 Yemeni Civil War, were completely overwhelmed. Ultimately, militants posted a high-profile victory in the provincial capital of Zinjibar, which permanently altered perception of the uprising. Obama Administration officials especially, who previously had trouble settling on a policy towards the revolutionary movements, pointed at Zinjibar as proof of the AQAP victories that would allegedly result from a successful Yemeni Revolution. The recent attack on the city of Lawdar has reinforced these concerns, even if realities of the assault place an Islamist takeover in doubt. As a result, the United States reacted to this narrative with attacks in South Yemen that rose significantly during the Arab Spring. The most notable case of this is the 30 September 2011 assassination of AQAP leader Anwar al-Awlaki, in addition to dozens of other attacks.

Saleh has successfully exploited the South in order to preserve power for himself as honorary President and his close associates in the new government of Abd-al Rab Mansur al-Hadi. These parties have successfully argued itself to be an essential part of the War on Terrorism, securing crucial international support and severely isolating ongoing revolutionary activity in Yemen. Al-Hadi’s tensions with Saleh, such as his firing of close Saleh allies in the country, do not challenge this reality.

However, the 2011 Yemeni Uprising has been a crucial argument against calls for independence. The South Yemeni national consciousness relied on a flawed mental construct of North Yemeni savagery in order to advocate for total independence. However, the willingness of North Yemeni protestors to martyr themselves for a federalized democracy in Yemen has completely challenged this narrative.

Just as anti-royalist sentiment during the North Yemeni Civil War shifted the perception of the North away from anti-modernity, pro-democratic movements are once again active in the same fashion. It is difficult for a South Yemeni to call a North Yemeni “savage” when they are challenging the same autocratic tendencies as Southern liberation movements. New bonds of solidarity are forming in spite of the bitterness that arose in the fallout of the 1994 Yemeni Civil War. These bonds present an opportunity to ease secessionist attitudes through a truly revolutionary rearrangement of Yemeni power structures and popular access to them.

Despite this, South Yemenis have proven themselves more than willing to mobilize for their interests if necessary. The main challenge facing the government of al-Hadi is whether or not it can represent these interests while quelling growing violence in the South. This requires broad reform throughout Yemeni institutions without exception to Saleh’s associates. Whether or not al-Hadi is able to implement this reform is be a crucial speculation in the coming years.

This was sent in by our intrepid correspondent Abu Ray, whose wrote many dispatches from Iraq a few years back, and now lives in Morocco.

The police officer finally looked up from behind the ancient, hulking Arabic-language typewriter with which he’d been hunting and pecking out the report for what seemed like an hour.

“You know, it would have been much easier for everyone if he’d just sorted things out on the side of the road and left us out of it,” he said with exasperation to my Moroccan friend.

It was a striking admission of the total lack of faith in a system by someone charged to uphold it.

We’d been hours in the police station, answering questions, typing out reports, photocopying documents – something that took extra long because it had to be done at the little teleboutique across the street.

What I should have done, when the moped crashed into my car in a gritty slum of Casablanca as I was executing a u-turn of questionable legality with several other cars into oncoming traffic, was paid the guy off.

The driver of the little Peugeot moto, the kind that can be found careening all over the urban spaces of Morocco, wasn’t hurt, but his sister was tossed off her precarious perch on the back of the bike onto the side of the road where she howled in pain as people gathered and stared.

I stood around awkwardly with a Moroccan friend as we waited for some measure of authority to appear – resisting the urge just to peel out of there and high tail it back to the comfortable neighborhood of Rabat.

Eventually the police showed up, and then an ambulance, which took the woman away while the moped driver and I were questioned.

It was a bizarrely archaic process, with one policeman painstakingly recreating the accident scene on graph paper with a ruler and protractor, noting the locations of the cars and the direction of traffic.

What was new this time around, however, was the traffic law which specified that in any case of injury, drivers lost their licenses and I was instructed to come back to the commissariat the next day for questioning – a feat made a bit harder by the absence of my driver’s license.

Like so many other countries, Morocco is a place that seems to function largely outside of its own legal code. Trying to do anything by the book opens one up to turgid, labyrinthian bureaucracy that takes forever – and most people with even the most rudimentary shred of connections, just bypass it all – or at the very least skip to the head of the long lines.

I spent months begging one of the mobile service providers to put me on an unlimited post-paid system that would let me make all the calls I needed on a monthly bill, rather than cutting me off halfway through the week and forcing me to then add credit. For months I waited for an incredibly slow approval process, crying in frustration to thoroughly unsympathetic customer service representatives over the phone (they don’t believe in face to face contact), before giving up in disgust. The next day I went to the office of the other service provider with a Moroccan friend, who knew the people who worked there, and I had what I couldn’t get on my own for months, in a half an hour.

No one, if they can help it, does it by the book.

So instead of just paying off the poor moto driver and maybe giving his sister a lift to the hospital, I had condemned the police to the laborious job of questioning me, typing up a report, checking with the hospital, and – embarrassingly – calling the embassy to tell them I’d been in an accident.

He asked for my father’s name, mother’s name, then my father’s father’s name and finally my mother’s father and we painstakingly spelled out the unfamiliar foreign names.

There was pause while my friend went out to find a place open during lunch time to make more copies and we stared at each other in the bare, empty office. “Do you do any sports,” he asked. “It’s okay, it’s not for the report, I’m just curious.”

In the end, the man’s sister was fine and released from the hospital the same day, but the police officer still had to type up his report.

“We work 12-14 hours a day, did you know that?” he complained. “It should be us out there demonstrating on Feb. 20.”

It was the one year anniversary of the incredible social explosion in Morocco in which tens of thousands had hit the streets for months calling for an end to business as usual.

And end to a king whose unelected advisors dictate state policy and control half the economy, an end to the pervasive corruption, an end to elections that bring a meaningless rotation of familiar faces, an end to social inequalities that beggar the imagination, an end to an economy that only seems to grow for some and leave millions without jobs.

It’s not that Morocco never had demonstrations before, they just never had everyone on the same page, in the same street at the same time.

Those demonstrations are done for now, as the movement has found out that you can’t keep marching through the streets and chanting slogans forever without coming up with a second act. They’ve also been a victim of a clever power structure that knew when it was time to concede some reforms.

There will be some big ones for the anniversary Sunday, probably, but for now it seems that this phase is over and they have been replaced with smaller, angrier clashes between fed up youths in provincial cities and riot police – a bit reminiscent of neighboring Algeria’s inchoate popular rage.

The year of protests did mean that the elections were the fairest in years and a opposition Islamist party came to power – allowed into power, many would say, as a spooked palace went for the one party that hadn’t been coopted to give the system back some shred of legitimacy.

The main pillar of their platform echoes that of the protesters, taking on corruption and the new justice minister once fought the hopeless task of defending terrorist suspects in the country’s hopelessly rigged courts.

The question remains though if they can really tackle the true sources of corruption which many place close to the untouchable monarch.

Perhaps the new traffic law, with its stiff penalties to deter reckless driving, was their idea, but so far, aside from costing me a day, it appears to have done little to curb traffic patterns that remain blissfully unaware of any kind of rules.

It seems especially doubtful when the people charged with enforcing it prefer the old ways themselves.

Photo by Shaji Thottathil

Joseph Hammond sent in this dispatch from Qatar.

This past weekend Qatari falconers and falconry fans gathered for the start of the 3rd Qatar International Falcon and Hunting Festival and event which will see some 1300 birds and their owners compete before it concludes on February 2nd. The festival will also include dog racing, target shooting demonstrations and a “Junior Falconer” competition all held under the patronage of Shiekh Joaan bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani. Prizes include new luxury landcrusiers for the winners.

Journalists which made the hour drive near the Saudi border, where the event was held, had to wait on the roadside for off-road transport to the desert location of the event. A Qatari organizer arrived in his land cruiser. The driver tossed a dead pigeon from the backseat before journalists climbed in. As the press was taxied to the event, the owner’s prized falcon road “shotgun” next to him.

Early Bird Special

Despite this hiccup, the organization ran smoothly. Following the Friday prayer a large buffet of traditional Arab cuisine was served to falcon owners, foreign fans, security guards and the TV crew for the event in a large tent.

But, chicken kebabs proved to be the only birds being eaten on the first day of the festival. The 36 falcons in the first round of the competition failed to catch a single pigeon. Each pigeon (chosen by lottery) was given a small head-start before a falcon was released in pursuit. But, not one of the 36 Falcons released during the event recorded a kill due to strong winds. The first day of the event was designed as a qualification round for rookie falcons.

Some two hundred spectators sitting upon golden King Louis-Farouk chairs, shaded by a canopy watched the action through expensive binoculars. For a while others watched on two large deathtron Jumbotron TV screens. At first the two hundred or so fans were engrossed in the action. Gradually the crowds lost interest as it became clear high winds were preventing the falcons from making kills. Soon the atmosphere was more festive than sporting.

Some in attendance commented that pigeons were a poor replacement for hubara, quail hunted by falconers around the globe. One of the organizers, Mohammed Saad Al-Romeh had returned early from a hunt in the deserts of Algeria to attend to the festival. Though happy with his expedition he conceded that hunting quail in Algeria was less than optimal "The best places to hunt are in Iraq and Iran" he explained.

Millennium Falcons

The festivals participants believe that falconry is an important expression of Qatari culture and a link to thousands of years of tradition. However, Qatari women seem to have a different take on the event. Some believe falconry has become an expensive hobby and an obsession. Entry level birds can be purchases for 10,000 dollars while an elite bird can cost as much as 150,000 dollars.

Reem, a young Qatari woman asked to comment on the day of the event shared her thoughts: “My brother is obsessed with his falcon.” She explains that he often stares at it for hours and takes it to the veterinarian over phantom concerns about its wings. Indeed falcons must be trained everyday to form a partnership between the falcon and falconer. Despite this bond, tracking numbers are attached to the leg of every falcon to help locate strays. As Reem explains falcons sometimes have flight plans of their own: “Sometimes my brother’s bird gets away and when this happens we have received calls from the UAE, ‘Dude we found your bird, come pick it up'. ”

Indeed the UAE has hosted a rival Falcon event of its own which also bills itself as the largest falconry event in the world. However, the Qatari organizers believe bird-for-bird the Qatar International Falcon and Hunting Festival is the king of the wings.

The Pearl

Jenifer Fenton reports from Qatar.

There is no flambé at Les Deux Magots, a high-end French restaurant on The Pearl, a mixed development man-made island in Qatar, which hopes to “redefine an entire nation” according to its sales pitch.

The sale of alcohol (and use even for cooking) has been banned on The Pearl (where I live) since mid-December, but a month later businesses have still not received formal notification of the reason for the prohibition or when and if it would end, according to interviews with more than a dozen people affected at various establishments. Rumors about the reason for the ban after so many years of tolerance for alcohol sale and consumption in five-star hotels and facilities have spread, ranging from the Qatari leadership’s desire to project a more religious image (Qatar’s attempt to stress its Wahhabi heritage while differentiating it from Saudi Arabia has been the topic of State Dept. cables past) to concerns about upcoming elections and a financial dispute between the government and resort developers.

Business is down about 80 percent at Les Deux Magots, according to the restaurant’s executive chef, Charbel Chaloubi. Chaloubi said the only consolation was the situation is the same for the restaurant’s main competitor Pampano, where only four people were dining one recent afternoon. Maze, Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant, where alcohol can account for 30 to 40 percent of patrons’ bills is also short of customers, according to assistant manager Deepthi Bandara.

The ban on alcohol sales on The Pearl highlights a tension the country is facing as it tries to build itself up as a regional destination, one that welcomes foreign investment, but maintains its cultural identity. Qatari nationals account for just a fraction of the total population.

Alcohol had previously been tolerated but severely restricted in the country. Major hotels, which were not hit with a ban, are allowed to sell alcohol to non-Muslims. Foreign nationals can also get a permit to purchase alcohol for private consumption.

Yet, according to Hassan Al Sayed, a prominent Qatari legal expert, there is not a single law in Qatar that allows for the sale of alcohol. However, there are several laws that criminalize it. Even “if there is any decision coming for example from the Emir or any department here (legalizing alcohol)… no in fact, this is not okay and this is against the law,” says Al Sayed, who was the dean of the College of Law at Qatar University and is now a professor of constitutional law.

Drinking and selling alcohol are not only against the law, but also against Qatar’s constitution, Al Sayed insists. He argues further that alcohol sales in the country, including at hotels and by Qatari companies such as Qatar Airways, have to stop or Qatar has to change its constitution, notably Article 1, which states “Islam is the State’s religion and the Islamic Sharia is the main source of its legislations.”

But if you change the constitution, then Qatar loses a part of its Islamic identity. (Not all laws have to adhere strictly to Islamic laws, Al Sayed said, but Muslims scholars and legal experts agree that alcohol is forbidden in Islam.)

Creating a “free zone” or arguing that The Pearl is an exception because it is reclaimed land cannot skirt the law or the country’s constitution, Al Sayed says. That could present a problem for Qatar when it hosts the World Cup 2022, when it is planned that drinking will be allowed in designated fan zones.

Hassan Al Ibrahim, a Qatari commentator, said he thinks that most Qataris support the ban but without knowing why the ban was put into effect. Rumors have suggested that Qataris were seen drinking on The Pearl, that a weekly party that went too far or that the ban stems from a change in management at the development company — but it is difficult to assess the larger policy picture. Al Ibrahim added that Qatar has always tried to be tolerant and project a more accepting image than the one currently being reflected by the decision to ban alcohol sales on The Pearl.

Even if the decision is soon reversed, the last thing investors needed was a surprise, which the ban was, they said. The future of the restaurant business on the island is in doubt. The “Pearl is a destination and Pearl has nothing apart from the alcohol for encouraging the people to dine (at) The Pearl restaurants,” said a business executive involved in discussions with United Development Company, the developer that is building The Pearl.

Plans for a two Michelin star restaurant, a club and a steakhouse have been put on hold until the issue of alcohol sales is clarified, according to an executive who did not want to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue. The restaurants were given no other incentive besides selling alcohol to open on the island, which is less populated and frequented than other neighborhoods in Doha. “We got nothing, nothing at all, but we paid everything up-front… no discount was given to us. Nothing,” the executive said.

Restaurant executives do believe the ban will be lifted and the country will not declare itself “dry”, but with Qatar now focused on the matter, it will be interesting to see how — and with what explanation — the country resolves the affair.

The Pearl developer UDC did not respond to a query about the ban. But two days after this post was initially written, UDC’s managing director abruptly resigned — a move that could be related to both the alcohol ban and alleged financial disputes between UDC and the government.