There’s more to Qatar than the World Cup - how the Western press distorts the reality of life in the Gulf

Sholto Byrnes says too many Western journalists come to this region with false preconceptions.

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The attacks are relentless. Barely a day seems to go by without some new fusillade being aimed at Qatar by the Western media, whether it be over just how it won the right to host the 2022 Fifa World Cup or the conditions of the migrant workers who are building the massive infrastructure necessary to stage the football tournament.

Qatar is likely to continue to be a prime target unless the global obsession with football mysteriously evanesces overnight – and that is unlikely to happen any time soon. But this is a Gulf-wide issue, and it is not really about – or certainly not only about – workers’ rights and the supposed improper use of money. (It should be pointed out that in the second case, the sense of outrage and grievance in Qatar is absolutely genuine over a bid they feel was won fairly and squarely.)

For once, Fifa’s president Sepp Blatter – a man from whom one might otherwise welcome a prolonged period of silence – was halfway onto something when he said there was “a great deal of racism and discrimination” accompanying the “storm” over 2022.

I might shy from using the word “racism”, but it is certainly true that much Western reporting is informed by a profound ignorance of the Arabian Gulf states – of their histories, cultures, traditions, achievements and differences – and an increasing tendency to view them all as vaguely malign, plutocratic constructs, whose actions and internal structures are automatically suspect because they do not adhere to Western notions of liberty and political order.

Those who live in the Gulf are well aware of a different reality: one in which it is perfectly normal for women, such as Her Highness Sheikha Mozah in Qatar and Her Excellency Sheikha Lubna in the UAE, to occupy prominent positions in public life, and in which previously male-dominated sectors are opening up to women.

But you will hear little of this from those who cannot see beyond an abaya, and who assume that the donning of one entails the removal of its wearer’s agency. Then there is the reality of cohesive, traditional societies, united around national cultures and the Islamic faith, ones so free of the scourge of theft that it is perfectly safe to leave laptops, phones and other valuables on, say, a cafe table, and wander off, confident that they will be there on your return.

But you will not hear of this from those who see only repression in anything less than a near total absence of restraint, and who seem to regard a polite request to practise, for instance, a little modesty in dress as an intolerable breach of human rights – when in fact the lack of modesty shown by many Westerners in the Gulf speaks to a remarkable tolerance on the part of local populations.

Sadder still is that although there are honourable exceptions, many Western journalists drop by the Gulf for a brief trip fully decided about what they are going to write before they even arrive.

Does anyone imagine that my former colleague at the Independent, the since-disgraced Johann Hari, landed in Dubai with an open mind and willing to have his preconceived prejudices challenged before writing his notorious hatchet job on the emirate? And when they have not already come to gather facts to fit a pre-planned narrative, they frequently are unable to accept that the citizens of Gulf states may have different views on, for instance, the nature of social order and respect for hierarchy.

A couple of years ago a BBC reporter had great trouble understanding why Qataris would not want to make jokes at the expense of their leaders.

Of the then prime minister and foreign minister, one Qatari interviewed replied: “The guy is a good friend with the US and with Iran. It takes a genius to do that and when you have a genius like this in your country why do you need to make fun of them?” A very good response, I thought. The BBC reporter, however, seemed baffled.

That should not necessarily be surprising given the general failure to grasp that other countries may have different values that lead to cultures, laws and hierarchies appropriate to their states and which are supported by their citizens.

That is the error into which Western media reporting of the Gulf falls and this matters, because it is that reporting that frames the discourse about the Gulf in the West. That it is not fair does not occur to the authors of the splenetic diatribes. Neither does the application of different standards.

Ten years ago, for instance, 23 Chinese cockle pickers were drowned in England’s Morecambe Bay, and a recent report provoked headlines that modern day slavery was worse in the UK now than it was then. No one suggests that that is the only story to be told about Britain, but the issue of workers’ rights is, to some, one that sums up everything about Qatar. Those of us who live in the region know that this is as reductive as it is ludicrous. There are many, many other aspects to life in the Gulf, and a truly fair international media would be reporting on them. Is that really too much to hope for?

Sholto Byrnes is a Doha-based commentator and consultant