Doha... As an onion

Doha has so many layers… So many different types of human beings shoved into one tiny space in the middle of the map. This is a city of almost 2 million people. The roads are cramped, and you can find a man from Nepal, who works cleaning offices at Qatar University for about $6 a day – brushing shoulders with young Qataris who work less than 8 hours a day for more monthly than the Nepali will ever earn in his lifetime.

Even the city itself has layers. Pockets of enormous, skillfully built villas are surrounded by clusters of cramped quarters roofed with corrugated metal, where the doors don’t lock, and there is no AC. Some apartment buildings are spotless and brand new, while others are peeling inside and out. This is a city of contradictions.

There are almost 2 million people squished together in approximately 51 square miles (according to Wikipedia).  Talk about a serious city. It’s not like Los Angeles or any other big, western city. There is just city and then desert. No suburbs or neighborhoods to lull you into a gentle transition. None at all.

The interesting thing, is that even though the residents and layers of Doha are so tightly packed together, they almost never come into contact with each other. To someone at the very tip top layer, having to do anything that lowers you to the level of a common migrant is unthinkable. I say this not just about some (not all) Qataris, but about so many expatriates from the upper echelons as well.

These layers are so plain, and so visible. Nobody can deny that Doha has classes, socially constructed and clearly defined hierarchies built into the society. How much or how little you conform to these hierarchies seems to depend on how close to the ends of the spectrum one is located. Those of us who find ourselves somewhere in the middle seem to care less and less about fitting in to a certain stereotype, since we’re forced to participate on both ends of the spectrum regularly.

The problem is that there are SO few of us. I know we exist, I’ve come into contact with a few like minds since I’ve been here, but really… It’s kind of sad that in a city of 2 million people, a place that could be such a confluence and celebration of culture, there is such structure and expulsion of anything difficult or different. Don’t get me wrong! The Qataris have every right to be nervous! They really should be scared of having Qatari culture wash away in the high tides of immigration.

Qatari culture… I honestly couldn’t tell you too much about it. I know bits about it, and more now since I’ve started my course, to be honest. It’s so complicated. There seem to be some Qataris who have been totally consumed by the new internationalization of Doha. Their kids may not even know much about the history and culture of Doha or Qatar. And yet – as always – there’s another layer of Qataris who are warm, kind hearted and fiercely loyal to their identity. I have no worries that this group of Qataris will raise a generation who may be able to bridge this great rupture that is tearing Doha apart.

The Qatari government is right to think that it needs to exert some influence to protect Qatari culture. Without some government intervention, the culture would surely get swallowed up in a great big heap of globalization.

At the same time, they seem to be changing their stance on immigration from one of tolerance and hope for the future, to one of protectionism and antagonism. This huge influx of outsiders was too much, too soon for poor Doha. Where once migrants signalized a burgeoning economy, now they are little more than a nuisance. So strange.

And still yet there is a layer of Western expats, all to varying degrees of wealthiness. While everyone comes to Doha in the hopes of earning a better salary, it’s safe to say that the westerners here (even the students and recent grads) come from lucrative backgrounds back home. They all seem to stick together (I’ve heard stories of some not leaving West Bay for more than a year), and frequent the few hotel bars on a weekly basis.

I haven’t been able to find my layer yet. I’m not quite sure there is one out there for me yet. There may very well be a layer for out of place westerners (who own a dog), converted to Islam yet appreciate Sufism and mysticism, who don’t earn all that much and just manage to get by, who don’t like the industrialization of the city and prefer the mangrove swamps instead… Maybe that layer does exist.

Clearly, I just haven’t visited enough mangrove swamps to find out…

Peace and love always <3