1 00:00:03,360 --> 00:00:10,229 You can. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. 2 00:00:10,230 --> 00:00:13,980 I'm just watching the the last of the crowd making their way into the lecture theatre. 3 00:00:13,980 --> 00:00:21,960 Take your time. Take your time and slow with my introductions. It's a pleasure to welcome you all to the Tuesday night seminar. 4 00:00:22,830 --> 00:00:28,670 The seminar series where we are opportunistically taking advantage of new authors who 5 00:00:28,680 --> 00:00:33,000 have been bringing out the books that have been defining the debate in our field. 6 00:00:33,870 --> 00:00:40,770 And tonight is no exception, as we are on the eve of the World Cup in Doha, Qatar. 7 00:00:41,370 --> 00:00:47,010 We find that there has been no shortage of debate. More smoke, perhaps, than light. 8 00:00:47,640 --> 00:00:54,540 And so when given the opportunity to welcome John McManus, whose new book Inside Qatar has only just appeared, 9 00:00:56,070 --> 00:01:02,010 I am told, not coincidentally timed to when there might be new interest in Qatar. 10 00:01:03,210 --> 00:01:11,280 It's true to examine the state of the society that's going to be the first Arab country to host a World Cup football tournament, 11 00:01:11,790 --> 00:01:18,749 an event that I'm sure has brought each of you. And one would expect the international community at large a great deal of joy and 12 00:01:18,750 --> 00:01:23,160 satisfaction to see the beautiful game being brought to a whole new corner of the globe. 13 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:26,700 But then I watch television and I read my newspapers, 14 00:01:26,700 --> 00:01:32,819 and I find that the attitude that people bring to the discussion on Qatar hosting the World Cup is somehow 15 00:01:32,820 --> 00:01:38,820 different for that celebration of the sharing of the beautiful game in a whole new part of the globe. 16 00:01:39,480 --> 00:01:44,130 In some ways, of course, Qatar has brought this criticism onto itself, 17 00:01:44,610 --> 00:01:48,930 and in some ways, perhaps there is an unfairness to the criticisms being levelled. 18 00:01:49,590 --> 00:01:58,919 What I would say, having read through John's book, is that while he is in no sense trying to propagandise for the country of Qatar, 19 00:01:58,920 --> 00:02:08,520 far from it, that in his study up close of the country, there is a degree of engagement, of sympathy and of honesty. 20 00:02:09,330 --> 00:02:14,100 That leaves you with a much better sense of what hosting the World Cup means for 21 00:02:14,100 --> 00:02:19,620 Qatar and what Qatar's experience of this year means for the future of the country. 22 00:02:20,220 --> 00:02:27,150 So who is John McManus? Well, John McManus is no stranger to this community and fills in the audience. 23 00:02:27,150 --> 00:02:34,890 Take note that after a decade from completing your degree, you should be a famous author invited back here to speak to our audience. 24 00:02:35,250 --> 00:02:39,570 John came to do the M Phil in what year was a John 2008. 25 00:02:39,750 --> 00:02:45,210 2008. In the course of which, he managed to get by with a passably good degree, 26 00:02:45,720 --> 00:02:51,810 wrote a thesis that Walter Argus and I both thought was probably one of the best you've ever read. 27 00:02:52,410 --> 00:03:01,770 Says that to all of you. I say that for all of my students not served on the support network for the best touch football team in Turkey. 28 00:03:02,100 --> 00:03:07,080 It was just such a joy to read that. Have you ever published a part of that? 29 00:03:07,650 --> 00:03:14,660 The book before this was on Turkish football, so thesis made its way in part and partly into a book. 30 00:03:14,730 --> 00:03:19,140 So I should have it on hand to like recommend to you to read. But yeah, it's a good read. 31 00:03:19,530 --> 00:03:25,320 So after which John stayed on and altered for his sins to do a doctorate in anthropology. 32 00:03:25,740 --> 00:03:32,340 And if there's more to the John McManus story than that, I'm sure it'll come up in the course of this conversation. 33 00:03:32,490 --> 00:03:37,020 From my perspective, it's just a joy after many, many years to get to welcome you back, John, 34 00:03:37,440 --> 00:03:42,660 to congratulate you on writing a book that I found absolutely compelling from beginning to end, 35 00:03:43,230 --> 00:03:49,890 and to invite you to address this audience with some reflections on Inside John, because. 36 00:03:55,880 --> 00:04:02,930 Thank you all for coming. Thank you, Jim. I'm blushing a bit now for that very, very wholesome introduction. 37 00:04:03,920 --> 00:04:08,750 Yes, the Middle East centre is holds a very fond place in my heart. 38 00:04:09,170 --> 00:04:12,890 I didn't really know very much about the Middle East at all. Before I started on the Masters. 39 00:04:12,900 --> 00:04:15,940 So those of you that I should know. 40 00:04:16,520 --> 00:04:21,830 But I'm not it's not a it's not an exaggeration to say that kind of the touch paper, 41 00:04:22,100 --> 00:04:29,120 which very much led many years later to this book and to set me on a course which I'm very grateful for. 42 00:04:29,150 --> 00:04:37,550 So, yeah, my thanks to Jane and the staff for that. So we're 12 days away from the start of this FIFA World Cup. 43 00:04:38,420 --> 00:04:47,510 And as Eugene kind of said himself, it's safe to say that it's it's been one of the most ambitious and controversial of any so far. 44 00:04:48,620 --> 00:04:57,290 Qatar, the host, has come in for sustained criticism on topics such as workers, welfare, freedom of speech and treatment of LGBT people. 45 00:04:58,010 --> 00:05:04,100 And the authorities and organisers have pushed back with equal force hiring PR companies, 46 00:05:04,100 --> 00:05:08,450 spending money to influence fans and accusing their critics of racism. 47 00:05:09,500 --> 00:05:16,400 But what of the country that's hosting the tournament? What are the lives of real people like in Qatar? 48 00:05:16,760 --> 00:05:20,180 That for me was the starting premise of this book. 49 00:05:20,990 --> 00:05:24,680 So as you mentioned, these in anthropology. 50 00:05:24,950 --> 00:05:31,189 I'm neither an Arabic speaker nor a Gulf specialist. My research is focussed mostly on sport and migration. 51 00:05:31,190 --> 00:05:40,370 And as I mentioned before, Turkey has been my main focus and the language I speak where I've been living aside from Qatar for the last seven years. 52 00:05:41,540 --> 00:05:47,690 But as the clock ticked down towards 2022, the topics and issues coalescing in Qatar just pulled me in. 53 00:05:47,900 --> 00:05:52,790 You know, the first World Cup in the Middle East, a country defined by migration. 54 00:05:52,970 --> 00:06:03,280 89% of the population of migrants and the current literature on Qatar is dominated by political science and economic takes. 55 00:06:03,290 --> 00:06:08,300 You know, it's all rentier states and soft power initiatives and global hydrocarbon markets. 56 00:06:08,450 --> 00:06:15,530 You know, this is a time and place for that. But the anthropologist in me was kind of crying out for the voices of ordinary people. 57 00:06:16,130 --> 00:06:19,880 And so the context of the book is based largely on ethnographic research, 58 00:06:19,880 --> 00:06:27,440 which I conducted mostly in 2019 and 2020 when I was a visiting scholar at Qatar University. 59 00:06:28,280 --> 00:06:33,799 And yes, I recognise the nice audience has probably more than passing knowledge of the Gulf and the Middle East. 60 00:06:33,800 --> 00:06:36,680 So I'm not going to try and out expert the experts. 61 00:06:37,460 --> 00:06:44,750 But at the same time I do feel intense frustration, academia's inability often to convey information to non-experts. 62 00:06:45,230 --> 00:06:48,500 I think there's a place for a beginner's eye and a simple turn of phrase, 63 00:06:49,070 --> 00:06:55,970 a more important space in the overall conversation for more of the voices of those actually living and working in the region. 64 00:06:56,000 --> 00:07:00,079 So the book itself is not, as the cover might suggest, 65 00:07:00,080 --> 00:07:05,510 it's not an academic book saying to a general audience, you know nothing about the Middle East or cuts up. 66 00:07:05,870 --> 00:07:12,500 I've tried to make my tours equally accessible. If you want more information on certain elements, feel free to ask in the Q&A. 67 00:07:13,520 --> 00:07:16,759 So I've structured it around five anthropological vignettes, 68 00:07:16,760 --> 00:07:22,330 which I think provide interesting glimpses into life in Qatar just before beginning the first one. 69 00:07:22,340 --> 00:07:29,330 I feel I should say that I'm using pseudonyms throughout. Apart from on one occasion, which I will make clear when I'm not. 70 00:07:30,110 --> 00:07:34,280 So without further ado, this is Ali. 71 00:07:34,790 --> 00:07:38,720 So in Qatar, when you need to buy a cricket bat, everybody tells you the same thing. 72 00:07:39,230 --> 00:07:44,480 Call Ali a diminutive, polite with a thick ish beard and messy hair. 73 00:07:45,020 --> 00:07:47,960 Ali works primarily in accounts for a tourism agency, 74 00:07:48,920 --> 00:07:56,120 but his real passion is designing and setting cricket products from his apartment, a small room in a villa on the outskirts of Doha. 75 00:07:57,950 --> 00:08:02,270 So as those of you familiar with the Gulf will know, the countries of the region are hubs of migration. 76 00:08:03,350 --> 00:08:06,440 Qatar's population is 89% migrants. 77 00:08:07,340 --> 00:08:12,620 Substantial numbers of those come from the rest of the Arab world and a lot from the Philippines. 78 00:08:13,310 --> 00:08:18,709 But the largest proportion by far are migrants from South Asia, India, Pakistan. 79 00:08:18,710 --> 00:08:24,350 Sri Lanka. Bangladesh. Nepal. Some 1.8 million or 55% of the population. 80 00:08:24,980 --> 00:08:30,620 And as anybody who has visited South Asia will know within 5 minutes, people that love cricket. 81 00:08:31,790 --> 00:08:35,750 And so through migration, their most popular sport has also become Qatar's. 82 00:08:36,710 --> 00:08:38,090 So, you know, for the last 12 years, 83 00:08:38,090 --> 00:08:45,680 we've been hearing those of us following it anyway as the hundreds of billions of dollars that have been spent getting Qatar ready for the World Cup. 84 00:08:46,430 --> 00:08:52,910 You know, and this tournament is the crown jewel of a wider strategy by Qatar to become globally recognised for sport. 85 00:08:53,340 --> 00:08:57,330 Other elements include the purchasing of the French football team, Paris Saint-Germain, 86 00:08:57,780 --> 00:09:02,280 hosting of other sporting events from Formula One to tennis tournaments. 87 00:09:03,060 --> 00:09:09,750 Despite this clear interest in sport, cricket in Qatar remains a relatively low key affair. 88 00:09:10,950 --> 00:09:19,080 So the Catalogue Cricket Association, the body that runs the game in the country, has an annual budget of mere hundreds of thousands of dollars. 89 00:09:19,160 --> 00:09:24,570 So compare that to the cost of the World Cup, if you will. There are no professional cricketers in Qatar. 90 00:09:25,380 --> 00:09:32,340 The players on the national team hold down day jobs. And as some of these pictures will show, there are only a handful of proper facilities, 91 00:09:32,670 --> 00:09:38,040 meaning most cricketers are forced to play on carparks, building sites and other rudimentary areas. 92 00:09:39,300 --> 00:09:47,310 So why is this? I mean, firstly, Qataris are not including cricket for the most part, nor do they need to be. 93 00:09:47,910 --> 00:09:56,040 But I do think that cricket speaks to a wider ambivalence in Qatar towards people from the Asian subcontinent. 94 00:09:56,550 --> 00:10:02,190 Again, as those of you who are scholars in the region know, the Gulf and India have been intimately entwined for millennia. 95 00:10:02,730 --> 00:10:06,270 And for a lot of that time, it was India that was the wealthy powerhouse. 96 00:10:06,970 --> 00:10:15,240 You know, India supplied the words used for building golf boats. Then the cloth in which golfers dressed India moneylenders financed golf projects. 97 00:10:15,240 --> 00:10:21,210 And as late as the 1960s, the main currency of the region was not the pound of the dino, the real, but the rupee. 98 00:10:22,380 --> 00:10:28,560 And in recent years, the economic miracle of the Gulf has been generated on the back of millions of people, 99 00:10:28,650 --> 00:10:37,590 mostly men migrating from South Asia to the region, to stuff everything from oil rigs and gas pipelines to hotels and shopping malls. 100 00:10:38,610 --> 00:10:41,910 The South Asians like the migrant population more broadly. 101 00:10:43,110 --> 00:10:50,580 Frequently, in transactional terms, it seems to me, you know, they hate to make the country grow and in return to make money for themselves, 102 00:10:50,970 --> 00:10:57,480 but not really to settle down or call the place home, despite many doing exactly that over many decades. 103 00:10:57,990 --> 00:11:03,480 And there's a term I love which captures this paradox, and it coined by the anthropologist Neha Vohra. 104 00:11:03,900 --> 00:11:10,350 South Asians in the Gulf, she says, are impossible citizens essential to the workings of the state and economy, 105 00:11:10,560 --> 00:11:14,670 but never afforded the protections or full benefits of official belonging. 106 00:11:15,900 --> 00:11:22,500 But beyond the cricket encounter reveals the resourcefulness in the face of this of of South Asians in the country. 107 00:11:22,980 --> 00:11:29,040 To me is a great example of how people just roll up their sleeves and get on with it and the lack of support they're given. 108 00:11:29,610 --> 00:11:36,180 And a good example is some of these pictures are showing is that exists version of the game in Qatar played with tennis balls. 109 00:11:36,210 --> 00:11:43,590 So rather than the hard core and never ball of the official version which requires parts and equipment and a proper pitch, 110 00:11:44,130 --> 00:11:49,110 a tennis ball just requires a short, flat expanse of land and back. 111 00:11:49,950 --> 00:11:55,410 And they also start games at six in the morning just to avoid the heat. 112 00:11:55,710 --> 00:12:00,690 And yeah, many, many of the car parks in the country turn into cricket pitches for a few hours on a Friday morning. 113 00:12:01,860 --> 00:12:05,100 From the outside, it often looks like these are quite low fi affairs. 114 00:12:05,310 --> 00:12:10,560 But games are. There are lots of leagues and most of the games are actually electronically scored. 115 00:12:11,010 --> 00:12:17,610 So people have apps on their phones and they're feeding scores into live updates on league websites. 116 00:12:18,060 --> 00:12:24,210 You know, like baseball, if there are any Americans. Cricket is a game that like loves it stats. 117 00:12:24,330 --> 00:12:28,319 So players have access to huge databases of batter, 118 00:12:28,320 --> 00:12:34,620 strike rates and wickets taken and run rates of different sites which they love to share and boast about. 119 00:12:35,430 --> 00:12:41,010 So this is a hobby in contrast to the World Cup, which is very much a top down initiative. 120 00:12:41,250 --> 00:12:46,500 Cricket in Qatar, for the most part, is bottom up, formed and organised by enthusiasts, 121 00:12:47,340 --> 00:12:56,490 financed in large part by local South Asian businesses, and from the sponsorship and displays a real sense of pan-Asian solidarity. 122 00:12:56,820 --> 00:13:03,810 And even without state support, cricket ism will remain the backbone of life for thousands of South Asians living in Qatar. 123 00:13:06,340 --> 00:13:11,890 I'm with you. This is Nasser A in his fifties with his falcon. 124 00:13:13,150 --> 00:13:17,140 I had the good fortune of being taken out by Nasser to watch him train his birds. 125 00:13:18,310 --> 00:13:21,760 So falconry has a long history in the Middle East, going back centuries. 126 00:13:22,840 --> 00:13:27,790 But falconry in today's Qatar is a far cry from early hunting trips. 127 00:13:28,810 --> 00:13:35,350 It takes place with lots of technological equipment, such as four by four long cruises radio antenna. 128 00:13:36,700 --> 00:13:43,750 The birds themselves cost a lot of money. This one, shown in this picture, was $35,000. 129 00:13:43,870 --> 00:13:47,440 If Nasser is to be believed, he has five birds. 130 00:13:49,060 --> 00:13:54,370 Falcon is race the best specimens in competitions where the prizes can be brand new cars. 131 00:13:55,000 --> 00:14:01,660 And when they're when they are on, well, there's even a state subsidised Falcon Hospital that they can handle a thousand birds a week. 132 00:14:03,070 --> 00:14:09,110 So these birds of prey have become a hobby and a status symbol in today's cats are 133 00:14:09,760 --> 00:14:15,339 a source of bonding amongst men and women are conspicuously absent in falconry, 134 00:14:15,340 --> 00:14:24,070 love and even totems for the nation. I think why was the first question that's come to my mind? 135 00:14:25,240 --> 00:14:32,830 And I think to understand the importance of falconry, you have to bear in mind the size and the speed of the change that the country has undergone. 136 00:14:33,190 --> 00:14:37,210 You know, in the 1950s, Qatar was one of the poorest places on the planet. 137 00:14:37,720 --> 00:14:48,490 The economy was based around pearl diving, which collapsed as a result of the Wall Street crash and the development of cultivated pearls in Japan. 138 00:14:49,810 --> 00:14:55,690 So this is a country where the population dwindled to mere tens of thousands before 139 00:14:55,690 --> 00:15:03,489 geologists working for the Anglo Persian oil company discovered oil in 1939 1949, 140 00:15:03,490 --> 00:15:13,120 the oil exports began and cattle started to grow. 1970s, one of the largest gas fields in the world, was discovered off Qatar's coast. 141 00:15:13,270 --> 00:15:19,840 And since the 1990s, it's become one of the biggest exporters of liquid liquefied natural gas. 142 00:15:21,280 --> 00:15:24,520 And so profitable is the income from hydrocarbons today. 143 00:15:24,820 --> 00:15:28,150 The Qatari government has no need to tax individual citizens. 144 00:15:29,200 --> 00:15:35,170 Their wealth is protected by making citizenship by birth or naturalisation next to impossible to obtain, 145 00:15:36,220 --> 00:15:41,790 and mechanisms have been generated for distributing the largesse in the form of free university education, 146 00:15:42,040 --> 00:15:46,150 generous gifts of land, and well-paid jobs in the state sector. 147 00:15:47,200 --> 00:15:52,840 Politically, the wealth is seen to have tempered demands for democracy socially. 148 00:15:53,350 --> 00:15:56,350 Changes in lifestyles have been destabilising. 149 00:15:56,440 --> 00:16:04,090 You have elderly katsaris you remember having no running water and their grandsons racing sports cars down Doha streets. 150 00:16:05,620 --> 00:16:11,350 And of course, this led to a huge influx of migrants. Population in Qatar is roughly doubled every decade. 151 00:16:11,830 --> 00:16:20,170 Slowing down a bit more recently. Today, it's close to 3 million, of which Katsaris believed to be around about 350,000. 152 00:16:21,940 --> 00:16:28,750 So it's a bit of a cliche to roll out pops forms and arranges inventive concepts of invented tradition. 153 00:16:29,050 --> 00:16:33,430 But, you know, we falconry in Qatar, it fits so perfectly to this schema. 154 00:16:33,700 --> 00:16:39,850 So for those of you not aware of it, it's their idea that if you pay beyond many traditions that appear to be old, 155 00:16:40,210 --> 00:16:44,560 you realise that they are in fact recently manufactured and they're being put to 156 00:16:44,560 --> 00:16:49,240 work to establish social cohesion or inculcate sets and beliefs and value systems. 157 00:16:50,050 --> 00:16:57,910 So the way I think about falconry today in Qatar, these people are less direct descendants of people roaming the peninsula. 158 00:16:57,910 --> 00:17:02,380 Millennia ago are more the proponents of new traditions, 159 00:17:03,460 --> 00:17:10,090 of displays of status linked to consumption of a class of people divorced from worries about income, 160 00:17:10,300 --> 00:17:12,820 wondering instead what to do with their leisure time. 161 00:17:14,840 --> 00:17:23,870 And crucially, Hobsbawm Rangers suggest that such inventive traditions occur more readily in societies undergoing great social flux and change. 162 00:17:24,590 --> 00:17:26,720 And that's certainly the case for Cantor, 163 00:17:26,960 --> 00:17:35,900 where every day a battle is being waged within a small community of nationals over the question Who are categories and what do they stand for? 164 00:17:36,110 --> 00:17:41,090 I mean, that's the case for all countries, of course, but it felt particularly fierce in Qatar. 165 00:17:42,350 --> 00:17:47,600 Falconry, its proponents argue, is one of the few shared cultural touchstones. 166 00:17:48,140 --> 00:17:55,880 This can be a thread linking us to our past and consequently an important way of the pressing on Qatar's traditional values of thrift, 167 00:17:56,450 --> 00:18:06,780 self-denial and egalitarianism. So the pride that most of these falcons catch the pigeons, but that's only due to their abundance. 168 00:18:06,870 --> 00:18:13,410 What most countries like to catch is poop, but are some coloured mustard a bit like a pheasant? 169 00:18:14,640 --> 00:18:21,150 So Hooper, a native to the Gulf, but they no longer live in the wild due to overhunting. 170 00:18:21,870 --> 00:18:28,620 And so queen of many golf fees to hunt these birds that they organise hawking trips to lands where they're more plentiful, 171 00:18:28,620 --> 00:18:31,260 such as Azerbaijan, Iraq and Pakistan. 172 00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:39,660 And they can often take on lavish proportions, costing millions of dollars and involving hundreds of people camped out in a mini city of tents. 173 00:18:41,420 --> 00:18:47,570 Calgary can even have geopolitical implications. During the 2014 hunts in Pakistan. 174 00:18:48,200 --> 00:18:54,710 Saudi Prince Fahad bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz killed 2100 kuber over 21 days, 175 00:18:55,220 --> 00:19:02,060 about 20 times more than his allocated quota, sparking a diplomatic incident the following year, 176 00:19:02,060 --> 00:19:11,150 2015, nine members of the country royal family were kidnapped by Iranian militias while hunting in Iraq to get the hostages released. 177 00:19:11,450 --> 00:19:17,989 The country state is reported to have paid $360 million in cash and forced the proxies 178 00:19:17,990 --> 00:19:21,890 they were supporting in the Syrian civil war to make several battlefield concessions. 179 00:19:22,730 --> 00:19:27,650 So as just a glimpse into next, this is far more than flying birds. 180 00:19:29,630 --> 00:19:34,730 As we drove back from the afternoon of Falcon training, Nasser talked to me about his 14 year old son. 181 00:19:35,690 --> 00:19:42,680 He was so different in mentality and outlook from himself. When he sitting with you, he speaks with you about the politics. 182 00:19:42,770 --> 00:19:48,530 He speaks of you about business all the time. The child, he said to me, he likes business. 183 00:19:50,190 --> 00:19:54,810 As he contrasted their lives, Nasser sounded rueful. It's a different life. 184 00:19:55,710 --> 00:20:00,780 Different 100%. Part three. 185 00:20:01,860 --> 00:20:06,690 This is wrecker Barbados tsunami. That's his real name, he told me. 186 00:20:06,870 --> 00:20:09,900 Whenever I present or write, he wanted me to use his full name. 187 00:20:10,770 --> 00:20:15,180 So Raka is from Nepal. And 47 years old. 188 00:20:16,170 --> 00:20:21,510 He went to Qatar in 2009 to work to support his wife and six children. 189 00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:28,560 So on the 12th of November 2018, while erecting scaffolding in a petrochemical plant, 190 00:20:29,310 --> 00:20:33,600 he was badly burned in a work accident, suffering life changing injuries. 191 00:20:34,530 --> 00:20:39,810 Three of the workers died, but he survived, thanks in part to wearing the correct protective clothing. 192 00:20:40,530 --> 00:20:43,530 The photograph is, needless to say, before the accident. 193 00:20:44,370 --> 00:20:53,490 So his employer initially responded well, providing him with his salary and arranging transport for him to attend his daily doctor appointments. 194 00:20:54,600 --> 00:20:59,250 But on a trip home to Nepal in 2020, Ricky told me that it changed. 195 00:21:00,210 --> 00:21:07,320 The company began laying off staff due to a lack of work, and despite wanting to return to Doha to finish his treatment, 196 00:21:07,770 --> 00:21:12,180 Ricky found himself pressured into signing papers, terminating his contract. 197 00:21:12,930 --> 00:21:20,670 He now sits at home. His injuries have not healed properly, and he's reliant on his adult children who work in agriculture in his village. 198 00:21:22,590 --> 00:21:28,379 So in recent years, the main thing outsiders have come to learn about Qatar is that it has come in 199 00:21:28,380 --> 00:21:32,250 for fierce criticism for the way low income workers in the country are treated. 200 00:21:34,080 --> 00:21:43,320 A lot of the issues stemmed from the system of sponsorship based employment the country uses, known by the Arabic name of Kafala under kafala. 201 00:21:43,350 --> 00:21:51,630 Every non-citizen in Qatar, from an American PR consultant to a South Asian labourer, needs a sponsor in order to be resident in the country. 202 00:21:52,320 --> 00:21:59,070 And this means that private individuals arriving in the states have the responsibility for worker status. 203 00:21:59,340 --> 00:22:04,440 Private individuals or companies and workers are bound to their sponsors in 204 00:22:04,440 --> 00:22:08,820 arrangements that often make it difficult to raise complaints or change jobs. 205 00:22:10,020 --> 00:22:15,180 So there have been moves to change elements of the system, which I will speak about in due course. 206 00:22:16,260 --> 00:22:23,190 But the capitalist system is the underpinning structural factor in the exploitation and abuse faced by many workers in Qatar. 207 00:22:24,420 --> 00:22:29,790 From there, the injustices leak out and suffuse the entire arc of migration to the Gulf. 208 00:22:31,350 --> 00:22:41,430 So to go to the beginning to work in Qatar, most workers pay fees to a recruiter, despite laws that prohibit charging individuals in this way. 209 00:22:42,210 --> 00:22:45,990 These fees are usually around 1000 to $1500. 210 00:22:46,650 --> 00:22:54,030 Many workers can't pay that kind of cash upfront, and so take out loans or arrange for the amount to be attracted from their wages. 211 00:22:55,130 --> 00:23:01,020 Raqqa, incidentally, borrowed ₹200,000, about $1,600 from people in this village. 212 00:23:01,530 --> 00:23:06,120 Most banks in Nepal do not lend to people like him without credit rating. 213 00:23:08,040 --> 00:23:12,900 When they arrive, workers sometimes find their passports are confiscated despite laws prohibiting this. 214 00:23:13,740 --> 00:23:16,950 Many workers are also subjected to contract substitution, 215 00:23:16,950 --> 00:23:24,210 where the contract that they signed in their home country has disappeared and is replaced by a new agreement with less favourable terms, 216 00:23:24,360 --> 00:23:29,850 often in Arabic, which most workers don't know. Labour camps. 217 00:23:29,970 --> 00:23:38,670 Most industrial, most low income workers live in labour camps, which are securitised self-contained compounds on the outskirts of Doha. 218 00:23:39,630 --> 00:23:48,540 Some of this accommodation is in a really poor state, overcrowded and dirty, and there is a big issue with late or non-payment of wages. 219 00:23:49,230 --> 00:23:54,500 Now, Rector was paid all the money owed him by his company, but many of us aren't. 220 00:23:54,900 --> 00:23:59,730 And I lost count of the number of people I spoke with who had not been paid on time. 221 00:24:00,780 --> 00:24:03,870 Some backlogs of over half a year salary. 222 00:24:05,550 --> 00:24:09,450 Most workers in Qatar are not there for a jolly or just on their own. 223 00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:12,480 They are the sole source of income for their families. 224 00:24:12,750 --> 00:24:16,350 So this link or non-payment of wages doesn't just affect them. 225 00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:24,780 It results in missed meals and unpaid school fees half a world away and under pressure from the International Labour Organisation, 226 00:24:24,780 --> 00:24:27,720 various media organisations and NGOs. 227 00:24:28,140 --> 00:24:37,380 Qatar has opened its labour rules, is introduced, electronic oversight of salary payments, increased accommodation and worksite inspections. 228 00:24:37,710 --> 00:24:44,130 It introduced the minimum wage and removed the requirement to get permission from an employer before changing jobs. 229 00:24:44,910 --> 00:24:52,650 The problem isn't the substance of the laws. The laws are pretty decent compared to many other countries in the region. 230 00:24:53,340 --> 00:24:59,400 The problem is with their enforcement. NGOs are still reporting problems of unpaid wages. 231 00:24:59,820 --> 00:25:06,240 Difficulty in changing jobs. And that seems to be growing pushback from employers against the rules. 232 00:25:06,690 --> 00:25:15,600 You know, some employers even go as far as to use other mechanisms, such as filing false charges of absconding to stop workers moving jobs. 233 00:25:16,830 --> 00:25:23,490 So what this means is the situation on the ground for many hasn't substantially improved despite the new laws. 234 00:25:24,780 --> 00:25:32,700 And I think it's important to realise that this precarity surrounding labour is not limited to male construction workers. 235 00:25:33,780 --> 00:25:39,150 They receive the attention, perhaps because they're the ones building stadiums and out in the sun, 236 00:25:39,990 --> 00:25:44,670 but is even worse off than for other groupings in Qatar, particularly domestic workers. 237 00:25:45,750 --> 00:25:54,120 So domestic work is actually governed by separate laws. So when laws are being changed in that sort of general labour contract, 238 00:25:54,120 --> 00:25:59,610 domestic workers are often left outside the scope of improvements because they mostly work alone. 239 00:25:59,910 --> 00:26:07,740 They face a high risk of exploitation and a triple whammy of discrimination as low income workers as people of colour and as women. 240 00:26:09,150 --> 00:26:18,480 So government spokespeople in Qatar display increasing frustration with what they see as an unrelenting focus by Western media on workers welfare. 241 00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:24,420 There's a suggestion that Qatar isn't being treated fairly, and it's important. 242 00:26:24,420 --> 00:26:33,270 We must acknowledge that as Eugene kind of flagged a bit in the introduction, some of the criticism absolutely carries the width of Orientalism. 243 00:26:34,620 --> 00:26:40,740 Nearly all of it is also missing an awareness of the longer histories of colonial involvement in the region, 244 00:26:41,580 --> 00:26:44,460 especially the complicity of the British in the capitalist system. 245 00:26:45,570 --> 00:26:54,540 And Westerners frequently inveigh against injustice in the region with an anger that is rarely present when talking about injustices elsewhere, 246 00:26:55,260 --> 00:27:02,249 particularly at home. Nevertheless, with that aside, as late as last year, 247 00:27:02,250 --> 00:27:09,389 workers in Qatar were telling me personally stories that suggest that there are still substantial issues and 248 00:27:09,390 --> 00:27:16,290 therefore I think it's completely incitement to talk about it until those issues are systematically resolved. 249 00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:22,210 I'll finish this section with a quote from one domestic worker, a man called Maggie, 250 00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:26,470 who was from Kenya, who articulated the situation most powerfully. 251 00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:31,750 Here you are, caged. You are being told to do this and that. 252 00:27:32,110 --> 00:27:36,940 You see yourself like you are no good. She told me we lost self. 253 00:27:38,230 --> 00:27:42,010 Most domestic work is always stressed and always depressed. 254 00:27:46,130 --> 00:27:50,750 Four. In October 2019, I attended a forum on labour in Qatar. 255 00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:54,350 So I watched as a government minister took the microphone. 256 00:27:55,070 --> 00:28:02,000 He told the audience the raft of new laws which seemed to come into operation, they would transform the situation of workers in the country. 257 00:28:03,030 --> 00:28:06,440 Quite. There were red lines in the past in the state of Qatar. 258 00:28:06,740 --> 00:28:10,490 We have undoubtedly made a quantum leap in this regard. He said. 259 00:28:11,450 --> 00:28:19,820 It is impossible for us to go back. The microphone was then passed to another category and the audience sat dumbfounded 260 00:28:20,060 --> 00:28:24,260 as he launched into a repudiation of everything the first speaker did just praised. 261 00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:31,760 If you completely abolish exit permits, he told us what would stop the employee going to the bank, 262 00:28:32,180 --> 00:28:37,010 withdrawing $1 million in cash from the government company account and leaving the country. 263 00:28:38,090 --> 00:28:45,830 Qatar was a unique case. We in the audience were told, quote, My community, my society is different. 264 00:28:46,070 --> 00:28:48,230 We need time to adapt anyway. 265 00:28:50,030 --> 00:28:56,390 So what was so unusual for me about this exchange was that it made public what everybody knew was happening behind closed doors. 266 00:28:56,780 --> 00:29:01,430 That is extreme battles amongst katsaris about how far to go in labour reforms. 267 00:29:02,180 --> 00:29:10,940 So as I briefly touched upon with the [INAUDIBLE], even though there are only 350,000 country citizens, it's a mistake to view them as monolithic. 268 00:29:11,390 --> 00:29:16,190 The division in opinion speaks to more profound fissures about the country's direction of travel. 269 00:29:17,420 --> 00:29:21,080 Countries on the whole are often small c conservative in outlook. 270 00:29:21,830 --> 00:29:25,159 A large importance is placed on the family structures of power. 271 00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:31,250 A very paternalistic A men and women are largely encouraged to subscribe to traditional gender roles. 272 00:29:32,780 --> 00:29:40,370 Life in Katsaris, punctuated by visible displays of Islam, radio broadcasts and music in shopping malls is interrupted broadcasts. 273 00:29:40,370 --> 00:29:50,750 The call to prayer, for instance. And one 2011 study said that only 61% of married country women were in favour of contraception. 274 00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:59,450 At the same time, there are sizeable numbers, especially amongst the young whose outlook has been shaped by the country's recent modernisation drive. 275 00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:07,280 You katsaris can go to university for free. Many have received education campuses of US universities in Doha. 276 00:30:07,460 --> 00:30:14,030 Many study abroad. Three times as many country women as men graduate from university. 277 00:30:14,420 --> 00:30:17,960 Women are very much encouraged by the state to work. 278 00:30:19,100 --> 00:30:26,250 I think it's wrong to assume that the younger generation are, quote unquote, more liberal than for fathers. 279 00:30:26,360 --> 00:30:29,750 I think that's the case everywhere around the world. And Qatar is no different. 280 00:30:32,100 --> 00:30:36,239 For instance, there was a survey by the anthropologist Miriam Cooke, 281 00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:42,330 who I think taught in Doha in 2010 of university students showing that many 282 00:30:42,330 --> 00:30:47,100 considered tribal identity to be really important when considering a life partner, 283 00:30:47,430 --> 00:30:51,690 they would not want their own children to marry into a, quote, unquote, lower tribe. 284 00:30:52,950 --> 00:31:01,200 And so, you know, the rulers of Qatar are trying to steer a ship on which there are people pulling in very different directions. 285 00:31:01,260 --> 00:31:09,120 And that's an incredibly difficult thing to do. And the result is, you know, policy, which often seems quite schizophrenic, or at least, 286 00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:12,840 you know, from from a zoom perspective, doesn't always make a lot of sense. 287 00:31:13,390 --> 00:31:20,430 And labour laws are a great example. So you pass new labour laws, which make it easier for workers to leave their jobs. 288 00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:26,520 But then the government looks the other way if sponsors prohibit the movement of employees by other means. 289 00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:33,990 A church was opened in Doha in 2008, I think for foreigners to worship. 290 00:31:35,190 --> 00:31:43,440 But then the main mosque is named after the Saudi founder of the Islamic Doctrine that Wahhabism and trying to keep 291 00:31:43,440 --> 00:31:51,329 on board all these sections at the same time and living in that to me to my eyes and the countries who I spoke to, 292 00:31:51,330 --> 00:31:58,650 it's very difficult. On the one hand, you're inheriting a set of cultural traditions forged in circumstances of poverty, 293 00:31:59,490 --> 00:32:03,690 but living in a world of fast cars, international travel and government handouts. 294 00:32:04,890 --> 00:32:08,700 How do young people in Qatar personally shape the country's future? 295 00:32:09,180 --> 00:32:11,270 Many were talking about this before that. 296 00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:17,489 I think that Qatar is very much not a gentle Kristie, and I think that's really important in a lot of prominent roles, 297 00:32:17,490 --> 00:32:21,810 including the head of the organisation organising the World Cup. 298 00:32:21,930 --> 00:32:26,520 You have young people in their late, late thirties and forties and that's to be commended. 299 00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:28,770 But at the same time, you know, 300 00:32:28,830 --> 00:32:36,780 you can't vote for political parties with a different vision for the country and also for all the high number of women in education. 301 00:32:36,930 --> 00:32:40,530 Women are rarely the heads of businesses or government departments. 302 00:32:42,630 --> 00:32:46,870 And it's probably unfashionable to feel sorry for young Katsaris. 303 00:32:46,890 --> 00:32:52,620 Given all the material wealth they have at their disposal. But by the end of my stay, that was the point I'd reached. 304 00:32:53,310 --> 00:32:57,930 And I remember one conversation very vividly with a young Katsura adventurer. 305 00:32:58,290 --> 00:33:01,500 He is a motorcyclist who travels the globe on his bike. 306 00:33:02,310 --> 00:33:05,940 And I asked him what had been the most formative takeaway from his travels. 307 00:33:06,750 --> 00:33:13,140 Well, he said, and paused for a second. I've met lots of happier people than us in Qatar. 308 00:33:19,580 --> 00:33:26,210 Okay. So this is the fifth and final section. This is Kumar or more accurately, Kumar's car. 309 00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:32,750 Kumar worked in cattle for ten years. The last two and a half as a taxi driver. 310 00:33:33,620 --> 00:33:38,420 A week before he was due to leave Doha for his home in Sri Lanka, he talked to me. 311 00:33:39,380 --> 00:33:43,580 The main reason for people coming to Qatar is that their country is not developed much. 312 00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:49,820 He told me it is quite frustrated speaking. They don't have any jobs in their country. 313 00:33:50,060 --> 00:33:53,959 They cannot earn money in their country. Even me. We can earn money. 314 00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:57,440 But it's not enough. It's not enough for our family maintenance. 315 00:33:59,580 --> 00:34:02,940 I find his words are a good intro to my final point, 316 00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:10,680 which is that the situation in Qatar cannot be understood outside the context of wider global trends in migration inequality. 317 00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:19,950 You know, a lot of the criticism of Qatar often sort of separates out some place that is completely detached from anywhere else. 318 00:34:19,950 --> 00:34:24,630 And that's frustrating because when you speak to migrant workers like Kumar or Raqqa, 319 00:34:25,020 --> 00:34:30,360 I was often struck by the sense of inevitability about their decision to move to the Gulf for work. 320 00:34:31,350 --> 00:34:40,230 They didn't really have any regrets. Even Raqqa, you know, was suffered life changing injuries as a result of going because. 321 00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:42,000 Why is that? The wholly uneven, 322 00:34:42,150 --> 00:34:50,310 uneven pattern of global development meant that they felt they have no other option but to leave their home country in search of better paying work. 323 00:34:51,420 --> 00:34:55,410 And it needs saying that for all the stories of worker exploitation in Qatar, 324 00:34:55,440 --> 00:35:00,090 there are many thousands from the world's poorest regions who make the country work for them. 325 00:35:01,470 --> 00:35:05,130 They are the ones fortunate enough to avoid the charlatan brokers. 326 00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:08,640 Perhaps they're blessed with a sponsor who pays them on time. 327 00:35:09,450 --> 00:35:17,670 They work, they save, and as a result, they transform their own lives and those of their families and then further up the hierarchy. 328 00:35:18,300 --> 00:35:23,190 Qatar offers many perks a higher wage than you might get in Europe or America. 329 00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:27,420 A mortgage paid off more quickly, a great professional opportunity. 330 00:35:28,470 --> 00:35:36,750 So, yes, Qatar is a stark example of the pernicious illness of global contemporary capitalism, but it is far from the only one. 331 00:35:37,770 --> 00:35:42,540 Some of the same problems and systems that bring workers to CATA also compel people to 332 00:35:42,540 --> 00:35:47,260 take rickety boats across the Mediterranean or change their luck through the desert. 333 00:35:47,300 --> 00:35:57,960 Border guards at the US-Mexico Frontier. And sometimes I wonder if, on the subject of labour exploitation and inequality, Doha is weirdly more honest. 334 00:35:59,250 --> 00:36:03,840 So the world is divided into two distinct spheres, separate and unequal. 335 00:36:05,490 --> 00:36:10,920 You might come to understand very well the inequality within a particular society or country, 336 00:36:11,700 --> 00:36:16,110 but especially in Europe, that pales in comparison to inequality globally. 337 00:36:16,980 --> 00:36:20,370 You can't see the global stratification with own eyes. 338 00:36:20,940 --> 00:36:24,299 There is no personal interaction with the Bangladeshi women. 339 00:36:24,300 --> 00:36:29,580 Pay pennies to make your T-shirt or the Congolese mining cobalt for your battery and your phone. 340 00:36:30,990 --> 00:36:35,460 But when you're in Qatar, it often feels like the extreme wealth and poverty coexist. 341 00:36:36,150 --> 00:36:43,500 The inequity has no place to hide. That said, the dynamics in Qatar, 342 00:36:43,500 --> 00:36:52,620 particularly laissez faire when the reality of this global inequality interacts with an immigration system that hands too much power to an employer. 343 00:36:53,130 --> 00:36:56,640 The result is a situation that can be easily exploited. 344 00:36:57,360 --> 00:37:01,499 And even those who believe they are safe from abusive practices can suddenly find 345 00:37:01,500 --> 00:37:06,480 themselves ensnared and in wrestling with the situation of workers in Qatar. 346 00:37:06,540 --> 00:37:11,790 I kept coming back to the memory of Stephen, and this is the final anecdote on which I'll finish. 347 00:37:13,730 --> 00:37:21,750 So in October 2020, I met Stephen, who is originally from the Philippines in his flat in Doha, say. 348 00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:25,610 He told me he worked as a mechanical engineer for a construction company. 349 00:37:26,210 --> 00:37:33,320 But actually his main passion was serving as a community volunteer, helping Filipinos with work troubles in Qatar. 350 00:37:34,910 --> 00:37:40,070 For months after we met. I heard from a mutual friend that Stephen himself is in trouble. 351 00:37:40,940 --> 00:37:48,350 His company haven't paid his salary for five months. He had been taken to court by his landlord for the unpaid rent on his flat, 352 00:37:49,370 --> 00:37:53,630 and while waiting for the court date, a travel ban had been issued against him. 353 00:37:54,890 --> 00:37:58,280 I just pray in the corner and cry, he wrote to me on WhatsApp. 354 00:37:59,210 --> 00:38:02,810 Why suffer like this? I'm working hard with my heart. 355 00:38:03,290 --> 00:38:06,650 I'm the community leader. Helping others for how many years? 356 00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:14,880 But now here I am, facing the same difficulties. And this is the human impact of Qatar's Wild West labour market. 357 00:38:15,420 --> 00:38:21,150 You can be sitting pretty and then through no fault of your own, find yourself destitute, penniless or deported. 358 00:38:22,110 --> 00:38:30,240 And I think that precarity and the fear that stems from it was the most abiding memory from my time researching the book. 359 00:38:30,870 --> 00:38:40,759 And I will finish on that note. Well, I'm going to start with a conversation with you, 360 00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:46,430 because the things that come out of the book that you didn't get a chance to talk about in what is it, 11 days time? 361 00:38:46,940 --> 00:38:52,700 1212. We're going to have the first match and it's the host country club kicking off against Ecuador. 362 00:38:53,090 --> 00:38:58,790 I think so, yeah. Sounds like a really one sided match because we all know that there is no football in Qatar. 363 00:38:59,270 --> 00:39:02,600 If there's a team in Qatar, they must have hired them all in from abroad. 364 00:39:03,410 --> 00:39:08,180 And it's one of the reasons why everyone thinks Qatar hosting this tournament is a total joke. 365 00:39:08,460 --> 00:39:12,500 I mean, I'm sure I read that you book somewhere or maybe I got it wrong. 366 00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:17,300 Maybe you talk us through the Asian Cup experience and what this has been for 367 00:39:17,300 --> 00:39:22,340 Qatar in trying to actually have a team to play when the World Cup comes to town. 368 00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:31,190 Yes, thanks. So, you know, there are many criticisms of Qatar which are perfectly valid and have been aired over the past 12 years. 369 00:39:31,490 --> 00:39:36,170 But one which is definitely unfair is that it's a country that doesn't like football, 370 00:39:36,170 --> 00:39:41,770 has no interest in the game, has no desire or passion in terms of watching the game. 371 00:39:41,780 --> 00:39:48,740 People love it. In terms of also playing the game is huge and is kind of alluding to over the past decade or so, 372 00:39:48,770 --> 00:39:54,770 Qatar has put in place like an incredibly ambitious strategy to develop a good football team, 373 00:39:54,770 --> 00:39:59,600 basically in part to ensure that they're not going to be embarrassed in 12 days time. 374 00:40:00,230 --> 00:40:07,730 And this has worked. So, yes, in 2005, the country national team was was mostly kind of naturalised foreigners. 375 00:40:08,150 --> 00:40:09,740 And it came in for a lot of ridicule. 376 00:40:09,890 --> 00:40:20,000 FIFA, in fact, changed the eligibility requirements as a result, a direct result of an attempt by Katsav to naturalise three Brazilians in one game. 377 00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:27,320 But in 2005, so way before the World Cup, the World Cup was awarded in 2010. 378 00:40:27,590 --> 00:40:30,620 So this this predates the World Cup in 2005. 379 00:40:30,740 --> 00:40:34,960 Qatar decided to build their own talent academy in the country. 380 00:40:34,970 --> 00:40:36,950 And this was an to marry decree. 381 00:40:37,310 --> 00:40:43,790 The emir's brother, Sheikh Jassim, was put in charge of it, which, you know, means that you got a line right to the top. 382 00:40:44,210 --> 00:40:45,770 Billions of dollars are spent on it. 383 00:40:46,130 --> 00:40:52,460 Coaches were recruited from around the world and they embarked on the most astonishing talent search within Qatar. 384 00:40:52,490 --> 00:40:59,149 Now, as you see, there's not a lot of people in Qatar, so there's only something like 7000 registered footballers, 385 00:40:59,150 --> 00:41:03,470 which I think is probably, you know, more than that in Oxford. 386 00:41:03,830 --> 00:41:13,350 I mean, not perhaps not, but certainly more in a large city. So Qatar has to really basically anybody any man who, you know, 387 00:41:13,370 --> 00:41:18,920 could halfway run kick a football was already they're interested you know come along let's try. 388 00:41:19,310 --> 00:41:24,740 And from that they whittle it down and Winslet down and they come up with they recruit kind of 15 389 00:41:24,740 --> 00:41:31,170 or so boys every year and they they dump them into this academy and they provide accommodation, 390 00:41:31,190 --> 00:41:34,250 education and of course, loads of coaching. 391 00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:40,460 And by generating this kind of collegiate atmosphere and by having good coaches, giving them time, 392 00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:44,450 you actually can generate a decent team like football is ultimately despite the 393 00:41:44,780 --> 00:41:49,399 Messi's and Ronaldo's of this world is very much a team sport and a well-organised, 394 00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:54,630 decent team will often beat a mediocre team with like one star player. 395 00:41:55,250 --> 00:41:59,540 So they put a lot of effort and time into developing this team. 396 00:41:59,540 --> 00:42:04,730 And then in 2019, against everyone's expectations, including even the coaches. 397 00:42:05,030 --> 00:42:12,970 I know this first because I spoke to some of them. They went and won the Asian Cup, which is the equivalent of the European Championships. 398 00:42:12,980 --> 00:42:17,090 So for the region of Asia, it's the biggest prize you can get. 399 00:42:17,600 --> 00:42:21,740 And they won it in 2019 and did so quite handsomely. 400 00:42:22,550 --> 00:42:29,690 Yeah. And so what are we expecting to happen in the opening match? Well, they're going to be in with a team that can actually compete. 401 00:42:30,410 --> 00:42:35,870 I mean, on that stage, yeah, I do want it to turn into sounds like a like a match of the day conversation. 402 00:42:35,870 --> 00:42:39,320 But I've been dying for this match all my life. 403 00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:45,350 I mean, since that 2019 victory, they their fortunes have kind of waxed and waned a bit. 404 00:42:45,530 --> 00:42:51,079 And the World Cup is obviously you can't really prepare people for like that stage. 405 00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:54,830 It's the biggest stage for most footballers and is home World Cup. 406 00:42:54,830 --> 00:43:00,380 The pressure is just going to be insane. The season, the domestic season in Qatar finished in September. 407 00:43:00,590 --> 00:43:05,090 And these players have just been in, I think, in Spain or Switzerland for two months, 408 00:43:05,090 --> 00:43:09,020 just essentially cut off from the world playing some friendly matches here and there. 409 00:43:09,020 --> 00:43:12,440 But they're just kind of just keeping them trying to just I don't know, 410 00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:18,139 I guess keep them in like some sort of cryogenic status and then they'll just buzz them in and hope that they do. 411 00:43:18,140 --> 00:43:26,720 All right. And I just don't know. I mean, I hope that they do alright because I think it's really the tournament's a better when the hosts do well. 412 00:43:27,620 --> 00:43:37,400 But I also think it's a good example of an institute in Qatar which is actually engaged in long term planning and has empowered its employees. 413 00:43:38,170 --> 00:43:42,670 You know, I came across quite a lot of short term thinking in a lot of institutions, 414 00:43:42,670 --> 00:43:46,380 both public and private, and especially amongst knowledge workers. 415 00:43:46,390 --> 00:43:51,100 You know, just you're not doing the job will sack you, get someone else and you're not that important. 416 00:43:51,550 --> 00:44:00,340 And that's not really a recipe for success in, you know, for anything that involves, you know, hard things that take time. 417 00:44:00,550 --> 00:44:05,020 But I want to keep pushing you on this coterie team. So do they have a name and face recognition at home? 418 00:44:05,110 --> 00:44:08,259 I say they're local heroes. People will talk about Jassim. 419 00:44:08,260 --> 00:44:11,920 This is Mahmoud that. Yeah, yeah. Always. Ali is like one of the. 420 00:44:11,950 --> 00:44:17,380 Yeah. And Akram Afif. Yeah, they're absolutely known throughout the country. 421 00:44:17,410 --> 00:44:27,910 And the interesting thing is that and I mentioned it in passing, but 11% of the population of Qatar are citizens and 89% of residents. 422 00:44:28,270 --> 00:44:35,620 But so most of the football team actually come from that 89%, obviously not immediately, because that's where most of the population is. 423 00:44:36,100 --> 00:44:41,469 But from what I can see, katsaris really like, you know, doesn't really make any distinction. 424 00:44:41,470 --> 00:44:45,490 It's not like they're just cheering for the two in the team who are actually, quote unquote, 425 00:44:45,490 --> 00:44:53,049 like proper katsaris or whatever they seem to be get behind the wall, really, and a very proud of them and get really excited by them. 426 00:44:53,050 --> 00:45:01,240 And why not? I mean, these if these if the same dynamics are in the UK or whatever, these people would be British citizens or American citizens. 427 00:45:01,240 --> 00:45:08,229 It's just because of this quite old, very strict citizenship law that they're not necessarily considered citizens. 428 00:45:08,230 --> 00:45:16,260 Although by the way, after the 2019 success, I think that the IMMI granted citizenship to the non citizens team, 429 00:45:16,450 --> 00:45:23,920 although it's such a touchy subject, that it's very hard to find definitive proof of what's going on in those results. 430 00:45:24,970 --> 00:45:35,980 Yeah, and the blockade was seen as being something that was really a regional wrench being thrown in Qatar was planning the lifting of the blockade. 431 00:45:35,980 --> 00:45:44,170 Has that had any impact on the way in which Qatar's hosting of this event allows it to be absorbed in the broader GCC? 432 00:45:44,290 --> 00:45:51,820 Absolutely. And I would not be surprised if the World Cup was a significant factor in the end of the blockade. 433 00:45:52,090 --> 00:46:00,700 So I actually spoke last month to the head of accommodation services, so the person in charge of accommodation, the organisers. 434 00:46:00,940 --> 00:46:05,890 And he told me that the second largest nationality to book accommodation in Qatar Saudis. 435 00:46:06,940 --> 00:46:10,000 So you know, that obviously wouldn't have happened before 2021. 436 00:46:10,390 --> 00:46:17,440 And I think that a lot of the countries in the region, if you have a if you have entry to Qatar via a match ticket, 437 00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:23,709 all the other countries are dropping their visa requirements. So you can go to Iran for free, you can go to Saudi for free. 438 00:46:23,710 --> 00:46:29,590 And I think that they already a lot of funds are going to stay in Dubai and fly in because Dubai 439 00:46:29,590 --> 00:46:35,290 obviously has far more infrastructure in terms of hotels and also is just more well known. 440 00:46:35,590 --> 00:46:40,149 So the region has really since the blockade has ended, 441 00:46:40,150 --> 00:46:45,970 it's really stepped up its game in terms of trying to and I think it's driven by wanting to piggyback off the back of it. 442 00:46:46,090 --> 00:46:52,480 I spoke to a hotel manager in Qatar who said that Dubai is the main winner of this actually because Qatar hasn't. 443 00:46:52,750 --> 00:46:59,770 Qatar's been quite slow in providing non expensive accommodation options and by the by the time they have the now, 444 00:46:59,980 --> 00:47:03,670 but the funds already make their plans and a lot of them have basically said, stop this, 445 00:47:03,670 --> 00:47:08,440 I'll stay in Dubai, I'll fly in for the games that is County Dubai at work yet again. 446 00:47:08,890 --> 00:47:12,370 They're always able to take advantage of whatever opportunity comes their way. 447 00:47:12,640 --> 00:47:15,010 Okay. John McCain's.