Counter Revolution

The Pearl at Night

Qatar recently withdrew the liquor license for a free area, The Pearl, where expats would go to have dinner and a glass of wine/cold beer/fruity cocktail.  It's a residential, shopping and restaurant filled area that, up until about a month ago, was a favorite for just about everyone from West of Istanbul (Not Constantinople).  You can read up on all of the details here.  "Here" just so happens to be a link to the Wall Street Journal that discusses how the surging wave of western culture across the Middle East is being challenged by the Wahhabi counter-revolution.

I live here.  I work here.  I would venture to say that 90% of the people I work with or that we have as clients are expatriates.  I don't think its a good thing to take away something that most of those people would describe as a necessary part of their quality of life.

I also don't think its a good idea to be so short sighted that you can't see the forest for the trees.  Did the Qataris really think they could have restaurants, and bars that serve alcohol and not have the expats get ridiculous and some locals so tempted they can't resist?  Have they never been to London on a Friday night?  Or known an Australian on any given weekday?

There is no counter-revolution.  There is a bunch of men with power shooting themselves in the foot.  You can't have the World Cup and Wahhabi-ism too.  They just don't jive.

Jumping on the bandwagon.

Good morning (my time), ladies and gents.  Happy New Year!  It's that time of year again.  The time of the year where I jump on the age-old bandwagon and promise to write more often, consume fewer calories, actually see the inside of a gym, worry less and pray more.

So in the spirit of fairness (to myself) instead of doing six things at once I'm going to focus on two - writing more and worrying less/praying more. 

New Year's Eve in Qatar was anticlimactic.  All of the NYE parties around here are three or four course dinners help at five star hotels with a champagne toast at midnight.  While that sounds very grown-up and posh and everything two of my siblings are in town and buying 500 Qatari Riyal tickets to these things gets expensive.  Also, we felt like dancing the night away.  Unfortunately, neither was achieved.   We got dressed up and went to a party in our compound and played pub-games on teams (UK vs. the World). Again, unfortunately, the UK won (there are a lot more of them than there are of us).  But William and I made an excellent contribution and won all three of our areas.

Conversely, National Day (December 18th) was awesome.  The Qataris were in true form with Land Cruisers painted like the Qatari flag and covered in glitter, Maserati's with heart stickers all over them, the Emir's face plastered everywhere, and toddlers held high on the roof's of moving vehicles all in honor of the country's founding.  A lot of the expat's we spoke to warned us to "stay away from the Corniche [Qatar's main drag]" or "don't even bother going out".  But we went out, had no problem getting there and finding a spot, thoroughly enjoyed tea at the Four Seasons and then saw the greatest fireworks display of our lives.  I'm so glad we took absolutely none of their advice.

We're still thankful for the experiences we get to have here, and Qatar is still very enjoyable though its getting harder and harder to stay optimistic.  It seems like all that anybody wants to do is be as hateful of Americans as they possibly can, and then turn around and put on their Aviators and leather jackets so they look like they're in Top Gun, drive GMC's and listen to our music (Euro-Pop isn't all that popular around here... it's all Katy Perry and Lady Gaga).  The hypocrisy of it is stifling.  Half of the guys are in love with LeBron James and the other half can't get enough of The Situation.  Part of me wishes there was a better part of American culture for them to be obsessed with and the other part wishes they'd just leave it all alone and stick to looking/being/sounding like themselves instead of Americans.  Though, once the argument in my head finally gets down to the point, they hate us because they want to be us so badly... so as far as I'm concerned, I'm the luckiest girl in the world.

Again, Happy New Year everybody.  Here's to seeing you on the regular.