Wahhabism vs. Wahhabism: Qatar Challenges Saudi Arabia
As Saudi Arabia seeks to inoculate itself against the push for greater
freedom, transparency and accountability sweeping the Middle East and North
Africa, a major challenge to the kingdom’s puritan interpretation of Islam
sits on its doorstep: Qatar, notes James M. Dorsey.
13/07/2014
Introduction
As Saudi Arabia seeks to inoculate itself against the push for greater
freedom, transparency and accountability sweeping the Middle East and North
Africa, a major challenge to the kingdom’s puritan interpretation of Islam
sits on its doorstep: Qatar, the only other country whose native population
is Wahhabi and that adheres to the Wahhabi creed. It is a challenge that is
rooted in historical tensions that go back to Qatari efforts in the
nineteenth century to carve out an identity of its own. It also stems from
long-standing differences in religious interpretations that are traceable to
Qatar’s geography, patterns of trade and history; and a partially deliberate
failure to groom a class of popular Muslim legal scholars of its own. More
recently, Qatar’s development of an activist foreign policy promoting
Islamist-led political change in the Middle East and North Africa as well as
a soft power strategy designed to reduce its dependence on a Saudi defence
umbrella was prompted by a perception that it no longer can assume that the
kingdom would be able to effectively protect it. Although long existent, the
challenge has never been as stark as it is now, at a time of massive change
in the region. The differences are being fought out in Syria and Arab
nations who, have in recent years, toppled their autocratic leaders, Egypt
being one of the first and foremost.
While the differences in social, foreign and security policies cannot be
hidden, Qatar, which hosts the largest U.S. military base in the Middle
East, and Saudi Arabia have nevertheless moved in recent years from a cold
war to a modicum of good neighbourly relations and cooperation with clearly
defined albeit unspoken red lines to outright proxy confrontation. In the
process, Qatar has emerged as living proof that Wahhabism, the puritan
version of Islam developed by the eighteenth century preacher, Mohammed
Abdul Wahhab, that dictates life in Saudi Arabia since its creation, can be
somewhat forward and outward looking rather than repressive and restrictive.
It is a testimony that is by definition subversive and is likely to serve
much more than the case of freewheeling Dubai as an inspiration for
conservative Saudi society that acknowledges its roots but in which various
social groups are increasingly voicing their desire for change. The
subversive nature of Qatar’s approach is symbolized by its long-standing,
deep-seated ties to the Muslim Brotherhood that faces one of its most
serious litmus tests at a time of the ascension of a new emir and a
successful Saudi counter-revolutionary campaign that helped topple the
government of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in July 2013, and that same
month, curtailed Qatari influence within the rebel movement opposed to
embattled Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Everything but a Mirror Image
A multi-domed, sand-coloured, architectural marvel, Doha’s newest and
biggest mosque, symbolizes Qatar’s complex and volatile relationship with
Saudi Arabia as well as its bold soft power policy designed to propel it to
the cutting edge of the twenty first century. It is not the mosque itself
that has raised eyebrows but its naming after an eighteenth century warrior
priest, Sheikh Mohammed Abdul Wahhab, the founder of Islam’s most puritan
sect.
The naming of the mosque that overlooks the Qatar Sports Club in Doha’s
Jubailat district was intended to pacify more traditional segments of Qatari
society as well as Saudi Arabia, which sees the tiny Gulf state, the only
other country whose native population is Wahhabi, as a troublesome and
dangerous gadfly on its doorstep challenging its puritan interpretation of
Islam as well as its counterrevolutionary strategy in the Middle East and
North Africa. Qatar’s social revolution in the past two decades challenges
Saudi efforts to maintain as much as possible of its status quo while
impregnating itself against the push for greater freedom, transparency and
accountability sweeping the region. By naming the mosque after Abdul Wahhab,
Qatar reaffirmed its adherence to the Wahhabi creed that goes back to
nineteenth century Saudi support and the ultimate rise to dominance of the
Al Thani clan, the country’s hereditary monarchs until today who account for
an estimated twenty per cent of the population.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn1> [1]
Yet, despite being a traditional Gulf state, Qatari conservatism is
everything but a mirror image of Saudi Arabia’s stark way of life with its
powerful, conservative clergy, absolute gender segregation; total ban on
alcohol and houses of worship for adherents of other religions, and refusal
to accommodate alternative lifestyles or religious practices. Qataris
privately distinguish between their “Wahhabism of the sea” as opposed to
Saudi Arabia’s “Wahhabism of the land,” a reference to the fact that the
Saudi government has less control of an empowered clergy compared to Qatar
that has no indigenous clergy with a social base to speak of; a Saudi
history of tribal strife over oases as opposed to one of communal life in
Qatar, and Qatar’s outward looking maritime trade history. Political
scientists Birol Baskan and Steven Wright argue that on a political level,
Qatar has a secular character similar to Turkey and in sharp contrast to
Saudi Arabia, which they attribute to Qatar’s lack of a class of Muslim
legal scholars. <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn2> [2] The absence
of scholars was in part a reflection of Qatari ambivalence towards Wahhabism
that it viewed as both an opportunity and a threat: on the one hand it
served as a tool to legitimise domestic rule, on the other it was a
potential monkey wrench Saudi Arabia could employ to assert control. Opting
to generate a clerical class of its own would have enhanced the threat
because Qatar would have been dependent on Saudi clergymen to develop its
own. That would have produced a clergy steeped in the kingdom’s austere
theology and inspired by its history of political power-sharing that would
have advocated a Saudi-style, state-defined form of political Islam.
By steering clear of the grooming of an indigenous clergy of their own,
Qatari leaders ensured that they had greater maneuverability.by ensuring
that they did not have to give a clergy a say in political and social
affairs. As a result, Qatar lacks the institutions that often hold the
kingdom back. In contrast to Saudi Arabia, Qatari rulers do not derive their
legitimacy from a clerical class. Qatar’s College of Sharia (Islamic Law)
was established only in 1973 and the majority of its students remain women
who become teachers or employees of the endowments ministry rather than
clergymen. <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn3> [3] Similarly, Qatar
does not have a religious force that polices public morality. Nor are any of
its families known for producing religious scholars. Qatari religious
schools are run by the ministry of education not as in the Saudi kingdom by
the religious affairs authority. They are staffed by expatriates rather than
Qataris and attended by less than one per cent of the total student body and
only ten per cent of those are Qatari nationals.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn4> [4] Similarly, Qatari religious
authority is not institutionally vested. Qatar has for example no Grand
Mufti as does Saudi Arabia and various other Arab nations; it only created a
ministry of Islamic Affairs and Endowments 22 years after achieving
independence.
The lack of influential native religious scholars allowed Qatar to advance
women in society, and enable them to drive and travel independently; permit
non-Muslims to consume alcohol and pork; sponsor Western arts like the
Tribeca Film Festival; develop world-class art museums; host the Al Jazeera
television network that revolutionized the region’s controlled media
landscape and has become one of the world’s foremost global broadcasters;,
and prepare to accommodate Western soccer fans with un-Islamic practices
during the 2022 World Cup. The absence of an indigenous clerical class
risked enhancing the influence of Saudi and other foreign scholars,
particularly among more conservative segments of Qatari society.
In doing so, Qatar projects to young Saudis and others a vision of a less
restrictive and less choking conservative Wahhabi society that grants
individuals irrespective of gender a greater degree of control over their
lives. Qatari women, in the mid-1990s, were like in Saudi Arabia: banned
from driving, voting or holding government jobs. Today, they occupy
prominent positions in multiple sectors of society in what effectively
amounted to a social revolution. It’s a picture that juxtaposes starkly with
that of its only Wahhabi brother. In doing so, Qatar threw down a gauntlet
for the kingdom’s interpretation of nominally shared religious and cultural
beliefs. "I consider myself a good Wahhabi and can still be modern,
understanding Islam in an open way. We take into account the changes in the
world and do not have the closed-minded mentality as they do in Saudi
Arabia,” Abdelhameed Al Ansari, the dean of Qatar University's College of
Sharia, a leader of the paradigm shift, told The Wall Street Journal in
2002. <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn5> [5] Twenty years earlier Al
Ansari was denounced as an "apostate" by Qatar's Saudi-trained chief
religious judge for advocating women’s rights. "All those people who
attacked me, most of them have died, and the rest keep quiet," Al Ansari
said.
Qatar’s long-standing projection of an alternative is particularly sensitive
at a time that Saudi Arabia is implicitly debating the very fundaments of
the social and political arrangements that the Qataris call into question.
The kingdom’s conservative ulema and Salafis worry that key members of the
ruling family, including King Abdullah; his son, Prince Mutaib, who heads
the National Guard; and Prince Turki al-Faisal, former head of intelligence
and ambassador to the United States and Britain, are toying with the idea of
a separation of state and religion in a state that was founded on a pact
between the ruling Al-Sauds and the clergy and sees itself as the model of
Islamic rule. The clergy voiced its concern in the spring of 2013 in a
meeting with the king two days after Prince Mutaib declared that “religion
(should) not enter into politics.” Prince Turki first hinted at possible
separation 11 years ago when he cited verse 4:59 of the Quran: “O you who
have believed, obey God and obey the Messenger and those in authority among
you.” Prince Turki suggested that the verse referred exclusively to temporal
authority rather than both religious and political authority. Responding to
Prince Mutaib in a tweet, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz al-Tarifi warned
that “whoever says there is no relationship between religion and politics
worships two gods, one in the heavens and one on earth.”
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn6> [6]
To be sure, Qatar’s greater liberalism hardly means freedoms as defined in
Western societies. Qatar’s former emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who
abdicated in June 2013 in favour of his son, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al
Khalifa, silenced opposition to reforms. Sheikh Hamad, for example, arrested
in 1998 the religious scholar, Abdulrahman al Nuaimi, who criticized his
advancement of women rights. Al Nuaimi was released three years later on
condition that he no longer would speak out publicly. Qatari poet Muhammad
Ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami, was sentenced in November 2011 to life in prison in
what legal and human rights activists said was a “grossly unfair trial that
flagrantly violates the right to free expression” on charges of “inciting
the overthrow of the ruling regime.” His sentence was subsequently reduced
to 15 years in prison. Al-Ajami’s crime appeared to be a poem that he wrote,
as well as his earlier recitation of poems that included passages
disparaging senior members of Qatar’s ruling family. The poem was entitled
“Tunisian Jasmine”. It celebrated the overthrow of Tunisian president Zine
El Abidine Ben Ali. A draft media law approved by the Qatari cabinet would
prohibit publishing or broadcasting information that would “throw relations
between the state and the Arab and friendly states into confusion” or “abuse
the regime or offend the ruling family or cause serious harm to the national
or higher interests of the state.” Violators would face stiff financial
penalties of up to one million Qatari riyals (US $275,000).
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn7> [7] In a rare public criticism,
Qatari journalists demanded in June 2013 greater freedoms and criticized the
absence of a media law and press association.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn8> [8]
Ring-fencing the Gulf
With the reforms and their implicit challenge to the kingdom
notwithstanding, Qatar shares with Saudi Arabia a firm will to ring-fence
the Gulf against the popular uprisings in other parts of the Middle East and
North Africa. The two countries’ diverging world views have however
manifested themselves in differing approaches towards the popular revolts
and protests sweeping the region. While Saudi Arabia has adjusted to
regional change on a reactive case-by-case basis by recently launching a
successful counter-revolutionary effort in Egypt and trying to counter the
Brotherhood’s influence among Syria rebels, Qatar has sought to embrace it
head on as long as it is not at home or in its Gulf neighbourhood. For that
reason, Qatar supported the dispatch to Bahrain in 2011 of a Saudi-led force
to help quell a popular uprising in its own backyard.
The rift between Saudi Arabia and its major Gulf allies was evident in a
commentary by Abd al-Rahman Al-Rashed, the general manager of Al Arabiya,
the Saudi network established to counter Qatar’s Al Jazeera. Accusing Qatar,
the only Gulf state critical of the Egyptian military’s crackdown, of
fuelling the flames of the Muslim Brotherhood campaign against the Egyptian
military’s toppling of Morsi in the summer of 2013, Al-Rashed wrote: "We
find it really hard to understand Qatar’s political logic in a country
(Egypt) to which it is not linked at the level of regimes or ideologically
or economically. Egyptians in Qatar moreover are only a minority. Qatar’s
insistence that the moving force of the army and Egyptian political parties
accept the Brotherhood’s demands is not only impossible but also has
dangerous repercussions. Supporting the Brotherhood at this current phase
increases (the Brotherhood’s) stubborn insistence to stick to its guns and
creates an extremely dangerous situation. So why is Qatar doing it? We
really don’t understand why! Historically and over a period of around 20
years, Qatar has always adopted stances that oppose the positions of its
Gulf brothers, and all of Qatar’s opposing policies have ended up
unsuccessful.” <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn9> [9] In scathing
remarks criticizing those opposed to the Egyptian military’s removal of
Morsi, Saudi King Abdullah referred to Qatar without naming it: “Let it be
known to those who interfered in Egypt’s internal affairs that they
themselves are fanning the fire of sedition and are promoting the terrorism
which they call for fighting, I hope they will come to their senses before
it is too late; for the Egypt of Islam, Arabism, and honourable history will
not be altered by what some may say or what positions others may take.” the
monarch said. <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn10> [10]
By maintaining support for the Brotherhood as it fought for its survival,
Qatar aligned itself with the very Islamists in its own backyard who were
challenging Gulf regimes and that the Saudi-led bloc was seeking to
suppress. In doing so, it also identified with Gulf Islamists who were
exploiting their criticism of Gulf backing of the Egyptian coup to campaign
for increased support for anti-Assad rebels in Syria.by comparing Egyptian
military leader General Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi to Assad. The often blunt
criticism by Gulf Islamists speaking from the pulpit in mosques and on
Twitter resonated with the public, as tweets and videos of sermons went
viral. Qatar’s positioning implicitly recognized attempts by Saudi Arabia to
co-opt Islamist forces like the Sahwa, a powerful Islamist network nurtured
by members of the Brotherhood that had supported the government in the early
days of the Arab popular revolts, was failing. The widening rift between the
Islamists and the ruling Al-Saud family was further highlighted by the death
of Mohamed Al Hadlaq, a nephew of the kingdom’s terrorist rehabilitation
program who died in Syria fighting as part of a jihadist rebel group.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn11> [11]
The Brotherhood, the only organized opposition force in the kingdom, albeit
clandestinely, stands at the core of differences between Qatar and Saudi
Arabia over Syria even though they coordinated to become the first Arab
states to withdraw their ambassadors from Damascus in 2011. Their divergence
over the Brotherhood posed however a dilemma for the kingdom which
gravitated towards more secular as well as Salafi rebels in its bid to
topple Assad’s secular Alawite (read Shiite and heretic in Saudi eyes)
regime; weaken Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah; and thwart a power grab by the
Syrian Brotherhood. Support of Salafi forces risked a repeat the fallout of
Saudi aid to Afghan mujahedeen fighting the Soviets in the 1980s who once
intoxicated by their defeat of a superpower turned against the kingdom and
its allies. In contrast to the kingdom, Qatar has proven more willing to
risk engagement with jihadi groups on the grounds that its priority was to
see the Assad regime overthrown sooner than later and that their exclusion
would only aggravate Syria’s grief. “I am very much against excluding anyone
at this stage, or bracketing them as terrorists, or bracketing them as
al-Qaeda. What we are doing is only creating a sleeping monster, and this is
wrong. We should bring them all together, we should treat them all equally,
and we should work on them to change their ideology, i.e. put more effort
altogether to change their thinking. If we exclude anything from the Syrian
elements today, we are only doing worse to Syria. Then we are opening the
door again for intervention to chase the monster,” Qatari Minister of State
for Foreign Affairs Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah told an international
security conference in Manama in late December 2012. The official played
down the jihadi character of some of the Syrian rebel groups. “They are only
close to God now because what they are seeing from blood – and I am saying
this for all of Syria. Muslims, Christians, Jews – whenever they have a
crisis, they come close to God. This is the nature of man. If we see that
someone is calling Allahu Akbar (God is great), the other soldier from the
regime is also calling Allahu Akbar when he faces him. This is not a sign of
extremism or terrorism,” Al-Attiyah said.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn12> [12]
The fundamentally different strategies of self-preservation of Qatar and the
Gulf states are rooted in a Qatari perception that the role of the Saudi
clergy in policymaking has resulted in Saudi Arabia failing in its ambition
to provide the region with vision and effective leadership that would have
allowed it to perhaps pre-empt the wave of change and resolve problems on
its own. That perception has reinforced Qatar’s raison d’etre: a state that
maintains its distinction and tribal independence from the region’s
behemoth, Saudi Arabia, with whom it is entangled in regional shadow boxing
match.
While the ruling families of both have sought to buffer themselves against
protests by boosting social spending, Saudi Arabia has opted for maintenance
of the status quo wherever possible and limited engagement with the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt, Syria and elsewhere, overshadowed by its deep-seated
distrust of the group. Saudi Arabia’s attitude towards the Brotherhood is
informed by a fear that Islamic government in other nations could threaten
its political and religious claim to leadership of the Muslim world based on
the fact that it is home to Mecca and Medina, Islam’s two holiest cities,
its puritan interpretation of Islamic dogma, and its self-image as a nation
ruled on the basis of Islamic law with the Quran as its constitution. The
threat posed by the Brotherhood and Qatari promotion of political activism
is reinforced by the fact that concepts of violent jihad have largely been
replaced by Islamist civic action across the Middle East and North Africa in
demand of civil, human and political rights. That hits close to home. Saudi
efforts to co-opt the Sahwa movement in the kingdom whose positions are akin
to those of the Brotherhood have only succeeded partially. Sahwa leader
Salman al-Odeh warned the government in an open letter in March 2013 against
ignoring widespread public discontent.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn13> [13]
By contrast, Qatar’s pragmatic relationship to Wahhabism eased the early
forging of a close relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood. Qatar’s ties to
the Brotherhood may be less motivated by ideology than by a determination to
distinguish itself from the kingdom and back what at times appeared to be a
winning horse. Ironically, Qatar is joined by Bahrain, one of, if not the
Gulf state closest to Saudi Arabia, in bucking the region’s trend and
maintaining close ties to the Brotherhood. The Bahraini Brotherhood’s
political arm, the Al-Minbar Islamic Society, has been allowed to operate
openly. The group, which has largely supported the government, is widely
believed to be funded by the island’s minority Sunni Muslim ruling family
and Islamic finance sector in a bid to counter political forces that
represent its Shiite Muslim majority.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn14> [14]
Qatar’s relationship with the Brotherhood was moreover facilitated by the
fact that key figures from the group like Egyptian-born Yusuf Al Qaradawi, a
major influence in a country with no real clergy of its own, Libyan imam Ali
Al Salabi, fellow Egyptian Sheikh Ahmed Assal and Sheikh Abdel Moez Abdul
Sattar have had a base in exile in Doha for decades. Qaradawi, who has been
resident in Doha since the 1970s, wields intellectual and theological
influence within the Brotherhood but insists that he is not a member. "Saudi
Arabia has Mecca and Medina. We have Qaradawi -- and all his daughters drive
cars and work,” said former Qatari justice minister and prominent lawyer
Najeeb al Nauimi. <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn15> [15]
Qaradawi, a controversial figure in the West, is widely credited for Qatar’s
early backing of opponents to Syrian president Assad. He noted in the early
days of the Syrian uprising that historic links between Egypt and Syria put
Syria in protesters’ firing line.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn16> [16] Qaradawi was immediately
accused by Syrian officials of fostering sectarianism.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn17> [17] The Qatari support ended
the close ties Hamad had forged in the first decade of the twenty first
century as a result of his strained relations with the Saudis with Assad, a
leader of the more radical bloc in the Arab world.
Qaradawi took his advocacy of resistance to Assad a significant step further
by effectively endorsing the sectarian Sunni-Shia Muslim divide in a speech
in late May 2013 before the ascension of Tamim, who under his father was
Qatar’s main interlocutor with the kingdom. By doing so, Qaradawi hinted at
a possible change in Qatari policy once Tamim took over the reins. In line
with Saudi encouragement of the divide between Sunni and Shia Muslims,
Qaradawi urged Muslims with military training to join the anti-Bashar
al-Assad struggle in Syria. His condemnation of Lebanese Shiite Muslim
militia Hezbollah (Party of God) as the “party of Satan” was immediately
endorsed by Saudi grand mufti Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, as was his assertion
that al-Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam, was "more infidel
than Christians and Jews." In a surprising gesture to Saudi Arabia, Qaradawi
went on to say that "I defended the so-called (Hezbollah leader Hassan)
Nasrallah and his party, the party of tyranny... in front of clerics in
Saudi Arabia. It seems that the clerics of Saudi Arabia were more mature
than me." <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn18> [18]
Promoting Islamist Activism
Ironically, the setting up of Qatar’s state-owned Al Jazeera television
network which handles Gulf states with velvet gloves, parallels the
structuring of the Gulf state’s ties to the Brotherhood: the group, which
dismantled its operations in Qatar in the late 1990s, was allowed to operate
everywhere except for in Qatar itself. Instead of allowing a Qatari branch
of the Brotherhood, Qatar moved to fund institutions that were designed to
foster a generation of activists in the Middle East and North Africa as well
as to guide the Brotherhood in its transition from a clandestine to a public
group. Former Qatari Brother Jassim Al-Sultan established the Al-Nahda
(Awakening) Project <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn19> [19] to
promote Islamist activism within democracies. A medical doctor, Al-Sultan
has since the dissolution of the group in Qatar advised the Brotherhood to
reach out to other groups rather than stick to its strategy of building
power bases within existing institutions. He has also criticized the
Brotherhood for insisting on its slogan, ‘Islam is the Solution.’ Al Nahda
cooperates closely with the London and Doha-based Academy of Change (AOC)
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn20> [20] that focuses on the study
of “social, cultural, and political transformations especially in the Arabic
and Islamic region.” AOC appears to be modelled on Otoper, the Serbian youth
movement that toppled President Slobodan Milosevic and has since transformed
itself into a training ground for non-violent protest. The Brotherhood
campaigned for AOC founder Hisham Morsy’s release after he was detained
during the popular revolt in 2011 that toppled Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak.
The threat to Saudi Arabia posed by Qatar’s fostering of popular protest was
compounded by the nature of the social contract in the kingdom and other
energy-rich rentier Gulf states. The state’s generous cradle-to-grave
welfare and social and no taxation policy approach in exchange for the
surrender of political rights meant that the Brotherhood challenged ruling
families on issues that they were most vulnerable to: culture, ideology and
civic society. The Qatari government’s support of Al Nahda and AOC was part
of its effort, in contrast to other Gulf states, to control the world of
national non-governmental organizations. In doing so, it targeted what,
according to Hootan Shambayati, effectively amounts to the Gulf states’
Achilles Heel. “The rentier nature of the state limited the regime's ability
to legitimize itself through its economic performance… Consequently, culture
and moral values became sources of conflict between the state and segments
of the civil society,” Shambayati wrote.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn21> [21] The government’s support
for activists paralleled Qatar’s earlier bypassing of Arab elites by
initially appealing to the public across the region with its groundbreaking
free-wheeling reporting and debate on Al Jazeera that, at its peak,
captivated an Arabic speaking audience of 60 million.
Sharpening the Rivalry
Beyond historic differences in religious experience and practice, two more
events sharpened the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Qatar: the 1991
U.S.-led expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait and the rise to power in a
1995 bloodless coup of Sheikh Hamad. The U.S.-led invasion called into
question Qatar’s alignment with Saudi Arabia since its independence in 1971,
which involved Saudi’s guarantee to protect the tiny emirate. To the
Qataris, the invasion demonstrated that Qatar could not rely, for its
defence, on a country that was not capable of defending itself. That
realization coupled with Kuwait’s ability to rally the international
community to its assistance reinforced Hamad’s belief that Qatar’s security
was best enhanced by embedding and branding itself in the international
community as a cutting-edge, moderate, knowledge-based nation.
The rift with the kingdom was further widened by Saudi outrage at a son
revolting against his father that translated into efforts to undermine the
new ruler, including attempts to unseat him, sabotage Qatar’s endeavours to
export natural gas to other states in the region, and build a bridge linking
it with the United Arab Emirates. By all accounts, Hamad’s voluntary
abdication in favour of Tamim should have provoked similar ire from the
Saudis in a region in which rulers hang on to power until death even if they
at times have experienced a deterioration of health that has incapacitated
them not only physically but also mentally. One reason it may not is the
fact that Saudi officials appreciated Tamim’s more accommodating interaction
with them and the fact that his ascension held out the hope of a down toning
of the activist and adventurist nature of his father’s foreign policy.
Relations between the two countries had nonetheless already virtually
ruptured before Hamad’s 1995 coup after border skirmishes in 1992 and 1994
rooted in long-standing disputes over Saudi projections of itself as first
among the region’s Bedouins. They further deteriorated as a result of
several allegedly Saudi-backed coup attempts in the late 1990s. The attempts
prompted Qatar to strip some 6,000 members of the Al-Gufran clan of their
Qatari nationalities because they had patrolled the border on behalf of the
Saudis. <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn22> [22]
The deteriorating relationship with its big brother made it even more
imperative for Qatar to strike out on its own – the very thing Saudi Arabia
thought to thwart. A struggle for a multi-billion dollar Qatari project to
supply gas to Kuwait symbolized Saudi power. Asked in 2003 why the Kuwait
project was stalled, then Qatar’s industry and energy minister Abdullah Bin
Hamad Al-Attiyah said: "We have received no clearance from Saudi Arabia.
Hence it is not feasible." <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn23> [23]
It took a rollercoaster of repeated Saudi denials and approvals for the
project to be finally completed in 2008.
If the natural gas deal was emblematic of Qatari-Saudi relations, so was a
London libel case in which the wife of the wife of the former and mother of
the new emir, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al-Missned, sued Saudi-owned Ash
Sharq al Awsat newspaper for falsely reporting that her husband had secretly
visited Israel. In her petition to the court, the Sheikha charged that the
paper was "controlled by Saudi intelligence paymasters who used the
newspaper as a mouthpiece for a propaganda campaign against Qatar and its
leadership." <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn24> [24]
Saudi and Qatari national interests diverge further when it comes to Iran,
with whom Qatar shares the world’s largest gas field. Saudi Arabia sees Iran
as a major rival that is instigating civil unrest in the region. It is also
the spiritual home of the Shiites, the sect most despised by Saudi Wahhabis.
To navigate this minefield, Qatar has projected itself in the first decade
of the twenty first century as the mediator of the wider region’s conflicts
and prompted it to forge relationships with other Saudi nemeses such as
Israel and Hezbollah.
Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, when he was still crown prince, refused
to attend an Arab summit in 2000 because of the presence of an Israeli trade
office in Doha. The appearance of Saudi dissidents on Al Jazeera two years
later persuaded the kingdom to withdraw its ambassador to Qatar. In 2009,
the two countries held rival Arab summits within a day of each other despite
an improvement in relations in the two preceding years that included a deal
allowing Al Jazeera to open a bureau in Riyadh provided it did not air
dissident Saudi voices. Seemingly improved relations were highlighted when
the emir amnestied several Qataris-turned Saudi nationals convicted of their
alleged involvement in the 1996 Saudi-inspired coup attempts.
The improvement in relations was a reflection of Saudi leverage. That
leverage was enhanced by Qatar’s own success in deploying soft power. The
winning of the hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup meant, for example,
that Qatar needed to project stability in its backyard. Saudi Arabia could
undermine that perception. Support for the Syrian rebels had a similar
potential downside. Qatari backing could backfire on its relations with
Iran, driving Qatar in turn closer to the kingdom. While a majority of
Qataris are likely to back improved relations, they also appeared to remain
ambiguous. Qataris participating in a 2009 broadcast of the BBC’s Doha
Debates overwhelmingly described their country’s relations with the kingdom
as a ‘cold war.’ <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn25> [25] University
students often glorify past Qatari tribal defence of Qatar’s only land
border that separates it from Saudi Arabia.
Finally, while few have any doubt about Saudi Arabia’s policy goals –
maintenance of the status quo to the greatest degree possible, retention of
its leadership role, limiting of the rise of Islamist forces, preservation
of monarchial rule and restrictive political reform – Qatar’s actions have
raised questions about what it is trying to achieve.
Politicians and analysts grappled, for example, to get a grip on how Qatar’s
competition with Saudi Arabia for influence played out in Yemen, a strategic
nation at the southern tip of the peninsular. Questions they were trying to
wrap their heads around included Qatar’s ties to the powerful Islamist
Brotherhood-related Al-Islah movement and its emergence as a mediator in
Yemen. Qatar’s role, for example, in the release of a kidnapped Swiss
teacher <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn26> [26] made it rather than
Saudi Arabia, the go-to-address in a country in which kidnapping for
political and criminal purposes are a fixture of life.
Qatar’s influence in Yemen was both remarkable and sensitive given
long-standing Saudi bankrolling of the government of former President Ali
Abdullah Saleh as well as the country’s major tribes, including the
president’s own tribe, the Hashid tribal confederation. Qatar’s close ties
to the Brotherhood as well as a history of mediation in Yemen dating back to
the 1990s allowed it to make significant inroads into what the Saudis
perceived as their preserve. By competing in Yemen, Qatar benefited from the
fact that it was a tiny nation rather than the region’s giant and was not a
supplier of jihadists to Yemen-based Al Qa’ida in the Arabian Gulf (AQAP).
Qatar’s influence was sufficiently significant to prompt tribal leaders,
including prominent businessmen and politician Hamid al-Ahmar, to balance
their relations between the two Gulf rivals once they broke off with Saleh
during the 2011 popular uprising against him and joined the opposition.
On the back of its relationship with the Brotherhood, Qatar forged ties to
other key Yemeni players, including Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a Muslim
Brother and powerful advisor to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Hadi
succeeded Saleh in 2012 in a deal with the opposition mediated by Gulf
states under Saudi leadership that was designed to preserve the core
structure of the outgoing president’s regime. Qatar initially participated
in the diplomatic effort but later pulled out because of "indecision and
delays in the signature of the proposed agreement" and "the intensity of
clashes" in Yemen. <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn27> [27] In an
interview with Russia today, Saleh had warned a month earlier that "the
state of Qatar is funding chaos in Yemen and in Egypt and Syria and
throughout the Arab world. We reserve the right not to sign (the
Gulf-negotiated deal) if the representatives of Qatar are present" at the
ceremony. <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn28> [28]
The divergence of Qatari and Saudi goals was also symbolized by Qatar’s ties
to Nobel Prize winner and prominent Yemeni activist Tawakkol Karma, who
emerged as the face of the popular revolt against Saleh. Gen. Al Ahmar’s
first armored division, which joined the mass anti-Saleh protesters in early
2011, played a key role in the president’s ultimate demise after 30 years in
office, when it attacked the presidential palace in 2012, killing several
senior officials and severely wounding the embattled Yemeni leader and
various of his key aids. Qatar’s relationship to Al Ahmar dates back to
2008/2009 when it was mediating an end to the armed confrontation with rebel
Houthi tribesmen in the north. The general was the Saleh government’s
negotiator. Qatar further garnered popularity among Saleh’s opponents by
becoming the first Arab country in 2011 to call on the president to step
down in response to the demand of protesters camped out on the capital
Sana’a’s Change Square. In response, Saleh thundered in a speech: “We derive
our legitimacy from the strength of our glorious Yemeni people, not from
Qatar, whose initiative we reject.”
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn29> [29]
Qatar’s success in breaking the Saudi political monopoly in Yemen was
evident to all in July 2013 when Hadi stopped in Doha on his way to
Washington for an official visit. Hadi was accompanied by General Al-Ahmar.
Similarly, when Al Islah leader Muhammad al-Yadumi travelled to Doha in 2012
to thank the government for its support, he did not include Saudi Arabia on
his itinerary. It was a glaring omission given Saudi Arabia’s key role in
brokering the agreement that eased Saleh out of office.
Turning the Page?
When Tamim took over the reins of power in June 2013, he inherited a state
that his father ensured was tightly controlled by his wing of the Al Thanis.
Hamad created institutions and government offices that were populated by
loyalists as well as his offspring and bore the characteristics of
autocracy: centralized and personalized decision-making, reliance on
patronage networks and an absence of transparency and accountability.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn30> [30]
Few Qataris question the achievements of Hamad. With those accomplishments
notwithstanding, conservative segments of Qatari society, with whom Sheikh
Tamim at times appeared to empathize, have questioned some of the side
effects of the former emir’s policies, including:
Huge expenditure on a bold foreign policy that put Qatar at the forefront of
regional demands for greater freedom and change but also earned it
significant criticism and embarrassment;
Unfulfilled promises of change at home that would give Qataris a greater say
in their country’s affairs;
A stark increase in foreign labor to complete ambitious infrastructure
projects, many of which are World Cup-related, that have exposed Qatar for
the first time to real external pressure for social change;
More liberal catering to Western expatriates by allowing the controlled sale
of alcohol and pork;
Potential tacit concessions Qatar may have to make to non-Muslim soccer fans
during the World Cup, including expanded areas where consumption of alcohol
will be allowed, public rowdiness and dress codes largely unseen in the Gulf
state, and the presence of gays.
A discussion in Qatar about possibly transferring ownership of soccer clubs
from prominent Qataris, including members of the ruling family, to publicly
held companies because of lack of Qatari interest in “the sheikh’s club”
illustrates a degree of sensitivity to popular criticism.
Tamim has however enhanced his popularity by his close relationship to
Qatari tribes, his upholding of Islamic morals, exemplified by the fact that
alcohol is not served in luxury hotels that he owns, and his accessibility
similar to that of Saudi King Abdullah. Tamim was also the driving force
behind the replacement in 2012 of English by Arabic as the main language of
instruction at Qatar University. He is further believed to have been
empathetic to unprecedented on-line protest campaigns by Qatari activists
against the state-owned telecommunications company and Qatar Airways. Hamad
appeared to anticipate a potentially different tone under Tamim by urging
Qataris “to preserve our civilized traditional and cultural values.” If
Hamad used initial promises of greater liberalization to garner support
within his fractured tribe, one of the first to settle in Qatar in the
eighteenth century, Tamim may well employ his conservatism to rally the
wagons.
The Saudi counter-revolutionary campaign in Egypt and Syria, barely a month
after Tamim’s ascension, constituted a serious foreign policy crisis for the
new emir. The Saudi-backed coup in Egypt was Saudi Arabia’s third successful
counter-revolutionary strike in a matter of weeks against the wave of change
in the Middle East and North Africa, and its most important defeat of Qatari
support of popular revolts and the Brotherhood. As the anti-Morsi protests
erupted in Egypt, Qatari-backed Syrian National Council (SNC) Prime
Minister-in-exile Ghassan Hitto resigned under Saudi pressure, and
Saudi-backed Ahmed Assi Al-Jerba defeated his Qatar-supported rival, Adib
Shishakly, in SNC presidential elections. Earlier, Saudi Arabia succeeded in
restricting Qatari support for the Brotherhood within the SNC and the Free
Syrian Army as well as for more radical Islamists by agreeing with the Obama
administration that it would be allowed to supply non-US surface-to-air
missiles to Syrian rebels as long as distribution is handled by the rebel
Supreme Military Council to ensure that weapons did not flow to jihadist
forces. Qatar is likely to have little choice but to follow suit. The Saudi
success followed its support in crushing a popular uprising in 2011 in
Bahrain, massive financial assistance to less wealthy fellow monarchs in
Oman, Jordan, and Morocco, and its effort to dominate transition in Yemen
after the fall of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The stakes for Saudi Arabia and Qatar in Egypt were high. A successful
Brotherhood-led democratic transition would have cemented the success of
popular uprisings and alongside Turkey the role of Islamists in implementing
change. It would have also restored Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous
nation, to its traditional leadership role in the region in competition with
Saudi Arabia. Thwarting the revolt and the Brotherhood would not only
eliminate these threats but constitute a substantial bodily blow to Qatari
encouragement of change in the Middle East and North Africa.
The Saudi’s moves left Qatar with little choice but to congratulate the
Egyptian military on its intervention, asserting that it accepted the will
of the Egyptian people. But unlike Saudi Arabia and the fiercely
anti-Islamist United Arab Emirates, who remained silent after the killing,
days after the coup of 54 Morsi supporters by Egyptian security, and granted
Egypt a day later $8 billion in grants and loans, Qatar in a bid to retain
its independent position expressed regret at the incident but urged
self-restraint and dialogue. At about the same time, Qaradawi, who runs one
of Al Jazeera’s most popular shows, “Ash-Shariah wal-Hayat” (Sharia and
Life), <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn31> [31] called on the
network and in a fatwa issued in Doha for Morsi’s reinstatement. Qaradawi
declared the coup unconstitutional and in violation of Islamic law.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn32> [32] Ironically, Qaradawi’s own
son, Abdelrahman Al-Qaradawi, took his own father to task on his support for
Morsi. Abdelrahman noted that Qaradawi had long argued that a ruler is bound
by the opinion of a majority of those who swear loyalty to him. He argued
further that the sheikh had taught him that freedom superseded Islamic law.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn33> [33]
Saudi countering of Qatari policy followed a gradual turning of the tide in
countries where it had helped topple an autocratic leader. Yemeni President
Saleh rejected Qatari participation in the Saudi-led Gulf effort to resolve
the crisis in his country after Qatar became the first regional power to
call for his resignation. Qatari funding of multiple armed Islamist groups
in Libya sparked outrage after documents were discovered disclosing the
extent of its support. Then oil and finance minister Ali Tarhouni made a
thinly veiled reference to Qatar when he declared in October 2011 that “it’s
time we publicly declare that anyone who wants to come to our house has to
knock on our front door first.” <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn34>
[34] A month later, relations with Algeria turned sour after Hamad,
according to Arab media, warned Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medleci to
“stop defending Syria because your time will come, and perhaps you will need
us.” <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn35> [35] Hamad broke off a
visit to Mauritania in January 2012 hours after arriving in the country
after President Mohammad Ould Abdel Aziz rejected his demand that he
initiate democratic reform and a dialogue with Islamists.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn36> [36]
Qatari foreign policy setbacks are paralleled by Al Jazeera’s mounting
problems resulting from perceptions that it is promoting the Brotherhood
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn37> [37] and changes in the pan-Arab
television market. The network experienced a boom as the primary news source
in the heyday of the Arab revolts that toppled the leaders of Egypt,
Tunisia, Libya and Yemen, but has since seen its viewership numbers decline
with Arabs turning increasingly to a plethora of newly established local
news broadcasters. Market research company Sigma Conseil reported that Al
Jazeera’s market share in Tunisia had dropped from 10.7 per cent in 2011 to
4.8 per cent in 2012 and that the Qatari network was no longer among Egypt’s
ten most watched channels. Tunisia’s 3C Institute of Marketing, Media and
Opinion Studies said that Al Jazeera Sports was the only brand of the
network that ranked in January among the country’s five most watched
channels. Al Jazeera reporters are increasingly harassed as they seek to do
their jobs in countries like Tunisia and Egypt. Protests that erupted after
the 2013 assassination of prominent opposition leader Shukri Belaid charged
that “Al Jazeera is a slave of Qatar,” accusing it of biased reporting on
the murder because of the Gulf state’s support for Ennahada, the country’s
dominant Islamist grouping. <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn38> [38]
In July 2013, Egyptian colleagues expelled Al Jazeera Cairo bureau chief
Abdel Fattah Fayed from a news conference in Cairo organized by the military
and the police against whom the prosecutor general issued an arrest warrant
on charges of threatening national security and public order by airing
inflammatory news. Twenty-two journalists resigned from Al Jazeera’s
Egyptian affiliate days earlier in protest against its alleged bias towards
the Brotherhood.
The Qatari setbacks raise the question of whether the idiosyncratic Gulf
state will be able to sustain its activist support of popular revolts and
endorsement of political Islam in the Middle East and North Africa. They
also call into question Qatar’s continued ability in opposition to Saudi
Arabia to support change in the region as long as it does not occur in the
conservative, oil-rich Gulf’s own backyard.
Sports, a Double Edged Sword
Qatar’s emphasis on soft power contrasts starkly with Saudi Arabia fledgling
attempts to follow suit by among other things staging cultural exhibitions.
The emirate’s strategy like its support for the Brotherhood and popular
revolts in the region and its emphasis on country branding constitutes an
integral part of its foreign and defense policy, designed to put Qatar on
the cutting edge of history and to ensure that the nation is embedded in the
international community in a way that enhances the chances that foreign
nations will come to its aid in a time of need. In doing so, it like the
United Arab Emirates challenges, as Kristian Coates Ulrichsen noted,
traditional academic wisdom on the limits on the ability of small states to
project power and the assumption of an automatic link between size and
power. <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn39> [39]
Qatar’s soft power approach is based on the realization that no matter what
quantity of sophisticated weaponry it purchases or number of foreigners the
Gulf State drafts into its military force, it will not be able to defend
itself, nor can it rely on Saudi Arabia. The approach also stems from
uncertainty over how reliable the United States is as the guarantor of last
resort of its security. That concern has been reinforced by the United
States’ economic problems, its reluctance to engage militarily post-Iraq and
Afghanistan and its likely emergence by the end of this decade as the
world’s largest oil exporter.
Soft power puts Qatar regularly at loggerheads with Saudi Arabia and raises
concerns in the kingdom on how far Qatar may go. The hosting of the 2022
World Cup has already made it more vulnerable to criticism of restrictions
on alcohol consumption, the banning of homosexuality, and working conditions
of foreign labour. Qatar’s responses, particularly with regard to alcohol
and foreign labour, threaten to sharpen differences with the kingdom and
highlight the fact that it is lagging behind in addressing concerns about
foreign workers’ conditions, which in turn, has made it more difficult for
Saudi Arabia to recruit abroad.
Moreover, Qatar’s projection of itself as a global sports hub and the role
of soccer fans in the popular revolts in North Africa has reverberated in
the sports sector in the kingdom particularly with regard to fan power and
women’s sports, reaffirming the role of sports in the development of the
Middle East and North Africa since the late 19th century.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn40> [40]
Qatar and Jordan were driving forces in the launch of a campaign in 2012 by
Middle Eastern soccer associations grouped in the West Asian Football
Federation (WAFF) to put women’s soccer on par with men’s football in a
region in which a woman’s right to play and pursue an athletic career
remains controversial. Saudi Arabia was conspicuously absent at the launch.
The campaign defined “an athletic woman” as “an empowered woman who further
empowers her community.” In a rebuttal of opposition to women’s soccer by
the kingdom and some Islamists across the region, the campaign stressed that
women’s soccer did not demean cultural and traditional values. Contradicting
Saudi policy, the campaign endorsed the principle of a woman’s right to play
soccer irrespective of culture, religion and race; a women’s right to opt
for soccer as a career rather than only as a sport; and soccer’s ability to
promote gender equality and level the playing field on and off the pitch.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn41> [41]
To be sure, Qatar has been slow in encouraging women’s sports, and like
Saudi Arabia, was pressured in 2012 by the International Olympic Committee
to, for the first time, field women at an international tournament during
the London Olympics.
The WAFF campaign came on the back of a Human Rights Watch report
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn42> [42] that accused Saudi Arabia
of kowtowing to assertions by the country's powerful conservative Muslim
clerics that female sports constitute "steps of the devil" that will
encourage immorality and reduce women's chances of meeting the requirements
for marriage. The charges in the report entitled “’Steps of the Devil’ came
on the heels of Saudi Arabia backtracking on a plan to build its first
stadium especially designed to allow women who are currently barred from
attending soccer matches because of the kingdom’s strict public gender
segregation to watch games. The planned stadium was supposed to open in
2014. <
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn43> [43]
Qatar’s endorsement of women’s sports has made Saudi Arabia the only Arab
and virtually the only Muslim state that refuses to embrace the concept.
Spanish consultants developing the kingdom’s first ever national sports plan
were instructed to develop a program for men only.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn44> [44] Opposition to women's
sports is reinforced by the fact that physical education classes are banned
in state-run Saudi girl’s schools. Public sports facilities are exclusively
for men and sports associations offer competitions and support for athletes
in international competitions only to men.
Saudi opposition to women’s sports and participation in international
tournaments was further challenged by a decision by the International
Football Association Board (IFAB), backed by Qatar and other Middle Eastern
soccer associations, to allow women to wear a hijab that met safety and
security standards in international matches. It also came as Saudi women,
encouraged by the winds of change in the region, the advancement of women’s
sports in Qatar and elsewhere and the support of liberal members of the
royal family, were pushing the envelope despite being slammed in Saudi media
“for going against their natural role” and being “shameless” because they
cause embarrassment to their families.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn45> [45]
Similarly, fan pressure forced the resignation of Prince Nawaf bin Feisal in
2012 as head of the Saudi Football Federation (SFF) in an unprecedented move
that echoed the toppling of Arab leaders in which militant soccer fans were
front row players. Nawaf was replaced by a commoner, renowned former soccer
player Ahmed Eid Alharbi, as the first freely chosen head of the SFF in a
country that views free and fair polling as an alien Western concept.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn46> [46] Fan pressure erupted after
Australia's defeat of the kingdom’s football team in a 2014 World Cup
qualifier. Nawaf’s resignation broke a mold in a nation governed as an
absolute monarchy and a region that sees control of soccer as a key tool in
preventing the pitch from becoming a venue for anti-government protests, a
distraction from widespread grievances, and a tool to manipulate national
emotions. It also marked the first time that a member of the ruling elite
saw association with a national team's failure as a risk to be avoided
rather than one best dealt with by firing the coach or in extreme cases like
Saddam Hussein's Iraq or Moammar Qaddafi's Libya, brutally punishing
players.
The Saudi royal family, like autocratic leaders throughout the Middle East
and North Africa, has associated itself with soccer, the only institution in
pre-revolt countries that traditionally evokes the same deep-seated passion
as religion. Nawaf’s resignation constituted the first time an autocratic
regime sought to put the beautiful game at arm’s length while maintaining
control. The ruling family nonetheless retained its grip on sports, with
Nawaf staying on as head of the Saudi Olympic Committee and as the senior
official responsible for youth welfare, on which the SFF depends alongside
television broadcast rights for funding. Major soccer clubs moreover
continue to be the playground of princes who at times micro manage matches
by phoning mid-game their team's coaches with instructions on which players
to replace.
“Words such as freedom of choice, equality, human rights, rational thinking,
democracy and elections, are terms we came to view with high concern and
suspicion. We treat them as alien ideas that are trying to sneak within our
society from the outside world. But last week, an amazing and irregular
event took place, in one of our sporting landmarks. The members of the
General Assembly of the Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF) have
elected through popular voting, their first president,” wrote columnist
Mohammed AlSaif in the Arab News.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn47> [47]
Alharbi, a former goalkeeper of Al Ahli SC, the soccer team of the Red Sea
port of Jeddah, who is widely seen as a reformer and proponent of women’s
soccer, narrowly won the election widely covered by Saudi media. “Saudis
were witnessing for the very first time in their lives a government official
being elected through what they used to consider as a western ballot system.
People eagerly followed a televised presidential debate between the two
candidates the previous day,” AlSaif wrote.
Conclusion
Qatar’s foreign policy and soft power strategy effectively puts it at
loggerheads with Saudi Arabia. Whether the Saudi-Qatari rivalry will
contribute to spark changes in the kingdom or reinforce monarchial autocracy
in the region is likely to be as much decided in Qatar itself as by the
political rivalry between the two elsewhere in the region. Saudi-backed
Qatari conservatives have questioned the emir’s right to rule by decree,
organized online boycotts of state-run companies, and led by the crown
prince, forced Qatar University to replace English with Arabic as the main
language of instruction.
Qatar’s embrace of the Brotherhood, positioning it at the cutting edge of
change across the region in addition to its soft power diplomacy, offers
opportunities for Saudi Arabia to counter what it perceives as a dangerous
policy that the emirate has exploited in Egypt and Syria. Fault lines in
Egypt have deepened with the toppling of President Morsi, weakened Qatar’s
regional influence and made its Brotherhood allies in other Arab nations in
the throes of change reluctant to assume sole government responsibility.
Jordan’s Brotherhood-related Islamic Action Front (IAF) officially boycotted
parliamentary elections in January 2013 because of alleged gerrymandering.
Privately, the IAF, with an eye on Egypt, is believed to have shied away
from getting too big a share of the pie for their taste. Mounting opposition
to the Brotherhood’s ruling Tunisian affiliate, Ennahada, and the
assassination in 2013 of two prominent opposition politician prompted the
Islamists to negotiate their replacement by a government of technocrats.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftn48> [48]
Similarly, Qatar’s victory of the right to host the World Cup may have
opened the Pandora’s Box of demographic change that could reverberate
throughout the Gulf, a region populated by states whose nationals often
constitute minorities in their own countries. Under increasing pressure from
international trade unions which have the clout to make true on a threat to
boycott the 2022 World Cup, the status of foreign nationals could become a
monkey wrench.
Resolution of the dispute with the unions raises the specter of foreigners
gaining greater rights and having a greater stake in countries that have
sought to protect national identity and the rights of local nationals by
ensuring that foreigners do not sprout roots. That effort, so far, goes as
far as soccer clubs opting for near empty stadiums because there are not
enough locals to fill them rather than offering the population at large
something that even remotely could give them a sense of belonging.
As a result, Qatar’s foreign, sports and culture policy seems forward
looking despite Saudi-backed conservative opposition at home and at first
glance appears to put the tiny Gulf state in a category of its own. Yet, the
challenge it poses to Saudi Arabia is increasingly proving to be a challenge
to itself.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref1> [1] Alan J. Fromherz. Qatar,
A Modern History, London , 2012, I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, p. 91
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref2> [2] Birol Baskan and Steven
Wright. 2011. Seeds of Change: Comparing State-Religion Relations in Qatar
and Saudi Arabia, Arab Studies Quarterly, 33(2), 96-111
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref3> [3] Mehran Kamrava, ‘Royal
Factionalism and Political Liberalization in Qatar,’ 2009, Middle East
Journal, Vol:63:3, p. 401-420
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref4> [4] Ibid. Baskan and Wright
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref5> [5] Yaroslav Trofimov.
October 24, 2002, Lifting the Veil: In a Quiet Revolt, Qatar Is Snubbing
Neighboring Saudis, The Wall Street Journal,
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref6> [6] Ibrahim Hatlani, ‘Saudi
Arabia wrestles with its identity,’ July 12, 2013, The Daily Star,
<
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Commentary/2013/Jul-12/223366-saudi-ara
bia-wrestles-with-its-identity.ashx#axzz2Yu58z44W>
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Commentary/2013/Jul-12/223366-saudi-arab
ia-wrestles-with-its-identity.ashx#axzz2Yu58z44W
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref7> [7] James M. Dorsey, ‘Persian
Gulf Futures,’ Global Brief, March 5, 2013,
<
http://globalbrief.ca/blog/2013/03/05/persian-gulf-futures/>
http://globalbrief.ca/blog/2013/03/05/persian-gulf-futures/
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref8> [8] Journalists call for
overhaul of QNA, July 14, 2013, The Peninsula,
<
http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/qatar/244976-journalists-call-for-overhaul-of-
qna.html>
http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/qatar/244976-journalists-call-for-overhaul-of-q
na.html
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref9> [9] Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed,
, ?????? ?????? ??? ??? (Why Is The Gulf Divided Over Egypt?), Al-Sharq
Al-Awsat, London, August 18, 2013,
<
http://www.aawsat.com/leader.asp?section=3&issueno=12682&article=740325&sea
rch=%DA%C8%CF%20%C7%E1%D1%CD%E3%E4%20%C7%E1%D1%C7%D4%CF:&state=true#.UhLDHJL
fC_8>
http://www.aawsat.com/leader.asp?section=3&issueno=12682&article=740325&sear
ch=%DA%C8%CF%20%C7%E1%D1%CD%E3%E4%20%C7%E1%D1%C7%D4%CF:&state=true#.UhLDHJLf
C_8
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref10> [10] Abdullah bin Abdulaziz
bin Abdulrahman bin Faisal bin Turki bin Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Saud,
‘Saudi King Abdullah declares support for Egypt against terrorism,’, 16
August 2013, Al Arabiyah,
<
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/08/16/Saudi-King-Abdu
llah-declares-support-of-Egypt-against-terrorism.html>
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/08/16/Saudi-King-Abdul
lah-declares-support-of-Egypt-against-terrorism.html
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref11> [11] The Gulf Institute,
‘Close Relative of Senior Saudi Counterterrorism Official Killed Alongside
AlQaeda in Syria,’ Washington, 19 August 2013, press release by email
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref12> [12] International Institute
for Strategic Studies, Priorities for Regional Security: Q&A Session,” 8
December 2012,
<
http://www.iiss.org/en/events/manama%20dialogue/archive/manama-dialogue-201
2-f58e/second-plenary-session-f3e9/qa-3d28>
http://www.iiss.org/en/events/manama%20dialogue/archive/manama-dialogue-2012
-f58e/second-plenary-session-f3e9/qa-3d28
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref13> [13] Salman al-Odeh, ????
????? _ ????? ?????? #????_????? #????_?????_????? ,???? ?????,March 16,
2013, Twitmail,
<
http://twitmail.com/email/78010944/6/%D8%AE%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%A8-%D9%85%D9%81%
D8%AA%D9%88%D8%AD-_-%D8%B3%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D9%88%
D8%AF%D8%A9---%D8%AE%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%A8_%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%88%D8%AD--%D8%A
E%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%A8_%D8%B3%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D9%88%
D8%AF%D8%A9>
http://twitmail.com/email/78010944/6/%D8%AE%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%A8-%D9%85%D9%81%D
8%AA%D9%88%D8%AD-_-%D8%B3%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D9%88%D
8%AF%D8%A9---%D8%AE%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%A8_%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%88%D8%AD--%D8%AE
%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%A8_%D8%B3%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D9%88%D
8%AF%D8%A9
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref14> [14] Lori Plotkin Boghardt,
‘The Muslim Brotherhood in the Gulf: Prospects for Agitation,’ 10 June 2013,
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy,
<
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/the-muslim-brotherh
ood-in-the-gulf-prospects-for-agitation>
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/the-muslim-brotherho
od-in-the-gulf-prospects-for-agitation
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref15> [15] Ibid. Trofimov
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref16> [16] Qaradawi backs Syrian
revolution, The Peninsula, March 26, 2011,
<
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/qatar/146915-qaradawi-backs-syrian-revolut
ion.html>
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/qatar/146915-qaradawi-backs-syrian-revoluti
on.html
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref17> [17] Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi,
‘Syria and the 'Resistance' Bloc: Buddies No More,’ May 22, 2011, American
Thinker,
<
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/05/syria_and_the_resistance_bloc.html>
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/05/syria_and_the_resistance_bloc.html
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref18> [18] Qaradawi admits Saudi
clerics are more mature than him on Hezbollah, June 1, 2011, Middle East
Online, <
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=59139>
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=59139
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref19> [19]
<
http://www.4nahda.com/content/1005>
http://www.4nahda.com/content/1005
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref20> [20] <
http://aoc.fm/>
http://aoc.fm
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref21> [21] Hootan Shambayati, ‘The
Rentier State, Interest Groups, and the Paradox of Autonomy: State and
Business in
Turkey and Iran,’ Comparative Politics, 1994, Vol 6:3, p. 307-331
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref22> [22] Jill Crystal. Political
reform and the prospects for democratic transition in the gulf, FRIDE
Working Paper, July 8, 2005,
<
http://www.fride.org/publication/220/political-reform-and-the-prospects-for
-democratic-transition-in-the-gulf>
http://www.fride.org/publication/220/political-reform-and-the-prospects-for-
democratic-transition-in-the-gulf
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref23> [23] Mona Lisa Freiha, Saudi
refuses Qatar gas project, An Nahar, July 23, 2011
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref24> [24] Lawrence Smallman,
‘Qatar's first lady wins UK libel case,’ January 5, 2005, Al Jazeera,
<
http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2005/01/200849139943889.html>
http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2005/01/200849139943889.html
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref25> [25] The Doha Debates, This
House believes that after Gaza, Arab unity is dead and buried, February 15,
2009, <
http://www.thedohadebates.com/debates/item/?d=47&mode=opinions>
http://www.thedohadebates.com/debates/item/?d=47&mode=opinions
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref26> [26] Michael Peel, Rivals
make play for power in Yemen, Financial Times, April 15, 2013
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref27> [27] Middle East Online,
‘Qatar pulls out of Gulf's Yemen mediation,’ 13 May 2013,
<
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=46106>
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=46106.
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref28> [28] Ibid.ra
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref29> [29] Al Sharq, ‘ Doha’s
influence in Sana’a spring forces taking accounting of new allies (????
?????? ?? ????? ???? ?????? ????? ??????? ?????), 12 December 2012,
<
http://www.alsharq.net.sa/2012/12/12/620296>
http://www.alsharq.net.sa/2012/12/12/620296
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref30> [30] Ibid. Kamrava
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref31> [31]
<
http://www.qaradawi.net/2010-02-23-09-38-15/4.html>
http://www.qaradawi.net/2010-02-23-09-38-15/4.html
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref32> [32] Yusuf al-Qaradawi,
???????? ???? ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ??????? ???? ????, July 7, 2013,
<
http://www.qaradawi.net/component/content/article/6744.html>
http://www.qaradawi.net/component/content/article/6744.html
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref33> [33] Abdelrahman
Al-Qaradawi, ??? ?????? ???? ???????? ????: ???? ??? ?????? ... ???? ??
????? ?, Al-Yawm Al-Sabi, July 7, 2013,
<
http://www.youm7.com/News.asp?NewsID=1152641>
http://www.youm7.com/News.asp?NewsID=1152641
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref34> [34] Sam Dagher. Charles
Levinson and Margaret Coker, ‘Tiny Kingdom's Huge Role in Libya Draws
Concern,’ The Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2011,
<
https://global.factiva.com/ha/default.aspx>
https://global.factiva.com/ha/default.aspx
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref35> [35] Hassan Masiky, ‘Qatar
Chastises Algeria for defending Assad in Syria,’ Morocco News Board,
November 15, 2011,
<
http://www.moroccoboard.com/viewpoint-5/68-hassan-massiki/5495-qatar-chasti
ses-algeria-for-defending-assad-in-syria->
http://www.moroccoboard.com/viewpoint-5/68-hassan-massiki/5495-qatar-chastis
es-algeria-for-defending-assad-in-syria-
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref36> [36] Al-Mokhtar Ould
Mohammad, ‘Dispute Mars Emir of Qatar’s Mauritania Visit,’ Al Akhbar
English, January 9, 2012,
<
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/dispute-mars-emir-qatar%E2%80%99s-maur
itania-visit>
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/dispute-mars-emir-qatar%E2%80%99s-mauri
tania-visit
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref37> [37] Sultan Al Qassemi, ‘Al
Jazeera's Awful Week,’ July 11, 2013, Foreign Policy,
<
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/07/11/al_jazeera_egypt_qatar_mus
lim_brotherhood?page=full>
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/07/11/al_jazeera_egypt_qatar_musl
im_brotherhood?page=full; The Economist, ‘Must Do Better,’ January 12, 2013,
charges of threatening national security and public order by airing
inflammatory news,
<
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21569429-arabs-premier
-television-network-bids-american-viewers-must-do-better>
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21569429-arabs-premier-
television-network-bids-american-viewers-must-do-better; Alain Gresh, ‘Gulf
cools towards Muslim Brothers,’ November 2102, Le Monde Diplomatique,
<
http://mondediplo.com/2012/11/02egypt>
http://mondediplo.com/2012/11/02egypt
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref38> [38] James M. Dorsey, ‘Al
Jazeera targets Spain amid dropping viewer numbers in its heartland,’ April
4, 2013,
<
http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.com/search/label/Qatar?updated-max=2013-04-30
T16:37:00%2B08:00&max-results=20&start=5&by-date=false>
http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.com/search/label/Qatar?updated-max=2013-04-30T
16:37:00%2B08:00&max-results=20&start=5&by-date=false
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref39> [39][39] Kristian Coates
Ulrichsen, ‘Small States with a Big Role: Qatar and the United Arab Emirates
in the Wake of the Arab Spring, 2012, HH Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah
Publication Series, Kuwait, October 2012
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref40> [40] Shaun Lopez, On Race,
Sports and Identity: Picking Up the Ball in Middle East Studies,
International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 41, 2009, p. 359-361
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref41> [41] James M. Dorsey,
January 14,2013, Middle East soccer associations campaign for women’s right
to play, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer,
<
http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.com/2013/01/middle-east-soccer-associations.h
tml>
http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.com/2013/01/middle-east-soccer-associations.ht
ml
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref42> [42] Human Rights Watch.
2012. Steps of the Devil, Denial of Women’s and Girls’ Rights to Sport in
Saudi Arabia,
<
http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/saudi0212webwcover.pdf>
http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/saudi0212webwcover.pdf
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref43> [43] Ibid. Dorsey
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref44> [44] Author interviews with
the consultants
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref45> [45] James M. Dorsey. March
4, 2012. Muslim players win hijab battle in their struggle for women’s
rights, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer,
<
http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.com/2012/03/muslim-players-win-hijab-battle-i
n.html>
http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.com/2012/03/muslim-players-win-hijab-battle-in
.html
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref46> [46] James M. Dorsey,
December 26, 2012. Ground-breaking election of Saudi soccer chief masks Arab
revolt fears, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer,
<
http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.com/2012/12/ground-breaking-election-of-saudi
.html>
http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.com/2012/12/ground-breaking-election-of-saudi.
html
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref47> [47] Mohammed AlSaif.
December 24, 2012. A healthy election, Arab News,
<
http://www.arabnews.com/healthy-election>
http://www.arabnews.com/healthy-election
<
https://dub125.mail.live.com/mail/#_ftnref48> [48] Bouazza Ben Bouazza,
‘Tunisia Compromise May Head off Gov't Crisis,’ 22 August 2013, AP/ABC News,
<
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/tunisia-compromise-head-off-g
ovt-crisis-20032542>
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/tunisia-compromise-head-off-go
vt-crisis-20032542
James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of
International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore,
co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg in
Germany, and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East
Soccer <
http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.com/> . A version of this paper was
presented at the Gulf Research Meeting in Cambridge, UK, in July 2013.
Received on Sun Jul 13 2014 - 17:25:23 EDT