Qatar’s soft power play 

This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: ‘Qatar’s soft power play’

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Gideon Rachman
Hello and welcome to the Rachman Review. I’m Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times. This week’s edition comes from Qatar, where you might have noticed the World Cup has been taking place. I’ll admit that my primary purpose in travelling to Doha was to watch the football, including the tragic and unexpected defeat of England by France. But of course, I’m always interested in the politics of the places I visit. And on my last day in Doha, I sat down with the FT’s Gulf correspondent, Simeon Kerr. This World Cup has felt very political. Qatar has been subject to a storm of criticism in the West. But many Qataris also feel they’ve made new friends in the rest of the world. So has this World Cup been a victory or defeat for Qatar?

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Gideon Rachman
After four days and two matches, that World Cup theme tune continues to rattle around my head. But a lot of the mood music surrounding the World Cup in Qatar has been a lot more negative. The tournament took place amidst a deluge of criticism, mainly from the west, about Qatar’s record on migrant rights and on gay rights. Then, after my trip to Doha and conversation with Simeon, a new scandal broke.

News clip
Just when the on-field drama of the football finally seemed to be eclipsing all else coming out of Qatar, the World Cup hosts back in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Doha firmly denies any part in the piles of cash uncovered by Belgian police or the arrests that include a vice-president of the European parliament, the greasing of the wheels appears to have come as the EU started to ponder visa-free travel for Qatari citizens.

Gideon Rachman
But in Qatar, my feeling was that the Gulf state’s difficult relationship with the west was only a part, a small part actually, of a bigger geopolitical story. The Russia war has made Qatar’s role as one of the world’s largest producers of natural gas even more crucial. The Gulf state also plays a critical and controversial role in the politics of the Middle East. Its key neighbours, including Saudi Arabia, severed diplomatic relations with Qatar for almost four years from 2017 until last year. At the height of the crisis, there were fears that Saudi Arabia would actually invade Qatar. So, it was quite a moment when the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, came to watch the games and even wore a scarf of the Qatari national team. I began my conversation with Simeon Kerr by asking him about the symbolism of that moment.

Simeon Kerr
The Qatari-Saudi relationship is on a whole new level now. Only last year they managed to finally end the great divide in the Gulf, the great embargo that Saudi launched along with the UAE against Qatar, accusing Qatar of fostering Islamic extremism and political Islam in the region. This was an extraordinary episode in which western allies were divided against each other and it really damaged the region. And January 2021, Mohammed bin Salman led an effort to end this damaging dispute, and it’s been parked, it’s not been fully resolved. The UAE still has, you know, some problems with Qatar and Bahrain. Qatari relations are very bad, but Qatar’s always been focused number one on Saudi, the big regional power. And that relationship has been repaired. And that was epitomised when we saw in the opening game, you know, Mohammed bin Salman standing there with the Qatari flag. It really was a, quite a moment.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah. And I mean, the relationship was terrible. I mean, I remember, you know, sitting in London that people occasionally tell me, you know, it’s possible that Saudi will actually invade Qatar. How did it get so bad?

Simeon Kerr
Well, I mean, yes, here in Doha at the time, there really was that fear, even though the US military regional base is in Qatar. But there was still such a fear that the Saudis and the Emiratis primarily had become so infuriated with the Qatari regional policy, as I said, mainly about since the Arab Spring, having spent so much time and effort and money in fostering political Islam in the region which countries like Saudi Arabia, the new Saudi Arabia under Mohammed bin Salman and UAE under Mohammed bin Zayed felt that was completely inimical to the Gulf monarchies. They saw Qatar’s approach as dysfunctional. How could it be supporting political Islam, which could rise up and overthrow the Gulf monarchies?

Gideon Rachman
By, by which we mean essentially the Muslim Brotherhood?

Simeon Kerr
The Muslim Brotherhood, a longstanding pan-Arab movement that sees Islam as the solution to political problems and wants to root Islam within political development and how regime change can be brought against military-dominated republics, against Gulf monarchies.

Gideon Rachman
So for example, the Qataris had backed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Saudis were very much not on that side.

Simeon Kerr
Absolutely not. And then also, when it came to the Syrian civil war, the Qataris were involved in backing Islamist groups there, some of which elided closer into al-Qaeda and into Isis. And the Saudis and the Emiratis were really worried about this elision between the Brotherhood and extremist groups like Isis. They also describe the Muslim Brotherhood as a gateway drug for young Arabs that leads to complete radicalisation. Now, the Qataris, some people in the camp would argue that, no, I mean, this is just, it’s this democratic force in the region and it can be harnessed for good. It’s an omnipresent force in the region and you have to harness it. You have to work with it in order to be able to secure stability longer term.

Gideon Rachman
This is the Qataris. I mean, the one point that a Qatari spokesman made to me is that that American military base that you referred to is also the base for the war against Isis.

Simeon Kerr
Absolutely, yes. And what their regional rivals say is that how can you be so in hock to western power and support them in terms of trying to take down Isis, while at the same time adding fuel to the political ideology that underpins Isis?

Gideon Rachman
And in that political ideology when Qatar’s alleged role in promoting all this, I guess Al Jazeera, the TV station, which is based out of here, has been a very important kind of bone of contention, isn’t it?

Simeon Kerr
Absolutely. I mean, Al Jazeera was hugely influential from the ’90s onwards, and many of its journalists did have a Muslim Brotherhood background. But it was also something reflected popular opinion. And so it was before the Arab Spring, purely independent, might have had some Brotherhood backing, but basically they really, really took truth to power in the region. And it became hugely popular then. After the Arab Spring comes, as critics would say, it became too dogmatically involved with the Brotherhood, with political Islam, and it lost its way there.

Gideon Rachman
Taking a couple of steps back. It’s pretty striking, isn’t it, that Qatar is the odd man out in the Gulf? I mean, if you think that there are all these little states that Saudi Arabia, the big state and all the others, which to some extent align a little bit with the Saudis. But Qatar, despite being a tiny place, I mean, they’re only what? They’re a little over 300,000 actual Qataris, has managed to carve out this enormous international profile and also a degree of independence which led to, you know, potential war.

Simeon Kerr
Yeah. I mean, they’ve assiduously pursued that kind of independence. Having taken their big bet on liquefied natural gas, they’ve created huge wealth themselves. But that LNG, which they produce out of the Persian Gulf, out of the Arabian Gulf, as they put it here, that is shared with Iran. So the main source of their wealth is shared with Iran. Iran is a huge presence right next door to them and they have to deal with them. At the same time they see themselves sandwiched with this other massive presence, Saudi Arabia. And so Qatar’s always felt they have to do everything they can to secure themselves. And they’ve taken a different approach, as some have just slavishly decide, “Ah well, just listen to the Americans”. What they’ve done is they’ve tried to become a regional mediator. That was one of their big calling cards before the World Cup. They would be the place that people would come to try and sort out problems between Lebanon and Israel in South Sudan, in Sudan, in other places of the Horn of Africa. So that’s what they tried to carve out — this kind of different, independent maverick foreign policy.

Gideon Rachman
And indeed, they hosted the talks with the Taliban for the Americans and the Taliban.

Simeon Kerr
Yes. So they would say, look, you know, the Americans needed a backchannel into the Taliban and they encouraged us to bring them over here. And it’s a very conservative country. And if we go back before 9/11, I mean, Qatar was one of the countries that had recognised the Taliban as the government in Afghanistan. They welcome them over, they’ve got close ties with Hamas. Also, they would say that we decided to allow them to base themselves here because the Americans needed some kind of channel with them. But at the same time, it also reflects this kind of conservative Muslim society, but also one that has looked to political Islam in the region as a driving force and one that they want to help shape.

Gideon Rachman
I mean, it’s kind of striking, though, isn’t it, that, you know, if you’ve only got 300,000 people, you’re gonna have quite a thin talent base, you would think? And yet they’re pursuing this very ambitious policy not just for themselves in terms of development, but, as you said, as a regional mediator. How do they manage to do that with such a small, you know?

Simeon Kerr
Well, diplomats will always say that is one of the big challenges. There are 3mn people overall. They depend a lot on expatriate talent, too. But it is remarkable, given how small they are, that they have managed to pursue that. I mean, maybe they’re less than that recently under the new emir, Tamim, he’s different to the father emir. And the father emir abdicated, Tamim’s taken over. He’s taken a more cautious approach. Qatar’s rivals would say that since the embargo, Qatar has been less aggressive in terms of regional interference, regional power plays. So maybe they’re not quite where they were before. And the last couple of years they’ve been really focused on the World Cup as another means through which they’re managing to project soft power.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah, and that’s very interesting that they should make that decision because as you say, ideologically they’re into political Islam. It’s a pretty conservative society. You see plenty of women in niqab around, and yet they’ve gone for this big global glitzy event and there is that sort of very western side to this place as well. I mean, the shopping malls have every western brand you could think of. And they do seem to want to present a sort of modern face to the world as well as a more conservative one.

Simeon Kerr
Yeah, I think that’s right. And they’ve always balanced those two trends. This, the former British protectorate and the relations with the west have always been very, very strong and going for the World Cup came out of that. The World Cup was another aspect, another means through which the government could decide to try and knit itself into the global fabric, make itself indispensable. They’ve done it through mediation, they’ve done it through gas, done it through investments, especially the UK and in the west. And this was another way of showcasing the country, showing how important it was to the world, because otherwise it’s easy to forget about. Before the World Cup, not much of the general population knew much about Qatar, but what this did, it managed to raise its profile. In the end, I mean, the scrutiny that came with it, they found quite challenging and difficult. But at the same time, I think as we go towards the end of the tournament, Qatari officials kind of think that brand Qatar has come out well from this process.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah, and that is very interesting, isn’t it? Because certainly if you’re sitting in London, you could have the assumption essentially that, oh, they must be regretting this because they’re getting hammered on gay rights, on migrant workers. It looks like a sort of terrible kind of advert for the country. But here, I think — well, as one Qatari official put it, you know, it’s mainly Britain and German media that have been going after us and they feel the rest of the world is not so worked up.

Simeon Kerr
Yes, that’s right. They were nervous about it because the deluge of negative press out of the west is really, really strong. But they generally feel that they’ve weathered the storm. They feel they’ve managed to counter some of these narratives and they’ve seen the reaction of fans here on the ground enjoying it. And I think they’re pleasantly surprised at how they’ve come out of it in that respect.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah. And let’s talk about some of those issues then, the migrant worker aspect. I mean, as we’ve said, it’s a society that’s extraordinarily dependent on migrant workers. They’re what, close to eight in 10, nine in 10 of the people here. There were these figures of, literally put out, was it 6,500 deaths? But then they seem to have been qualified. Talk us through what happened there.

Simeon Kerr
Yes. So, the 6,500 deaths was reported out of The Guardian and that recorded all South Asian deaths between the winning the World Cup in 2010 and hosting it. The authorities here would challenge that, saying when you’re talking about every South Asian, not just the workers on, you know, the construction site.

Gideon Rachman
So basically any South Asian who died in Qatar. And there are like 3mn of them.

Simeon Kerr
Yes, they’re a majority and they’re not just construction workers. They’re also pharmacists and clerical workers. And so the authorities here push heavily against that. But, there is a problem in that there hasn’t been really accurate information coming out about the number of deaths. And that’s really in this vacuum, numbers populate themselves and take control of the narrative.

Gideon Rachman
I thought Qatar had said that actually only three people had died constructing the stadium?

Simeon Kerr
So the problem was, through all the controversies, the organisers of the World Cup focused on the stadiums and what happened in the construction sites they were responsible for. And they said yes, three had died and they regretted the loss of life there. But of course, the development for the World Cup was not just the stadiums, it’s the roads, it’s the airport, it’s the port, it’s the metro. It’s been a $200bn investment in the infrastructure, and therefore, one needs to be aware of worker deaths across the entirety of the piece. Now, at the beginning of the World Cup, the organisers finally admitted that they had a number of between 400 and 500 work-related deaths over the construction period across the entire country. You know, a 10th of what was claimed in The Guardian. That is their best estimate of the true figure. The trouble is, they came out with this number right at the beginning of the tournament. It seems like they might have had this number for several years. And, it’s unfortunate there hasn’t been more transparency on this issue.

Gideon Rachman
But what does it say that people who work on this stuff full time like the International Labour Organization? What’s their view of how this issue has been handled?

Simeon Kerr
The ILO and the International Trades Union Congress have been trumpeting Qatar’s reforms. They’re saying that this is actually a model for the region. They’ve come a long way in the last 12 years. They have, you know, made significant reforms to, to file a system, which is the system in which binds workers to their employer. They have introduced the minimum wage and allowed workers to come in and change jobs, which they weren’t allowed to do before. These are the reforms on paper, which they say have been made. Other rights groups will say, it’s good that these reforms have been made, but the implementation is still difficult. It’s still difficult for workers to move jobs. They will point to, you know, the death figures being uncertain because they’re not proper postmortems done on those who die here. The ILO, for example, also did a study about how many work-related deaths there were in 2020. They came out with 50 in that one year, which shows that, you know, over one year, 50 over 10, and maybe 500, that seems to tally with the official, Qatari official number. I mean, advocacy groups are worried that the ILO and ITUC might be too close to the authorities here, they might be dependent on it. The advocates would still say Qatar needs to go further and needs to be more transparent and needs to deliver more. And they’re worried that after the World Cup, there could be backtracking. The authorities say, “no, we want to develop in the future. We want to be a modern economy, so we’ll stick with it”. So this issue of worker rights isn’t gonna go away any time soon.

Gideon Rachman
I mean, I suppose one thing that struck me is that, in a way, the issue of worker rights and migrant rights, it’s a global issue. And Qatar it’s just a very extreme example of it because it’s such a rich place with the wealth so concentrated in that very small society. But that migrant workers move all over the world because they have tough lives and by and large, the ones who’ve come here will have come here willingly.

Simeon Kerr
Yes. I mean, you know, there is such poverty in South Asia. That’s this cycle of migrant labour just goes on and on and on.

Gideon Rachman
And you’ll see it in Dubai where you live in Saudi.

Simeon Kerr
Dubai, Saudi, right across the region. And, they will keep coming because the dream is they will build a better life for themselves back home. They’ll come over, do a few years, save some money and build a house back in South Asia. That is the dream that actually works out for many. But, there are also many victims through this process. And so that’s why, I think the advocacy groups just want to see improvement in terms of the way that it’s structured, where it’s organised. One of the particular issues is recruitment fees. So oftentimes, a worker will pay, say, a thousand dollars to a recruiter in Nepal, for example, to get them the job here. But when they get here, they need to pay that debt back. They borrowed money maybe to pay the thousands. So they arrive here in debt and if they’re not earning enough, if they don’t get the same salaries they’ve been promised, they find it hard to pay that back. So, some people do end up in indentured labour here. So, Qatar will say they’re doing their best to end this practice. And World Cup organisers have been pretty good at making sure that their contractors are not paying recruitment fees. But then you walk around Qatar, you walk around the Gulf and you ask people and many of them have paid recruitment fees. So, there’s a lot more to do.

Gideon Rachman
Right. The other big issue that has been featured a lot in the western press is gay rights. Were the Qataris surprised that that came up and they’ve actually been quite tough on it, haven’t they? I mean, they haven’t allowed people to bring rainbow flags into the stadiums, for example, which would seem fairly inoffensive — I don’t really see what their problem would have been with that. But they seem to draw the line.

Simeon Kerr
Yeah. And I think it’s not just Qatar thing, we’ve seen it across the Gulf. We’ve seen them pressuring Netflix to take out gay kisses from programs and the same with Hollywood movies. These kind of culture wars which have been raging in the west have really floated on to these shores. And I think, as places like Dubai where I live, are trying to modernise, to try and bring in more and more foreigners, they’ve been toying with the idea of decriminalising homosexuality. Homosexuality is illegal in most of the Gulf states, very conservative Muslim societies in which it’s forbidden by that religion. And the notion of reform there is very difficult. And I think the current societies that we have, it’s just not accepted. And so, that’s why we’ve seen this kind of red line approach taken to it. The more liberal of the Gulf states and Middle Eastern states, for example, Dubai, where I live, but also here in Doha, would argue that they’ve alighted on a sort of common ground “a don’t ask, don’t tell policy” they used to have in the US military in which homosexuality will be tolerated, but behind closed doors. Never admit to it, never show it publicly. And therefore, that’s why they associate the rainbow flag as sort of a political symbol, a symbol of western ideals being imposed on their society. And I think, that’s where this huge backlash has been. And further to that, I think really, when I speak to friends and colleagues in the Gulf, you can just sense that the society isn’t quite ready for changing the law around homosexuality. But the best that many people are hoping for is that this “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is very strong and becomes stronger and becomes more embedded within these societies. At the moment, a lot of people here are worried that that will be eroded by this external imposition of western ideals around sexuality and . . . 

Gideon Rachman
You mean, that it will spark a backlash that the conservatives will stop demanding enforcement of rules on gay sex, and things like that.

Simeon Kerr
Exactly. And you can sense that backlash starting. I think the authorities here are very keen that that doesn’t gain traction. And they feel that the protests, rainbow flags, just fuels that fire. Well, I mean, we’ll have to see where it goes, but you get the sense that these societies aren’t ready yet to make any compromises on the outward display of pride. Hey, see when you speak to people one of the things they are worried about is pride marches. And, you just wonder because, I mean, there are no marches in the Gulf. There’s no public manifestation of political ideals. So, it is one of those red button issues here, which I don’t think we’re gonna see progress particularly soon.

Gideon Rachman
And just to finish off, I mean, I wonder whether one of the indirect psychological effects of this, might be geopolitical effects of this, on Qatar is that, as they see that they get criticised by the west, but that there’s been this very warm reception to the World Cup in the global south, whether that makes them rethink their position in the world, particularly given their growing economic weight, I mean, talking to Qataris about, well, what might the stadiums do in the future? One possible future cited was as a place for Indian weddings, you know, not so far away from India and so on. Do you think that increasingly they’re gonna be looking to tourists from Asia, Asian events, Africans, less towards Europe?

Simeon Kerr
That’s certainly a possibility, almost an inevitability. They’re certainly gonna be reviewing their partnerships. In light of this, you get the sense that the foreign policy is gonna be looking for a new direction after this World Cup. And as you say, there has been a great welcome from Latin America, from Asia, from Africa. Qataris love the fact that these people have come here and haven’t been lecturing them on how they do things. And if you look around the region, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, they’ve really been pivoting towards Asia. They’re looking for a much stronger relationship with China, India. And they’ve maintained neutrality in the war with Ukraine by maintaining ties with Russia. And this kind of pivot has been much stronger, I’d say, in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It’s been less pronounced in Qatar, but I really wouldn’t be surprised if they were to follow suit.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah, and just to end on that, I mean, obviously, we’re here in Qatar. We’re both going to games. It’s all very absorbing. But, you know, my day job is geopolitics. And next door, something really interesting is happening in Saudi Arabia. I mean, Xi Jinping, is he there right at the moment?

Simeon Kerr
He’s probably finishing up his trip around about now and it’s been a huge moment for them. And once again, cementing this idea that while the west will sort of get itself tied up in knots around human rights and how are we gonna deal with these states in the Gulf — China, just a lot more transactional, a lot clearer about trying to develop the trade in oil, which is underpinning that corridor into a broader, deeper relationship around, you know, other sectors as well. Not yet security, so at the same time, it’s always a bit easy to over exaggerate this pivot to Asia. Security is still very much in the hands of the west. But this kind of multipolar world, which they’re looking at, is really gonna be increasingly important in the years ahead.

Gideon Rachman
The other thing that’s very striking is that strength in Qatar’s hands got nothing to do with World Cup, is the war in Ukraine and asserting prices. And presumably, they are now the world’s largest exporter of LNG. They must be having an unbelievable bonanza in, you know, money flowing into the coffers.

Simeon Kerr
Absolutely. I mean, money’s flowing into the coffers. They are the first port of call for gas for European nations. So, for example, Germany, even some German politicians have been criticising the World Cup in Qatar at the same times the Germans have been coming cap in hand, begging for more LNG.

Gideon Rachman
Indeed, they signed the new LNG deal during the World Cup when the German team was protesting about dumping.

Simeon Kerr
Yes, and the Qataris will say, “Look, we didn’t like all of the protests against us, but at the same time we try and disassociate geopolitics from energy strategy”, and they want to be a secure supplier for the world. And for example, when the UE slapped an embargo on Qatar, Qatar continued to supply LNG into the UE. And going forward, as we finish the World Cup now, what’s next for Qatar is almost doubling its LNG capacity. So, as we look to the next few decades with this energy transition, with LNG being a core component of that transition, they’re gonna become increasingly important because they will be increasingly able to supply whoever needs it. And so, I think from Germany across the UK, there’s gonna be a lot of demand for that LNG coming out in the next few years.

Gideon Rachman
Interesting. So, the end of the World Cup will not mean that we’ve heard the last of Qatar. If anything, they’re gonna become more important in the world.

Simeon Kerr
Absolutely.

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Gideon Rachman
That was the FT’s Simeon Kerr speaking to me in Doha and ending this edition of the Rachman Review. Thanks for listening and please join me again next week for our end of the year review.

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