Qatar, wealth, labor slavery and football.

One may wonder how it can be that a country located on a small peninsula with an area of ​​about 11,500 km2, very arid, without agricultural land, without permanent watercourses, just a few meager aquifers and a very small population, which makes 75 years had less than 20,000 inhabitants and that during the first half of the 20th century was made up of merchants, pearl collectors and several thousand slaves, it could have been transformed in just over 70 years into one of the richest and most technical countries in the world.

As I said, the climate of Qatar is very arid with an approximate rainfall of 75 mm per year and very hot temperatures that average between 35 and 40 degrees Celsius in summer.

Barely a century ago, in 1893, that territory, which could not yet be called a country, was described in an Ottoman report as the dominant power at that time, identifying the main populations of the peninsula with the name of Qatar, made up of small towns called Al Baida and Doha, very close to each other. At that time the territory had 6,000 inhabitants. A couple of decades later in 1908 there were 27,000 people on the peninsula, of which about 6,000 were slaves used for pearl collecting. In 1915, before the British expansion in the Gulf, the country became a protectorate of the United Kingdom but continued with its traditional pearling and commercial economy.

By 1930 the population had risen to 30,000 of which 5,000 were Iranians. The economic crisis of the 1930s and 1940s caused many people to emigrate, reducing the population to 16,000 in 1949.

In the following years with the discovery of hydrocarbons in the gulf including Qatar the population increased quite rapidly reaching 111,000 in 1970 of which approximately 40% were Qataris.

It was in the following year, that is, in 1971, that after the withdrawal of the British forces from the Gulf, Qatar achieved its independence while the development of oil and gas fields both on land and offshore continued in its territory.

Due to this the population increased rapidly and in 1990 there were 371,863 people including 70,000 Qataris.

In 2008 the population was 825,000 inhabitants and in 2020 they had already risen to 2,880,000 inhabitants, which is the current population. Of those 2,880,000 inhabitants, only 350,000 were of Qatari nationality and more than 2,500,000 are foreigners, generally immigrant workers. Let us remember that a little over ½ century ago there were still slaves in the country, and of course, just as there were slaves there were masters. Today

much of the slave culture of the past remains, albeit hidden, to this day.

So far a brief demographic history of the country.

As we said, what happened to trigger this impressive growth is related to the discovery and development of oil fields and especially gas fields in Qatari territory.

In 1960, the first offshore field called Duchan was discovered, with which Qatar joined the group of oil exporting countries in the Gulf. Currently, its reserves are estimated at 25,000 million barrels of oil and the production of the field remains at 330,000 bb per day. .

New discoveries in offshore fields, especially gas, led to an increase in the production of natural gas, which became the emirate's main export item, transforming it, as it is currently considered, into the richest country in the world in terms of per capita income.

(It is 70,000 dollars if the entire population is included and more than 600,000 dollars if only Qatari citizens are considered).

Qatar's natural gas reserves are approximately

25 billion (25,000,000,000,000) cubic meters. This means that the Emirate contains 14% of world reserves, they are the third largest only surpassed by Russia and Iran.

Well, in this ocean of wealth, and building the numerous infrastructure works that are being done continuously, including three large soccer stadiums for the next World Cup at the end of 2022, more than 2 million people live and work in conditions of servitude and poor living conditions. It is the immigrant workers, people who arrived from India, Pakistan, Nepal, the Philippines and other generally Asian countries, who are the ones who, with their labor force, build these magnificent works of infrastructure that attract the attention of dignitaries who visit the country.

They are people who were attracted by contracts that they considered acceptable and who, in many cases, when they arrived, understood that they had become hostages of their employers, who could withhold their passports, stop paying them their salaries or pay them less, force them to live in shacks without any comfort and control their lives. In the case of women, sometimes in addition to servitude, it involved rape and prostitution.

I want to clarify that Qatar is not the worst case that exists in the oil producing countries of the Gulf, there are similar cases, and even worse, in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, among others. To locate ourselves we have to remember the recent slave-owning past of the region and some facts that continue to be repeated will be understood.

Next year 2022, is the appointed date, in Qatar athletes, tourists, leaders, leaders and tycoons of the world economy will meet to witness the great media circus of the soccer world cup.

At this moment I dare to think about how many people will remember, will have in mind, the suffering and death of several hundred thousand workers during the construction of these great works. Sometimes the suffering or death was due to mistreatment, other times due to illness or even many due to avoidable work accidents. How many spectators will be aware of these causalities when witnessing the great almighty show.

Perhaps there will be complaints, some humanitarian organizations will remind us that in the Gulf countries people have minimal rights, that women have few rights, that they can be stoned for having sexual relations, that floggings, prison or execution for externalize opinions or ideas on religious or political issues that are not to the liking of the authorities. There will be complaints. Surely yes, although we all know that it will not be enough.

In any case, as has been seen on other occasions, money will be a good screen to obscure the profound realities. In the following year, the wealth will continue to flow to the great coffers of companies and countries, especially governments, which govern the world economy above the needs of the people.

And the show will be repeated, in another place, with other protagonists, but supported as usual by the suffering of the poorest, the victims of always.

Slaves and semi-slaves in Gulf societies
Danilo Antón

Societies in the Persian Gulf or Arabian Gulf (as it is also called) seem to be predestined to operate based on the exploitation of slave (as it was historically) or semi-slave labor (as it is today).
For many centuries coastal communities based much of their income on the extraction and sale of pearls. For this they used slaves who had to constantly dive to collect as many pearls as possible. The task was so hard that divers could not resist more than a few years. 
At present the heavy work is carried out by immigrants from Asian countries. These workers live and work in conditions of semi-slavery. They live in unhealthy constructions, with poor food, without rest or labor benefits, with arbitrary payment (or not) of  wages and without freedom to be able to return to their countries because in the Gulf countries the employers retain the passports of their employees. 
Here is a brief historical review of life in Gulf Coast communities.

Pearl divers

The collection of pearl from oysters has been one of the hardest extractive operations in history. Usually slave divers were forced divers to constantly dive to obtain the valuable gems in order to satisfy the greater profits for the local employers and employers.
Since Sumerian times, in Mesopotamia, and at least since the sixth Pharaonic dynasty in Egypt (in the third millennium BCE), pearl collection was the basis of the economy of the Persian Gulf societies. 
At the beginning of the first century BCE, Pliny the Elder, in his book Historia Naturalis considered that the most perfect and exquisite pearls were obtained from the Persian Gulf in Arabia. Shortly afterwards, the Roman-Egyptian historian Ptolemy wrote about the pearl fisheries on the island of Tylos, which was the Roman name of Bahrain.
In the fourteenth century the Moroccan traveler and narrator Ibn Batuta, who toured the cities and territories of Shiraz, the oases of Al Hasa and Al Qatif, the island of Bahrain (formerly known as Awal), the Strait of Hormuz and Oman, Ratified the existence of this prosperous activity in the coastal areas of the Persian Gulf.
In the 16th century the Portuguese established several forts (in Bahrain, Al Qatif, Hormuz and Muscat), and later, when the area fell under British influence, pearl extraction continued to be the main economic support for coastal towns. In the 17th and 19th centuries the pearl banks continued to be exploited in the islands of Bahrain and Dalmah (near Abu-Dhabi), Abu Musa, Hormuz and the Lavan-Kish archipelago.
Due to the excessive extraction of oysters90 in the shallow intertidal zone, it was necessary to extend the extractive dive to the deeper waters (more than 10 meters) with the consequent risk to the divers ..
The dive was made from small wooden boats (called "dhow"). Until the early nineteenth century divers were usually slaves forced to perform 50 to 60 submersions per day. To submerge they were allowed to sink with heavy stones collecting the largest quantity of oysters before returning to the surface91. The use of slaves for the extraction of pearls on the coasts of the Persian Gulf continued until the twentieth century. In 1930 there were still several thousand slaves in the States of the Truce (now the United Arab Emirates), Qatar, Oman and Bahrain.

The Gulf in the 21st Century

Things have changed in the Gulf emirates since the days of the pearl divers.
The cause was the inflow of financial resources due to the exploitation of the local hydrocarbon deposits.
The small traditional fishing villages, which had only a few hundred or a few thousand people, became modern cities with hundreds of thousands and even millions of inhabitants.
The Emirate of Dubai, which was a tiny community at the beginning of the 20th century, today has 2,300,000 inhabitants on an area of ​​4,100 km2, Abu Dhabi has a population of 870,000, Sharjah 700,000 and Bahrain 700,000, far superior to the few dimensions of these villages in old times. The cities of today are cities built with abundant resources, great building development and daring projects that required large investments.
The case of Dubai is symptomatic. In this emirate is the tallest building in the world (Borj Khalifa with 828 meters), the largest Mall of the planet (Dubai Mall), the largest source (Dubai Fountain), extensive artificial islands (Palm Jumeirah and World Islands) , It is maintained that there is the "unique" seven star hotel that exists in the mu (Burj el Arab), as well as a subway and numerous avenues.

Qatar blockade

Qatar is a very special emirate of the Persian Gulf coast.
One of its peculiarities is that, with 145,000 US dollars per person per year, it is the state with the highest per capita income in the world.
Another peculiarity is its small size, barely 11,580 km2 with 2,600,000 inhabitants of which only 300,000 are from Qatar, 2,300,000 are foreigners, usually migrant workers from Asian countries.
Its territory is extremely arid, with very high Summer temperatures (they can reach 50 degrees Celsius). There is practically no natural agricultural land, scarce production was limited to date palms, extensive rearing of camels and goats, fishing on its Gulf coasts, and diving for pearl oysters.

With these limited natural resources it is not surprising that the population was traditionally very scarce. In 1904 it amounted to only 27,000 inhabitants.
Nor was there too much interest in seizing the territory by the colonial powers. In spite of that, at the end of the XIX century, Qatar was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire and from 1916 on it was integrated into the British Empire with the status of "Protectorate".
In 1971 the Emirate gained its independence. At that time the population amounted to 112,000 inhabitants. Since 1940 oil had been discovered, production initially grew slowly, but in the last 25 years, after the discovery of large gas natural fields in Qatar Gulf waters. it has grown significantly, making Qatar one of the wealthiest countries of the world, reaching $ 145,000 per capita.

These large revenues enabled the country to invest its financial resources in many ways; public works, creation of a large global airline, purchase of professional sports teams, establishment of a news agency (Al Jazeera) and collaboration with other governments and organizations increasing its regional and global influence.
Enter "the Kingdom"
Recently Saudi Arabia has undergone some changes at the governmental level. The current king is Salman ibn Abdul Aziz but the effective government is carried out by his son Mohammed ibn Salman (although formally the prince of the crown and successor of the king is Muhammed bin Nayef who at the moment does not have any power having been left to the margin of the political decisions).
Following the seizure of power by Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia began to develop aggressive expansionist policies. This can be seen in the continuing bombings in Yemen (fighting the Shi'ite-based Houthi government) at the head of a Saudi-controlled coalition with strong US support.
Donald Trump's clumsy visit to Saudi Arabia took place recently, irresponsibly accepting Saudi suggestions of Qatar's role in promoting terrorism.
With the approval of the US, Saudi Arabia has decided a general offensive against Qatar, including breaking relations, expulsion of diplomats and Qatari citizens, banning overflight of airspace by Qatar Airways, closure of Al Jazeera offices in Arabia , etc. The Saudi decision was accompanied by the Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Maldives and several pro-Saudi movements in the Middle East.
                    Prince Mohammed bin Salman  
The blockade of Qatar leaves the emirate partially isolated with a single aerial and maritime exit through the territory and inland waters of Iran. At the same time, Erdogan, the president of Turkey decided to take the opportunity to intervene "supporting" the Qatari government by establishing a base in Qatari territory and sending troops.

In short, unexpectedly, Qatar is gaining support from Iran and Turkey. 
If the situation gets more tense, indirect support from Russia may appear.
If that were the case, an unusual geopolitical situation would occur. 
The hyper-enemies of all history: Iran (Persia), Turkey (Ottoman Empire) and Russia (Tsarist Empire), who have almost always been militarily and politically opposed, could ally themselves by supporting Qatar.

                                                 Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Emir of Qatar
On the other side we may find Saudi Arabia (and its economically dependent countries, including Egypt and Bahrain), the United Arab Emirates and, unusually, the United States.
The US would enter into a regional conflict in a position of great clumsiness and high vulnerability. Perhaps Trump reverses his decision, but probably it does not. At that moment a situation of great uncertainty for the future of the region and the world may be generated. ..