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.