Musheireb Heart of Doha

For this active blog post I decided to revisit an area of Doha that I had not been to in a while, and to check on its development. In our sophomore year as journalism students we were stationed in the area of Musheireb and reported on the different issues that the community was facing.

Before I delve into a more sociological analysis of the Musheireb community, I will touch briefly on the history of the area. The Musheireb area is located behind Souq Waqif, close to the Al Kout Fort, which was built in 1917. It is part of the area that made up the founding city of Al-Bida and is the area where Al Kahraba Street is located (the first street in Qatar to have electricity and be fully lit). As this area was the beginning of the capital city, it had many traditional buildings and families that had built their lives around the fishing and pearling industry. After the discovery of oil, the economy flourished and the capital shifted across the corniche and adopted a more modern approach. Many of the more historical buildings and neighbourhoods were forgotten or destroyed to make way for more aesthetic buildings to celebrate the country’s new found wealth. Some argue that this destruction of what appears to be the original capital city of the country is why there is not a strong sense of history.

The reason I wanted to discuss the issue of Musheireb, and actually went there to see how it has changed, is that it relates to readings discussed in class such as that of Phil Cohen’s reflections on subcultural conflicts and the working-class community, and also readings relating to cultural and political resistance. After the Qatari families moved out of Al-Bida and Musheireb, it became inhabited mainly by south-Asian bachelors who live and work in the area doing blue-collar jobs. This created an interesting mixture of culture, as it is such a close community full of different types of small shops, ethnic restaurants and some very strange houses. Walking down the streets it felt more like being in a remote town in Nepal or India, than it did being in one of the richest countries in the world. Some of the houses from the olden days are still intact and some of the architecture is refreshingly different. However, the reason our journalism class was even reporting there in the first place was due to Msheireb Properties, a company that has taken a large portion of the community, and is in the process of changing it into a ‘luxury community’ with townhouses, designer shops, restaurants and other living spaces and using various communications strategies to make their goals known. Their aim is to “bring people back to their roots – to make Doha unique and rediscover a sense of community and togetherness”.

Although I commend the passion of those who wish to transform the country into a thriving hub of modernity, our readings on the transformation of East London made me think of the repercussions of such a change. We can examine this from the point of view that after the influx of wealth into the country, the older generation was more reluctant to move from their homes but the younger generation was eager to create and express a difference from their parent culture and yet still maintain an identity with them. This can be seen as the youth of that generation buying into the consumer culture, moving out into larger houses and more spread out areas, buying landcruisers and all things luxurious, while still maintaining the traditions of their forefathers, some even holding onto the seafarer habits. While this isn’t necessarily a subculture, it is still evident as a split from the parent culture and the issues between this new culture and the parent culture most likely caused a weakening of historical and cultural continuity. This conflict of tradition versus modernity came from the end of a particular community and the emergence of new communities all around Doha including a new south-Asian community in the abandoned areas.

Now, the south-Asian community is being forced to leave the majority of the community and move to places such as Barwa Village, far away from the city, their customers and their friends. This relates back to the reading as it is mentions that the improvement of material conditions can destroy the functions of the communal space and destroy traditional patterns of socialization. I returned to the areas where we used to report and found that the majority of the shops, with shopkeepers we knew and people who we spoke to, are now cornered off for construction. An entire section of the community and part of the Kahraba Street (Panasonic Square) has been demolished and turned into a massive building site. More and more shops were closed and I couldn’t find a single shopkeeper that I knew. Most of the people I approached didn’t want to talk about it as when we were reporting, the issue was relatively new, but now with the looming presence of such a huge organization, I am sure that nobody wanted to speak a word of resistance. This alludes to the reading about cultural and political resistance. The power in this situation lays with the government who make choices on what gets built where, in this case, although the working class has created a comfortable existence in their own corner of society, they have no citizenship rights and their sponsors get the final say, so they have no chance of resisting or revolting against the decisions that impact them.

It is clear that in this on-going quest for modernity and to somehow create a history through “finding a new essence of Qatari architectural tradition”, the urban regeneration has, in this case, broken many community and family ties.

Subculture? Not a Subculture?

What happened to the Bedouin’s identity? And what happened to the Hadar (urban) identity? In the past, Bedouins had different norms than the Hadar. They had different dialects. Some Bedouin still use these dialects today. For example, some of the people from Al-Hajri family end their words with “tess” when they are addressing a female. Bedouins had a different lifestyle and different tools that they used. In addition to poetry, they use the rababa, which is a musical instrument that looks like a violin. However, the rababa has only one string. While the Hadar were involved with trading and jobs related to pearl diving, the Bedouins were practicing different jobs and activities. These activities included falconry and taking care of their livestock. On one hand, the livestock represent their capital (Ras almal). On the other hand, the Hadar’s capital included ships and pearls. Because Qatar is a peninsula, the norm was to be part of the Hadar and live by the sea. The fact that the Bedouins had their own dialect, music, style and activities made them stand out as a spectacular subculture. Subcultures are groups of people who vary and differ from the mainstream in language, style, music and activities. It is a spectacular subculture because their practices are not hidden. Bedouins’ practice of poetry and falconry are activities that we can see. The spectacular subcultures are out of the ordinary, so they attract our attention as the Bedouins do with their practices.

In the article Where Have The Bedouin Gone?, Donald Cole states, “I argue for seeing Bedouin as ordinary, everyday people.” In addition to that, the Bedouin identity blendes with the mainstream Hadar identity and vice versa. Some Bedouin have moved from tents to houses. A few of them live urban lifestyles while still practicing some of their Bedouin activities, such as falconry and poetry. Some of them speak like urban people. Some might argue that Bedouin’s identity is presented in their heritage and ancestry, but it is focused on ancestry more than heritage in Qatar. Currently, Bedouins still keep their livestock (capital). However, they hire shepherds to take care of them. Such practice is not associated with Bedouins only.
I visited a farm in which people hired shepherds to take care of their livestock. There was a tent made of goat hair. However, the tent had glass windows and a door. Inside the tent, there is a television and two air conditionors. There were chairs around the tent. The chairs looked modern, but were covered with old fabric. There was a rebaba on the side of it as a decoration. Outside the tent, there were camels, goats and parrots. The style of the chairs and the weird combination of livestock and parrots, reflect how modern life has affected the identity.

(Pictures I took at the farm)

After describing the place, it gives the feeling that this is a Bedouin farm. However, it is not. The farm belongs to a Hadar family. The Bedouins are no longer a subculture because their identity has merged with the Hadar identity to produce a national identity. Bedouin no longer dominate falconry, poetry and taking care of livestock.
When a subculture’s identity is becoming mainstream, it usually happens through two forms: Commodity and ideological. The commodity form draws the relation between the subculture and the other industries. Having a farm, livestock, and purchasing old tools became a commodity. There are many shops around Doha that are specialized in putting tents and selling falconry tools. Because these things can be sold, they became mainstream. The farm I visited was in an area of more than 50 farms owned by Bedouin and Hadar. The government owns the area, but it has rented it to people. Those who do not own a certain number of goats or sheep do not have the right to rent. As a result of the government’s encouragement for people to purchase land and livestock, the practices that were associated with Bedouin are parts of the Hadar identity too. There for, the ideology of how Bedouin were looked at as being Bedouin has changed. The ideological form deals with how the presentation of a subculture in the media change the way people perceive the subculture. During Qatar national day, the national television plays footage of camels and people doing Bedouin practices. This portrayal allows the Hadar to be more familiar with such practices, so they are more likely to accept them. This proves how the culture is not constant, but changeable. What was supposed to be a Bedouin thing or a Hadar thing is now just considered a Qatari thing.

Living in Qatar and seeing how many Hadar act Bedouin on some occasions, while Bedouin act like Hadar on other occasions, led me to this assessment. Although I’m part of the Hadar, I have cousins who practice falconry and hangout with Bedouin. This doesn’t make them Bedouins, but makes the Bedouin practices mainstream and not subcultural. The fact that Bedouin are not a subculture might be general to most of the Bedouin. However, there might be some extreme cases where Bedouin are more attached to their Bedouin identities.

(Picture from the archive of my cousin's falcon)