An Arab friend once told; all those pseudo-oil-kingdoms-with-small-populations (from Brunei till Qatar) are created by colonial powers of 20th century around the oil fields to save the oil revenues from a larger population benefiting and controlling them. Those sultanates usually play the happy-sultan-cherishes-its-people-wow! game recently. But if you look around them, they are cut-off from poorer countries with larger populations.
I am skeptical of those oasis of happiness in the middle of a desert full of desperadoes.
In a sense this their continued existence is a testament to the post UN conquest-is-illegal world order. It's not as clean as that (the US has a substantial military presence in Bahrain, for example), but still.It would be hard to imagine such weak, rich, independent patches of land remaining that way for long in any other period.
For now though they seem to be comfortably clustered. Out of all these mini states though, only Kuwait borders a poorer more powerful state (it was invaded in the 90s and was repelled by the US/UN).
The desert full of desperadoes immediately adjacent belongs to Saudi Arabia, no? Undoubtedly the colonial powers of the later 20th Century took full advantage in picking over the carcass of Ottoman Empire to settle things to their own advantage. Yet it's not clear to me that there were larger nearby populations with a compelling claim to the Gulf sultanates.
Hate to bring hateraid to the party but I hope that education includes tolerance of others like women, foreigners, those with other religions beliefs, etc.
Start with augmentiing the culture to include women in positions of power.
Education will lead to those things, certainly. And given its relatively short history (Independence in 71), I think Qatar is doing a remarkable job. A Moroccan friend of mine went to a WISE conference to present her education project (Something like TeachforAmerica) and got a lot of help. Things like this were unimaginable just a decade ago. The urge to change is genuine.
I wonder, if they genuinely teach evolution & science or critical thinking, or the scientific method or omit most part of the modern science and focus on tech in the name of sultan?
Interesting point. "Education" can be propaganda. It can also focus on specific technical skills (e.g. the three R's). Does it necessarily lead to tolerance?
I think education that enables people to create new skills - to explore, test, discover - necessarily encourages a questioning mindset (I wonder why it's like this... is there a better way?); an appreciation of diverse perspectives (an outside insight can lead to the solution); humility (noticing that you don't know). All these may lead to tolerance. Though, it's easy for even the best of us to lose sight of these.
You can avoid this by teaching only specific technical skills - but this means you are dependent on others doing the creating. Mind you, this area of the world (the fertile crescent) was first with the fundamental new skills underlying civilization.
I have a friend working as a student liason in a Doha university, they have a very good representation of women and it was well-attended by foreigners but by those of other wealthy countries. The campus seemed to be devoid of any religious artifacts, though I'm sure there are plenty of mosques available. Considering Doha is built by workers from India and other countries where the poor come for money, I don't believe they extended their wealth to these people. We can only hope for gradual change as their children grow up in a multi-national world. The campus they are building is massive and has university branches from some of the best in the world, so I can't imagine there is any open prejudice tolerated.
The Qatari government is a bit more progressive on those issues than the Qatari population. I'd say the same thing about most of the UAE (especially Dubai).
Smart way for the west to get back the oil money they 've paid. These investments are impressive, but like dubai and abu dhabi and other gulf countries, they are built on rather bizarre premises. The native population, no matter how educated does not have the strongest work ethics (due to being rich and having many things for free), and immigrants, who are invariably the majority of the population, are not exactly welcome to stay there.
It's one thing paying your way to magnificent skyscrapers, but education is arts and sciences, not buildings and expensive professors.
The real surprise is the world education rankings of 2011, where students from Qatar ranked ahead of Finland and others. The reform started in 2004, and the results have been amazing.
The major change brought about by Qatar is funding and retaining great teachers (Finland does this too). What would it take for you to leave your professional career and
teach in a primary or secondary school for a few years?
Why? Because currently it's cheap and relatively easy. Qatar is a small, rich and young (relatively) country. For now it's easy to fund education because government income is relatively high compared to expenses.
Eventually those new paved highways will need to be refurbished, bridges and tunnels will need to be rebuilt, the population will get older and require more medical coverage. And private insurance will do their damnedest to make sure those old fogies are offloaded to the state. And the oil will run out. And once that happens the government will run on it's sovereign investment funds for a while.
I've seen this in my own state, Florida. With 500 people per day moving in the government was flush with cash earmarked for education. Then the building permits stopped; class size went up, field trips and extracurricular activities went down. Now teachers are being given more responsibility (as pseudoparents) and less pay you get plenty leaving (the young ones) or waiting it out until the retirement (the older ones). It's been a downward spiral ever since.
The government uses Sunni law as the basis of its criminal and civil
regulations. Some religious tolerance is granted. Foreign nationals are free
to affiliate with their faiths other than Islam, e.g. Christianity, Hinduism,
Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism and Bahai, as long as they are religious in private
and do not offend 'public order' or 'morality'.
In March 2008, a Roman Catholic church, Our Lady of the Rosary, was
consecrated in Doha. No missionaries were allowed in the community. The church
will have no bells, crosses or other Christian symbols on it and its premises.
And did you miss the protests NYC and America at large threw when an Islamic mosque was proposed near WTC? Not exactly the bastion on openness and religious equality either :/
Yea, it's not like people flock from all over the world to get a tertiary education in the US.
But seriously, a tiny country with an absolute monarchy can change much faster than a country with massive, formalized bureaucracy/checks and balances. This can be good and bad.
An absolute monarchy with near absolute control over the main (and large) source of income.
This is something you need to really take a second to let sink in. The King (or prince) can decree, fund and away it goes. Billion dollar universities, palm shaped islands, pyramids. Just to put it into perspective, the current King took over the country when his Dad was overseas in the 90s.
I am skeptical of those oasis of happiness in the middle of a desert full of desperadoes.