This is my first time living in a country
where there is no culture of protest (see the link I attached at the bottom for
more explanation of that) and I’m still working on finding non-confrontational
and flexible ways of holding onto my values while I make Qatar my home. This post is not intended to bash Qatar or any of the people who make their homes here for the long or short-terms. It is intended to be about how the context of my host country and culture influences and challenges how I try to live by my values.
These
two phrases haunt me. They almost always get used in a pointed way, alongside an issue that I should at all costs be supporting, according to the person who shares one quote or the other. On one hand I want to say “Oh please. Big world, lotta people, lotta ways to make a
difference, stop bossing me around, stop telling me what to care about!” I’m only one person and who does it help if
I spend too much of my time obsessed about taking a stand on the dozens of
issues I follow on a week to week basis?
I can’t believe my rigidity and anxiety in this short life will make the
world a better place. On the other hand, I carry guilt
for not having the wherewithal to support everything I believe in, even in the
US where I’m freer to take part in demonstrations, petitions, marches and
challenge authority, and where I am more comfortable with the culture. In some ways
being abroad takes the pressure off, in some it layers it on thicker and
heavier. It
takes time in a new country before I feel that I understand enough of what’s
going on around me to hold a valid opinion about it, anyway.
In
my last post I talked about how living in Qatar “represents so much of what I distrust
about modern humanity- the total manipulation of environment, the dependence on
fossil fuels, the lack of local resources for so much of what we eat and use
every day, the highly divided class/employment system.” Before we even landed here I had great concerns about
moving to a place that only exists by virtue of an abundance of fossil fuels
and a massive expat workforce.
I put
the blame for a lot of our human problems and many environmental ones too down
to greed and lack of empathy. There are surely multitudes of ways of making change,
and I have great admiration for my friends whose work in education, food
security, environmental activism, and social justice is making the world a
better and fairer place. They humble me.
Living
with myself and my choices here in Doha is partly a matter of shelving some priorities
altogether and partly about making some work in a new context. An early challenge for any move to a new
country is learning what expectations are for women’s behavior and deciding how
thoroughly I choose to comply. Some are easy because it’s just plain good sense
in a hot place: my shoulders and knees have not been visible in public, except
at the pool, since I left the United States last August. Others are easy, if less pleasant, because I have no choice: whether
I liked it or not, I needed my husband’s permission to be able to apply for a
driver’s license. Some I ignore, like going to the camel market with my
daughter even though there is never a woman in sight. Still others are more
confusing: the advice I got when I needed to get a driver’s license but didn’t
have free time to take the test due to homeschooling, was to go to the traffic
department to plead my case, to be persistent, but pitiful. Even more effective, I should bring along my
youngest child and make a point of carrying her. It grated to be seeking their
pity for my weakness rather than their respect for me and empathy for my
situation. Once the kids started school I was relieved to give up begging and just took the test
(which was an unexpectedly positive experience as I wrote here) and vowed not to grovel ever again, no matter what the circumstances.
I
have a friend who, in Dhaka, waded into a crowd of men beating on a suspected
thief and shamed them into stopping. I’d
like to think I would do the same but I am afraid I wouldn’t. I witnessed a man beating someone inside a
stopped land cruiser here a few months ago but it was nighttime, I was on foot,
and the only people nearby were oblivious in the honking rushing traffic next
to us. I made a big show of using my
phone to take a picture of the number plate and then pretending to make a phone
call, even though my hand had been too shaky to capture the digits. They
immediately pulled away into the crush of cars on Al Waab St, and I walked on
to my choir rehearsal. I’m still not satisfied with how I reacted.
Is
passive action enough? Is it enough to share articles on FB? To tip everyone who helps me, on the
assumption that the more I pay, the sooner they can go home to their families
in their home country? To leave the car
behind and walk as much as I can, though the hotter it gets the more I find
myself driving ridiculously short distances? To buy as local as possible? How
important is it to buy local vegetables and eggs when it must require a
ridiculous amount of the resources to raise the plants and chickens in the
desert? Is it enough to debrief with my kids and share with my network abroad
when we witness injustice, rather than acting on it in the moment?
In
the taxi the other night I asked the driver where he’s from. He said Kenya and we fell into a discussion
about President Obama and what he means to Kenyans, about how hard it is to
visit the US as a Muslim, about our kids and eventually about wives not working
and staying with the kids. He commended
me for not working outside my home. As I got out of the taxi he blessed me and
my family over and over. Should I have spoken up and said hey man, not giving
your wife a choice to work is so oppressive?
I chose not. After all, staying
with my kids is what I do, and he was affirming that. We were enjoying each other’s company and
we’ll probably never see each other again.
I love how time spent living abroad and moving every few
years has expanded my exposure so many people and nurtured my empathy. I have met so many different people who care
passionately about so many different issues, some passionately on opposite
sides of the same issue. I will nearly always put
ground-level connection over confrontation and criticism. I hold myself responsible to behaving in a way I can live with, showing respect and
listening to everyone –especially people I disagree with. My ideals/values/position on
world events are influenced by a more personal connection to people and places.
I hope this helps me resist the media spin that manipulates who we should care
about, and how much, and that my connection with people I meet broadens their
view of their world as well. 
If
I stood firmly by my values I could not remain here. I admit to being part of the problem. I don’t think the earth is a healthy place,
due in large part to humans taking it over. There are so many of us. I get so
overwhelmed. Where is the best place for me within it all? For now, I choose my
family, raising thoughtful kids, making connections with people from all
over. Qatar is certainly fertile ground
for that, with only 12% of the population being Qatari citizens and the rest of
us expats from around the world. For now I am compromising, living a lifestyle that does not entirely reflect my values and beliefs in favor of deepening my understanding of my world and sharing this process with my kids.
The following links are mostly connected to issues I follow that
affect Qatar and the people who live here, plus two for context on Qatar, and one to a book with gorgeous illustrations and a message that works for me.
Criticism for the sponsorship system:
All
my garbage, including items that are potentially recyclable, go into one garbage can.
This article tells about how it gets taken to a spot in the desert not far from Doha where
it is burned, and the toxic smoke drifts on the winds.
The experience of a Swedish flight attendant with Qatar
Airways: http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/the-truth-about-the-luxury-of-qatar-airways/
Letter written by a Nepali teacher who was briefly jailed in
Qatar last year, explaining how he actually had it relatively easy compared to
some of the other inmates he met http://dohanews.co/guest-post-in-qatar-jailed-asian-expats-guilty-until/
Some statistics:
Protest in Qatar: http://www.opendemocracy.net/michael-stephens/qatar-and-protest-difficult-combination
And this last one is not about Qatar but is a beautiful book
that helps pull me back to right here and now whenever I read it aloud to my
kids: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/21/books/children-s-books-501972.html
You've captured the crux of the challenge in a balanced, measured way, Maria. It's easy to be sure of your convictions and stridently proclaim your values as best among all others. So many confuse acceptance with agreement; we can accept that other cultures have evolved differently as a result of complex, complicated historical, political, economic, social and cultural reasons, and we needn't agree with all/much/any of it. But seeking that knowledge, wanting to understand, making the effort to comprehend - these are important actions we cannot and should not ignore. It is a tenuous position to be living elsewhere at the discretion of others. When we step back and look at the full sweep of societal change on a local, national, regional and global level, it has taken place not only due to external voices but also internal action. We can offer our support in many ways (including writing, on FB and beyond), but in the end there must be a groundswell of desire for change within each society for it to take root. There is no easy answer, but these questions, and the conversations with ourselves and others, matter.
ReplyDeleteThank you Linda for being part of the conversation! It's so true it's a "tenuous position to be living elsewhere at the discretion of others," but I'm fortunate that this time around I'm living in a place that is not likely to throw me out because of the links I attached to this post, unlike at least one of my previous homes. And even then I'm fortunate to be the level of expat that's likely to be thrown out rather than thrown in jail or worse. In a grad school TOT class I was part of a group (of Americans) that was running a training on social activism and for one section we asked our trainees to brainstorm various negative consequences for standing up for their beliefs. One man, from Togo, said "death." We were stunned for a long moment as we had not considered anything much harsher than disapproval from family members or at worst losing a job.
DeleteThis resonated with me so strongly Maria, as I lived in total 7 years in Dubai. I had a wonderful, privileged life there and made many wonderful friends, but my growing awareness of societal divisions, acceptance of discrimination and rampant consumerism became harder to live with, as time went on. Of course those traits are present everywhere, but knowing that not only was it not polite to speak badly of your host nation but that in fact it could (if you were loud enough or caught the attention of the wrong person) get you into serious trouble was a black cloud that still colours the memory of my time there. What I do comfort myself with is the knowledge that the UAE and Qatar have both travelled a huge distance in a very short time frame, so change is coming. However as expats, when our values are seriously challenged, we can only deal with it up close and personal for so long. Many years ago I had friends who had worked for the IRC their entire lives and (at that time at least) they were moved every 2 years, specifically because the organization realized that eventually you get too emotionally involved and it becomes hard to maintain your professional perspective.
ReplyDeleteYes. to everything. My husband was with IRC when we were first together, but we never stayed two years in any one place- I didn't know about that rule... I can see how employees' emotional involvement might not be great for organizational goals and possibly IRC's relationship with their host country's government, but it also seems like having people who have a deeper understanding of the situation, say third year expats or beyond, in a country would be valuable to keep on.
DeleteI agree that Qatar has come a long way in a relatively very short time and there seem to be a few people in power who are working for more fair treatment of workers, healthier consumption habits and population, more fair application of bureaucratic policies. I just saw this article on the BBC today, very interesting, if only very slightly hopeful: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27142647