For the past few years, the eyes of the fashion world have been firmly focused on one particularly stylish and truly glamorous spouse of a head of state. No, I'm not talking about France's Carla Bruni, Spain's former talk-show host now queen-to-be Princess Leticia, the veggie-growing Michelle Obama or any of the gals previously mentioned on this blog. Take a look at the impeccable style of Qatar's Sheikha Mozad bint Nasser Al-Missned. Consistently voted one of the best dressed women in the world. Check out some of her haute couture...
Now, having seen her, let me tell you that she is 51 years old and, shocking as this may be considering her to-die-for figure, she has given birth to 7 children and is a grandmother! Yes, that's right, 7 kids have come out of that body. Amazing! She is the Jackie O of our age.So who is Sheikha Mozad? Her highness was born in 1959 - her father being a minor royal. She met the future Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, while at university studying Sociology and married him at the age of 18. Unlike many of the other 'Desperate Dictator Housewives' already featured, there is no major age gap - only 7 years. Unlike most other wives of Arab monarchs, she has taken a very public role, involving herself in charity, promoting education and women's rights and chairing the Arab Democracy Foundation. She was also the public face of Qatar's successful bid to host the 2022 Football World Cup. But she sure knows how to dress. Oh, she's adorable, and so does the world think the same.
OK, let's see things here in perspective, shall we? Did I tell you that she is the second wife (out of three) for the Emir of Qatar? OK, before we apply any modern Western baggage here, it must be pointed out that unlike what opponents to gay marriage would like us to believe, 'marriage' until recently in most societies was not the independent union of a man and a woman under the grace of God but a strategic business agreement between two families. There was no 'love' - marriages were (and in many societies, still are) arranged. In the Emir of Qatar's case, considering his first and third wives are first cousins in a region where arrangements to marry relatives like these is common, I would say that this was arranged too in the interests of royal family internal politics and tradition (though the latter is a very vague concept that can be used to justify anything). However, I really don't wish to speculate here. What is for certain is that these cousin wives are not seen in public. In Sheikha Mozad's case, the relationship with the Emir is more in line with Western standards and notions of marriage, hence her public image, which in turn bolsters the modern and liberal cred for Qatar. Sheikha Mozad is the one that turns up at official functions with Emir and her alone, giving the Western-acceptable image that she is the only wife.
Qatar likes to convey the image of itself as a liberal country in a very conservative region. This plus its relentless campaign betraying an insecurity of identity to increase Qatar's worldwide stature far above its size has been part of the Emirate's investment of high earnings from its 250+ year supply of natural gas into developing business ventures, a successful international airline and the hosting of international sporting events. The icing of the cake was controversily winning the right to host the 2022 World Cup, even though Qatar as a country does not meet FIFA charter requirements for a host country with regard to human rights and discrimination, never has previously qualified for a World Cup, and proposed staging the event during the summer when temperatures reach 50C. Interestingly, FIFA is now pushing Qatar to move the event to the cooler winter. Hey FIFA, if this was a concern, then why award it to Qatar in the first place?
Qatar is also synonymous for being the base for Al-Jazeera, the Arabic, and now international, news station which revolutionised news reporting in the Arab world. In providing an 'Arab perspective' to news events, it also helped cultivate the image of Qatar as an open and civil society. However, a US State Department cable from 2009 claims that Qatar is using Al-Jazeera as a bargaining tool trading in positive reporting for concessions. This is hardly the action of a country promoting freedom of expression. Al-Jazeera English has also given air time to people claiming that WikiLeaks is a Mossad plot.
But is Qatar as liberal as its image? Actually, no. Despite Sheikha Mozad chairing a foundation spearheading democracy in the Arab world and hosting Al-Jazeera, Qatar itself is not a democracy. OK, much is made that it was the first place in the Gulf region to allow women to vote (in 1999 - hardly a leader as Lebanon granted the vote to women in 1952, with Israel before that) but only Qatari citizens (who make up a small percentage of the country's population) are allowed to vote, and no political activity or parties are allowed to function. It talks of 'making moves towards' becoming a constitutional monarchy, however there have been no tangible indications of such. Opponents to the Emir have been routinely arrested and a whole Qatari clan who opposed Al-Thani family rule were even stripped of citizenship on part of an alleged coup attempt. And even though Al-Jazeera is groundbreaking in providing non-censored and critical reports about other Arab governments, one of the conditions for its continued funding and base in Qatar is that there be no news critical of the Qatari government. Now that's blatant double standards and hardly the call sign of a liberal and democratic society.
As mentioned, despite going against its much vaunted principles, FIFA's decision to award Qatar the 2022 was controversial in that organisations such as Amnesty International have brought to the attention human rights abuses in the country. Women, homosexuals and foreigners have limited or no rights, without much recourse to justice by an independent judicial system. Sepp Blatter, FIFA chairman, hardly made things better when he 'joked' that gay football fans should 'refrain from sexual activities' while at the cup, in reference to homosexual acts being illegal in Qatar.
FIFA justified awarding the World Cup to Qatar, despite its small size and population, as a way of promoting football in the Middle East. So, in a way, it's not Qatar that is hosting the World Cup, but the Arab World. This perception is flawed as most Arabs don't look fondly towards the mega-rich Gulf state sell-outs whose autocratic rule and the lavish lifestyles of their ruling families contravene the most basic of Islamic morals they claim to uphold.
Qatar, like the other Gulf states, is also blatantly hypocritical in its foreign policy. While it maintains important and pragmatic relations with Israel, when it needs to appeal to Arab public sentiment, in true flashy Gulf state style, it has pulled what best can be described as media stunts, such as very publicly donating $50 million to HAMAS in 2006 or naming a brand new Qatar Airways B777 after Gaza (in response to El Al naming one of its B777s after the HAMAS-besieged town of Sderot). Furthermore, as one of the first WikiLeaks-published US State Department cables reported, the Gulf states were secretly urging the United States to attack Iran - grand hypocrisy.
In the end, Qatar gets away with gross human rights violations and a complete lack of democracy and civil society thanks to its huge gas and money reserves. And again we see the US government howling complaints that countries like Australia and Canada ' are 'kow-towing' to Cuba and ignoring human rights in the hope of gaining business deals when itself does the same thing to countries that are far more undemocratic and are greater human rights violators like Qatar.
But we are easily fooled and blinded when we see an elegant woman dressed in haute couture - elegance couldn't possibly arise from an autocratic society! We are suckers to a woman in a nice frock. Superficial. This should not distract us that the country she represents would not meet Western standards of human rights and civil society under other circumstances. To be taken seriously, there must be consistency - frankly, the treatment of nations based on the rather fluid notion and selective application of human rights and civil society is not.
