Qatar: What P Should Write About

[David Morris]

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/human-rights-in-qatar-092413

*In 1992*, in preparation for the World Cup's run here in the United
States, I spent two weeks in Qatar, where they were playing the Asian Zone
qualifier. My hosts were perfectly amiable, and they made sure we all were
taken care of very well.  And I left hating a society more than I'd ever
hated a society in my life.


I spent two weeks there and never saw a Qatari do any actual work. I met
Americans who worked the oil fields. I met a Brit whose skiffle group once
lost a battle-of-the-bands to John Lennon's Quarrymen, but who was in Qatar
to teach the emir how to play snooker. And I met a terrific young Filipino
kid, tending bar at the Marriott -- when you're going to have Americans to
pump your oil. undiscovered loopholes in the Koran's prohibitions against
alcohol magically appear -- who knew two things about America: Guns 'n
Roses and Michael Jordan. What I later found out was that this kid stayed
in Doha because his employer had confiscated his passport. This, it seemed
to me, was as clearly a parasitic plutocracy as could be imagined.
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