Qatari Blog Roundup

The Qatari blogosphere is healthy and budding. In my last trip to Doha I had a chance to visit Education City and meet many young Qatari men and women all with a very strong notion in common they are all logged on and blogging. This is a small sample.

Confessions of a Qatari Gal is a fairly young blog of a young Qatari woman who wants to maintain anonymity all the while commenting on everyday social issues in Doha. No...For No Reason is a blog post that discusses the different hurdles or layers of approval, as she calls it, a woman has to go through to do something she wants.

Why are people making other people lives difficult? Why when a girl wants to do something and go somewhere, she should seek different levels of approval! She has many layers to consider when she wants to do something or take a simple decision:
1. Herself
2. Her parents/husband/guardian
3. Her grand family
4. Her society

In I Care, Ahmad, a Mechanical Engineering student blogs in English and Arabic. In the post below he blogs about common courtesies in Doha.

I'm writing this post while in class, pretending to be taking notes. I needed to write something before the idea cools off. As I was running to class, a Qatari girl was walking behind me. I open the door to enter the building and hold it open for few seconds for her to enter. Guess what happened to me for the 3rd time this week? She did NOT say thank you or even gesture it in anyway! This happened to me several times before. I just don't understand why is it so hard to thank people who do you a little polite thing.

In Mimiz words, Maryam blogs about the inevitable cultural gap between local Qataris and the expat communities in Doha.

We hear many Qataris say "They don't respect our traditions; They have more privileges than us; How come they have higher salaries than Qataris? Crime and disease spread because of the large number of foreigners! Qatar has become too crowded ..." While foreigner say "Qataris are lazy they never work; They take everything for granted; Qataris are aggressive and not friendly at all; They are all spoilt, rich people; They are so closed minded and difficult to deal with".

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Newsvine |
• NowPublic |
• Reddit
• - What's this?