06
She talks about the pre-oil days, when the men were away diving for pearls from June to October and the women were independent and managed the family’s affairs. And she talks about the poverty and danger: how the pearl divers always owed money to the owners of the boats and how, if a man died, his widow might have to marry the boat owner to settle the family’s debts. And she talks about how her father’s generation had the hardest life on earth, living in the desert on only dates and fish, and of the deaths from famine during the Second World War. And you do think, why not them, the children and grandchildren of pearl divers, who were some of the poorest and most vulnerable people on earth, why should they not be the lucky ones now?
‘The youth in the Arab world are discovering themselves… We are just at the beginning of that process of revolution.’
‘Do you know what sometimes comes to my mind?’ she says. ‘My mother is still alive. She got married at 13 and saw nothing of the world apart from the inside of her house. And my daughter is in the same family, and she got her graduate education in the United States. The people of that era are living peacefully and happily with the youth of today.
‘This new generation is so different. They are more assertive, more self-confident, they express themselves freely, they have high expectations of what they want and they want to have a role in the world. This is what we wanted to happen. This is good. This is the generation that will be ‘Whenever I go to conferences or Then there is the entropy of wealth. more innovative, more creative, more meetings, the first thing journalists ask is ‘The youth of this country are perhaps critical in their thinking. Education about women. In the West, they have this the luckiest youth on earth,’ she says. and the internet have opened their eyes stereotype that a woman in the Middle ‘For education, for jobs, for promotion – to completely new worlds. They have East must be secluded, neglected, the opportunities are limitless for discovered that they can say their marginalised or demoralised. I am sure young Qataris. This is why I emphasise this is the case in some societies – Muslim opinion and that they can be different competitiveness in the global knowledge and that there is nothing wrong with and otherwise. But I must admit that this economy. The comfort of the life we has simply not been my experience. I have being different. In the past, youth may enjoy now makes it more challenging have been marginalized, but today they never felt that I have been discriminated to promote motivation and hard work.’ are have started to express themselves against because I am a woman. and they want to be treated with respect And then, of course, there is the habitual and have their opinion respected. The ‘In this country, 75 per cent of university question of female education in the students are women, most of the engineers youth in the Arab world are discovering Arab world. At Qatar University, at themselves. I am not saying it is going to are women, most of the doctors are the undergraduate level, lectures are be easy, by the way; it will take another women, most of the accountants are delivered separately to male and female two decades of turmoil for something to students and there are women’s and men’s women. And although I am sure there evolve which can contain all of them, and campuses. (The women have a Starbucks, are women who experience injustice in I don’t know what that will be. I don’t the Arab world, often alongside poverty the men don’t – and grumble about it.) and lack of education, that same injustice think anyone knows. We are just at the beginning of that process of revolution. falls on men too. Women in the Arab But ask her about her own experience When I see my graduates on Twitter or world, and especially the Gulf area, and you get short shrift. ‘Why this on Facebook, I know that we are seeing are much stronger than how they are fascination with a woman’s position and a new generation.’ perceived in the West.’ status in the Muslim world?’ she asks.